We were lucky enough to have 2 guests come along on our oral
history outing: Jonathan Jones (from ISS) and Emma Garrett! We encountered some
interesting difficulties today such as arriving at the Boulevard House (the
site at which we planned to conduct the interview) only to find that the House
was undergoing some construction which entailed painters constantly going up
and down stairs as well as various other construction sounds that would
interfere with filming. So we decided to change locations and drive to Elena’s
house instead.
Elena’s house was a beautiful place filled to the brim with
social justice literature and artifacts of Chicano history. Some of these are
included in this post, such as the UFW poster that was actually given to her by
Cesar Chavez! We began looking through more of her archive; however we did not
scan anything today since we needed to focus on getting the interview done
(changing film locations and setting up the camera/lighting etc. took up all
our time).
UFW poster given to Elena by Cesar Chavez
After we finished photographing the Chicano ornaments in
Elena’s home and settled down to begin the interview, my role as videographer
began. This was a much simpler process for me because Jonathan and Ari had
already done all the set-up of the camera and framed the shot perfectly so I
just needed to check the sound and begin recording.
Jonathan setting up the shot (white balancing)
Ari and Jonathan after they set up this very intricate lighting system
A few things to note about the video process:
·
Wireless Mic (I think this applies to any mic
actually): make sure the interviewer knows not to touch it on accident. It
might be a good idea to let them know that things like moving your hair or
adjusting a sweater/shawl could affect the sound quality. It’s probably not a
good idea to break the flow of an interview to say this (if it’s not a huge
sound problem); it just might be a good point to mention before the interview
begins.
·
Hitting the record button: Jonathan told us to
keep the camera recording the whole time, even when we took short breaks to fix
sound problems (the theory being it’s easier to cut the extra film than to
recreate missed film).
All in all it was a very cool process! Elena was very
comfortable in her narration. A few times her story got a little emotional but
luckily professor Cotera had tissues on hand. Both Ari and I noted what a great
storyteller Elena is; I believe professor Cotera only needed to ask one
question to begin the oral history and Elena was on her way. She was also
really flexible in her ability to take up right where she left off in the
course of her story after a break. She also was able to manage the time frame
of her story really well – being able to make it from her birth all the way to
the early 2000s in the course of 2 hours. These were all areas that could have
posed potential difficulties; however, Elena was so skilled at telling her
story that we did not have to worry about any of these and the interview came
off without a hitch.
Elena telling her story
The oral history crew
Filming
I also really enjoyed hearing Elena Herrada’s story. Her
oral history was particularly interesting in that it shed light on matters
relating to the Latino experience in Detroit. She emphasized how the experience
of Latinos in Detroit was different than elsewhere and told one-of-a-kind stories
about Chicano-Boricua studies at Wayne State (one of these stories will be
included in Ari’s post). It was informative and inspiring to hear Elena’s ‘counter-narrative’
of her experiences fighting systems of oppression. It was awe-inspiring to
listen to both what she had gone through and the audacious acts with which she
responded to troubling situations in her own life (such as suing the city or
organizing a union at the age of 18).
This is definitely an oral history you will want to see the
rest of (coming soon to a Medici near you!)
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We don't have scanned files yet but we do have the beautiful pictures from Elena's house:
Wow, those pictures are awesome!!
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