What I learned from Creating an Oral History

For the creating an oral history project, my group had three people: me, Julie

Tsai, and Victoria Chiu. We used paper-scissor-stone to decide the order of interviewing. My interviewee was Julie Tsai. Interviewing and presenting her taught me that she had been through severe hardships during her life in America. When I met her, she was a humorous and funny person. It was hard for me to imagine that she was bullied by her classmates and ignored by her tutors while she was studying 6^th grade in the States. After hearing her story, I learned that I shouldn’t be defeated when I face difficult situations. Instead, I should overcome the circumstances, and there was a chance to become an optimistic person.

The most difficult aspect of doing this project was to come up with questions. I had to ask questions that could let Julie bring out her interesting personal anecdotes, and this took me a while to think. Comparing to Victoria’s questions, mine were too broad and lack of meaning. Also, answering questions was pretty hard. When Victoria asked me “How would you describe yourself?” I didn’t know the answer because I never thought of this kind of question before. However, Victoria’s questions helped me to discover myself when thinking how to answer. The easiest aspect of doing this project is to listen to interviewee’s story. I only had to take some notes and enjoyed her talk, which was a relaxing job to do. Next time, I will think more thoroughly for questions I’m going to ask when I do a similar project.