Oral History Center at UC Berkeley

Today is the 83rd anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which forced the incarceration and displacement of over 125,000 people, majority of whom were Japanese American or of Japanese descent. On this Day of Remembrance, we are highlighting the voice of child survivors and descendants of WWII-era Japanese American incarceration camps through our Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives project.
Visit our website to hear these narrators talk about their lives and the lasting impact of Japanese American incarceration.

There are few places as iconic as the California coast. In this documentary, OHC historian Todd Holmes documents the 1972 grassroots campaign that took on the most powerful interests in the state to preserve the coast for all people.

Watch: https://youtu.be/KQNo5-CZuHQ

Please consider making a tax deductible donation to support the OHC’s work at the link in our bio. We are grateful for you!

Webinar announcement! Our project partners, Legacy Genetics, is hosting a training from 12-1:30pm PT on Friday, November 8.

Heading to Cincinnati for the conference? Come say to the OHC!
is moderating on Thursday morning, and then he, , and Amanda Tewes are presenting on our Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives Project that afternoon.

See you soon!

“I remember doing this paper where I said that the thing I’ve learned about being Chicano is that there is no one definition. One could be Chicano and be working class; one could also be a college graduate, one could choose to be an artist, you know? And essentially, the subtext was that I was saying one could be gay or q***r, and I was coming to that conclusion.”
-Artist Joey Terrill

Happy Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month! We have many interviews about Latinx heritage and identity in our collection. Today we are featuring a narrator from our work with the Getty Trust with artist Joey Terrill.
Visit our website for more from Terrill and many others!

As summer draws to a close, student editor Sophia Faaland reflects on the local impact of Freedom Summer. Over the past 60 years, the political activism of Freedom Summer has directly impacted and even shaped the political freedoms on the Berkeley campus. OHC narrators who experienced this event in 1964, and faced brutal violence to ensure voting rights throughout the US, are featured in a new blog post “Freedom Summer and Its Legacy: Berkeley Sixty Years Later.” Celebrate the 60th anniversary of this landmark moment in the Civil Rights Movement.

https://update.lib.berkeley.edu/2024/08/28/freedom-summer-and-its-legacy-berkeley-sixty-years-later/

Freedom Summer: A California Retrospective is out now on our channel!

In celebration of the 60th anniversary of Mississippi Freedom Summer, this video takes a look at that historic event in 1964 using oral histories of Californian who participated.

A collaboration of the OHC, the California Secretary of State’s Office, and the CA State Archives:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hoex5L_4HEc

Credits:
Todd Holmes: Creator, Producer
Sydney Sloan: Photographic Research
Heidi Holmes: Editing Assistance

Happy Pride! Check out our newest piece, “Celebrating the Work of Freedom to Marry, Through Oral History,” by student editor Katie Gonzales!

Happy Juneteenth!
Here’s a quote from Margaret Wilkerson, who taught at in Cal in both the Dramatic Arts and African American Studies departments, talking about celebrating Juneteenth in her 2013 oral history interview:

“We did the first Juneteenth parade and celebration in Richmond [California]. That was the date that the last set of slaves in Texas heard about emancipation…we did a little parade up and down Shane Drive and around the neighborhood and picked up the kids and brought them down, and taught them about Juneteenth, and did makeup in their faces and things like that…I felt very proud that we did that for a couple of years.”

Happy Pride Month! 🏳️‍🌈
We’re featuring a few interviews from our Freedom to Marry collection and first up is Jo Deutsch, who served as Federal Director of the organization from 2011 - 2015.
“We had come so far through our lives from asking can we walk down the street holding hands, or can we actually, in an introduction, say this is my wife? And now to this moment, there we were in front of the White House, in all of its colorful glory, with all of these people holding hands. I can’t tell you how many proposals we saw…it was just phenomenal.”

Check out our website for more of Jo’s interview!

It’s Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! We’ve got a multitude of interviews that document the lives of those in AAPI communities.

Don’t know where to start? Check out our collection guide on our work related to World War II-era Japanese American Incarceration:

https://update.lib.berkeley.edu/2024/03/07/world-war-ii-era-japanese-american-incarceration-a-guide-to-the-oral-history-centers-work/