Voice of Witness, Occasional Magazine Volume 1 by Voice of Witness

About Voice of Witness

Voice of Witness advances human rights by amplifying the voices of people impacted by injustice. Our work is driven by the transformative power of the story, and by a strong belief that an understanding of crucial issues is incomplete without deep listening and learning from people who have experienced injustice ﬁrsthand. Through our oral history book series and education program, we amplify the voices of people impacted by injustice, teach ethicsdriven storytelling, and partner with human rights advocates to: • build agency within marginalized communities, • raise awareness and foster thoughtful, empathy-based critical inquiry and understanding of the crises they face, • and inform long-term efforts to protect and advance human rights.

© 2020 by Voice of Witness, Inc. All Rights Reserved Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Printed in the United States of America. Cover photo taken at the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. 1

CONTENTS 5 6 10

Letter from the Executive Director Hear from Voice of Witness co-founder and executive director Mimi Lok

Indigenous Voices & Portraits

An exclusive inside look from VOW's forthcoming book How We Go Home: Voices From Indigenous North America

Puerto Rico: Challenging the Narrative of the Passive Victim

Powerful words from the editor Ricia Chansky and narrator Zaira Arvelo Alicea of VOW's upcoming book Mi Maria: Narratives of the Hurricane and Its Aftermath in Puerto Rico.

What's On Our Bookshelf?

"My Story is a Form of Activism"

Artistic Uprising At The Border ReďŹ&#x201A;ections & Photos

Check out some of the books VOW staff are reading and talking about

Solito, Solita narrators are forging space in the mainstream for refugee voices

Join Solito, Solita narrator Gabriel Mendez and VOW staff member Ela Banerjee on a visual journey of their time at the 2019 Artistic Uprising at the southern US border

PHOTO BY ELAINE BENISANO

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PHOTO BY ALEXA BARDENSTEIN

Building Community Power: Spotlight on East Bay Sanctuary Covenant

Connecting Classrooms & Communities

Building Student Power: Spotlight on Teacher Maria Kaimana

What's On The Horizon?

With Gratitude

Get to know know one of VOW's key migrant justice community partners

Hear from a VOW Germanacos Fellow and long-time a liated VOW educator on the power of oral history in the classroom

Learn about a few of the dynamic consultancies that VOW has partnered on this year

A sneak peek at two projects currently incubating in the Voice of Witness Story Lab

Voice of Witness is proud to acknowledge the generous individuals and organizations who supported our work in 2019

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A Note From the Executive Director Looking back on VOW’s ten years as a nonprofit, there’s much to celebrate and take pride in. As a first generation immigrant, I’m particularly proud of the myriad ways in which the themes of home, migration, and displacement have been woven throughout our book series and educational work. These themes have manifested themselves uniquely from story to story, from book to book—encompassing the experiences of a Honduran teenager seeking refuge in the US, an American struggling to find a place in their community after years in prison, a Chicagoan forced from her public housing apartment where she’s lived for over thirty years —because, just as malleable and diverse as our personal definitions of “home” or “homeland” can be, so too is the experience of being displaced from those things, places, or states of mind. This intersectional, narrative approach to illuminating human rights issues allows us to capture nuanced iterations of displacement in its many forms, which is imperative to fully understanding its root causes and how to address it. Since our work is rooted in storytelling, and with these themes and values in mind, we have decided this year to shift from a traditional annual report that lists facts, figures, and quantitative successes, and toward an “occasional magazine” format. We want to share with you the communities and collaborations that are integral to the work we do, and to inspire you with stories and insider looks that provide a deep-dive into impactful projects, events, stories, moments, and perspectives from VOW’s 2019.

In these pages, you’ll also learn more about how our focus on migration and displacement will continue this year through our community partnerships with local migrant justice organizations, deeper work with English-Language Learners, and exciting new oral history projects in development, including: • How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America • Mi María: Narratives of the Hurricane and its Aftermath in Puerto Rico • Resettled: Beginning (Again) in Appalachia Particularly in the current political context, there is so much work to be done to address human rights abuses in the US and across the world. So we are incredibly grateful for your support, which makes it possible for us to amplify and center the voices of VOW narrators—individuals who are impacted by injustice, and who are ﬁghting for solutions —in as many meaningful spaces as possible. Please enjoy the ﬁrst Voice of Witness magazine and, as always, thank you for being a part of the Voice of Witness community. In solidarity,

MIMI LOK

Co-Founder & Executive Director

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Indigenous Voices & Portraits Reﬂections from editor Sara Sinclair on combating invisibility through storytelling

An exclusive excerpt from the foreword of Voice of Witness’s forthcoming book How We Go Home: Voices From Indigenous North America, a collection of ﬁrstperson accounts of the contemporary, ongoing effects of displacement and settler colonialism. The book is slated to launch in November 2020.

hen I was sixteen years old, I took what was essentially my ﬁrst trip to Indian Country. I rode the train north across Ontario and on to Winnipeg. Crowds shu ed in and out at stops in small towns along the way. With each stop, more and more blue- and green-eyed passengers departed until almost all eyes remaining were dark brown. Skin became darker too. I looked around at the other Native passengers for signs of recognition. I remember thinking that they saw in my eyes what few people ever did—that I was one of them. Throughout much of North America, Indigenous peoples are so rarely considered, our existence so rarely remembered that, outside of Native circles, someone who

looks like me is more likely assumed to be Latinx, or part Asian, or of some other not-immediately-identiﬁable heritage. The erasure of Native peoples has been continued and authorized by President Trump, who recently declared November to be “National American History and Founders Month.” In fact, November is Native American Heritage Month and has been celebrated as such since 1990. This is one of the few designated moments to raise awareness of Indigenous history and culture on a national level in the United States, not center the Founding Fathers’ narrative further. And heritage offers an interesting lens through which Native life can be considered — if we view it in a way that connects past to present and future, so that

TEXT BY SARA SINCLAIR

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all North Americans might have the opportunity to reflect on the continuous impact our shared history has on contemporary Native lives. My own desire to facilitate these reflections and expand the space for Indigenous narratives led me to pursue an oral history project with Voice of Witness, which works to advance human rights by amplifying the voices of people impacted by injustice, and by bringing these stories and issues into schools through its education program. Over the last three years in cities and on reserves and reservations across the continent, I have listened to Native people’s stories of loss, injustice and resilience. In myriad ways, each narrator’s life had been shaped by that same struggle: how to share space with a settler nation whose essential aim is to take all that is ours. One of the project’s narrators, Ashley Hemmers (Fort Mojave), told me that before she was exposed to the resources that would help her to understand her own tribe’s history and the history of colonialism in the United States, she was drawn to books about the Holocaust available at her school library. The intergenerational trauma in those stories was something she recognized in her own community. Reading about other people’s experience of it helped her begin to understand the way it was playing out at home. That part of Ashley’s story remained a central inspiration throughout my project: I conduct interviews so that I can share these stories, so that other readers might have that “aha” moment, in which they can more deeply understand the conditions of their own lives and view this moment in a larger historical framework. I hope that these stories will be moved into American schools and public discourse to offer alternatives to over-told tales, such as the colonialist-absolving and historically inaccurate Thanksgiving narrative. There are so many more stories that need to be heard. Like that of Jasilyn Charger, one of the first five people to set up

camp at Standing Rock, which kickstarted a movement of Water Protectors that roused the world. Or Gladys Radek, a survivor of sexual violence whose niece disappeared along Canada’s Highway of Tears, who became a family advocate for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Or Marian Naranjo, herself the subject of a secret radiation test while in high school, who went on to drive Santa Clara Pueblo toward compiling an environmental impact statement on the consequences of living next to Los Alamos National Laboratory. These are a few of the contemporary manifestations of the long and ongoing ﬁght to protect Native land and life. How We Go Home will share many Indigenous stories to learn from. Our heritage may be long on these lands, but our present is equally vital.

n the following page, I am so proud to share the work of Diné illustrator Gregory Ballenger. His beautiful portraits for How We Go Home capture the likeness, and equally, the feeling around each of the people he draws. After every interview, I spent days in the company of our narrators’ voices and words while editing our initial conversations into Voice of Witness’s narrative form. Months later, when Greg’s illustrations started coming in, the sight of each drawn face brought me right back to the feeling of those initial encounters. When I look at his illustration of Vera Styres, I can feel the warmth of the setting sun streaming in through the kitchen window over her shoulder. Looking at his illustration of Blaine Wilson, my shoulders rise at the memory of that cool January air on Tsartlip First Nation. His elegant works are transporting; as are the stories they were drawn to accompany. We hope you enjoy this ﬁrst look at a few of Greg’s illustrations, and we are honored and excited to share this work with you soon.

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Althea Guiboche (Métis/Ojibwe/Salteaux), once homeless with her three young children, is today a tireless community advocate for vulnerable populations in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She started an organization that serves meals to about three hundred people twice a month, in response to the constant need she saw around her.

On Six Nations reserve in Ontario, Vera Styres (Mohawk/Tuscarora) spent time at a residential school as a young child. She later resumed her education through night school as a widowed mother of ﬁve, setting her on the path to becoming Six Nation’s ﬁrst social worker—motivated to keep Native kids in Native communities. Vera distinctly recalls the racism she encountered working in the Child and Family Services system.

In British Columbia on Vancouver Island, Blaine Wilson (Tsartlip First Nation) grapples with urban encroachment on traditional territories and the impact of environmental destruction on ﬁshing, hunting, and traditional life. Blaine describes his love for his sons, hunting and ﬁshing, and their way of life—supporting themselves off the land, contributing to their community, and living the same way his father and grandfather did.

Wizipan Little Elk (Rosebud Lakota) is the executive director of the Rosebud Economic Development Corporation, managing development projects on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. With on-reservation education and health care chronically underfunded by the federal government, Wizipan strives to raise the overall standard of living for people in the community, as well as increase sovereignty, strengthening the authority of his nation to govern itself. 9

Mi María is a Voice of Witness oral history book project, currently in incubation, that tells the stories of survivors across Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane María.

Puerto Rico: Challenging the Narrative of the Passive Victim TEXT BY RICIA CHANSKY

he Mi María project came into being as a way to help students at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez re-empower themselves after Hurricane María, a time in which the catastrophic climate event coupled with the massive failure of government-level relief efforts left so many people feeling helpless, silenced, and ignored. Over the course of the project, faculty members worked with Voice of Witness to train over 100 undergraduate students in the ethical collection, transcription, translation, and editing of oral histories of the hurricane and its aftermaths. So far, we have collected approximately 150 long-form narratives that reorient the public narrative of this disaster to focus on the perspectives of the people who survived it. The stories that we are sharing through our collaboration with Voice of Witness commit to permanent record narratives of what happened to millions of US citizens when they were faced with prolonged power outages; a lack of drinking water,

food, and other necessary supplies; limited access to prescription drugs and medical care; and, unsafe living conditions. Telling their own stories and then helping members of their communities to share their narratives is empowering for the students collaborating on the project, but also serves as a means of making the invisible visible and listening to those who have been silenced. On the following pages, Zaira Arvelo, one of the narrators from our project, shares her thoughts on the power of storytelling as a tool for building community in the aftermaths of natural and humanmade disasters. RICIA CHANSKY is a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, and editor of VOW’s oral history project, Mi Maria: Narratives of the Hurricane and Its Aftermath in Puerto Rico

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We survived thanks to the spoken word, and we started to heal through storytelling." -Zaira Arvelo Alicea

TEXT BY ZAIRA ARVELO ALICEA

orty-eight hours before the hurricane made landfall, flights out of Puerto Rico had skyrocketed 5 times their usual cost. Twenty-four hours before the hurricane, they were sold out. There was no way off the island. Being trapped on the island would be just one of many injustices that we Puerto Ricans faced. What people off the island don’t know is the true reality of what we experienced in the days after the storm. In the sweltering September heat, we congregated in the downtown plazas to hear news about where we could find clean drinking water, and which banks were allowing patrons to make withdrawals of fifty dollars. We survived thanks to the spoken word, and we started to heal through

storytelling. We also suffered because of it, as we heard the harrowing stories of our community after the hurricane. My friend saw his neighbor bleed to death after falling from the roof of his house— there was no phone service and the nearby police station was empty. My best friend’s six-year old son and his grandmother witnessed a murder as they waited in line for gas. Just like these, there are SO many stories of what happened before, during, and after María. But there is more to our story than pain and destruction. The Mi María project is our chance to show that side. Becoming a narrator in the Mi María project felt like a continuation of what we were doing organically in

our communities. The project was a welcomed space to pause the posthurricane rhythm of taking out solar lamps, ﬁlling up outdoor solar showers, setting up buckets, washing clothes in the river. It was a chance to tell my story, to be something other than the lady who ﬂoated on an air mattress for hours as the waters rose in my home. The pobrecita who had lost it all. The team at Voice of Witness printed an excerpt of my story in a mini preview book. I remember reading this and seeing the human strength in this person who was so much more than a hurricane survivor. She was strong. I wanted to be her!

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This project has also impacted the lives of undergraduates at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, who have been working with Voice of Witness to acquire unique research, writing, and ﬁlming skills by collecting stories for the project. Along with the narrators, they are challenging the narrative of the passive victim, and putting together oral and visual masterpieces that authentically capture the duality of Puerto Rico post-María as we on the island see it. On the one hand, we are still healing and grappling with our vulnerability. My colleague’s children still cry at night sometimes, and my niece still asks if a hurricane is coming whenever it rains. Tropical weather news throws us into a frenzy, and we’ll immediately empty the supermarkets of bottled drinking water.

On the other hand, past the noticeable collective mourning, there is also a renewed human spirit. This spirit was evident when small business owners spray painted their stores with the words “We are alive.” The Puerto Rican ﬂag was propped up everywhere as a symbol of strength. And people painted their car windows with phrases like “Puerto Rico se levanta.” The people of Puerto Rico have uniﬁed and risen to face, head on, both natural and human made threats. All we ask is that we don’t have to face them by ourselves. Zaira Arvelo Alicea is a narrator in Mi Maria: Narratives of the Hurricane and Its Aftermath in Puerto Rico

Zaira speaks at VOW's Brave Stories, Bold Movements event in September 2019, San Francisco PHOTO BY ELAINE BENISANO

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What's On Our Bookshelf?

Check out some of the books VOW staff are reading and talking about. Most are not oral history-based, but many grapple with similar themes of empathy, migration and displacement, and criminal justice. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer

An engaging book that combines history with the author's own experiences, and sheds light on the many narratives that exist within the Native American community, rather than the singular image of victimhood.

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid A beautifully written story that uses elements of fantasy and fairy tales to share the very real experiences of refugees. And a reminder that "we are all migrants through time."

On Earth We're Brieﬂy Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Presented as a letter from a son to his illiterate mother, Ocean Vuong's poetrylike novel feels like a new take on the familiar story of the immigrant experience.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer A book that elegantly fuses Indigenous tradition and ongoing connection with the planet to the current global need for healing.

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Proﬁle, Police, and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubanks

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

This genre-bending collection of dark, fantastical short stories is thrilling, chilling, and powerful.

Given the ﬁlm adaption was recently released, it’s a great time to revisit the original work written by the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. The book weaves together the harrowing story of Walter McMillian, wrongfully convicted and on death row, with Stevenson’s journey to address inequities in our justice system.

This is an eye-opening book about the ways that US institutions, including criminal justice, social services, and health care, use digital tools to punish the poor for being poor. It exposes the modern tools of inequality.

A memoir by Chanel Miller, who writes about being sexually assaulted at Stanford, as well as the aftermath and subsequent court case. Chanel translates her experience into a raw, painful, yet beautiful and powerful piece of literature. She sheds light on the many injustices that survivors of sexual assault are forced to face.

"MY STORY IS A FORM OF ACTIVISM"

Forging Space in the Mainstream for Refugee Voices

Gabriel speaks at VOW's Brave Stories, Bold Movements event in September 2019, San Francisco PHOTO BY ELAINE BENISANO TEXT BY ELISA PEREZ-SELSKY & ANNAICK MILLER

Voice of Witness’s mission is well known: to advance human rights by amplifying the voices of people impacted by injustice. Our vision statement is perhaps less familiar to some: that “voices of witness” become “voices of authority” at the center of mainstream discourse and meaningful reform. Any understanding of migration and displacement is incomplete without deep listening and learning from people who have experienced the consequences of our unjust immigration and carceral systems ﬁrsthand, and we must look to their leadership and expertise in ﬁnding appropriate solutions.

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Mobilizing Stories VOW enacts this vision through our oral history book series and education program, but also through collaborating with, and creating space for, narrators like Gabriel Mendez and Soledad Castillo from our 2019 book Solito, Solita: Crossing Borders With Youth Refugees From Central America to share their experiences, insights, and expertise across a variety of other platforms. Solito, Solita is an urgent collection of oral histories that tell the stories of young refugees— in their own words— ﬂeeing their home countries in Central America and traveling for hundreds of miles to seek safety. For Gabriel, that meant growing up in poverty in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and surviving sexual abuse starting at the age of eight. Gabriel eventually traveled through Mexico with a coyote to reach the United States, and through educational and legal support, is now attending UC Berkeley. Soledad ﬂed Honduras at age fourteen after being abused by her stepfather, abandoned by her mother, and forced into child labor. Soledad survived a treacherous journey to reach the US, where she experienced mistreatment in foster care before putting herself through school and graduating from San Francisco State University with honors.

accountable for the impact of their policies and advocating for an end to xenophobic narratives and legislation. In May, an excerpt of Gabriel’s story in Solito, Solita was read by Congresswoman Jackie Speier (CA-14) on the ﬂoor of Congress. In July, Gabriel visited the Mexico-US border with VOW to share his story at an Artistic Uprising protest in El Paso, Texas. (See page 18 for his reﬂections about the experience). Working with community partner organizations on the ground, VOW and other activists came together to demand action and an end to the US’ cruel and inhumane treatment of migrants seeking asylum. Speaking out alongside other activists, Gabriel said, “I have a responsibility to bring my voice together with these other folks from the community… I want my people who are inside of those bars, in a cage, to know that we’re there to support them.”

Gabriel and Soledad’s narratives demand further attention to the human rights abuses faced by minors in their home countries, on their journeys north, and at the US border. In 2019, they forged space for their voices to be heard across the nation. At schools, protests, philanthropic events, in high-proﬁle media outlets, and in the halls of Congress—they advocated for meaningful change and justice for migrants coming to the United States through the lens of their own ﬁrsthand experiences. Bringing the voices of youth refugees to the halls of legislative power in the US is one critical avenue to holding politicians

Gabriel and Soledad hold the Honduran ﬂag

PHOTO BY ERIN VONG

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Solito, Solita narrators also reached large-scale audiences through high-proﬁle media outlets. Isai Rodriguez’s narrative of ﬂeeing El Salvador for the US to protect his family was published in The New York Times in April. And for International Migrants Month, Soledad published a powerful opinion piece in The Guardian, urging readers to seek out ways to support migrants in their communities. She wrote:

"I want everyone to know that the story doesn’t end once migrants cross the border. It doesn’t even end if we are lucky enough to be granted asylum. The story, the hardships, the aspirations continue in the US. Improved immigration policies and humane asylum procedures are critical, but they are only a ﬁrst step. Everyone needs protection and support. My dream is to become a social worker and improve the foster system so other children in the US don’t have to go through what I did. I want to make our cities safe, livable, healthy places for all people. I walked through the desert for days to have these opportunities. On International Migrants Day this month—and beyond—seek out migrants in your community and listen to their stories. There are many ways you can support young migrants, such as donating or volunteering. Migrant narratives don’t end once we arrive in our new communities. We’re a part of this fabric and our stories aren’t over.”

Soledad signs copies of Solito, Solita at the book launch event PHOTO BY ERIN VONG

Solito, Solita narrators also engaged with philanthropic communities, advocating for investment in movement building, narrative change, and lasting systemic solutions that protect the human rights of people experiencing migration and displacement. On International Human Rights Day, Soledad spoke at a philanthropic event hosted by Article 3 Advisors in San Francisco. Sharing a stage with leading refugee and migrant justice experts from the Open Society Foundations, International Refugee Assistance, the Fund for Global Human Rights, and the Heising-Simons Foundation, Soledad shared her own expertise on migration issues, drawing from her personal experiences. She spoke about the importance of empathy and solidarity, and the need to transform the stigma and stereotypes of migrants as criminals, victims, and “others.”

Gabriel and Soledad have also impacted hundreds of students across the country by joining VOW’s Education Advisory Board and contributing to the development of free Solito, Solita lesson plans. In a political climate that threatens the safety and rights of immigrant communities in the US, many educators have been searching for resources like these that address such issues in ways that are culturally relevant and meaningful to the students they serve. Solito, Solita was selected for VOW’s 2019 Sharing History Initiative, which introduces oral history and social justice storytelling to under-resourced classrooms and communities around the United States by providing educators with free books and corresponding curricula. Nearly 50 institutions received free sets of Solita, Solita plus supporting materials, and hundreds more have downloaded the curricula from the Voice of Witness website.

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It’s crucial to forge space for and foster a more nuanced, empathy-based understanding of migration, immigration and refugee issues in the classroom. Gabriel says, “After I came to the US, I enrolled at San Francisco International High School. The teachers were having us read fiction stories that didn’t relate to us… We never had a book like Solito, Solita... I knew that this was the best opportunity to tell my story. Next semester, my old high school is going to teach Solito, Solita in every grade. And hundreds of other classrooms are reading it across the country right now. The book is actually working and it’s benefiting the specific communities that I want to target — Latino youth learning about Latino youth experiences they can relate to. It opens the topic in the classroom, so that students can tell their own stories. And teachers are gonna get to know their students as people, and see their struggle, understand why we are stressed and tired.” Solito, Solita continued to make waves and receive recognition throughout the year. The book was shortlisted for the Juan E. Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America, placed #1 on Remezcla’s 2019 list of the best Latino and Latin American history books, and was selected for Emma Watson’s “Shared Shelf” book club. In a world where human rights and dignity are constantly under threat, these narratives are resonating with people eager to learn more and create change. We need more than ever to promote empathy and action by forging space for these voices in mainstream discourse, so that these voices of witness become voices of authority. Gabriel says it best: “I’ve learned that my story is a form of activism. It’s not just going out in the street and protesting, it’s a movement, it’s connecting. It’s not only saying, this is me, but also that I know there are other people who have had to go through this. And that brings people together.”

Soledad speaks at Article 3's International Human Rights Day event

PHOTO BY ARTICLE 3 ADVISORS

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Artistic Uprising At The Border Reﬂections & Photos

Flying from San Francisco to El Paso, Texas on the Fourth of July last year, the pilot called out over the loudspeaker, “Thank you for joining us on this glorious day for America!” Gabriel and I both stiffened and shared an uncomfortable glance.

Ela Banerjee

Community Programs Coordinator, Voice of Witness

We weren’t headed to a barbecue or a parade. Solito, Solita narrator and VOW Education Advisory Member Gabriel Mendez and I were en route to an Artistic Uprising taking place the following day at the US-Mexico El Paso border. News had resurfaced over the previous few weeks of inhumane conditions at immigration detention centers across the border: crowded cages, lack of access to basic hygiene, families separated. In response, playwright Eve Ensler (creator of the Vagina Monologues and VDay) had put out a call to artists and activists to gather in protest at the border. In just one week, musicians, poets, writers, dancers, and performers mobilized in response to the call. Local organizations La Mujer Obrera, Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, and the Border Agricultural Workers Project joined V-Day and One Billion Rising to begin coordinating the event on the ground in El Paso. Eve Ensler and One Billion Rising invited Gabriel to speak at the Artistic Uprising and share his experience of ﬂeeing abuse in Honduras and immigrating to the US as a young teenager. I was very appreciative of the chance to accompany Gabriel on the trip in order to support him, share additional VOW narratives, and continue building partnerships with organizations working on the ground in the ﬁght for migrant justice. At VOW, we strongly value community partnerships as an integral part of our work to drive long-term change, and this was an important opportunity to show up and make noise for these partners.

In early July, Voice of Witness reached out to me and told me about a protest in El Paso happening on July 5th, where artists would perform, talking about their experiences at the border and how the conditions in detention centers are inhumane. I got really interested because I feel that everything related to immigration is personal. I’m from Honduras and I crossed the same border, the same river, six years ago. I feel that I have a responsibility to go out and bring my voice together with all of these other folks from the community. If we don’t have art or stories to share, many people won’t care. People think that there’s not an issue.

Gabriel Mendez

UC Berkeley student, VOW narrator, and VOW Education Advisory Board Member 18

I was really excited about coming from my home in the Bay Area and sharing my story with people in El Paso and joining the demonstrations happening around the country. These are some of the photos we took at the protest that represent my experiences there.

GABRIEL: "This picture looks out across the US-Mexico border. The side that’s closer is El Paso, Texas, and the side that’s further away is Mexico. The houses in Mexico looked so different, just a few blocks away from the ones in the US."

GABRIEL: "The night before the protest, we saw the train, La Bestia, entering the US from México. This photo shows the train tracks where we saw it pass through El Paso. Some immigrants who don't want to pay a coyote get onto a freight train like this." 19

ELA: "This is Gabriel with the Honduran ďŹ&#x201A;ag at the Artistic Uprising in El Paso. A small stage with modest lights and a sound system had been erected outside; across the street was the El Paso del Norte Processing Center."

GABRIEL: "When we got to the protest, there were Indigenous dancers and musicians performing. They were opening up the whole Artistic Uprising." 20

GABRIEL: "I was told by some of the people from the Uprising that we could go up on the roof of the nearby building. From there, we could see the detention facility."

GABRIEL: "I hoped that kids at the facility would eventually see our ďŹ&#x201A;ag. I was told that kids were sleeping in those tents, in those little camps at the facility." 21

BUILDING COMMUNITY POWER: Spotlight on East Bay Sanctuary Covenant

TEXT BY ELA BANERJEE PHOTO BY LISA HOFFMAN

hile “community partnership” is sometimes perceived by organizations as a secondary or exclusively external component of their work, VOW’s relationships with communitybased advocacy groups has always been essential to our work and our mission. This is exempliﬁed by our ongoing partnership with the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant (EBSC), a Berkeley-based refugee and immigrant services organization. Originally formed in 1982 to provide refuge to Central Americans ﬂeeing war and persecution, EBSC played a central role in connecting Solito, Solita editors Steven Mayers and Jonathan Freedman with their clients—many of whom became

narrators in the ﬁnal book. When you read Josué and Itzel’s stories in Solito, Solita, the editors start by setting the scene in EBSC’s warm, scrappy church-basement o ce in Berkeley. In the fall of 2018, shortly before the release of Solito, Solita, VOW reconnected with EBSC to explore further possibilities for collaboration. Since then, our two organizations have continued to work together, ﬁnding ways to amplify EBSC’s robust legal and policy activism through VOW’s storytelling expertise. Notably, in January 2019, EBSC invited Solito, Solita narrators Soledad and Gabriel to lead an advocacy workshop at EBSC for their clients traveling to Washington, DC to protest the

threatened deportation of immigrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The EBSC clients and community gained valuable insight and encouragement on how to share their immigration stories so publicly from two people who had been in their shoes and are now practiced veterans of powerful, effective storytelling and advocacy. Soledad and Gabriel’s leadership reinforces our core belief at VOW: the narrators are the experts on social justice issues and what’s needed to enact change. Our partnership with the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant also reminds us that VOW’s role as an organization is to forge space for not only the speciﬁc narratives included in our books, but for narrators’ communities at large. VOW is currently a consultant on EBSC’s Amplifying Sanctuary Voices project, a multimedia oral history project capturing Berkeley’s history as a Sanctuary City, sponsored by the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund. VOW has provided training to EBSC staff and volunteers on how to conduct their own oral histories, guided by our ethical storytelling values. EBSC will be sharing the stories from their project in a series of community education events, co-designed with VOW, across Berkeley throughout 2020. Through our partnership, EBSC’s community has become our community, too, and we are excited to continue working in solidarity, this year and beyond.

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Maria Kamana

BUILDING STUDENT POWER: Spotlight on Teacher Maria Kaimana

feel so honored to be a part of the Voice of Witness community, a community that has changed the way I think about teaching and changed the way I listen to my studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;students who are often left on the margins of society. I remember the ďŹ rst time I discovered Voice of Witness: I was a third-year teacher frantically Googling world literature, and I came across Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life Under Occupation. My students and I were immediately sucked into the power of oral history to build empathy and awareness. In 2016, I asked Voice of Witness to let me attend the 5-day oral history training called Amplifying Unheard Voices. The training transformed how I think about storytelling as a tool for

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social justice, and after that, I couldn't stay away. Last year, I wrote new curriculum for Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives. In doing that, VOW recognized my desire to dive deeper into social justice curriculum. They selected me to be a Germanacos Fellow—a teacher that receives specialized assistance to explore oral history-based storytelling —and the funding and practical support from this fellowship allowed me to conduct a more extensive oral history project with my students. This was by far the most incredible project I have done with students and demonstrated the remarkable ability of oral history to connect students. As one of them put it, “This experience made me powerful because other people knew who I was.” My students had the unique opportunity to interview a person of their choice about a signiﬁcant artifact or object in their life, and then to turn that interview into a story.

While this project had many aspects that were incredible for the students, I think the most powerful part was concluding our year by sitting in a circle together where every student read their story aloud to the class. This experience gave each person the chance to be seen and listened to unconditionally. It sparked empathy among them, and gave my students a chance to be the center of our curriculum and our community.One of my students reﬂected: "Oral history has opened up my eyes to the realization that each and every person has a life story that is as complicated and complex and rich as mine. I somehow failed to realize that this is true for every person, and the interview made me realize just how much I did not know and how much more I want to ﬁnd out.” Maria Kaimana is a Voice of Witness Germanacos Fellow and long-time a liated VOW educator

"Oral history has opened up my eyes to the realization that each and every person has a life story that is as complicated and complex and rich as mine. I somehow failed to realize that this is true for every person, and the interview made me realize just how much I did not know and how much more I want to ﬁnd out.” -J.E. 11th grader

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Connecting Classrooms & Communities Maria’s account is just one example of a teacher, a classroom, and a community impacted by Voice of Witness’s oral history methodology. VOW has expanded its consultancies and services significantly in the past year, offering oral history trainings, workshops, and curricular support to a wide variety of educators, non-profit organizations, journalists, social justice advocates, foundations, and more. VOW’s methodology has been used to train a broad range of advocates for human rights and dignity, including The Sojourn Project, Sequoia Living, UCSF Memory and Aging Center, and more. One ongoing Voice of Witness consultancy is our work with the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), providing professional development to San Francisco middle and high school teachers and librarians. VOW’s trainings offer oral history and personal narrative workshops centered around increasing student visibility and voice, and connecting oral history projects to district standards for writing and communication skills. VOW began with professional development days to introduce our work to staff at various sites, and these steadily grew into larger scale projects. We’re thrilled to highlight two of these projects on the following pages.

Cocina y Cultura:

An Oral History Cookbook With James Lick Middle School Through the SFUSD Consultancy, VOW also supported a project with James Lick Middle School centered around cooking and community. The Avid Excel students in Veronica Galante’s class—long-term English Language Learners and primarily ﬁrst-gen students— interviewed a community member about a meaningful recipe, prepared a story about the narrator and the recipe, then brought it all together in a cookbook page and an oral presentation in class. The resulting cookbook contained the stories and recipes of people from across Central America and the United States, as well as narratives about culture, identity, and student reﬂections on the project.

Humanizing Oral History:

A Podcast Project with the Ethnic Studies Class at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts Through this SFUSD consultancy, our partnership with Ruth Asawa School of the Arts has been particularly impactful. VOW collaborated with teacher Bruna Lee to create an oral history podcast project for her Ethnic Studies course, allowing students to explore a diverse range of themes, such as identity, culture, family, resistance, and immigration. For the project, students interviewed an elder in their community about a topic of their choice.

Conversations included discussions of race, interracial relationships, feminism, art, and activism. Working to develop podcast episodes, the students also learned skills around how to conduct an interview, synthesize information, and edit audio ﬁles. The resulting project, Humanizing Oral Histories: Podcasts from SOTA Ethnic Studies 2019-20, is available online for listening. A few students shared their reﬂections on the project:

"I have learned how oral history allows us to look deeper into people’s lives and see the complexity of every individual and their stories.” —M.L., 12th grader. They interviewed a sibling about their experience seeking healthcare for mental illness in a major city

"I talked to my grandpa about class, immigration, and how life is di erent between his homeland and the US. After hearing his stories, it really opened my eyes to how hard my grandparents worked and how many things they had to overcome.” —S.C., 12th grader. They interviewed their grandfather about growing up in a small village in China and immigrating to San Francisco

Connecting students with their communities, VOW’s methodology develops communication and critical thinking skills that nurture empathy and addresses the need for inclusive, culturally relevant learning opportunities. By combining the arts and social justice, our oral history projects bring people together to promote skills that can be used to affect positive social change and empower thoughtful future leaders and decision-makers.

Exploring Aging & Connection:

hear/say with the UCSF Memory and Aging Center Another ongoing Voice of Witness consultancy is our work with the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI). After a yearlong residency as the Hellman Visiting Artist, VOW expanded to working with GBHI and their Atlantic Fellows in San Francisco and Dublin. The Fellows received professional development and training, and went on to interview patients, caregivers, health care providers, and scientists across six countries about aging, dementia, art, work, and life. The storytelling project resulted in a second hear/say book and readerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s theater event

that shed light on the personal and rarely heard dayto-day experiences of aging and dementia from a global perspective. Our goal was to use storytelling to amplify the needs, desires, and inequities that surround aging and dementia, and by doing so, articulate a key principle of social justice that demands individuals have the right to express the fullness of their humanity. In the future, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be able to watch these stories in a powerful featurelength documentary.

What's On The Horizon? There is still so much work to be done to address human rights abuses in the US and across the world, and we are so grateful for the Voice of Witness community and your support in this ﬁght. VOW is more committed than ever to amplifying the voices of people impacted by injustice, and we look forward to everything we will achieve together in 2020. Keep your eyes open for updates on these new projects currently in the Voice of Witness Story Lab, a unique opportunity for storytellers working in the ﬁeld of human rights to incubate oral history projects.

The Digital Welfare State

Around the world, digital tools increasingly mediate access to basic human needs such as housing, food, medical care, ﬁnancial capital, and employment. It is only now being recognized for what it is: a human rights crisis. Under conditions of austerity, ethnic and religious nationalism, and white supremacy, these tools allow states to hide political choices behind a smokescreen of “objective,” rule-bound decision-making. VOW’s new project on the emerging digital welfare state, spearheaded by coeditors Virginia Eubanks and Andrea Qu ada, aims to ﬁnd the human stories— from the US as well as Australia, China, Kenya, and India—behind the algorithms.

From Incarceration to Reentry

The US incarcerates more people than any other country, and nearly 70 percent of those formerly incarcerated are rearrested within 3 years of release. Many have not actually committed crimes, but, subject to the inscrutable whims of their states’ parole board, are dragged back to jail for missing appointments, being unable to ﬁnd work, or simply misunderstanding the terms of their parole. VOW's new project on life after incarceration, led by coeditors Reggie Daniels and Ion Vlad, seeks to illuminate the process and stories of reentry in the Bay Area, where the formerly incarcerated are released into the most expensive rental market in the country with no money, no savings, and very little structural support.

Resettled: Beginning (Again) in Appalachia

Refugee stories do not end once they’ve reached a host country. In fact, that is often just the beginning of their journey. Resettled tells the untold stories of displacement, trauma, and community integration in an area not known for its resettlement efforts: rural Appalachia. Between xenophobic rhetoric, decreasing funds for resettlement, and a continued focus on rural Appalachia as a place of poverty and strife, understanding these stories is critically important. This project, led by editor Katrina Powell, will place the “refugee narrative” alongside the “Appalachian narrative” to provide a greater understanding of the beneﬁts and challenges of welcoming new neighbors in the region.

With Gratitude

Voice of Witness would like to thank the individuals and organizations that gave their support in 2019. We are honored by your generosity and grateful to have you in the VOW community.

11th Hour/Schmidt Family Foundation

Hasan Baser

Courtney Rein

Isabel Allende Foundation

Darian Swig

Jacqueline Marroquin

David Suisman

Jeffrey Lee

The Abundance Foundation

The Compton Foundation

Alejandra Siroka

Craig Peters

Acton Family Giving Alison Thoreau

Ipek Burnett Jack Cohen

Amanda Loughran

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Amber Yearwood

Donna Stone

Jeffrey Maza

Duc Ta

Jennifer Arcuni

Amanda Uhle

JC Rafferty

Amy Grigsby

Donna Williamson

Amy Rao

Edward Schwarzschild

Jennifer Hymes Battat

Aneesha Capur

Emme Clark

Jill Smith

Amy Norman Andrea Nicole Rappaport Anna Guha

Anne Stauffer

Elisa Perez-Selsky Eric Hartman

Eugenia Mazal

Jen Haile

Jessica Strachan Jill Stauffer

Jim Fitzgerald

Annie Stine

Eunice Flores-Uselman

Joan Osterman

Anthony K Arnove

Fran Codispoti

Joe Elson

Anonymous

Evany Thomas

Jocelyn Wong

Barbara Sheffels

Germanacos Foundation

Joell Hallowell

Beth Burnett

Gloria Principe

John Yi

Basil Fraysse

Gina Maya

Carl Del Duca

Graham Holdings

Carlina Hansen

Gregorio Perez-Selsky

Catherine Ainsworth

Hani Juha

Carla Perez-Selsky Caroline Prioleau

Catherine Barnett

Charles A Becker Foundation Charles Ugalde

Christine Tran

John Brennan Jon Funabiki

Gravity Goldberg

Jonathan Freedman

Gustavus Stadler

Jorge Blandon

Hanni Hanson

The Hans and Etta Hofsas Fund at the East Bay Community Foundation

Jordan Medina Joy Alferness

Judith Powell

Julia Ward and Adam Savage Julie Falis

Karen Cox

Miner Anderson Family Foundation

Katrina Dodson

Monika Varma

Kathryn Kreps Kay Berkson KC Garrett

Sierra Clark

Minna Jung

Silvia Vasquez Lavado

Nancy Burnett

Sonja Swift

Negeen Darani

SoďŹ e Vandeputte Stacy Kono

Kelly J Sutter

Network for Good

Stephanie Tsang

Laura Ealy

Nicole Janisiewicz

Sunya Berkelman-Rosado

Leyla Vural

Nion McEvoy

Susan Little

Kristine Leja

Laurie Loftus Galvagna Lila LaHood Lisa Wade

Nicole Gelbard

Niles Lichtenstein Nish Patel

NoVo Foundation

Liz Decena

Panta Rhea Foundation

Lupe Poblano

Patricia Scola

Louise Lamphere

Steven Mayers Susan Becker Susan Orr

Sylvia Yang

Tamara Kreinin

Pascale Miller

Thomas H & Donna M Stone Foundation

Ly Tran

Patricia Slattery

Tracy Ferron

Margaret Russell

Peter Evans

Veronica Kornberg

Puente Project

Violaine Autheman

Rachel Wysoker

Walter & Elise Haas Fund

Malka Kopell

Margot Patterson Maria Clayton

Peggy Duvette Peter Yedidia

Tom Layton

Valerie Woolard Victoria Zaroff

Maria Koulouris

Rachel Howard-Hines

Mark Wegmeyer

Rebecca Schapp

The Whitehead Foundation

Melissa Burnett

Richard Ayers

Zaina HarďŹ

Maria Seferian

Marla Cornelius

Rekha Patel

Melissa Kelley

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Michael Hirschhorn

Sabrina Pourmand

Michael Ford

Michael Kohn

Vladamir Carrillo

The Whitman Institute

Rose Family Charitable Scott Allison

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