Amplifying & Centering
Marginalized Voices At VOW, we pride ourselves on working with our narrators and editors on long-form, deeply felt, and meticulously edited and researched anthologies. Usually we work on these projects for years before publication. But the pandemic and the accompanying crises around unemployment, housing and food insecurity, and inadequate health care clearly called for something else—a more urgent, collective response.
In March 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, and we—like many in the world—found our workplace, projects, and plans turned upside down. We dealt daily with uncertainty. At VOW, our work—amplifying and centering the stories of historically marginalized and oppressed people and groups through oral history—is deeply rooted in holding space for interviewees, whom we call narrators, and connecting through in-person listening. We asked ourselves: How do we continue this vital work? Is oral history storytelling under these new conditions even possible?
But the need to respond to the pandemic and its effects was clear. In the initial rush of media coverage, COVID-19 was characterized as a widespread crisis, altering life for all in the same ways: a “great equalizer.” We knew, however, that the pandemic was disproportionately affecting our narrator communities—people impacted by migration, displacement, the criminal justice system, and other intersecting injustices.
We called on our past narrators, editors, grassroots partners, and community members to engage in a process with VOW to gather the stories of what was happening in our communities, to begin to uncover and learn together about the many ways that the pandemic was magnifying already existing inequities and acting as yet another vector for the spread of injustice. The response was tremendous. Narrators were eager to tell their stories, to be heard, to illuminate some of the hard truths about the pandemic. We listened and held space for them— through computer screens and emails, video chats and phone calls—their voices persisting even when WiFi and cell reception crackled. Voice of Witness launched this initiative online through our media partners at Salon, the Guardian, Prism, and the Nation. Links to the full series can be found at https://voiceofwitness. org/unheard-voices-of-the-pandemic/. We’re also excited to announce that we’ll be compiling this work in an “unofficial” VOW book, to be released this summer. The pieces included in this collection are from interviews conducted between April 2020 and March 2021. Here are a few excerpts from the series.
Text: Dao X. Tran, Managing Editor, Ela Banerjee, Community Partnership Coordinator, Rebecca McCarthy, Editorial Assistant, and Annaick Miller, Communications and Outreach Manager at Voice of Witness Illustrations: Christine Shields and Jose Cruz
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VOICE OF WITNESS
Amplifying & Centering Marginalized Voices
