Voice to the Voiceless: Part 9
Samantha Matsumoto, the Eugene Connection, and the Final Pitch
The last nine weeks have been spent researching a variety of podcasts, understanding why they are successful, and looking at how I can make my own project work. This is the final post, and today we will be discussing how and why this matters to me and my community.
Another Story This Podcast Could Tell: Samantha Matsumoto
Samantha Matsumoto — a graduate of the UO’s SOJC and a journalist currently working for the Oregonian — told a story in February of a discussion she had with her own grandparents about their past that she had not completely heard before. One reason she was able to connect this way with her grandparents was because of her interest as a Journalist in their personal stories.
Matsumoto recounts the very moving anecdotes of her grandfather and grandmother’s time spent in an American internment camp at Tule Lake. Her grandparents went from losing everything, to never speaking about it, to using it as a historical lesson: “If we are going to survive, we have to persevere.”
These are the kinds of stories I want to retell. Tales about ordinary people who are part of history that most people will never know or understand. And this is a chance to share their lessons and wisdom as well as their pain and their joy.
How/Why Eugene?
Eugene is the perfect place to start this project. It has a great number of senior living facilities with hundreds of residents, many of which are grandparents and great grandparents. But I don’t just want this project to be about me telling their stories. I want to include the wider community as well.
What I envision is starting a program at a local high school—likely as an after school project — in which the students learn how to ask the senior citizens in their lives about their pasts, what it means to them, how it has changed them, and what advise they have to pass on to the next generation.
I want this to both help the students move out of their comfort zones and to help them to understand more of what the previous generations have loved and sacrificed. I think sometimes the previous generations get lost and forgotten. In a decade in which students have all this technology, they sometimes forget that their grandparents know things too.
I want this project to nurture inter-generational relationships and to create something interesting and inspiring both for the participants and the listeners.
As I said in a previous post, the hope I have for this podcast is that the stories I help facilitate will carry a weight and meaning beyond me.
The Final Pitch
1000 Years Immortal is a project about what makes us human and what we will be remembered for. It is about reconnecting generations and reminding us that we all work hard, fall in love, go through harrowing times, and have something to say about it. It is providing a voice for the voiceless.
Like the podcasts before it — Story Corps, The Story Trek, and Scene On Radio — this is about reminding ordinary people how important their stories are, how they are a part of history, and how we will remember their achievements (big or small) even after they are gone.
This project is meant to capture the tales of those who may not be around much longer and to preserve their memories. We are making history, and this project provides a path with which to remember it in the years to come. This isn’t about me. This is about us, our kids, our grandparents, and our history.
What will your story be?
