As part of an ongoing collaboration with MoCADA (the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts), New York City StoryBooth staff completed a day of recording in the basement of the building that is home to both StoryCorps and the museum in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. Curator Dexter Wimberly worked with StoryCorps to bring in a diverse group of artists to talk about their work, life, and inspirations, which led to the opening of the exhibition “The Gentrification of Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Speaks” at MoCADA on February 4th.

While I was away, super StoryBooth interns Charlotte Okie and Liam Pierce attended the event to work the crowd, dish about StoryCorps, snap a few photos and take names.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the great privileges of working on the StoryCorps project is that as Facilitators, we are occasional witnesses to wonderful first person accounts of history that make all of those high school history lessons come to life, and seem more relevant. Participant Frank Scardiglia tells such a story to his son Mark Scardiglia at the StoryBooth in Lower Manhattan. Growing up in Lucca, Italy during WWII, he describes the summer of 1944 when SS soldiers occupied the small town before the liberation. “That was a very very painful part of our lives. There was a shortage of food, we were under constant bombardment.” Young men were frequently shot on sight and Frank learned to dodge mortar. “I learned to recognize when the shell came near us because the pitch of the sound decreased at a very rapid rate. As long as the shell kept a very high pitch I knew it was going over us and we were safe. Otherwise it was a bad situation.”

We were very glad when the Americans came. All the bells in the [church] steeples of Lucca started peeling like it was Easter.” It was the 92nd Division of African American Soldiers, also known as Buffalo Soldiers that liberated Lucca that day, and Frank’s encounter with one of the soldiers is particularly compelling.

“We were glad when we saw someone with a darker face because we knew they were not Germans! I came in contact with one. I knew not a single word of English, [but] I wanted him to tell my grandparents in Chicago that we were ok.” So he picked up an Italian-English Dictionary and using one word at a time, relayed the message. The soldier found his family’s address and three months later he got word from his grandparents that they had received the letter.

Frank never saw the soldier again, but his memory of that day and gratitude for the soldier’s service left indelible marks on his life.

Hector “Nicer” Nazario grew up in the South Bronx interested in art, but there were few outlets to quench his thirst. In the 1980s there weren’t many art school programs, so he was drawn to the art and color that surrounded him. The South Bronx landscape consisted of abandoned buildings and rubble, but it was the graffiti that decorated the walls and subway cars that caught Hector’s eye. “We didn’t know we were poor, for us it was just kids playing in our surroundings…it was just fun.” Hector chose the nickname Nicer for himself that remains his nom de plume. “It started as “Too Nice but then I found out there was a ‘Too Nice’ in Brooklyn. So I added an “er” [to Nice]. I liked the way it looked.”

Hector “Nicer” Nazario is considered one of the pioneers of the Hip Hop movement. Nicer and his crew would paint backdrops for Afrika Bambaataa’s shows and if you look closely you’ll see the work of Nicer and his friends in Bambaataa’s Planet Rock Video. That’s him scrawling on the glass near the end of the video in the ice blue cap and matching jacket.

“We didn’t realize we were doing work. The cash was alright but it was more about the paint. It was our lifestyle, our expression, [we were] identifying with the people from our community.” His mother didn’t think much of it at the time. “Eso no te va dejar nada” which translates to “That won’t leave you with anything.” Thirty years later, Nicer is still painting and his company Tats Cru are commissioned to do murals all over the world.

Todos sabemos y no es ningún misterio que en la mayoría de los paises Latinoamericanos se vive desde hace varios años una realidad bastante difícil debido a la crisis económica que a su vez trae con ella una gran inestabilidad social, cultural, política entre otras. Lo anterior me remite a escribir sobre Gerardo Rivera de 42 años y su hija Norah Raquel Rivera de 18 años, quienes visitaron Storycorps en Noviembre del 2009, para recordarnos un poco sobre este país: Perú.

La entrevista comenzó con una pregunta simple pero a la vez un poco difícil de contestar. Su hija Norah preguntó: “Papa hablame de tu pasado y del por que tu decidiste colocarme Raquel como mi segundo nombre.” Gerardo respondió: “Hijita, yo nací en Perú en una época bastante difícil, donde la revolución y la lucha por los valores y por los derechos de los Peruanos era una constante. Los peruanos nos quejábamos por que el sistema político nos estaba acabando económica, cultural y socialmente, no teníamos empleo, no había igualdad de ninguna manera. Recuerdo una marcha bastante fuerte donde todos salimos a las calles y yo desafortunadamente al igual que tu madre resultamos arrestados por la policía.”

“A tu madre la llevaron a la cárcel y a mi no se cómo, me defendió una señora que a su vez participaba de la marcha pero como un milagro logro salvarme de aquella situación. Su nombre era Raquel.” Gerardo sigue con la conversación “en aquel momento de revolución es cuando yo tomo la decisión de venirme a los Estados Unidos, y es como llegué acá a la edad de los 18 años a trabajar y a tratar de sobrevivir.”

“Después de un tiempo de casado con tu madre, nuestra relación no funcionó entonces yo tomé la decisión de cuidarte, de criarte, tuve momentos en los que me tocaba llevarte a trabajar conmigo y cambiarte los pañales y así lo hice durante mucho tiempo, con sacrificios pero de la mejor manera posible y previendo para tí un futuro lejos de las carencias que yo tuve.” De los ojitos de Norah solo salían lágrimas de agradecimiento y admiración por su padre.

Con esta entrevista quisiera resaltar que un buen ser humano tiene la decisión en sus manos de construir y de aprender de las dificultades, y a su vez de prever un futuro mejor, sin importar de donde venga, dado que, lo fructífero de las situaciones difíciles es que moldea nuestras vidas y nos permiten surgir ante cualquier obstáculo.

Upon his return from a Kwanzaa festival in December of 1994,  Malchijah Charles suddenly fell ill. He began suffering from seizures, slipped into a coma, and never recovered.

After losing her son to meningitis in 1995, Sharon “Ife” Charles was devastated and felt lost. “I felt as though my world had come to an end because the one thing I was sure I had done right in my life was having my son. Because of the kind of spirit that he had. When Malchijah died, the human part of me left.  I focused everything on what it was to be a mom and dismissed what it was to be a woman, an individual, and so I lost me.”

In the aftermath of Malchijah’s death, Sharon Charles turned to the Yoruba faith and adopted the Orisa name “Ife”, which means love. This became a source of strength for her. “Ife became a name that stuck with me because each time I said it I was forced to say love.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Roger Caban has been a resident in Spanish Harlem for over 65 years and came to the StoryBooth in Foley Square to paint a very vivid picture of growing up in “El Barrio.” “When I was a kid, Spanish Harlem was West Side Story. From 3rd Avenue west to 5th Avenue was all Puerto Rican. From 3rd Avenue to the river east was Italian. It was a real Mason Dixon line. You couldn’t walk to the pool by yourself, you had to have a gang.” Later Roger sheepishly qualified, “I had a very short history with a gang. I was in a gang called the Latin Gents. We had jackets and everything. I lasted about a week. I got beaten up, they took my jacket, and that was the end of my criminal career.”

Always the entrepreneur, Roger would buy shopping bags for two cents a piece and sell them on weekends for a nickel. “I would come home with my pockets bulging with coins. Five or six dollars was like a fortune to me as a kid.” His family owned the first television in their apartment building. “I grew up on television. All the kids would come up and I would charge them a penny to watch The Howdy Doody Show.”

Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday 19 of August 2009, we had a great experience visiting the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, a non-profit organization that brings together girls and women from diverse communities encouraging them to explore self-expression through music. It is hosted at the Urban Assembly School for Music and Art in downtown Brooklyn, New York.

It is very common to see people walking the streets with their i-Pod while waiting for the bus or train, listening to their favorites music. Sometimes people are making some movements with their hands, head, or foot when a sound is really powerful or when they really feel the music. For me, it was like that at Willie Mae Rock Camp, and  I did not have to use an i-Pod, just my camera and recording equipment. I was ready for the show. The recordings started at 9:00 am and by that time, I had already listened a lot of sounds: girls with their guitars or drums, playing and singing and composing music. Everyone was preparing for the big event: a performance at a professional rock venue!

Read the rest of this entry »

Seitu, Amir and Tunisia Solomon come from three generations of steel pan musicians. As early as three years old their father taught them how to play and their uncle Phil made the drums in his factory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Amir explains if you want to know what a steel pan looks like, “just look at a garbage can in the streets.”  The creation of a steel pan is work intensive. It starts out as a 50 gallon oil barrel then each steel pan is hammered, sculpted and tuned by hand.

The entire Solomon family travels together playing Soca, Calypso, Rumba and classical music at weddings and shows to the delight of audiences.  While all three mentioned being in the spotlight and getting attention as highlights of performing, they emphasized that the real benefit is being part of a musical family. “There’s always something we can agree with at the end of the day because everyone plays music. It’s special to have a family that can come together, go downstairs and just perform and practice,” says eldest sibling Amir.

Seitu agreed. “I really like it. Any song that I hear I can refer to anyone in my family to help me learn. It’s good to have them there. My family can adjust to any mistake that I make. If I mess up or miss my cue for a melody they all just shift accordingly to help me out,” says Seitu.

Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of StoryCorps Historias, Senior Coordinator Gabriel Higuera and his mother, Purita Higuera, came in to the Lower Manhattan StoryBooth to share stories.

Con el pasar del tiempo aprendemos nuevas cosas, y vivimos momentos de todo tipo, nos topamos con diferentes imaginarios y seres humanos, unos mas especiales que otros segun nuestro parecer pero todos transitando y conviviendo en un mismo mundo.

Hoy les quiero contar una historia con sabor Cubano-Americano una historia de nostalgia y  musica. Todo parecia transcurrir como un sabado normal en el booth de Storycorps depronto veo a Gabriel Higuera el coordinador de Historias de nuestra organizacion, Gabriel venia acompanado de su madre Purita, que al verla sonrei inmediatamente la expression de su cara era una mezcla de dulzura y tranquilidad.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently a group of teens from Faith to Faith – Face to Face visited the StoryBooth in Lower Manhattan. The organization invites youth from the U.S., the Middle East, Northern Ireland and South Africa to engage in multi-faith education and communication-building workshops.

When participants Mustafa Ganem and Karl Coulter entered the StoryBooth to tell their story they seemed a little nervous, but quickly settled in and opened up. Karl spoke of the challenges of growing up Protestant in the midst of political and religious struggle with Catholics in Northern Ireland and his desire for a peaceful conclusion, while Mustafa discussed the challenges of growing up as an Arab in Israel.

Mustafa said, “I feel hopeful that there can be peace when I see other people like myself or like you who are willing to talk and get to a common ground and understanding. Like when I meet people at Face to Face. (They) let people talk about their conflicts and their own experiences and how did it feel, and it teaches you to listen. I think also the problem back home is no one from both sides are willing to listen to each other.”

Read the rest of this entry »