Ilana Brito recently brought her mom, Iris Lupu to the Lower Manhattan StoryBooth to share memories of Ilana’s saba and safta, which is Hebrew for grandfather and grandmother – Nathan and Berta.  Her saba and safta managed to escape Eastern Europe during WWII and made it to a kibbutz in Israel.  Nathan’s beloved cousin moved to the U.S in 1959 and when he returned to visit Israel, he said “Berta, America is for you.”

After 18 years in Israel and now with two children, her saba and safta moved to New York City.  Iris says Berta “had no education, she had no money, but she had perseverance, she had energy and she had chutzpah…and she actually got an empire going.”

Once in New York City, through advertising in local German newspapers, they found jobs in a sweater factory, where they worked for many years until their retirement.  Her saba fixed machinery and her safta sewed sweaters.  After retirement, her saba brought leftover schmattas, which is Yiddish for rags, home from the factory. Her safta began sewing sweaters in the basement. This is how it started.

“She’d be sitting there, in this mass of sweaters with lint in the air.  It was so thick.”  remembered Iris of her parents’ basement.
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StoryCorps visited Sandy Ground Historical Society for 2 days of interviews to recognize and record the stories of the men, women and descendants of those who worked at Staten Island’s Seaview Hospital from 1913 -1960. During that time, the hospital served as one of the premier sanatoria for the treatment of tuberculosis in the United States; it also provided rare work opportunities for African American nurses.  The nurses, referred to as Black Angels, were recruited and courageously volunteered to work in an environment where daily exposure to the deadly airborne pathogen was part of the job.

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Brooklynites past and present, young and old came out last night to hear a curator talk at MoCADA, marking the end of the exhibition “The Gentrification of Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Speaks.” Over twenty artist are represented in the exhibit, and their work speaks to the changes happening in communities throughout the borough, and how residents are responding to these changes. StoryCorps collaborated with MoCADA to record the stories of several of the artists, some of which were presented during last night’s program. (You can read more about the opening of this exhibit from the March 16th post, “The Gentrification of Brooklyn”)

The evening began with New York Facilitator John White, who shared stories from the StoryCorps archive about memories of New York neighborhoods. Then curator Dexter Wimberly spoke about his own experience of growing up in Brooklyn, and what this exhibition means for him. There are still a few days left to enjoy “The Gentrification of Brooklyn” at MoCADA – it closes on Sunday, May 16. Fortunately the stories of the artists, along with thousands of other New Yorkers, will live on through StoryCorps.

There is one great question that does not appear on StoryCorps Great Question list: ”Will you marry me?” I’ve twice witnessed the excitement of two people deciding to spend the rest of their lives together and it always inspires. It makes you want to run out of the StoryBooth and fall in love.

Joel Weber first came to the Booth to interview his brother. After their conversation he told me he wanted to propose to his girlfriend Laurel Pinson and asked if I could help him out. I told him that we’d do our part to provide the romantic ambiance – the warm wood paneling, the soft lighting – but that he’d  have to be the one to pop the question. For those who have never been to the StoryBooth in Foley Square, you are missing out on one of the most intimate getaways in Manhattan. Bring your dates… I mean, book your appointments there now!

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Recently, Marilyn Saviola came to the StoryBooth in Foley Square to share her story of courage with long time friend and co-worker, Jean Minkel.

During the summer of 1955, one of the last years of the Polio epidemic, Marilyn Saviola was 10 years old and on vacation with her family in Connecticut. She was playing with cousins, fell down, banged her head and the next morning she woke up with a headache and a stiff neck. Upon her return home to the Bronx she was examined by a doctor who told her parents that she needed to go to the hospital because he suspected Marilyn had “P-o-l-i-o”. Even at 10, she understood what that meant.

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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.

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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.”

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