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“History is formed just between two people talking to each other, talking about their lives, their struggles, what matters to them,” Gabriel Higuera, Senior Coordinator of StoryCorps told us on this Tuesday’s First Voice.
Gabriel explained StoryCorps’ goal to give individuals and families throughout the U.S. the opportunity to tell, record, and preserve the stories that matter to them. Participants come to a recording session with someone important to them – family, friends, anyone – and dialogue about the questions that they think are significant. The Historias project, which focuses on providing Latinos in the U.S. a space to converse about their stories, comes to Chicago this Thursday, May 20th at the National Museum of Mexican Art.
Not only do StoryCorps participants get the chance to have the conversation archived in the U.S. Library of Congress, but they also take home a CD copy of their stories. StoryCorps recordings are regularly broadcast on National Public Radio and Radio Arte.
The mission of StoryCorps mirrors our own hopes here at First Voice: to provide a space for dialogue, for all people throughout Chicago – and the world – to speak about their first-hand experiences and the issues that matter to them. Speaking to our correspondent Aaron Arreguin, Gabriel told us the dream that brought him to StoryCorps: to give his mother a chance to speak about her experiences emigrating from Cuba and raising her family in the U.S.
Our studios were also packed Tuesday with young artists and teachers from the Ordinary Giant projects at Morton (West & East) and Curie High Schools, who told First Voice correspondents Adrian Molina and Marcos Zavala their stories. With instructors Viera Bakoba and Victor Montañez, students have been creating projects that, like StoryCorps, express the often-ignored stories of those that matter to them through visual arts.
The Ordinary Giant youth artists are creating massive paintings that depict these “giants,” their heroes. For the students we spoke to, this includes family members, teachers, best friends – as well as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
While the Ordinary Giant after-school art courses are being spared in the latest Chicago Public School budget cuts because they are funded by outside sources, the students artists said that they are highly-concerned with the way that nearly every other subject area at their high school is being stripped of resources.
Vanessa, from Curie High School, told us, “We have to speak out: this is our education, and these are our dreams being taken out.” Students such as William also spoke about how different forms of art – even those misunderstood or criticized, such as graffiti art – create a space for youth to change the political system and inspire new ideas.
Like this week’s fantastic guests, First Voice hopes to bring you real “sounds inspiring change” and to give you a space to tell your story, to hear about the issues that matter to you. Join us next week as we talk about health – dancing, the medical system, sports – and the environment, and more.
And stay with us every Tuesday from 6-7pm on Radio Arte 90.5FM or wrte.org. Let us know your thoughts on this week’s show and what you want to see on First Voice on Facebook, Twitter, or our blog.
Thanks for listening!
Robert Chlala, First Voice Contributor
** Ordinary Giant, featuring students from Morton West and East and Curies High Schools, opens at Daley College’s Gallery, 7500 Pulaski Road, on Friday, June 4 from 12 noon to 8:00 pm. The show stays up until July 4th. For more info see: http://www.artslant.com/chi/events/show/107174-ordinary-giants
** StoryCorps Historias project kicks off in Chicago this Thursday, May 20th at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th Street and goes on until June 26th. Come with yourself, your family members, your friends, your lovers and dialogue about what matters to you. To learn more and reserve a space, simply go to: http://storycorps.org/record-your-story/locations/chicago-il/
