Queens Public Library Podcasts

In the tenth and last episode of this Queens Memory Podcast season on migration, we turn to the topic of terminals—where we’ve arrived and where our stories go from there. We’ve listened to oral histories from our archives, reflecting on the relationships we have to our own and each other’s histories. In our oral history workshops, we suggest volunteers end their interviews with reflective questions like, “Is there anything else you’d like to share?” We ask these questions to build mutual trust and responsibility when we record our oral histories and to encourage those being interviewed to tell their stories how they want, from beginning to end. This episode is a collection of those stories. We’ll hear from: Frank Fortino, Alfredo Cornejo, Solange Baptiste, Thara Madathody, Edgar Tinoco, Tony O’Reilly, and Luna Ranjit. While we listen, we ask: where have we been? Where are we now? Where are we headed? Learn more about Queens Memory at http://queensmemory.org.

To begin our ninth episode, we’re reflecting on returns: the places to which we find ourselves coming back and how we get there. We opened this podcast season with our episode on origins saying we want to think about the many circumstances that shape personal migrations and stories. In our sixth episode on residence, we also considered our relationships to places where we live and our sense of home. We carry those thoughts and stories into this episode too, while we think about what’s involved in going back to places, and how we may or may not remain connected to them. As we listen in this episode, we can consider how our relationships to places change as we leave and return. Learn more about Queens Memory at http://queensmemory.org.

In this eighth episode, we're thinking about visits—receiving family, friends, and others as guests. In terms of legal procedures, visiting the U.S. requires paperwork, fees, and interviews to apply for visitor visas. Depending on national laws and an applicant's travel documentation and history, we learned in our research for this episode that the structure and length of these processes vary greatly. We also learned about laws that regulate visits to the U.S. These date back centuries to the Naturalization Law of 1802 that first established the requirement for all entry into the U.S. to be recorded by the federal government. In 2004, the U.S. government instituted the Visa Waiver Program, which deems citizens of certain countries eligible to travel to the U.S. without a visa. As of 2019, laws around entry into the country undergo ongoing shifts. In this episode, we'll hear stories about hosting visitors after migrating to Queens and of relationships formed and changed through these travels. While we listen, we can think about how we stay connected with each other as we move from place to place. Learn more about Queens Memory at http://queensmemory.org.

For this seventh episode, we’re tracing traditions. As part of our oral history workshops, we suggest volunteer interviewers ask about family traditions, both in daily life and for special occasions. Listening through our archives, we began to think of ways that traditions travel, between people, through places, and over time. While we listen, we can think about the histories and circumstances that shape how we carry what is passed down to us. Learn more about Queens Memory at http://queensmemory.org.

We're thinking about residence in this sixth episode, and the connections we form with the places we inhabit. This includes processes of establishing what U.S. immigration law refers to as permanent residency, involving family or employer sponsorship, applications, interviews, fees, and numerous other requirements. We also thought about the many experiences and moments that become part of living and staying in a place. While we listen, we'll consider what shapes our relationships to the apartments, houses, and neighborhoods where we live. Learn more about Queens Memory at http://queensmemory.org.

For our fifth episode, we collected stories of work. After listening through our archives, we began to think about connections between labor and migration. We considered histories stretching back centuries in the U.S. in which work has remained a major factor in deciding who gets to stay where. Naturalization processes in the U.S. going back to 1790 require what legal documents refer to as "good moral character," in large part determined through employer sponsorship and employment history. We’ve also talked in previous episodes about how many U.S. immigration documents like green cards and H-category visas require either a job or legally validated family relationships, and how recent U.S. immigration laws have instituted more preferences for formal education and credentials. We want to continue thinking about political circumstances and histories as we listen further. In this episode, we'll reflect on the many factors that form our relationships to where we live and how we work. Learn more about Queens Memory at http://queensmemory.org.

In this fourth episode, we’ve gathered memories from school. While deciding on themes for each episode, we remembered the many stories in our archives of navigating public and private schools in Queens. We began to reflect on the political, economic, religious, and social forces that shape what and how we learn. We thought about classrooms and textbooks, student activities, school funding, and the government’s role in education. We recall the long history of U.S. legislation tying together schooling and migration. This includes the now-repealed Naturalization Act of 1906 mandating English language proficiency for naturalized citizenship, the Immigration Act of 1990 shifting preference to formally credentialed visa applicants, and, more recently, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA, requiring formal education for eligibility. With the collections of personal histories in this episode, we consider how the movement of people impacts how we learn. Learn more about Queens Memory at http://queensmemory.org.

The oral histories in this third episode move, by trains, boats, and planes, across oceans and land. In this episode, we’ll hear stories about travel—physical movements and how we embody our histories. We found two collections in our archives that we decided to feature in this episode. These interviews struck us in the detail and specificity they offered in stories about travelling to and arriving in New York. The first set of oral histories comes from the Woodside Irish Oral History Project recorded throughout 2015, and the second from a March 2017 family collection by Queens Memory volunteer Stephanie Fortino Gonzalez. Together, these stories span about a decade and a half of memories, from 1950 to 1966. With these memories, we want to think about how our specific historical circumstances shape where we go and how we get there. Learn more about Queens Memory at http://queensmemory.org.

For our second episode, we consider paperwork: the relationship between documents and the day-to-day. Before beginning the podcast, we’d been listening to stories in our archives of applying for visas, school enrollment, and work authorization. We began to think about how these documents become part of migration, and of deciding who goes where. We put this episode together to give thought to the different administrative processes instituted in coming to the U.S., and to the bureaucracy involved in staying. While we listen, we want to reflect on how files and forms regulate movement and daily life. Learn more about Queens Memory at http://queensmemory.org.

To start off the Queens Memory Podcast series, we reflect on origins: where our stories come from and how they begin. In our archives, we hear about many points of departure, from countries and places, to periods of time, to relationships with others. All together, these points of departure shape the migrations described in these stories. We listen to this collection of memories keeping in mind the many origins from which we tell our histories. Learn more about Queens Memory at http://queensmemory.org.