Category: oral history

The SOHA community presented the 2020 Mink Award to Professor William (Willy) Bauer on September 11, 2020 at the Award Ceremony during the Zoom-hosted conference. Congratulations! The James V. Mink award was established in 1984 and named after an important figure in the field of oral history. Mink dedicated himself immensely to SOHA during the organization’s early days, thus the award carries a long legacy and highlights significant contributors and contributions in the field of oral history. Please enjoy his address that he delivered live to our attendees.

“Willy’s use of oral histories and oral traditions throughout his life and career has expanded and elevated our ability to bring unheard and too often unacknowledged Native voices and life stories to light.”

 – Professor Marcie Gallo, SOHA Past-President

Good evening everyone.  First off, I would like to thank the Southwest Oral History Association for the Mink Award.  Thank you to Dr. Marcie Gallo for contacting me about the award back in January – that sure seems like a long time ago.  We miss you at UNLV Marcie!  Thanks for Dr. Farina King for organizing this year’s conference – in unusual circumstances no doubt. Thanks to Jennifer Keil for guiding me through the conference stages. And, to Caryll Dziedziak for dropping off the award at my house last night! 

As these notes of congratulations reveal and you all no doubt know, this has been an unusual year.  We are meeting in September – a far cry from March, when the conference was originally scheduled.  We are meeting on Zoom – ensuring that we remain socially distant during the ongoing COVID pandemic.  We spent the summer watching and/or participating in the social justice and Black Lives Matter movements.  And, we on are the eve of a truly momentous Presidential election in November.  I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait to hear, read and see the oral history projects that will come from the events of the last few months. 

It is truly an honor to be recognized by the Southwest Oral History Association with the prestigious Mink Award.  In many ways, the Southwest Oral History Association launched my academic career.  As a graduate student, I won a mini-grant to conduct oral history interviews with elders from the Round Valley Indian Reservation.  These interviews became the foundation for my first book, a study of Indigenous People as migrant farmworkers in northern California. 

As I thought about the importance of oral history to my research as well as others, I was struck by one theme – relationships.  Oral history is a very intimate experience; we sit down with friends, family, strangers and we ask about their life stories.  I am reminded of the first interview I conducted for my dissertation and first book – funded by the SOHA mini-grant – it was with my grandmother, who passed away a few years ago.  My grandmother was an irascible woman – and I mean that in the best way.  We have all likely interviewed someone like her – she would not allow me to tape the session; she didn’t want to talk about certain aspects of her life.  All with good reason, of course.  Still, I remember that interview and later ones fondly – I would not trade any part of that interview for anything; that oral history brought me closer to family members. 

The other theme that I thought out in terms of oral history is the relationship to place.  I think this reflects the theme of this year’s conference: “Home(Lands) and Oral Histories of (Re)Vitalization.”  Those of you familiar with my second book California Through Native Eyes will hopefully recognize the relationship between place and history that I attempted to discuss.  More than that, though, it is the place and setting of our interviews with people that comes through.  I recall interviewing Norman Whipple, former chairman of the Round Valley Reservation.  We sat in green and white lawn chairs outside his house.  And, during the interview, he raised his arm and gestured to the mountains and related how in the 1960s the state of California wanted to build a dam that would have flooded the Valley and Reservation.  As looked up at those mountains, about two thousand feet above us, I could almost feel the weight of the water that would have been on top of us had not Norm and other Round Valley leaders fought so hard to protect the reservation. As always, it is one thing to read about historical events in primary sources; tucked away in an archive.  It is another, as well as know, to discuss those events with the people who participated in them, in the places that they occurred.

Thank you again for this honor.  I am deeply grateful to everyone for this recognition.  I hope that we can all get together and celebrate at next year’s SOHA conference.  Thank you!

Dear SOHA 2020 virtual conference participant,

Thank you for being part of the Southwest Oral History Association 2020 virtual conference and helping to make it a tremendous success. Everyone’s consistent participation and engagement helped to ensure that even though we were meeting virtually from mutually distant locations. This conference was characterized by the same sort of supportive and genuinely collegial atmosphere that SOHA has always enjoyed in our in-person conferences.

We would like to thank all of the remarkable presenters who led the panels, roundtables, and workshops. We appreciate our honored guests who spoke or presented in our plenary sessions and everyone who attended and supported the presentations. Congratulations to the 2020 awardees! Please complete this survey and share your experience with us. We will select one person for a free annual membership for your response. We also hope you’ll consider sharing your #SOHA2020 experience with our community by submitting a fall newsletter article. Submissions are typically 100-250 words with photos and captions. Submissions are due Friday, September 25, 2020 to soha@unlv.edu.

SOHA offered the conference at no-cost/donation basis to students and members with a nominal cost to non-members. Because donations help sustain our 501c3 non-profit, we hope you will consider renewing/joining our membership or donating directly to our programs: bit.ly/supportSOHA.

In spring 2021, we will hold a one day symposium instead of a traditional conference to celebrate the 40th anniversary of SOHA. More information will soon be forthcoming. Moreover, we are currently planning ahead for an in-person meeting in mid-to-late spring 2022 at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In the meantime, please keep your calendar open for several other virtual events in the coming year. We hope you can attend these upcoming events (see the attached flyers and RSVP links below):

Thursday, October 1st, 4pm Pacific Let’s Talk about Tech with SOHA President Jennifer Keil, Founder of 70 Degrees – What kinds of technology are you using to conduct remote interviews? What lessons have you learned? Be a part of the conversation!

Thursday, October 8^th, 5:00-7:30 Pacific Time – a virtual screening of documentary filmmaker Joseph Juhn‘s Jeronimo: the Untold Story of Koreans in Cuba

Friday, October 23, 1-2:30pm Pacific Time – a workshop with SOHA 2nd Vice President Dr. Summer Cherland, titled “The Craft of Doing Oral History“

Thursday, November 5th, 4pm Pacific
COVID19 Collections with SOHA 1^st Vice President Dr. Farina King – Are you doing work on COVID19? Call in for a conversation about launching and analyzing COVID19 stories. Please bring your own ideas to share with all of us.

Again, thank you for helping to make our 2020 virtual conference so successful. We hope you will continue to participate in the great things we are currently planning.

Two of the sessions were recorded and are now available on the SOHA YouTube channel: Nevada Native Artists Speak (featuring Jack Malotte and Jean LaMarr, moderated by Fawn Douglas); and the Digging Deep and Branching Out roundtable (featuring Iesha Jackson, Doris L. Watson, Claytee White, and Marcia Gallo). Please check them out and share the links with anyone who might be interested.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Keil, SOHA President

Farina King and Ryan Morini, 2020 conference program co-chairs

Southwest Oral History Association Office

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

4505 S. Maryland Parkway Box 455020

Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-5020
702-895-5011 | soha@unlv.edu

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