Hear, Here: The Challenges of Democratizing Historical Narratives
In 2015 my students and I launched a 5 year audio-documentary project titled Hear, Here: Voices of Downtown La Crosse, WI. This is a placemaking project that, in part, seeks to put the stories of historically underrepresented and marginalized groups onto the streets for a public airing (homeless, LGBTQ, Hmong, Ho Chunk, African American.) Each story has a sign with a toll-free number on it in a downtown location. When people call the number they hear the story in the exact location where it happened. Once the story is heard listeners have the option to stay on the line and leave their own story about that location or another around downtown. In this way the project becomes user-generated and has a variety of perspectives. While many community members have been excited about this project and welcomed it, others have found some of the stories objectionable. These stories appear to challenge the exclusive White past that is strongly represented in the history of La Crosse.
Interacting with non-profit organizations, politicians, business owners, and patrons of the downtown as part of the Hear, Here project taught us four things. First, history is not necessarily celebratory and our heritage is complicated and nuanced. New forms of history include more voices which means acknowledging more aspects of our past and present and taking into consideration the narratives of both the winners and the losers. Secondly, history is not something that happened only in the past, but affects current conditions and decision making processes. To ignore the past leads to a presentist attitude that overlooks important aspects of our community or disregards things that should be discussed. Thirdly, public history can start a public conversation about where the city has been, where it is now, and it can help to moderate discussions about the ideal city. By putting stories onto the streets Hear, Here reinvigorates the idea that the public sphere is a place where people come together for discussions and debates. This debate can identify societal problems and create political action. Fourthly, the work of Hear, Here has shown that racism continues to exist in our community.
The inclusion of stories from historically underrepresented groups was an important aspect of the project from the beginning. The Hear, Here team, of students, professors, and community members, believes that simply saying that we will include all people in our project is not enough. We invited marginalized groups to share their stories. We called on prominent members of the Ho Chunk, Hmong, homeless, and African American communities to suggest narrators that had important stories to share. We reassured them that any story would be welcome (including those that could be viewed as reflecting negatively on the community at large) and that these stories could be told in any fashion they wished (jokingly, angrily, academically) as long as they were stories of personal experience. We also encouraged potential narrators from historically underrepresented groups to share any interesting story, not only those that placed them as part of a Othered identity. Finally, we assured narrators that they could speak anonymously and that we would remove the story upon their personal request, but that we would defend any story that they believed important enough to include if it incurred pushback from other community members. These measures were enough to get an important first round of interviews into the project.
Since this time the Hear, Here team has continued to build connections with these groups more organically. We attend the Human Rights Commission meetings at the City, and the public listening sessions for minority groups that have come out of this organization. We attend talks and participate in working groups sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Student Services and Campus Climate, and we have made connections with the Salvation Army and warming centers in the community. We invite narrators from marginalized groups to participate in media around this project so that their voices are heard at a national level and so that they are representing themselves rather than the project representing them. Although Hear, Here also has many stories from the point of view of non-marginalized peoples, we constantly and consistently highlight the stories that would make the most impact on our community, encouraging everyone who interacts with the project to think about foundational principles of equity, inclusion and accessibility.
The executive committee of Hear, Here grappled with best practices in how to collaborate with various stake holders in the city and various community organizations while still supporting historically underrepresented groups. Initially this was done by letting stakeholders know, before the launch of the project, that some of the stories were critical of the community at large, but that this was an important element of the project that should not be censored or silenced. We had a reviewer come to assess the project soon after its launch who suggested it was best practice for a city like La Crosse to deal with their racial inequity rather than curtailing stories about injustices. I wrote an editorial in the local paper about the importance of oral history and social history in helping to create a more inclusive understanding of our community. Since the project launch, as Executive Director I have fielded inquiries, complaints, and criticisms of the inclusive aspect of the project. We make it clear as we develop Hear, Here projects for other neighborhoods and communities that the stories of historically underrepresented peoples are a key aspect of the work being done and that this is not a celebratory history but a social history of a community. In the future all Calls for Stories will include examples of stories from marginalized people.
Paul Thompson claims that “oral history has radical implications for the social message of history as a whole.” Thinking about orality in the Hear, Here project we might ask ourselves how can history change society? The lessons of Hear, Here show we can have radical impacts on students working with history by teaching a fundamental concept of oral history—the importance of listening to all voices—and showing students a method of practicing critical public history to challenge the status quo. When brought to the streets, oral history has the potential to shift the public’s perception of the purpose of history away from celebratory heritage. It can shift toward an understanding that acknowledging our past, good and bad, should be part of our present. Finally, the social message of history can have long-lasting implications by facilitating difficult but necessary discussions about how we want to act presently to address the injustices of the past.
~ Ariel Beaujot, University of Wisconsin La Crosse
This is an exciting project and I applaud your efforts to include the histories of underrepresented groups. I would, however, like to discuss how to move the needle further by moving away from asking “prominent” community members for “important” stories whose impact we determine. If we’re sharing authority with our publics should they be included in deciding what stories, or messages, are valued? This would also shift the analysis from a dominant view of wins and losses to a more equitable narrative.
This is an interesting placemaking project, and I admire its many levels of participation. I also wonder if interviewees have the power to make decisions in the project’s agenda? I like the idea of using students to teach participatory methods and to sustain a project. Regarding the students involved, what are some ways you have trained them to motivate the collection of under-represented voices? And for other participants, have you used students in your projects, and what works/doesn’t work?
A fascinating project that shows the great potential of Public History to impact present day communities by exploring their past. I’m most curious about the responses you mention that came from the community. What were the nature and scope of the criticisms? What did you find were the best ways to respond to complaints or potentially turn them into points of discussion? As historians, how can we anticipate these points of friction/ resistance and plan to use them to further our project’s goals and message?
The idea of promoting and sharing a history that is critical of the dominant community is one that I wish our university community would embrace. The Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) displaced a thriving African American (AFAM) community in the name of progress. The rich cultural landscape has been all but erased save for a few buildings, which are always fighting to hang on. Unfortunately, the university does not acknowledge an or make this important historical narrative part of it’s narrative. This has of course caused tension. Currently, our campus is launching a “Welcoming Campus Initiative” and as part of this the campus is seeking ways to become to cultural differences and the local community. At a planning meeting, I suggested this was the perfect time to celebrate and incorporate the cultural legacy of the AFAM community that once existed where the university stands. To which I received two types of responses, “how could that history be considered welcoming when it was critical of the campus and does not have a happy ending” and “oh yes that’s true, we should really think about.” All this to say, finding ways to celebrate and memorialize history that is both good and bad are important to solving the problem of exclusivity.
Leondra and Minju raise the issue of how best to include community members’ input with regards to project planning and dissemination. For better or worse these projects usually start from a place of power outside of the community. Before the projects even begin there is already imbalance of power in the approach. To think of it another way – what if marginalized groups could reach out to heritage organizations or heritage researchers (broadly stated) to initiate these projects. What would that look like? How might that reality become a possibility?
Lastly, I’d like invite Ariel and anyone else who would be interested in submitting a proposal for a chapter in a volume related to community participation in local heritage. The call for proposals can be found here: http://www.roued.com/cfp-edited-volume-on-participation-in-local-heritage-preservation/. I think the Hear, Here project would be a wonderful contribution.
Looking over the Hear Hear project, I appreciate its social justice goals and the ways in which this case statement has made transparent how social justice goals inform the product and process of a public history project. With that being said, the case statement leaves a number of questions unanswered ( which is understandable given the time and format). I’m curious to know how active community members were in developing this project- what was their role on the team? How did the project keep its momentum going year after year? Throughout the statement “we” is used often. I’m wondering who that “we” is- students? Community members on the steering committee? Executive director? How did the project delegate responsibility among its various team members? Finally, while I’m heartened by the conclusions that history can “have radical impacts on students” and “potential to shift public perception of the purpose of history” – I’m wondering how those impacts were assessed? Hear, Hear is really such a wonderful project and I’m looking forward to exploring its many facets during our conversations in March.
As for me, I appreciate that the “Hear, Here” project treats the present, or very recent times, as historically dynamic. Too often, especially in dealing with students, we treat history as producing a neat set of outcomes. This kind of community history will trouble the boundaries between past and present in a very helpful way.