Interviews
For our annual Spring Conference, the volunteers interview a person they know, or grew close to over their stay in the States - the volunteers choose a subject that they'll focus on in their interview and present their findings in writing, recording or on film. Below we've uploaded reports of the interviews in writing, from our Spring Conference in 2010, Washington, DC.
Andy Truong, volunteer at Clinton Housing, NY
"You know, the reason I burned down the house was, because it had bed bugs."
-"How old were you?"
"Twelve. And it worked. They (the insurance company) rebuilt the house and the bed bugs were gone", says P. Harris with a funny tone.
Fabian Paehr, Volunteer at Project EZRA, NY
Terry N. is 85 years is old. Today, she lives in a comfortable apartment close to the financial district in downtown New York,. She loves to chat with people and handles her past with an open mind. During one of our regular meetings I carefully stated my plan to talk about religion - which is obviously a sensitive subject - and I wondered how she would react. And to my amazement she started with her whole eventful biography.
Anne Joost, volunteer at the JCC Manhattan, NY
But how and where to? It was going to be a tough journey with a lot of detours. The first step was to get the passports, rather easy for Paul as he hadn't lived in Vienna and was therefore able to get one at the county seat. But Ann had to get hers in Vienna which meant hours of waiting and in hers was already the "J" for "Jew" printed.
Frederik Franz, DOROT, NY
I couldn't go to the swimming pool anymore because they wouldn't allow Jews to go there. And then there were other events that we couldn't attend anymore, stores wouldn't sell to us and things just got worse. I didn't really understand what was going on and nobody bothered to explain it to me because children just naturally were told less at that time.
Sara Tombergs, volunteer at Christus Lutheran Academy, Camden, NJ
Before coming to live in the city and work at Christus, I heard all sorts of things about Camden. I heard about the high poverty levels. I heard about its claim to fame as "The Most Dangerous City in the Nation". I heard about the injustice of the education system and other systems. But all of these were abstract ideas to me. I didn't know the city, I didn't know the school, and I didn't know the people. Camden is much better and much worse than I expected.
Daniel Fromme, volunteer at NPIHN, Philadelphia, PA
"I didn't really experienced racism in school, I really didn't know that I was like different, you know, so all my friends were white and like ...even like the guys I had crushes on they were all white and things like that. But I think where I experienced a lot more racism was in my neighborhood, it's very mixed income and it didn't used to be such an expensive area before all the business came in and ... you know...they made it look really nice now ...so because I lived near government housing too they were a lot of...it is predominantly African American and Chinese. I think because a lot of the African American children they got made fun of a lot you know like there is a lot of racism. They made fun of me a lot because I was much smaller then they were. So whenever I went to the park and stuff I remember they were a lot of them who used to go up to me and be like "'ching chang chong chong'...what did I just say?". I was ... I had a big mouth, which really wasn't that smart because I would say something like "well this is what you said, you said 'ching chang chong chong'..."
