This oral history interview is an intimate conversation between two people, both of whom have generously agreed to share this recording with Oral History Summer School, and with you. Please listen in the spirit with which this was shared.
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This oral history interview was conducted with Ayaka Suesada at Solaris in Hudson, New York on June 16, 2015. Eleven year old Ayaka Sueseda, born in Hudson to parents of Japanese ancestry, provides an account of growing up in Hudson. Daughter of the founder of Triform, a program where young adults with mixed abilities live with families. Ayaka provides insights into the joys and challenges of her home. Proud of being an American and of her Japanese ancestry, Ayaka describes how she appreciates the best of both worlds.
This interview will be of interest to anyone who wants to know about the Hudson, NY and about community integration through the eyes of an 11 year old.
Born in Rochester, New York, I am a first generation Asian American civil rights attorney and community advocate with six minor nieces and nephews. I teach adjunct at Columbia University and New York University. Now, in my mid-fifties, I am documenting, through writing, more of my work and personal experiences of myself and others who share similar health issues. Oral History Summer School taught me the basics on how to capture the first hand accounts of people's life histories, newly acquired skills I will apply to collecting stories of Asian American women living with breast cancer.
Oral history is an iterative process. In keeping with oral history values of anti-fixity, interviewees will have an opportunity to add, annotate and reflect upon their lives and interviews in perpetuity. Talking back to the archive is a form of “shared authority.”