Oral History Commons^™

Interview No. 1832, Alma Peña

Combined Interviews

Summary to be posted soon.

Interview No. 1837, Guadalupe Luna

Combined Interviews

Guadalupe Luna shares about growing up in the Guardian Angel area of South El Paso.

This area has always been a close-knit community, based on family, religion, and culture. Luna went to the Guardian Angel Catholic School from pre-K to 8th grade and participated in many of the Catholic traditions and customs that were part of this community. Luna talked about many of the stores and businesses that were part of her everyday life and helped to develop a sense of community among neighbours through Nava’s grocery store, attending church bazaars, and enjoying dining at the many restaurants and recreational …

Interview No. 1841, Rubén Casas

Combined Interviews

This interview with El Pasoan Rubén Casas reflects on his childhood both in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, as well as his experiences growing up in Segundo Barrio. Casas describes his early life in Juárez as centered around family, where relatives lived together on his grandmother’s property and spent time together daily. In 1959, when he was around ten or eleven years old, his family moved to El Paso after his mother wanted a different life for the family. The transition was difficult because he struggled to adapt to a new culture, environment, and language. Despite the challenges, he gradually …

Mark Stevens, Mark Stevens

St. Mary's University School of Law

Mark Stevens discusses his time as a law student at St. Mary’s University School of Law as well as his early legal career as a criminal defense attorney. He explains how he helped create the Criminal Justice Clinic and details memorable cases from his time as a supervising attorney there. Mark also discusses his teaching philosophy and how the clinic works with the community.

Interview No. 1836, Charlene Carrasco

Combined Interviews

Charlene Carrasco details her childhood growing up in Segundo Barrio, El Paso, Texas. Carrasco spent most of her childhood in an adobe house her grandfather built close to St. Ignatius Church. Like many in the community, Carrasco experienced poverty and dangerous environments. Those who lived in the community during this time all experienced constant shootings, stabbings, and exposure to gang violence. Carrasco recalls living constantly aware of her surroundings with her family, even practicing safety measures during drive-bys. Carrasco states that as everyone in the community was in the same position, there was a strong sense of community as neighbors …

A History Of Dance At The University Of South Carolina: Celebrating A 50-Year Legacy, Olivia Sherman

Senior Theses

Since its founding in 1976, the University of South Carolina’s Dance Program has developed from a small performance initiative into one of the nation’s leading collegiate dance programs. Despite its artistic achievements and community engagement, little scholarly work has traced the program’s evolution or its impact at USC and the broader South Carolina arts community. Existing documentation is largely preserved in departmental archival materials, most notably the Betsy Blackmon Dance Program Archival Binders, which compile decades of newspaper articles, programs, press releases, and commentary that chronicle the program’s first fifty years. This project investigates how the program has evolved in …

Oral History Of Ronald Lykins Conducted By Mallory Lough On March 12, 2026, Ronald Lykins, Mallory Lough

HIST 4798/5798: Recording Memory: Methods and Uses of Oral History

Ronald Lykins is a former professor within the College of Business at Ohio University. Raised in rural Adams County, Ohio, in a family facing significant economic hardships, Lykins grew up in a household with no running water or electricity. These early experiences shaped his work ethic, along with giving him a deep appreciation for helping others and granting opportunities. Ron enrolled at Ohio University as a first generation student, graduating with his MBA in 1967 and his PhD in 1971. Following his graduation, Ron developed a career in accounting and financial services, eventually founding his own accounting firm in 1969. …

Changing Mercy In Aotearoa New Zealand, Anna Nicholls Victoria University Of Wellington

Journal of Global Catholicism

This paper examines the evolving expression of Catholicity within the Mercy organization in Aotearoa New Zealand. It explores the impact of Vatican II, demographic shifts, and societal changes. Through interviews with lay leaders in Whānau Mercy Ministries, the religiosity, inclusive approach, and the tension between traditional Catholic identity and pluralism in the organization are explored. A pertinent discussion concerns how the organization uses a more secular portrayal of Catherine McAuley as a unifying figure for the religiously diverse audience. The author argues that while secularization influences the organization, it fosters human flourishing and community engagement, offering opportunities for growth rather …

The Untameability Of The Sacred: Votive Traditions At Notre Dame De Lourdes And El Santuario De Chimayó, Gabrielle Bibeau

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article compares divergent votive practices at Notre Dame de Lourdes in France and El Santuario de Chimayó in New Mexico. Lourdes’ embrace of modern aesthetic values—simplicity, order, and functional clarity—has led to the removal and tight regulation of most ex-votos. By contrast, Chimayó’s roots in Latin American Baroque aesthetics, with its emphasis on abundance, drama, and hybridity, create space for a vibrant proliferation of offerings. Drawing on Jacques Rancière’s theory of aesthetics and politics as the “distribution of the sensible,” the article shows how aesthetic judgments intertwine with clerical power to curate, constrain, and authorize pilgrims’ access to the …

Interview No. 1838, Victor J. Perches

Combined Interviews

Victor J. Perches recounts his childhood in South El Paso, along with his attendance at Douglass Elementary, Guillen Middle School, and Bowie High School in the 1970s and 1980s. According to Victor, Douglas Elementary was a very safe and supportive place. The teachers provided support for students who had difficulty succeeding due to economic problems in the neighborhood . He recalls there were meals, activities, and other events available to students who lived in Salazar Housing Project, making them less likely to join gangs due to being occupied. Perches talked candidly about the social situation in his area, poverty, gang …

Interview No. 1840, Norma Flores

Combined Interviews

This interview with El Pasoan Norma Flores reflects on her childhood growing up in Segundo Barrio and the strong family and community ties that shaped her life. Born in 1949 at Newark Methodist Maternity Hospital in South El Paso, she described growing up primarily with her grandmother on Grama St while her parents and siblings lived nearby on Frutas St. Norma shared vivid memories of her neighborhood life, including children playing outside together, helping with household chores and walking to school at Guardian Angel Catholic School. She recalled both joyful and difficult moments, such as spending summers outdoors with family …

Interview No. 1823, Sylvia Torresdey

Combined Interviews

Sylvia Torresdey (Sylvia Chavira), born in 1955 at El Paso’s Hospital Dieu, grew up as one of six sisters in a family that maintained a vibrant transnational life. While her parents, Juanita Payán and Don Nasiano Chavira, established a residence in El Segundo Barrio to ensure their daughters could attend school in El Paso, the family maintained a home in Juárez’s Colonia del Carmen. Torresdey describes a childhood of constant movement across the border, crossing the bridge daily or weekly to bathe, collect clothes, and share weekend meals with her parents in Juárez. This bilingual upbringing involved speaking Spanish at …

Austrian Again Book Talk, Cardozo Law Institute In Holocaust And Human Rights (Clihhr)

2025–2026 Flyers

The Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights hosted a special book talk featuring author Anne Hand, discussing her memoir Austrian Again. In her book, Hand explores her journey to uncover her family’s hidden history during the Holocaust while pursuing Austrian citizenship, tracing her Austrian and Czechoslovakian roots through personal stories and historical records.

The program also featured Evelyn Konrad, Cardozo alumna and Holocaust survivor, who joined the conversation and shared her personal reflections. Moderated by Konrad, the event examined themes of identity, migration, heritage, and historical memory.

Charity Simone, Mark Naison, Anthony Abd-Al Shafi Rosado

Oral Histories

Simone’s path to leadership was inspired by her late mentor, Charles Foster, who encouraged her to be an active voice in their community. After seeing issues with building maintenance and a lack of clear communication, Simone ran for office and was elected Treasurer of her Building Association in 2023. Through this role, she noticed that community work is complex and needs navigating different opinions, yet the experience ultimately reinforced her belief that community is a “verb.” To her, it is an intentional, ongoing action that requires showing up every day to hold the system accountable.

A significant aspect of Simone's …

Parallel Concepts Found In The Thousand And One Nights And Sufi Hagiography, Walaa Kamal Emam Kamel

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that The Thousand and One Nights functions as more than mere populist entertainment; rather, it constitutes a literary corpus imbued with Sufi mystical epistemologies that reflect the spiritual quests and Sufi concepts evident in hagiographical traditions. Through discourse and intertextual analysis of two Nights stories, “The City of Brass” and “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” alongside Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār’s Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ, this study demonstrates how shared rhetorical strategies—specifically David Pinault’s Leitwörter analysis and L.A. Paul’s Transformative Experience concept—reveal a narrative and rhetorical emphasis on the metamorphosis of the self from worldly attachment toward …

Groove Goes The Distance: An Initial Inquiry Into Jazz Music In Egypt, Farida Gohar

Theses and Dissertations

Jazz music has been a historically contentious site of social, cultural, and political signification. From the violent subjugation that characterized its origins and aspirational freedom that animated its practice, to its transformation into a distinctly “American” music instrumentalized by the US State Department to counter Soviet influence, jazz’s capacity for the inscription of meaning is vast and regularly cause for debate. The particular configuration of jazz music in Egypt is no less complicated although seldom studied. This thesis ventures an initial mapping of the dynamics and negotiations that historically defined the initiation of “Egyptian” jazz, as well as the ones …

News Briefs, Marvin H. Jeter Iii, Joyce Shaw

Mississippi Libraries

News updates from Gunter Library at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory and from the Mississippi Library Commission.

A Crown In Death: An (Expanded) Dramaturgical Approach To The Trojan Women Of Euripides, Stephanie Lester

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

In the action-packed, visually-oriented market for modern media, some may assume a 2,400-year-old Greek tragedy to be slightly past its expiration date, especially if it features little to no action onstage like in Euripides’ The Trojan Women. However, it is important to remember that literature is lost when the world fails to cherish it, so if a text survives that long, it may be worth another cursory glance. In this case, that glance involved a full dramaturgical study featuring qualitative script analysis of multiple translations of The Trojan Women with related texts to explore context, themes, common literary devices, and …

No Tech For Apartheid Memory: Oral Histories Of Google Worker Organizing, Zelda Montes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The NOTA Google NYC Digital Memory Archive is a digital memory project centering the worker narrative in tech labor struggles in the wake of the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Rooted in my dual experiences as a Google Software Engineer and a No Tech for Apartheid organizer, this capstone project, initially created in 2024, seeks to combat the silencing around the nature of labor organizing through expanding upon the existing archive to incorporate oral history testimonies of NOTA organizers (notechforapartheidmemory.com/interviews). After conducting 4 oral history interviews with former Google workers currently based in NYC, the videos were …

An Introduction To Oral Traditions And Poetry Of The Baloches, Emran Dorrazehi

English Dissertations - Archive

There is not much known about the history and literature of the Baloches besides the translation and transliteration of Mansel Longworth Dames. Dames while serving as an official in the region wrote a book, Popular Poetry of the Baloches (1907) in two volumes. Dames translated a series of oral poetry of his subjects. This dissertation utilized 13 poems from Dames’ transliterations and employed a compensatory, creative and restorative translation to recreate their earlier states.  It is the assertion of this dissertation that the poems given to Dames by minstrels were already heavily censored to reflect Islamic, Mongol and Mughal identities. …