While discussing about archives and testimonies in my Arts Studies class, I remembered a website titled StoryCorps that was introduced to me by my speech teacher back in high school. It is an online oral archive produced by a U.S governmental nonprofit organization and boasts “more than 45,000 interviews with nearly 90,000 participants” (About Us) in 10 years. But the uniqueness to this site is that it is advertised that “every life matters” (About Us). In other words, a story about how two marine corporals struggled to readapt to their lifestyle in the US is just as significant and valued at this archive as how a man and woman around their 50s met and married.
So why archive these very personal stories? Although some of the archived materials might not have meaning to us individually, these records appearing collectively help to “create an invaluable archive of American voices and wisdom for future generations” (About Us) and a greater American Identity. And for the participants, these acts of testimony might be what Naomi Angel refers to in “Before Truth: The Labors of Testimony and the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission”, an testimonial power on the “intimate terrain”(205). At first glance, StoryCorps seems to be as neutral as they come as it seemingly destroys the idea of “silencing” that is a prominent and often unavoidable feature in archives. It contains such un-framable stories with variety. However, although taken out of the reconciliation context, Gillian Whitlock in “Soft Weapons: Autobiography in Transit” argues that “the management of testimony is almost always strategic and in the national interest” (78) and StoryCorps perhaps is no exception. When looking at the StoryCorps Topics page, the some of the most advertised stories are of Military, 911, Identity, and so forth. Intendedly or unintendedly, StoryCorps have inevitably managed to silence many of the stories that do not conform to these categories like the stories of Aboriginal descents (with only 5 stories featured on the “En Espanol” topic).
Here, we are able to identify an obvious irony in the archives as a storage of testimony. The more open and neutral the archive promotes itself, the more diverse the stories within become. The more diverse the stories become, the more stories become non-conforming to particular categories and thus, many are left out. And unfortunately, this promotion of neutrality lowers the audience’s awareness to, as Rodney Carter refers to in “Of Things Said and Unsaid: Archival Silences, and Power in Silence”, “read against the grain” (224). When caught between the identity of an individual and a collective, it is unavoidable that not all personal identities are reflected in the collective identity. Thus, I believe this “unconformity” is a beauty and a critical feature of an American Identity that should somehow be more advertised in sites such as StoryCorps as it has introduced the public to the value of personal stories and as it pursues its mission of “provide[ing] people of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives” (About Us).
Your claim that American “unconformity” should be advertised to a wider audience is one that I definitely agree with. Although it is certain that the USA is full of people of different ethnicities, backgrounds, and especially stories, many of them may not pertain to the typical “American” standard. As you point out, there are a lot of interviews on StoryCorps that focus on the military- a great American force of pride- yet only five interviews total are in Spanish, despite the astounding number of Latin American and Hispanic people living in the US. Bringing attention to the stories of these people that do not necessarily fit the “American” norm would indeed definitely create a more well-rounded and accurate “archive of American voices.”