Family History

Disclaimer: 

Please note: this session was from our 2016 Conference and is presented here for archival purposes only.

Oct 28, 2016 | 2:50 PM - 4:50 PM | LOFT 2

Mr. James Dyer, ABD (Ph.D. in August, 2016)

'My father, the hero!' The Challenges of Oral Historians whose Sources Refashion their Personal Histories Out of Family Loyalty

This study explores and documents a tendency among close-knit Mexican-American populations who, during oral history interviews, alter and whitewash the histories of their families, despite the presence of material evidence – letters, photographs and other archival records – that paint a completely different portrait of their ancestors. The study examines the difficulties in approaching such historical revisionism for researchers who are oral historians, journalists, or both, since methods of rectifying such inconsistencies significantly vary between the qualitative research methodology in both fields. Finally, the study explores the advantages and disadvantages of presenting inconsistencies without insulting, embarrassing or potentially losing sources, while simultaneously uncovering why and for how long such facts were distorted and whether they completely replaced the original event in the collective minds of the sources/community.

Ms. Johanna Lewis, MA (in progress)

Inherited Nostalgia: Colonial revisionism and intergenerational meaning-making

The memories that reverberate across generations and through familial relationships inform our sense of selves and are therefore often challenging to critically unpack. Depending on the nature of those inheritances, however, careful reevaluation of the stories that run deep within us may be an (intellectually, politically, personally) important task. My great-grandparents spent decades working and raising their children in British India, and traces of this time – romantic stories, empire habits, material reminders – live on in me/us.

While my micro-historical analysis of their lives has contributed to situated understandings of colonialism as a lived and practiced process, I have been particularly struck by the power of story – those we tell and those we don’t. My family’s retellings of the Raj reflect and contribute to a genre of nostalgic revisionism that is also dominating the (particularly British) public imaginary. I have tried to disrupt this pattern – not by denying my ancestors’ experiential truths but by honestly contextualizing golden childhood memories within violent structures of race and empire. Thinking back to what I’ve inherited from my family of origin and thinking forward to the stories that I will pass on to my own child, I am trying to make meaning from these past entanglements and their ongoing legacies, cultivating empathetic and relational approaches to my ancestors without sacrificing anti-colonial critique. I believe that, in order to build more accountable relationships with the past and the stories that we tell about it, we must challenge self-serving imperial myths in “intimate” spheres as well as the interconnected “public” ones.

Ms. Pragya Kaul, MA (Hons)

Jewish refugees and India: Testimonies from family photographs

In a family album donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by William Weeg, one photograph captured sometime between 1941 and 1947 stands out – a young William Weeg stands next to a nameless “Indian servant, in front of a black car that is mostly obscured by their forms. While William wears a broad smile, the servant looks uninterested. William Weeg was one among approximately 1700 European Jews who emigrated to India to escape Nazi Germany and the Second World War. The story of these émigrés, and of India as a destination for European Jews, has been little researched by scholars.

This paper contributes to filling that gap, by using photographs such as the one outlined above as testimony that allows one to build narratives of the Jewish émigré experience in India. Additionally, the photographs in their testimonial capacity are used to build counter-narratives that expand our understanding of the lives of Jewish refugees, problematizing the image of the poor refugee, dependent on state support or hard manual labour for their livelihood in a foreign land. Used alongside oral testimony, the paper shows that Jewish refugees more often than not able to lead comfortable lives in India, as expected of a white man in a colonial space. However, in a largely colonial space they still failed to be a part of the white colonial class that the colour of their skin presupposed.

The study contributes not only to an under-researched area of Holocaust studies, but also adds to the growing scholarship on the global dimensions of the Second World War and the Holocaust.

Biographies

James Dyer

I have worked as a professor of multimedia journalism, oral history, Spanish language and Literature and International Studies during the past 13 years at several colleges and universities in the Midwest. I am currently the Assistant Professor and Department Chair of Journalism at Knox College. I have been published as a journalist in the Chicago Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Detroit News and the Des Moines Register and have been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize four times. I have attended conferences to present papers on various topics including, new media,  journalism, Spanish literature and oral history.

Johanna Lewis

Johanna Lewis is currently finishing her MA in Interdisciplinary Studies at York University, and is due to begin a PhD in History in the fall. Her current areas of interest include colonial history and historiography; decolonizing frameworks; gender, race, and intersectional feminist thought; memory, family, and intergenerational legacies; affect and relationality; and critical methodologies. She also has research experience in community-based research with women living with HIV. Johanna is the busy parent of a feisty toddler.

Pragya Kaul

Pragya Kaul is a graduate student at the University of Toronto, obtaining a master's degree in History. Before coming to Toronto, she obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Edinburgh. Her research primarily looks at the connections between Europe and India during the Third Reich, and the global dimensions of the Second World War and the Holocaust. She utilises a wide variety of available sources, ranging from government documents to family photographs, to build a comprehensive understanding of the experiences of Jewish refugees.