THE DIGITAL STORY:

GIVING VOICE TO THE UNHEARD IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

A REPORT OF THE COMMUNITY VOICE PROJECT

APRIL 2018

NINA SHAPIRO-PERL, PHD WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY BRIGID MAHER, AMBERLY ALENE ELLIS, AND MAREK CABRERA ABOUT THE PROJECT

The Digital Story: Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C.

In 2008, with the support of the American University School of Communication, the AU Anthropology Department, and the Surdna Foundation, American University began a community storytelling initiative, the Community Voice Project (CVP). Under the leadership of SOC Dean Emeritus Larry Kirkman, Professors Nina Shapiro-Perl and Angie Chuang set out to capture stories of the unseen and unheard Washington, D.C., through filmmaking and reporting, while helping a new generation of social documentarians through a training process.

Over the past decade, the Community Voice Project, directed by AU School of Communication Filmmaker-in-Residence Nina Shapiro-Perl, has produced more than 80 films and digital stories. These stories, created in collaboration with over 25 community organizations, have brought the voice and visibility of underserved groups to the public while providing students and community members with transformative and practical experiences.

About the Center for Media & Social Impact

The Center for Media & Social Impact (CMSI) at American University’s School of Communication, based in Washington, D.C., is a research center and innovation lab that creates, studies and showcases media for social impact. Focusing on independent, documentary, entertainment and public media, CMSI bridges boundaries between scholars, producers and communication practitioners who work across media production, media impact, public policy and audience engagement. The Center produces resources for the field and research, convenes conferences and events and works collaboratively to understand and design media that matter. www.cmsimpact.org.

The Digital Story: 2 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Nina Shapiro-Perl Nina Shapiro-Perl is a filmmaker, anthropologist and teacher who for 35 years has been documenting the lives of working people across the US. From 2008-2017, she served as Filmmaker in Residence at American University teaching documentary film and digital storytelling and founding the Community Voice Project (http://cmsimpact.org/ community-voice- project/) which produced over 80 films for 25 non- profit organizations in Greater Washington. Before joining the faculty at American University, she worked for twenty years directing the Video Services Department and Greenhouse Cultural Program for the Service Employees International Union. Nina earned her doctorate from the University of Connecticut as a social anthropologist. Her first job outside academia was as a writer and producer at Maryland Public Television. More recently, her film Through the Eye of the Needle, documents the art and story of Holocaust survivor and artist Esther Nisenthal Krinitz http://artandremembrance.org/our-work/ film/ winning numerous awards. Her latest film, Landscape of Power: Freedom and Slavery in the Great Dismal Swamp carries to the public a story of agency, resistance and resilience among escaped slaves living in swamp communities for more than 200 years https://vimeo. com/134317981. After living on the East Coast all her life, Nina recently moved to the Bay Area to be near her children and grandchildren and continue film and digital storytelling work. She has since joined the board of StoryCenter, https://www.storycenter.org, formerly the Center for Digital Storytelling.

The Digital Story: 3 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. TABLE OF CONTENTS Inspiration for the Community Voice Project 6 What is a Digital Story? 7 The Digital Storytelling Landscape 8 The Impact of Digital Storytelling 9 The Community Voice Project 9 The Method and Impact of the Community Voice Project 10 Conclusion 13 References 14 Appendix 15 Interviews with Community Voice Project Storytellers

This white paper is adapted from a chapter entitled "The Digital Story: Giving Voice to Unheard Washington" in Deep Stories: Practicing, Teaching, and Learning Anthropology with Digital Storytelling, eds. Nuñez-Janes, Mariela / Thornburg, Aaron / Booker, Angela, De Gruyter Open Warsaw, Poland, March 2017 ISBN 978-3-11-053935-6 ​ ​​ht​tps://www.degruyter.com/view/product/487656?rskey=xdmHGU&result=1 “In a world of uncertainty, insecurity, anonymity, and mean-spiritedness, our partner organizations create safe places where healing and connectedness become the norm rather than the exception. My students’ films provide these community organizations with new ways of communicating their work using media they might otherwise not afford, while providing students with documentary filmmaking experience in the real world. It’s a rich partnership in the truest sense of the word.”

– Nina Shapiro-Perl, Founder of Community Voice Project INSPIRATION FOR THE COMMUNITY VOICE PROJECT

In the introduction to his path-breaking book, Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community, Joe Lambert (2009) contextualizes the art of storytelling: All of the contemporary movements of change—from slow and local food movement… to yoga and meditation… to community arts and storywork in a million permutations… are all responses to globalization. The more we share the stress and strain of a corporate monoculture based on greed and accumulation, the more we want a gentle authenticity of experience. The more we search for authenticity, the more we turn our attention away from the siren call of bland uniformity, and we search for something individuated. And the way to hear those stories is not to change channels, or surf the machine-made media, but to listen to our own stories, our own hearts, and the stories of our rich local communities (p. xv). This has meant exploring larger social issues from an anthropological perspective and then particularizing the process through individual stories, both complex and nuanced. For filmmakers it has meant, for example, capturing the healthcare crisis and the routinization of care from the point of view of an ICU nurse—stretched to the point of exhaustion after a 12-hour shift, working short-handed. This may also mean understanding the story of immigration reform through the eyes of a janitor—separated from her children for 16 years, living through photographs, and messages on her answering machine. It has meant seeking out and telling stories that document the lived experience of people who are marginalized and dismissed, suffering and fighting back against the coarse rule of capitalism. These are stories, as Arlene Goldbard (2005) says, that support resistance, connection, and possibility. In this work, many documentary filmmakers follow the traditional methods of esearchingr a topic, finding subjects, recording in-depth interviews, capturing their daily lives on film, constructing a storyline, writing the treatment or script, editing and pacing the film, selecting the music, and telling the story, all through the subject’s own words and/or a narrator’s recorded or on-camera narration. As an alternative, the digital story uses a non-traditional methodology.

The Digital Story: 6 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. WHAT IS A DIGITAL STORY?

A digital story is a three- to five-minute video narrative, written and directed by a first-time filmmaker that combines one’s recorded voice, still and moving images, music, and other art into a short digital film. There is transformational potential in this evolving method of filmmaking—participatory filmmaking—where the subject of the film is actually the lead participant in the production. Where the power dynamic shifts from the traditional documentary model and, with the help of a trained practitioner, the subject tells his or her own story and learns digital storytelling skills in the process (Hill, 2008).

Traditional documentary filmmaking serves to privilege the role of the director to shape the story. Here, the director—either alone or collaborating with others—writes the treatment, conducts the interviews, forms the story arc, selects the locations to shoot, supervises the shooting, selects photographs or other archival materials, selects the interview segments to be used, oversees the editing, and oversees the music. Overall, the director shapes the look and feel of the film and, at its root, decides on the film’s intention and meaning. Most importantly, the director decides whose words or voices will be used to tell the story. The whole process can take several months to several years, depending on a host of factors and choices.

The digital story is a form of documentary filmmaking. But in the digital story, the storyteller shapes and tells the story. In place of high-tech cameras and months-long production, the subjects of the digital story craft their own deeply felt five-minute stories with simple photographs and images in a digital format that is highly flexible. These stories can be created in the space of an intense three-day workshop as developed by StoryCenter (formerly the Center for Digital Storytelling) (www. storycenter.org) or adapted in a series of workshops or classes stretched over days and weeks.

In a film classroom application of this method, students create their own digital stories over a four-week period and then assist community storytellers in creating their stories over the course of nine weeks. The method is the same for both students and community storytellers. Through a facilitated story circle, the participant is helped to “find” his or her story. With support, the community storytellers then write, visualize, and edit the 250-word story; a process that enables the subject to get to know their own story better. Through this, one comes to understand oneself better, while creating a tool that can be used with family, friends, community, and the wider social world to tell a story from one’s life in one’s own, authentic voice. The digital story is also a creative tool for public knowledge and action. It is a way for an audience to see and hear—in a short, powerful form and in their own words— from members of a community who are too often unseen and unheard. THE DIGITAL STORYTELLING LANDSCAPE

Within the larger digital/ participatory storytelling landscape, the Community Voice Project contributes to PHOTO a growing movement which seeks to transform traditional storytelling processes into a HERE means to involve and record the stories of marginalized communities. It most closely follows the method developed by the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, California. Since its inception, it has assisted over 20,000 Research and Service in practice in the United States. individuals and 1,000 Boston: This initiative uses It is dedicated to collecting, organizations worldwide, using professionals in the arts, sharing, and preserving the method of digital storytelling. education, research, and people’s stories and has (StoryCenter, 2017, www. service to train participants to recorded more than 60,000 storycenter.org). The Community become their own storytellers interviews among more Voice Project aligns itself with through a storytelling than 100,000 participants many other efforts that have technique called “Photovoice” across the United States. preceded it and followed it, such (CCHERS, 2017). Its award–winning work has as the Community Voice Method been archived in the Library introduced by Gabriel Cumming, •Photovoice is a community based participatory research of Congress and published PhD, and Carla Norwood PhD, in numerous books including in 2001. The Cumming and method that incorporates photography, writing, and social “Listening is an Act of Love” Norwood method has been (Isay, 2007). used to engage thousands action as a way for participants to of participants to embark on document their own experiences. • unseenamerica is another creating dialogue concerning By combining research, writing, initiative developed by Esther critical resource management and photographs, the student Cohen at 1199/SEIU’s Bread issues that are faced by their participants of the Community and Roses Cultural Project, communities. By combining Voices program are able to create where workers are trained stakeholder interviews, qualitative a final collective photo essay in photography and take analysis, film production, that will then be shared with the pictures and write short mapping, and deliberative public public. To aid in the process, pieces to explain the world meetings, they have transformed the participants of the program they see (Bread & Roses storytelling into an effective are taught by experts in health, Cultural Project, 2006). medium to confront real time photography, journalism, and Many other projects, too issues within communities. Other community advocacy (Wang, C., numerous to mention, have been similar participatory storytelling & Burris, 1997). developed to train community initiatives include: • StoryCorps, developed in members to tell their own • The Community Voices 2003 by David Isay may be stories. They reflect the growing program at the Center for perhaps the best-known movement to shift the story out Community Health Education participatory storytelling of the hands of professional

The Digital Story: 8 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. filmmakers, writers, and people with little or no experience, people— Washingtonians photographers and into the hands with minimal intervention by the of different neighborhoods, of the storytellers themselves. workshop facilitators. Digital backgrounds, and histories— stories are in general marked who tell their stories with by sincerity, warmth, and the assistance of American humanity…. And cultural studies University students. They have THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL researchers often don’t know been encouraged to think STORYTELLING what to say about them. This is about their lives and focus on a because for too long we have transformative event that they Digital storytelling at its best is a been interrupting the ordinary then sculpt into a digital story. The two-way process of connection voice, speaking instead of story circle is that place where the and transformation for both the listening (pp. 207-209). work begins. As discussed below, community storyteller and the To be sure, the traditional–style the story circle is the site where student/witness/collaborator. As documentary can shed light onto the process of breaking down a form of participatory filmmaking, people in the shadows or onto a the social barriers that divide us it provides the opportunity for problem that goes unnamed or starts, transforming the storyteller both parties to cross the social unnoticed. But, the participatory and the witness/facilitator alike. divides of class, race, ethnicity, approach to documentary neighborhood, age, gender, and storytelling does something sexual orientation, and meet each the traditional documentary The Community Voice other as people. does not: That is, it enables the Project subject to get to know his or The constraints of a five-minute her own story better, and tell it After 20 years as a filmmaker story encourage the storyteller to more succinctly. Through the for the Service Employees go deep, quickly, adding to the process of digital storytelling, International Union (SEIU), Nina story’s power. As Jean Burgess one’s story can become a Shapiro-Perl began teaching (2006), a researcher of cultural source of empowerment and documentary storytelling at participation in new media self-knowledge to share with a American University. She began contexts says: wider public, while the storyteller with a class of anthropology Economy is a core principle of develops skills in the process. and film students who worked this aesthetic. The philosophy It is a powerful tool to hear the in teams to create short behind this economy is that stories of community residents documentary–style films for formal constraints create the ideal whose voices have been silenced, non-profit organizations in the condition for the production of whose lives have been erased area. Through her work in the elegant, high-impact stories by from the mainstream. It is these labor movement and in her travels across the country over the course of two decades, Shapiro-Perl met scores of social justice activists working in nonprofits, essential to their communities, with little or no media to tell their organizations’ stories—and with no time, money, or expertise to produce the work. Her intention was to match this need with the film student’s perennial search for subject matter and the anthropology student’s yearning to have their research find a public audience. Shapiro Perl’s goal was to

The Digital Story: 9 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. take students beyond the noted how the dominant group would develop a digital storytelling comforts of classes in Northwest emphasized the perceived class taught by Shapiro-Perl. Washington, D.C. to the “the weakness of marginalized groups other Washington.” That is, to go as a way of stressing the alleged In the fall of 2010, 15 students beyond the ivory towers, beyond strength of those in positions of spent the first five weeks of the the monumental buildings of the power. The cultural “essences” semester creating their own nation’s capital, and, through seem immutable, as they have digital stories, learning first-hand filmmaking, explore instead been enhanced and embellished the method and the difficulty the parallel universe of people poetically and rhetorically for a of telling one’s own story. The struggling with poverty, degraded long time, even though the truths process began with the story environments, poor health and are illusions (Said, 65-67). circle, where students come face poor schools, violence, and to face with their own story… and homelessness. According to a Students in Shapiro-Perl’s with each other It is a time when report published in September Documentary Storytelling the professor/facilitator creates a 2012 by the D.C. Fiscal Policy course produced 31 short safe space and an opportunity for Institute, using data from the documentary-style films for non- each individual to speak for five 2010 Census, the District of profit organizations in Greater minutes— uninterrupted—and Columbia has the third-highest Washington. The subjects ranged for others to listen. The storyteller level of income inequality in the from gentrification, to HIV/AIDS, then has five minutes to receive nation. The average income of the to immigrant workers’ organizing, respectful feedback from the top 20 percent is $259,000. That to homelessness, to veterans facilitator (and other students, if is 29 times the average income of suffering from PTSD. Students time permits) before the focus the bottom 20 percent ($9,100). consulted with the directors of the moves to the next student. The District has one of the highest non-profits to determine the kind rates of poverty in the nation and of storytelling that the organization The facilitator asks questions to this is felt the hardest by Latinos needed and to identify people help the storyteller find a moment and African-Americans (Lazare & served by the organization who of transformation in their narrative, Rivers, 2012). could help tell that story. Every around which they can sculpt effort was made to have students their story—enough to start engage in deep interviewing to be writing a first draft. The stories THE METHOD AND IMPACT able to tell the organization’s story unfold: a mother’s schizophrenia, through the voices of the people an emotionally distant father, the OF THE COMMUNITY VOICE it served. death of grandparent, a rape in PROJECT freshman year, the paralysis of Part of this involved working a close friend, coming out to a The community storytelling project with the Anacostia Community family member, etc. The stories was created with the intention of Museum, located in Southeast tumble out among students who illuminating the other Washington Washington—a historically barely know each other. These by telling the stories of people in marginalized, largely African are often stories that people didn’t their own words. The project set American community plagued expect to tell; stories that people out to uncover such stories and in by poverty, unemployment, and felt empowered to tell when the process humanize rather than violence. As part of the Museum’s they heard the risks others were demonize the poor, working class, Community Documentation taking. With tears and laughter, and immigrant communities in this Initiative, the Community Voice stories flowed, going beyond acutely segregated and unequal Project completed several social divides of race, ethnicity, city. successful short documentary- gender, age, and style with which style films together. A year into the students started. The room “The other,” references the the collaboration, the museum shifted, and class dynamics construct developed by was presented with the idea of changed from then on. Edward Said of demonization creating digital stories. Upon and dehumanization of one viewing some examples, the Students observed these group by another in order to museum was soon convinced changes, writing about them in justify domination. Said (1978) to experiment with this method. their journals. People started Shortly after, American University

The Digital Story: 10 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. seeing each other in a new light. narratives. Community Museum explains: For the next four weeks, students These community artists ranged While the Museum worked with attended class and worked on from mixed-media artists and one of the artists particularly their own to finish their stories. photographers to tattoo artists closely in particular, Charles In the fifth week, the final digital and spiritual singers. In one “Coco” Bayron, visiting him a stories were screened and digital story, tattoo artist Charles number of times and conducting discussed. It was a watershed for “Coco” Bayron speaks of growing an oral history interview, it was classmates to witness how each up in his Bronx neighborhood not until he had the opportunity story had grown and changed where apartment buildings went to author his own story (my from the story circle barely four up in flames all the time, and emphasis) that he directly weeks before. The students’ you never knew if your building connected his art of tattooing stories went beyond race, gender, was next. “We used to carry to a critical need to preserve ethnicity, social class, and national our family pictures with us just family memory and identity in the origin. Rather, they were nuanced, in case… Tattoos are like that. face of ongoing loss (personal complex narratives that lived They’re something nobody can communication, November 12, inside wider social constructions. take away. I think a lot of people 2014). The storytelling process began are getting into tattooing to hold These stories affected not only anew the following week when onto something,” Coco says in the storytellers but the students— small groups of students met his digital story. When asked to as audience, as collaborator, as in a story circle with community reflect on the digital project, Coco witness. This was reflected in members selected by the said: “It was a good experience. the journals that students were Anacostia Community Museum It showed me an appreciation for required to keep to record their – a plan that was arranged in where I’ve been in my life, where I thoughts and feelings over the advance with the Museum. came from.” course of the semester. After In the first digital storytelling The Anacostia Community working with a community artist effort with the Museum, students Museum included Coco’s who had suffered much in his life, assisted 11 public artists from digital story in an exhibition on one student wrote: Southeast Washington in creating “Creativity in the Community” and The digital stories we are working stories from their lives, using said the digital stories yielded on are an act of re-humanization, photographs, family documents, new information about their not only for the storyteller but community archives, and their community. As Sharon Reinckens, for the witness. I can say that own voices to create first-person Deputy Director of the Anacostia having been both storyteller

PHOTO HERE

The Digital Story: 11 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. and witness, I now have new single parent—both financial I chose to share a very personal tools and empowerment at my and social—to her fears about story and struggled with how to fingertips to resist desensitization the water. In her digital story she communicate it... Going through to others’ suffering, and to the describes her first trip in a canoe: this process helped me work desensitization I have imposed I was so frightened of the river, yet with my community member, on myself, in regards to my found some solace... As I listened Brenda Richardson. Brenda was own trauma. In meeting Dante to the swish of the paddles… I felt a gregarious and lively presence in (a pseudonym) for the first this amazing healing sensation…. our story circle and I was thrilled time… I felt like I was breath- Through this experience I began to be paired with her. When we ing clean air. I was finally able to see things through a very first started working together, she to feel connection to another’s different lens. I learned that the was reticent to talk about herself. suffering... a feeling I have not felt Anacostia River, even with all I remember her first draft being since high school. (A.H) its problems, was a source of an eloquent, glowing story – but The Museum wanted to do healing for a people who have about a friend of hers. With some more. In Fall 2011, a new class been forsaken and ignored in our gentle prodding and asking the of students worked with local nation’s capital. right questions, Brenda came to realize this on her own and residents along the Anacostia For some, like Brenda River on an Urban Waterways ended up creating a beautiful, Richardson, creating a digital quiet story about her relationship project with the Museum called story can be transformative. “Reclaiming the Edge.” The with the Anacostia River. Through As Joe Lambert (2013) writes, the digital storytelling experience, Anacostia River has notoriously “When people experience trauma, been a site of environmental she was able to discover things violence and oppression, what about herself that she never knew neglect (Williams, 2001). But, as happens is a designification of the digital stories show, it has – like the origins of many of her their lives. The loss of power in anxieties and the significance of also inspired hopes and dreams, being brutalized reflects itself in culture and community. Again, the environmental activism in her life. people feeling invisible” (p. 148). Seeing Brenda light up when she Museum included many of these There is a feeling that there is no digital stories in its exhibit. presented her story to the rest of “sign” of their existence which the audience at our showcase was Members of the Community others in their families, their truly unforgettable. Voice Project that explored the communities, their social world Anacostia River provided many need to hear. Digital storytelling, In another set of digital stories thoughts on relationships to our Lambert (2013) continues, like all with the Museum, themed around local waterways that realized cultural work “is about resignifying their exhibit “Twelve Years that many of the themes presented people and giving them the Shook and Shaped Washington: by the curators in the exhibition tools to declare the value of their 1963-1975,” students worked “Reclaiming the Edge.” The existence and insist on being with activists in the struggle for perspectives on the waterways heard” (p.148). civil rights. were explored in stories that talked of the river as a mode of It was not only the storytellers like In one story, social worker Cecilia transportation, as a muse for an Brenda Richardson who were Johnson recounts not only the artist, a salvation for an addicted transformed by the experience. segregated city where she grew and destructive lifestyle, and as As Allison Arlotta, the student who up, but how her father instilled a way for urban kids to find the worked with Brenda, wrote in her in his daughter the need for a natural world. (S. Reinckens, journal: professional education and the personal communication, necessity of protesting inequalities November 12, 2014) I experienced the transformational when the situation demanded One story by environmental power of personal digital it. As one student who assisted activist Brenda Richardson storytelling in two ways– once with Cecilia with her story wrote in a documents her experience my own story and once working reflection paper, “Discrimination, growing up along the Anacostia with a community member to oppression and violence of the River…but never going into it. help her create her digital story. past are not the whole story. For the first time, she links the Completing my own story was a Cecilia’s father passed down anxieties she faced as a young difficult and emotional process. self-respect and the importance

The Digital Story: 12 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. of education, and took concrete amazing to see another woman connect as people. steps to insure his daughter’s tell her story of personal struggle preparation for the world” (Holly and the journey of finding herself” Wiencek). In reflecting on her (Delana Listman). work with Cecilia, Holly wrote that she expected Cecilia’s story to Another student wrote, “I think the be more focused on discrimina- greatest thing I’ve learned about tion she faced growing up. But is the power of digital storytelling from their first meeting, Cecilia to help facilitate the emotional said, “My tribute to my dad is the emancipation of any and all par- greatest thing I can leave.” “In ticipants” (Tabria Lee-Noonan). deeply listening to her,” Holly said, “I got to know Cecilia for who she Participatory storytelling can take really is and the story she wanted us into the lived experience of to tell.” She said she realized that communities and people not often “a story must be focused inward heard from, in a way that even the for it to be honest and to have most sensitive traditional impact.” documentary filmmaking cannot. Because of their authenticity, these digital stories help break CONCLUSION down a sense of “otherness” from both sides of a social divide, At its core, participatory changing the storyteller and the storytelling is a two-way process witness in the process. In its of connection and transformation, place are people, in all their for both the storyteller and the complexity, with nuanced witness/facilitator. The story narratives of life. Life shaped circle with the students provides by wider social forces of class the basis for the storywork inequality, racism, sexism, students will do four weeks later homophobia, etc., but lives with the community residents. It inextricably woven with deeply prepares them with the skills to personal experiences of trauma, “find” and then create a digital pain, and loss, as well as story. But it also allows them an spirituality, hope, and beauty. opportunity to safely open up and be vulnerable and recognize the As stated by Professor Chap weight of what they are doing. It Kusimba in his introductory remarks at a community affords them an understanding screening of digital stories, “These of the power of telling one’s story films demonstrate the power of an and the responsibility involved in engaged community anthropology assisting someone else on that in bringing out the finest aspects journey. of our humanity, even when those aspects are memories filled with As one student wrote, “Opening pain and suffering that arises from up to the class and making that alienation.” This is the first digital story was the most transformative potential of the therapeutic thing I’ve ever done… participatory digital story—its Then, working with my capacity to effect personal and community storyteller, it was social change in both storyteller amazing to see another woman and witness. It allows us to listen tell her story of personal struggle deeply to each other, across the and the journey of finding herself” divides of neighborhood, class, (Delana Listman). race, and culture, allowing us to

The Digital Story: 13 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. REFERENCES

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CCHERS, Inc. (2017, March 28). Retrieved from https://www.cchers.org/community-voices

Cohen, E. (2006). Unseen America: Photos and stories by workers. New York: Regan Books.

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Digital Storytelling Workshops. (2017, March 24). Retrieved from https://www.storycenter. org/workshops-ds/

Hill, A. (2008). Learn from my story: A participatory media initiative for Ugandan women.

Isay, David (2007). Listening is an Act of Love, Penguin New York.

Lambert, J. (2009). Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community (3rd ed.). Berkeley, CA: Digital Diner Press.

Lambert, J. (2013). Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community (4th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Lazare, E., & Rivers, W. (2012, September 12). Poverty on the Rise in DC (Rep.). (2017, March 24) Retrieved from DC Fiscal Policy Institute website: http://www.dcfpi. org/poverty- on-the-rise-in-dc-2

Lerman, L. (2002). Art and community: Feeding the artist, feeding the art. In D. Adams & A. Goldbard (Eds.), Community, culture and globalization. New York, NY: Rockefeller Foundation.

Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Wang, C., & Burris, M.A (1997). Photovoice: Concept, Methodology, and Use for Participatory Needs Assessment. Health Education & Behavior, 24 (3) 369-387. doi:10.1777/109019819702400309

Williams, B. (2001). A river runs through us. American Anthropologist, 103, 409-431.

The Digital Story: 14 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. APPENDIX INTERVIEWS WITH COMMUNITY VOICE PROJECT STORYTELLERS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC REPORT

PREPARED BY MAREK CABRERA, PHD CANDIDATE DEPT. OF ANTHROPOLOGY

INTRODUCTION METHODOLOGY moment. These initial interactions were well- received by the This ethnographic report on the The questions sent in advance interviewees. I would always look Community Voice Project was to the participants were broad for the right moments to also prepared with the objective of in scope. This allowed for share my own digital story where understanding the relevance of storytellers to broadly reflect on I told them of my own troubled participating in the introspective their experience in creating a upbringing in Peru, and the issues process of making a digital digital story. Below are the initial associated with being raised in a story by hearing directly from questions emailed to participants: racist environment. some community storytellers • Tell us what it was like to make who collaborated with American a digital story. This was of paramount University students under the • Has your life changed in some importance to me personally as guidance of Professor Nina way as a result of making your I was able to get their thoughts Shapiro-Perl. The attempt digital story? about it, and also feel and share was to reach out not only to • How widely have you shared it? my own feelings and reflections those individuals whose life • Would you attempt to make a on growing up in a society stories were told, but also to new one? shaped by patriarchy and racism. gauge the importance of these • Would you revise and update All those with whom I shared deeply personal projects to the the one you have now? my story, engaged me in the organizations through which • What reactions do you get kindest ways. A benefit of this these individuals were identified. from people with whom you approach was to open up to them Outreach was made to twenty- share it (family, friends, work, as quickly as possible because one individual participants and organization)? we only had one chance for the three organizational entities from • Would you recommend other interview and, again, to build October to December of 2016. people to make one? rapport and demonstrate to them Of the initial two-dozen people the importance I attach to self- contacted, twelve responded In person, these questions were analysis, which is at the core of positively to the request for an rarely stated explicitly. In fact, the process of making a digital interview, but only eight interviews in order to facilitate trust and story. Connections between their were ultimately conducted. In one rapport, I began the interviews by stories and mine also allowed case, the interviewee was both an sharing with the participants my me to interpret their words and individual storyteller himself, and a reflections and takeaways from reflections about their experience leader of one of the participating their digital stories, which I always making a digital story on a more organizations. One interview was made a point to watch several personal level. conducted over the phone over times before the interview. I also a period of twenty-five minutes, tried to google my participants Having delved in the previous and one via email. All of the beforehand whenever it was clear paragraphs on some aspects rest were conducted in person that they had a clear presence in of the ethnographic approach either at a public venue or at the the public sphere. The second I brought to the interviews, at participants’ places of residence step in the interview process was this point I will now turn to each or work, in conversations ranging to convey Professor Shapiro- individual interview. The quotes between two to four hours. As Perl’s greetings by sharing will be exactly as they were expected, the interview via email anecdotes, such as the fact that conveyed, or very close to them. was direct and with few details, a poster with a photo of one of I did not record their voices, but while the in-person ones were the participants still hangs on the I took notes during the interview, more deeply engaging. Professor’s office door, or the fact and afterwards. that their stories were screened to the whole class as a teaching

The Digital Story: 16 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. INTERVIEWS WITH COMMUNITY VOICE PROJECT STORYTELLERS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC REPORT

PREPARED BY MAREK CABRERA, PHD CANDIDATE DEPT. OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Bruce McNeil more transparent to those around Bruce McNeil is a DC-based Cecilia Johnson us. “I was able to capture my photographer who has become Cecilia Johnson is a professional development” and “showing it to well-known for his decades human resources specialist family members and co-workers of work taking photos of the working for the U.S. Department was a process of transparency.” Anacostia River in the nation’s of Agriculture, and she decided to She continued: “People did not capital. For him, making his digital participate in the Community Voice know that about me, but their story back in 2010 was “a way Project and make her own digital feedback was very positive. of sharing about me, it is always story at the urging of her brother. Co-workers were not surprised part of my exhibitions. In 2015, This might be surprising given that because that is what I do, but five years after it was made, it was for her, as she said, the “process family was surprised to learn the played on a loop along with my of picking up the camera was history of their grandfather, and still photos and it was screened natural.” She had previously made mother growing up.” The interview for the duration of the exhibit.” He videos for different occasions, was conducted over the phone, shared that this was one of a few including one for the Research lasting about twenty five minutes, videos made about him, but that Cancer Society, but this was but apparently the fact that Cecilia this digital story was personal. different because she knew “it had made her digital story only “The message of the story, and would take great courage to do a year earlier, in 2015, explains the connection with beauty is the this” about herself. But what made how clearly she remembered same.” After watching an online it easier for Cecilia to decide the process and how quickly six-minute video (Watch) with tens to do it was that “it was she captured the intent of the of his impressionistic creations, participatory, one in which I was interview. Cecilia also mentioned it is safe to say that his statement able to give as much of what I that in the year since her own achieves greater meaning. thought was the documentary digital story, she has been making record. I wanted to do more videos about others, suggesting Finding the parallel beauty to connect the dots about my how she has learned by making between his final creations and dad and my education.” “The her own story and now sharing the the actual meaning of his life story participatory aspect is central,” skills with others. is a powerful testament to the she continued. It “allows people significance of sharing with those to participate.” Jay “Jahlion” Coleman around us who we are. “I am Jay “Jahlion” Coleman is an late bloomer; I am 77 years old” Cecilia’s digital story is centered accomplished artist and the he continued, “yet I have copies around her learning important making of his digital story of it (the digital story) burned on lessons from her father during coincided with a difficult period CDs, and I am guilty of showing it the tumultuous decade of the in his life. As he was creating his everywhere.” He also shared that 1960s. But in the digital story, digital story, he was permanently in 2017 he will be the designated she was able to connect those separated from teaching art, his artist in a major project around lessons to the work she does main passion, to disadvantaged the Anacostia River, and that he today. “It validated me in terms chil- dren who had been looked forward to showing it there, of why I do the work I do. I am institutionally diagnosed with possibly projecting in on a large an equal opportunity specialist, having learning disabilities. unattractive river, but I caught what social justice worker, and so it After the episode that had legal the river could look in the future” allowed me to carry the message implications that kept him from he volunteered at one point and of who I am. It is validating of working with children, he said: the idea of telling his life story and everything I have done in this “Making the video gave validity contribution in the community, world.” Making a digital story is to my work and myself, and as to the wider world was clearly a process of introspection, but a person in my community.” “It meaningful and practical. sharing it is a process of becoming validated me as an artist” says the

The Digital Story: 17 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. INTERVIEWS WITH COMMUNITY VOICE PROJECT STORYTELLERS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC REPORT

PREPARED BY MAREK CABRERA, PHD CANDIDATE DEPT. OF ANTHROPOLOGY

artist who goes by “Jahlion” and when the young man showed up, Brenda Richardson: Shared has painted portraits of prominent I asked him. The young man’s it with lots of folks in the members of the community, and answer was “no” because he environmental community in even a foreign president. “Doing had been by his side all his life, 2011 when it first came out. the video allowed me to step out and that his father’s passion was, of my artist world… to see my basically, part of this young man’s CVP Interviewer: Would you world.” Being able to recover from paradigm of life. attempt to make a new one? a moment that was “unfair” and the result of a “misunderstanding,” Brenda Richardson Brenda Richardson: Yes. by telling my story was “game This interview was conducted changing”. “Now the video is on via email, hence its brevity. Still, CVP Interviewer: Would you the internet, it was posted on her written answers to the initial revise and update the one you Facebook too, and it has been questions emailed to her are very have now? seen by more than 250 people.” telling of her experience. Brenda The honesty with which he shared Richard- son is a self-described Brenda Richardson: No. I think I his tribulation was evident during eco-feminist who for years now would do a new one because I am the in- person interview, just as has dedicated her life to the now focused on climate change was his passion in his digital story. improvement of the quality of and saving our public lands. the environment surrounding the There was also another aspect Anacostia River, and in her digital CVP Interviewer: What reactions of the process of making his story she recounts her path to that do you get from people with whom digital story that was important form of activism, and her struggles you share it (family, friends, work, to Jahlion: “Oh, Professional! as an African American single organization)? Someone else took the time mother. Hers is an inspiring story to recognize my work. It is not of personal strength, love for her Brenda Richardson: They are homemade: It was American community, and vision of action, or moved. University and the Smithsonian praxis. These are her responses to Anacostia Community Museum. the questionnaire: CVP Interviewer: Would you It is institutional. Big institutions recommend other people to make validated my work! Promotion and CVP Interviewer: Tell us what it one? marketing without a budget!” He was like to make a digital story. was clearly thankful to be able Brenda Richardson: Absolutely. to reach people with “A different Brenda Richardson: This was representation of his work, rather the first time I had done something To a follow up email thanking her than a portfolio. It was a way of like this. It was ex- citing and for her responses and asking her crossing barriers not abrasively.” interesting. if she wanted to add anything, Jahlion indeed crossed barriers. Brenda Richardson did not add To the question of the type of CVP Interviewer: Has your life any additional comments. feedback he received about changed in some way as a result his digital story, he said with a of making your digital Uzikee Nelson smile, “Generally good feedback, story? especially from relatives, my Uzikee Nelson is a well-known grandmother, so articulate.” One Brenda Richardson: It did when artist in Washington D.C. and last observation of this four-hour I invited my friends out to the beyond, and his digital story long interview: Jahlion had told premiere in 2011. I don’t often tell centers around an issue close to me that his son probably had my friends about everything I do. him: how African American artists learned something about his dad They were intrigued and pleasantly do not get to tell their stories in by watching the digital story, and the public spaces of the nation’s

The Digital Story: 18 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. INTERVIEWS WITH COMMUNITY VOICE PROJECT STORYTELLERS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC REPORT

PREPARED BY MAREK CABRERA, PHD CANDIDATE DEPT. OF ANTHROPOLOGY

capital. “They are invisible,” he several pieces of his work there to I hesitated. What would it be says in the first minute of the video begin to occupy the public spaces about?” That was not abstract at interview that is part of his digital to tell a story, the story of African all. “I really enjoyed making the story. This person knows quite Americans. video,” she continued. “I would be well what it is to tell one’s stories, taking advantage of an opportunity as it became clear to me before As a personal observation about to reach people that I would not going into the interview for this this deeply philosophical, 78 year normally reach.” Nothing abstract report. “They kept bugging me old man, I share this: The first there. Her digital story centers from the Anacostia Museum” said time we spoke on the phone he around how her life led her to the the no-nonsense Uzikee Nelson answered me with a thunderous coining of a deeply abstract term: to my question of why he did “Who the hell are you?” I was Blackstraction (with a capital B). it. There was a story behind his thrilled by the challenge. After “When I thought of making the initial refusal to participate in the almost three hours of questions story, I thought of that word; it Community Voice Project ... “It and laughs the very next day, would be a tool about my work.” was not the first one (interview). I and his showing me 20 minutes She was fulfilling a central intention have been interviewed by all the of a video he himself shot in behind making one’s digital story: newspapers and TV stations.” Cuba during a visit in 2009, he putting together the events of our Yet,” he continued, “I knew how to bid me farewell by asking me lives in a way that explains how make things with my hands, so in for my phone number to stay in we got where we are today. “My 1970 I did a piece for the NAACP. touch. As we parted ways after life has been an improvisation.” I was fired for making that piece of several minutes of handshakes Just as her life is an improvisation, art, for telling my story; it was ded- and pleasantries on his porch, during the interview she picked up icated to my father.” Probed again I could not stop thinking of the her phone and tweeted the link about what it meant to participate moment when he raised his voice to her digital story; “I just put it on in making his digital story he during the interview so that his Twitter.” responded, after several seconds words could find his wife around of silence: “It tells you who I am, the house: “Is it true that you too, Beyond that, Sheila has shared and how I got be who I am.” want to make your own digital her digital story over the last five story?” Other moments when he years via her “mailing lists (plural), The very introspective Uzikee also yelled to his wife the names linked to websites and blogs.” As Nelson says he had a “wonderful of the people to whom he still I was taking notes she expanded: and positive childhood in wants to show his digital story “The feedback was very positive, Mississippi” before starting a also resonate. She replied from maybe also because it was very life of extensive travels all over the room next door that she was succinct, clever and a good the planet, but perhaps more taking note. marketing tool,” she said with a importantly, to Africa. “My Africa- smile. “It was the first time I had inspired art has an impact, positive Sheila Crider produced something like this that effect. The art is in the street to I can actually promote. It was give people a positive feeling Sheila Crider is a profound thinker artistic.” It is important to note toward themselves.” and abstract artist based in how she uses the first person in Washington D.C. Making a digital that sentence; another important Given the composition of the story for her was not an easy and aspect of making a digital story, population of Washington, his life immediate decision. Her digital in terms of how much control the work amounts to a monumental story created some concern in participant has over the content. “I effort to help undo the racist terms of how to capture and had 100% control.” This insightful, history of this city. At one point in interpret the thoughts and work abstract artist has a long view of his decades of work, Uzikee said of an abstract thinker. “It sounded her life – “All the stuff that I did as he adopted two parks and placed interesting. When I was asked, a kid is what I am doing now, “she

The Digital Story: 19 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. INTERVIEWS WITH COMMUNITY VOICE PROJECT STORYTELLERS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC REPORT

PREPARED BY MAREK CABRERA, PHD CANDIDATE DEPT. OF ANTHROPOLOGY

says with a mischievous smile. “To He continued: “The people who be in the screening was fun.” That participated are parents, and it was a powerful testament to the is on the website, and it is a way power of sharing with who. to demonstrate how we engage with the community.” Clearly Ayize Sabater he is speaking of the power for institutional building that can result Ayize Sabater is a deeply spiritual when the life stories of different community leader, and revered stakeholders of an organization founder of an import- ant set of are brought together, when they all charter schools, MOMIEs TLC, become visible to the other. and others, that serve mostly African American children, in His own video was watched 125 underserved communities. He times on the YouTube channel, participated in the making of his but he assures me that that does own digital story, but members not include the many times the of his organization, mostly parents’ videos were seen, or parents of MOMIEs students, the many times all of the digital also participated in a series of stories were screened to small stories some years later, and so groups of people, other parents, in this two-pronged interview teachers and to family members. Ayize Sabater went back and “It is extremely powerful. We all forth between telling about the have a story to tell, the good, experience of participating, and the ugly.” Very expressively he the institutional value of having conveys the reactions he has several parents of his students seen from viewers over the years: participate as well. His own digital “Oh, Wow!”, “I did not know that story revolved around how “society about you!” etc. Sharing one’s as a whole will be that much better story can have a major impact, if we work with children to make and as he puts it: “To have an indelible imprint in that society.” people understand from whence you come.” In the form of a final His own inspiring life story observation, Ayize Sabater said connects with the life stories of the he was sad Professor Shapiro- parents: “The thread of giving back Perl would not be presiding over connects them all, and that came the Community Voice Project to the surface” while making all any longer because just as the the digital stories. “It was a great interview was approaching, he was opportunity to share a bit of their coming up with ideas to invite her stories. To use their lives as an to come to MOMIEs to talk about opportunity to give back.” Ayize the technique of making personal Sabater is keenly aware of the digital stories. I volunteered. power of telling one’s story. “If you hit your head somewhere, and you tell that to others, they might avoid hitting themselves. For MOMIEs it is crucial to use personal stories as an empowerment mechanism.”

The Digital Story: 20 Giving Voice to the Unheard in Washington, D.C. THE DIGITAL STORY:

GIVING VOICE TO THE UNHEARD IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

A REPORT OF THE COMMUNITY VOICE PROJECT

www.cmsimpact.org

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