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1 week agoLos Thuthanaka: Wak'a EP
Aymara oral history describes the bittersweet moment of creation with the first sunrise, marking separation and the birth of a new world.
This devastating début novel takes the form of an oral history about a tragedy that shatters a family. At its heart is a couple who arrived in the U.S. in the late nineteen-nineties as refugees from Afghanistan. They prospered, and brought up four children in an affluent suburb in Virginia. Rotating testimonies from people they know-family friends, a cousin, lawyers-offer theories about what led to the novel's central catastrophe.
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the public figures being shamed and punished for their associations with Jeffrey Epstein while others remain unscathed, the insights and lessons revealed by a new oral history archive and interview with former President Obama, and the meaning of the Trump administration's efforts to whitewash history. Here are some notes and references from this week's show: Lauren Frayer and Leila Fadel for NPR: Britain's ex-Prince Andrew is arrested on suspicion of misconduct over Epstein ties
"You come from a news background, you're always thinking about what's the best way to tell a story," he said. "What better story is there to tell than those about Boston sports? Everyone who is from here or has lived here is in some degree a fan. I thought a look back at some great moments and some behind-the-scenes details that only the most plugged-in reporters would know would be a fun thing to do."
Beyond the written word and photographic evidence, how does one keep history alive? For the Guna people of northern Panama, community theatre emerges as a potent form of cultural documentation and preservation. This vibrant documentary directed by Duiren Wagua, who hails from the same Indigenous community, traces a vital tradition that breathes life into monumental events from the past. The year 1903 marked the separation of Panama from Colombia.
Betty Reid Soskin was 92 when she first went viral and became, in effect, a rock star of the National Park Service. She was the oldest full-time national park ranger in the US this was back in 2013; she'd become a ranger at 85 but she had been furloughed along with 800,000 other federal employees during the government shutdown. News channels flocked to interview her. She was aggrieved not to be working, she told them; she had a job to do.
When you ask someone whether they have ever seen a ghost, you are asking them whether they believe in the inexplicable. Some people are more accustomed to the idea than others: In different folklores, throughout history, ghosts appear as omens and lost spirits; they signify regret, pain, open endings. Then there are the ghosts that haunt not a culture, but a person.
Outside his career, Robert's main passion was oral history, which he believed was a way of giving voice to ordinary people who would otherwise have left behind just birth and death certificates. In 1983 he co-founded the Waltham Forest Oral History workshop, whose members interviewed hundreds of local people; it also published books and pamphlets on subjects such as school strikes, childhood health and local pubs.
When Ameya Desai won the fourth grade prize of NPR's Student Podcast Challenge last year, something surprising happened: A neighbor reached out asking if the 11-year-old journalist would interview his grandmother, a survivor of the Japanese incarceration camps. Ameya was amazed, shocked that she had never learned this history before, one that takes place in her hometown, San Jose, Calif.
Carolina De Robertis, author of So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color, joins in conversation with Nico Lang of American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era. This timely discussion dives into the stories of trans youth and elders, highlighting the way historical struggles and triumphs inform today's resistance.