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Posts tagged ‘Andrea Klein Bergman’
Did it Never Happen?
Andrea Klein Bergman, project director
Oral History Project of the Bhutanese in Minnesota
I began working with the Jewish Historical Society (JHSUM) five years ago; their archives and oral histories of the Upper Midwest Jewish community show the racial and religious injustices Jewish immigrants had survived, such as pogroms, Anti-Semitism in Europe and the Twin Cities, as well as the aftermath of the Holocaust. These immigrants forged ahead with education for their children, marking ways Jews changed polices and laws that discriminated against them.
Over the years I have had the privilege of working with Dr. Linda Mack Schloff, Director Emeritus and historian for JHSUM for 22 years. Her scholarship and award winning exhibits she curated over the years speaks to her dedication, passion, and vision for preserving and telling the Upper Midwest Jewish story. Historically, Jews have represented a small percentage of the population in the Midwest; therefore, a major focus in collecting the Jewish story is through oral histories. Dr. Schloff not only recognized the importance of oral histories, but secured funding for numerous oral history projects during her tenure. Working with her has taught me that personal stories are a necessary component to the community’s history because the minority is rarely rendered in traditional written historical accounts.
Driven by a need to expand my commitment to other immigrant and refugee communities, I began volunteering for the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) in Minneapolis.
My volunteer work for CVT began with training: program trainings, lectures on the asylum seeking and refugee processes, and refugee camps. With that being said, nothing can prepare you for dealing with a refugee; their constant uncertainties and anxieties, unfamiliar surroundings—and what is most striking—their profound lack of resources. Not all refugees are victims of torture, however, all refugees do share in the same struggles and concerns of resettlement, and their voices go relatively unheard by their neighbors, community at large, and government agencies charged to determine their fate. I wanted to offer my area of expertise and passion of collecting oral histories to the refugee communities here in the Twin Cities. I also believe that sharing stories from the under-represented in society is much more than a merely historical necessity; it also speaks to our humanity, our struggles, our connectedness to place, and our individual and communal identities. Partnering with the Hennepin History Museum, I will begin to collect resettlement stories within the Bhutanese communities in Minnesota.
I welcome this opportunity to get to know and share the stories of the Bhutanese people. Please feel free to contact us or leave any comments here or our site.
[1] Poem written by Japanese American Daisy Uyeda Satoda on remembering her forced exile in an internment camp during World War II. The traces of many of these camps have vanished, and without her poems as well as the collected oral histories of countless other Japanese Americans who shared these incarcerations stand as the only monument and testimony of their experiences.
From Exile to Resettlement 