Anyone can do oral history: record an interview with a friend or family member about his or her memories of the past, and participate in the process of making history.
In the past, oral histories were recorded on cassette tapes, and written transcripts of the interview were produced as reference materials.
Today, you can use an iPod or mini-disk player to record oral histories, and sound files from oral history interviews are available online.
Oral history sound files can be incorporated into websites and online exhibitions; they can be used as source material in historical and sociological research, in school projects and community histories. The past is at the tip of your fingers!
The Multicultural History Society of Ontario (MHSO) is a not-for-profit educational institution and heritage centre established in 1976 by Professor Robert F. Harney and some of his close colleagues who wanted to increase public awareness of the multicultural nature of Ontario's history.
The MHSO publicizes, preserves and makes accessible material which demonstrates the role of immigration and ethnicity in shaping the cultural and economic development of Ontario and Canada. It also recognizes the importance of recording the stories and ways of 'ordinary' people and weaving them into the cultural fabric of Ontario and Canada.
The MHSO'S Oral History Collection, one of the largest in North America, contains over 9,000 hours of interview from members of 60 ethnic groups now residing in Canada.
Oral history has become the calling card of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario -- a symbol of the willingness to welcome the memories of the immigrant as valid archival material and to recognize individuals from diverse communities as makers of history.
The interviews that follow were collected and recorded by the MHSO, and community volunteers, at two different times: in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when many Hungarian immigrants had been living in Canada for almost two decades; and in 2006, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Revolution.
Interviews touch on themes of family, war, conflict, poverty, politics, activism, immigration, new beginnings, challenges, settlement, community, education, employment, and the preservation of culture.
Click here [1] to explore the collection.
After a crushing defeat by the Allied powers in World War II, Hungary was occupied by the Soviets, who gradually turned it into a communist satellite state. Communist rule made life unbearable for the Hungarian people, already devastated by massive losses of life and livelihood as a result of war.
On October 23, 1956 a student demonstration sparked a nationwide revolt against the Communist government and its repressive policies. Disorder and violence ignited throughout the capital city of Budapest. The Soviet government retaliated by sending in 150,000 troops and thousands of tanks.
An estimated 2,500 Hungarians died and hundreds of thousands fled the country as refugees. Despite initial successes, the Hungarian Revolution was eventually quashed when Soviet forced invaded Budapest on 4 November and succeeded in reestablishing strict rule which lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union.
In total, some two hundred thousand Hungarians left their homeland during the months which followed the revolution. First escaping across the border into Austria, refugees were then hosted in camps while they made arrangements to emigrate. Canada was the first choice of many emigrants.
On December 10, 1956 the first ship carrying Hungarian immigrants landed in Quebec, and their arrival was greeted by a crowd of 3,000 Canadians cheering and waving flags. Over 30,000 Hungarians refugees had been admitted to Canada by the end of 1957, the majority settling in Ontario where a number of Hungarian-Canadian communities were already established.
For more information on Hungarian immigration to Canada, and the 1956 Revolution:
The political upheavals and violence that occurred in Vietnam following World War II caused many to leave their homeland and settle in Canada.
In 1975, it became clear that South Vietnam would fall to the Communists [after sixteen years of conflict known as the "Vietnam War."] At this point many thousands of Vietnamese searched for a way to flee their country. Between 1975 and 1981, more than 60,000 landed immigrants arrived in Canada from Vietnam (directly or via a third country).
This time period encompasses two main waves of immigration. Between 1975 and 1976 Canada admitted 5,608 Vietnamese refugees. Changes in social conditions, economic problems, and the dogmatism of the Communist regime provoked negative reactions among many South Vietnamese, who felt marginalized and believed that there was no future for them or their children in the new Vietnam.
This was particularly true for the Sino-Vietnamese, who were considered personae non gratae after China briefly invaded the northern frontier areas of Vietnam in February 1979. Between the end of 1978 and the beginning of 1981, several hundred thousand Vietnamese of all origins, the so-called “boat-people,” left the country illegally or semi-legally (by bribing local authorities). Over 50,000 of them finally ended up in Canada.
Excerpted from the entry for "Vietnamese," in The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples. Access to the entire article is available online:
The Multicultural History Society of Ontario, along with other educational institutions, conducted interviews with Vietnamese immigrants who came to Canada in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many of the people interviewed did not speak English, and so their stories were captured in Vietnamese, Cantonese, and other Asian languages. The stories represent a broad range of experiences from people of different geographical, economic, educational, and family backgrounds.
Interviews touch on themes of family, education, employment, politics, war, violence, poverty, immigration, new beginnings, challenges, community, and tradition.
Click here [5] to explore the collection.
You can download copies of these interviews to listen to on your home or school computer. Simply click on the interview title to save a copy to your computer. You can listen to sound files on your computer using QuickTime (for Mac) or Windows Media Player.
Click here [6] to download Audacity.
Audio editing programs such as QuickTime Pro (for Mac) and GoldWave (for Windows) are useful for selecting, copying, and saving audio clips from interview files. Audacity is an open source (free) audio editing program that operates on both Mac and Windows platforms.
Click here [6] to download Audacity.
If you are using interview clips or referring to an interview in a paper or project, be sure to cite your source. Interview citations should include the interviewee’s name, the interviewer’s name, the date of the interview (if known), and the location of the tape or digital file (with a reference number, if this is provided). For example:
Phan Dam, interviewed by Jennifer Bonnell, 2 October 2002, Multicultural History Society of Ontario Collection, www.multiculturalcanada.ca [7], VietTape10202.mp3.
Links:
[1] http://content.lib.sfu.ca/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=%2Fhungarian
[2] http://www.1956memorial.com/history.html
[3] http://multiculturalcanada.ca/Encyclopedia/A-Z/h3
[4] http://multiculturalcanada.ca/Encyclopedia/A-Z/v1
[5] http://content.lib.sfu.ca/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=%2Fvietnamese
[6] http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
[7] http://www.multiculturalcanada.ca