What inspires your work in digital humanities?
I believe that if Indigenous Alaskan elders consent for their stories to be told in the digital format, that we should amplify their voices for audiences both inside and beyond Alaska.
Frequently in the Western archives, when Native people are mentioned, they are nameless and/or placeless. As a digital humanist, I try to center Indigenous voices and perspectives in US history during the war. Native American history is essential to understanding broader narratives in US and global histories.
Can you explain your motivation to develop World War II Alaska?
There’s something special about not just reading an oral history transcript, but in listening to an elder’s stories, their intonation, and their reflections. When I began interviewing Alaska Native elders about their memories about the 1940s and World War II, even as far back as 2008 when I was an undergraduate working on my senior honors thesis, I wanted to compile oral histories into short videos. I find it remarkable how diverse the experiences of Alaska Native peoples are during war, from internment/relocation, to military service, to Indigenous civilian perspectives. I did not have the time and resources to create a website until I became a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). While at UCI, I connected with other scholars and historians who hosted websites and I began planning my website and editing short oral history videos. Rather than overburden the website, I wanted it to be relatively easy to access with short descriptions and Youtube videos. I kept the academic format of having a resource page with maps, photos of ruins, and further sources.
Your recent book monograph, Alaska Native Resilience: Voices from World War II, explores the relationship between U.S. colonial expansion and the legacy of Alaska Native resistance. In it, you draw from oral histories that are essential to the telling of this history. How was the oral history interviewing process? Did you face any challenges?
I really like this question. I started the research for this as strictly an oral history project that expanded to linking archival findings. From 2008 to 2022, the timeframe when I conducted oral histories for the scope of the book, I interviewed over ninety Alaska Native elders and veterans who remembered the war years. Some of these elders I met with several times, and I worked on standalone oral history articles or chapters in anthologies with them. A challenge with oral history work with elders is time. I often found that several elders I thought I would have more time with passed away before I got to ask follow-up questions.
Other challenges I would not have expected included the weather. I had several flights to rural Alaska cancel due to weather issues, in some cases I was never able to setup the interviews that cancelled due to the weather. Overall, I found tremendous support from the Alaska Native community, from partnering with Native organizations and community-based organizations, and in connecting with elders’ children and kin. I tried to list every name of every person and organization who assisted me with research in the appendix called, “Timeline of Oral History Research Travels.” This now makes me think I should have included when my flights cancelled in this section too.
One important component in your work are oral history interviews in video format. Many of these are available on World War II Alaska and the YouTube channel. What are the advantages of filming oral history interviews? Do you have any quick tips for aspiring oral historians interested in video formats?
One of the most useful classes I took as an undergraduate was an “Intro to Film Production” class where we learned the basics of filmmaking and editing. Although in my experience, since I only know the basics, the best film interviews I have conducted are ones recorded in partnership with professional filmmakers. Waats’as’diyei Joe Yates filmed my interview with Japanese/Alaska Native internment survivor Marie Matsuno at the Alaska Humanities Forum, and Anna Hoover filmed my interview with renowned Iñupiaq artist Joe Senungetuk at the Anchorage Museum SEED Lab. I feel fortunate to have been able to partner with them to enhance elders’ stories.
Other videos are ones that I filmed of varied quality due to the rate that technology exponentially increases over time. Some of the interviews, like with Tsimshian WWII veteran Arnold Booth, are recorded when I borrowed film equipment from the First Alaskans Institute in 2008 using mini video cassettes which unfortunately became degraded over time. Other interviews are audio-only, and they sound more like a podcast. In some ways, I prefer the WAV and MP3 recordings because audio-only takes a lot of pressure off setting things up perfectly with lighting and positioning. If an elder has chosen a place to sit in their house for an interview for example, I am not going to ask a 90-year-old to move somewhere else for better lighting. On picking the recorded format, I always leave it up to the preference of an interviewee if they choose audio, video, anonymity, or just notes.
You have also served as a historian for the Indigenous Resistance: Now & Then (2023) documentary. How did you prepare for your interview? How was it working with a documentary film crew?
Serving as the Historian and Story Producer for Indigenous Resistance: Now and Then was a phenomenal experience in partnering with the Alaska Humanities Forum and director Waats’as’diyei Joe Yates (Haida) who is a visionary. For this project, we found it important to highlight not just the atrocities in colonial Alaska history, but to show the strength, resiliency, and activism of Alaska Native people who hold onto their cultural traditions, even amidst generations of attempts at assimilation.
I wish I had a very professional answer to this question for how I prepared the day of the interview. The truth is, while I am generally an overachiever, I have become so pinched for time that I have less time to prepare for things than I used to. Waats’as’diyei setup a studio in his living room, and while in Anchorage, Alaska for a few weeks in the early autumn, my daughter (6 years old at the time) and I met up with Waats’as’diyei for filming. My daughter was playing in Waats’as’diyei’s daughter’s bedroom for the duration of our interview, and I was in the living room talking off the cuff about Alaska history. Honestly, I would have been more camera shy, although Waats’as’diyei and I had held numerous zoom meetings with a Community Advisory Board in planning the film. I trusted Waats’as’diyei’s vision for the project and I knew he would represent Alaska Native voices well.
The same month we filmed my interview for Indigenous Resistance: Now & Then, Waats’as’diyei filmed my interview with Japanese/Alaska Native elder Marie Matsuno, who was born at the Minidoka Camp. Her interview is posted on ww2alaska.com. My daughter also attended Marie’s interview at the Alaska Humanities Forum building and Taylor Strelevitz gave snacks and provided tea and scones for Marie’s interview. I think it’s wonderful that having my daughter come along was not only supported, but genuinely encouraged in Native spaces for these projects.
Photo by Waats’as’diyei Joe Yates (2022). In this scene my daughter surprised me and I am amused and also worried that I will lose my train of thought.
Do you incorporate digital humanities in the classroom? Do you think students are open for more DH projects and assignments?
Yes! In addition to assigning podcasts, I have also had in-class workshops where students evaluate digital humanities websites. For this, I break students into groups, allowing them to pick a few partners, where they then explore a website before reporting back to the broader group about what they learned and how they experienced navigating a website. I have heard very positive things, for example, from students about pacificatrocities.org and japanairraids.org. I have students visualize and writeup what digital humanities website they would create; I am amazed at the projects they envision related to history, geography, journalism, art, and activism.