In April 2024, the Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives project team at The Oral History Center—Roger Eardley-Pryor, Shanna Farrell, and Amanda Tewes—had the opportunity to present about our project at the National Council on Public History conference in Salt Lake City. Since our presentation, we’ve gotten a number of questions about the literature we read related to trauma-informed interviewing, intergenerational trauma, and memory. Below is the bibliography we used, as well as some recent works. We hope this provides some guidance for your own work, and we’d love to hear from you i ..read more

Joseph Bodovitz in 2015 oral history interview On March 9, 2024, California lost one of its most revered public servants. For over forty years, Joseph Bodovitz stood at the center of the state’s regulatory process.  He was the founding executive director of both the San Francisco Bay  Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and the California Coastal Commission. He was the executive director of the Public Utility Commission and headed up the California Environmental Trust. And before retirement, he agreed to serve as the project director for Bay Vision 2020. To be sure, his fi ..read more

Anthology created by the Oral History Center Research by Sari Morikawa, Serena Ingalls, and Timothy Yue, undergraduate researchers After the entrance of the United States into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, which mandated the forced removal of Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast into incarceration camps inland for the duration of the war. This forced removal uprooted families, disrupted businesses, and dispersed communities — impacting generations of Japanese Americans. The Oral History Center, or the OHC, and o ..read more

The UC Berkeley Oral History Center is pleased to announce that applications are open for the 2024 Advanced Institute! The OHC is offering online versions of our educational programs again this year. Advanced Institute: M–F, August 5–9, 8:30 a.m.–2 p.m., via Zoom We are now accepting applications for our 2024 Advanced Institute on a rolling basis. Please apply early, as spots fill quickly. Advanced Institute students inspect equipment. (UC Berkeley Library) The Oral History Center is offering a virtual version of our one-week Advanced Institute on the methodology, theory, and practice of ora ..read more

The UC Berkeley Oral History Center is pleased to announce that applications are open for the 2024 Introductory Workshop! The OHC is offering online versions of our educational programs again this year. Introductory Workshop: Friday, March 8 from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30.p.m. Pacific Time, via Zoom The 2024 Introduction to Oral History Workshop will be held virtually via Zoom on Friday, March 8, from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30.p.m. Pacific Time, with breaks woven in. Applications are now being accepted on a rolling basis. Please apply early, as spots fill up quickly.  Apply for the Introductory Worksho ..read more

by Zachary Matsumoto Patrick Hayashi, 2020. Photo taken by Greg Linhares “My mom told me that an old deaf man, Mr. Wakasa, was walking his adopted stray dog around the perimeter of the camp,” recalled Patrick Hayashi. “His dog caught in the barbed wire fence and Mr. Wakasa went to save him and release him. The sentry ordered him to back away from the fence, but because he was deaf, he couldn’t do it, and so the sentry shot and killed him.” This is the story of James Wakasa’s murder, which Patrick Hayashi’s mother told him when he was growing up. Wakasa was one of over 100,000 Japanese American ..read more

The Oral History Center has been as busy as ever this year, publishing hundreds of hours-worth of interviews online. On top of making this wide range of voices available to the public, my colleagues have also used these collections of The Bancroft Library to interpret, frame and share new stories about our past. In November, the Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives project was launched, featuring interviews with the descendants of the incarceration camps during World War II. Not only are the transcripts online, but there is also a podcast and a deeply moving work of graphic illustrat ..read more

The Oral History Center is pleased to welcome Liz Semler, our new historian of science, medicine, and technology! Liz Semler, OHC Historian of Science, Medicine, and Technology Liz comes to the UC Berkeley Library from the University of Minnesota’s Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine. Elizabeth Semler is a medical and business historian and received her PhD from the University of Minnesota’s Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, where her academic work focused on the relationship between chronic diseases and diet in the United States and the Nordi ..read more

Zachary Matsumoto is a sophomore at UC Berkeley currently studying History and participating as an Oral History Center URAP apprentice. He was drawn to the Oral History Center after attending a Bancroft Roundtable presentation about the Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives Oral History Project. American history is a current academic interest of his, including the histories of communities relating to his background as a Chinese and Japanese American. In his free time, Zachary likes to go for runs, watch sports, and play taiko. Reflections on Work with the Japanese American Intergenera ..read more

By William Cooke  In 1976, Luella “Lue” Lilly became the first and only athletic director of the newly created Women’s Intercollegiate Athletic Department at Cal. Over the course of her 17-year tenure, eight of the women’s sports programs won a combined 28 conference championships. In 1989, USA Today ranked Cal’s women’s athletics program number four overall in the nation. Today, several women’s programs are consistently among the best in the country and Cal female athletes, former and current, compete in the Olympic Games.  Dr. Luella Lilly, the Cal Women’s Athletics Director, 1976 ..read more