A/P/A Voices: A COVID-19 Public Memory Project

Focus

The project conducts recorded virtual interviews, and collects digital artifacts documenting the experiences of Asian/Pacific American individuals and communities during the pandemic.

History

Recognizing the critical need for documenting the COVID-19 pandemic and the myriad of ways it has and will impact Asian/Pacific American communities in New York City and nationally, the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University, in collaboration with Tomie Arai, Lena Sze, Vivian Truong, and Diane Wong, launched the A/P/A Voices: A COVID-19 Public Memory Project in Spring 2020.

 Collection

Thus far, the project has conducted over 40 recorded virtual interviews, and collected dozens of digital artifacts (including photographs, flyers, tool kits, and artwork) documenting the experiences of Asian/Pacifc American individuals and communities during the pandemic.

 Form of Collection

Digitized recordings, and digital artifacts.

 Emphasis

Our project is a gesture to the usefulness of the Asian/Pacific American identity frame for many of us, while recognizing that it does not fully represent all of our narrators or participants in all their fullness. We acknowledge and want to think of expansive ways of incorporating different voices, languages, and identities.

We believe that Asian/Pacific Americans’ experiences of COVID-19 are important to document, but are not detached from the experiences of other communities to which we belong, create, and seek solidarity with.

 We believe that this documentation is essential not just for our communities’ own processing and storytelling, but for all of us to learn from this moment now and into the future.  To that end, this public memory project is intended to be broad in scope. We aim to cast a wide net, but endeavor to include stories from Asian/Pacific American communities that often remain unrecorded. By virtue of our institutional location, we also have a particular interest in New York City and the university communities in which we are embedded.

 Time Period

Present

 Public Access

Eventually, the project will be housed at the NYU Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, 70 Washington Square South, Second floor.

 Selections from the collection will be made available soon at apavoices.org

 Director

Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU

 Contact Person

Name: Laura Chen-Schultz

Email: apa.archives@nyu.edu

Telephone number: 212 998 3700

Website:  apa.nyu.edu