Transmission Regained: Recalling Traditional Lifeways through Intergenerational Oral History in the “World’s Borough” Queens

FAIN: PN-303743-25

CUNY Research Foundation, LaGuardia Community College (Long Island City, NY 11101-3007)
Bijoyeta Das (Project Director: May 2024 to present)
Noam Scheindlin (Co Project Director: January 2025 to present)

The creation of an intergenerational oral history collection of 42 interviews, which would explore alienation from nature and traditional practices in the face of climate change in Queens, New York.

Our project will invite young people to interview older generations about their memories of traditional everyday life practices and cultural rituals that have connected them to nature, physically, emotionally, sensorially, and spiritually. Our diverse student body will function as collectors, guided by faculty with expertise in oral history, conservation, and migration. By turning Queens, New York, known as the World’s Borough, into a cultural library, we will explore the community members’ deep or distant memories of connection to or disconnection from nature. Narratives based on these interviews will be published in ethnic media for collective reflection. Our project is radical as it is an invitation to the younger generation to imagine a future more resonant with nature by looking into a past that has not yet been made into history. It is both hyperlocal but also global as it zooms in on Queens and taps into the multicultural sentiments of people coming from over 120 countries.