Session Abstract

This panel explores the methodological challenges of historical research on people whose lives are not captured in conventional archives and uses research projects on immigrant communities in the United States to argue for methodological innovation in historical research. Using the approaches of anthropologists, oral historians, sociologists, and collections specialists, the panelists have devised ways to record and preserve undocumented experiences. Melissa Borja studies religious innovation and change experienced by Hmong refugees who have resettled in Minnesota, by interviewing and cultivating relationships with the Hmong community, a historically non-literate population. In assessing the impact of urban renewal on Boston’s Chinatown, Thomas Chen has conducted interviews of displaced individuals to document the disparity between official accounts and Chinese community stories of redevelopment. Heather Lee is establishing an archive on Chinese restaurant workers by engaging Chinese immigrant communities to share their stories and materials with researchers, the public, and interested collecting institutions to grow the public record of less-documented communities.

This panel addresses A.H.A. conference attendees who are interested in Pacific migration or seek alternative methodologies for historical research. All grounded in the discipline of history, the panelists have experimented with research strategies that enlarge the methodological repertoire from which historians draw. Their interdisciplinary methods provide models for other studies of undocumented populations and enable historians to conduct research on peoples whose histories were once considered inaccessible. Through their research, they have created original records on their populations and have expanded the evidentiary base for future research. They have confronted questions of ethics that surround research on living populations that historians normally do not face and offer techniques for conducting research that protects living people’s interests and privacy. Additionally, their collaborations with living communities have given the panelists opportunities to engage their communities in historical research, creating new audiences for their work and empowering communities to participate in writing their own histories. These strategies redress the marginality of peoples who occupy a liminal position in American society, utilizing historical research to challenge inequality and injustice.