Patricia Williams’ story starts with the fruits and vegetables and chickens and the goats she grew up with in the Grenada countryside, and the viewfinder toy binoculars that teased her sense of adventure with its pictures of the world that would never quite capture the images her eyes would later see for themselves. Her story continues today in Flatbush, Brooklyn, but in between she has traveled the world, married, and bore two children, one of whom, Jumaane Williams ’95 ’05 M.A., touts his own story of an immigrant son turned Brooklyn College student turned rising political star. “See how important immigrant stories are?” said Patricia Williams late last week, taking a quick break from Election Day campaigning for her son’s bid to become lieutenant governor of New York. “We’ve done so much to build this country. Our stories must be told.” She made the time to come check out her story and those of others on display at the opening of “We Are Brooklyn: Immigrant Voices,” a new traveling exhibition of the work of students and faculty members who have participated in the Brooklyn College Listening Project. The multimedia exhibit features near 7-foot posters of immigrant stories and invites patrons to podcasts that feature interviews conducted by students. “This exhibition was originally conceived of as a chance to get student work out to a larger audience because their professors had heard their oral histories, and other students heard their oral histories. But we were convinced that their work needed to go out to the larger world,” said Jessica Siegel, an associate professor of English who secured two grants, one from The Whiting Foundation and one from Humanities New York, to put on the exhibit and to create the original website for the Listening Project. The Listening Project began more than three years ago as a college-wide interdisciplinary oral history project with the aim of creating publicly accessible audio archives about the everyday lives of Brooklyn residents. Professors who chose to participate had their classes do an assignment in which students interview a New York City resident for an oral history project. Since many students themselves are from immigrant communities, and this being Brooklyn, there were many immigrant stories among the projects. “Here we are in Brooklyn, where we can engage with people from around the world,” said Brooklyn College President Michelle J. Anderson at the reception. “So what better place than right here in Brooklyn to send our students out to reap some of the rich wisdom that comes from immigrant communities?” The exhibit will run at the Brooklyn College Library through early November, and moves on November 8 to Manhattan’s Tenement Museum, which focuses on urban immigrant history.
