Legacy Project
Legacy Project is an oral history project of Korean American Story. The concept of the Legacy Project is to provide the Korean American community an easy turnkey process to capture the stories of individuals and families through video recordings. All full-length Legacy Project recordings will be archived at the Digital Archives at the University of Southern California’s Korean Heritage Library for academic research and to benefit future generations.
400+
Published & Archived
11
States
What is the purpose?
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Many Korean Americans immigrated to the U.S. during the 1970s or earlier and have personal first-hand experience of Japanese colonialism, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and many more valuable experiences that the current generation has never heard of. Our main goal is to collect and preserve the stories of the older generation whose stories are at risk of being lost and also collect the stories of the current generation with history in the making.
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Legacy Project encourages families to participate together and have family members interview each other, often bringing up memories they’ve never shared before. These recorded interviews will be sent to the family to keep for their own personal records.
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Many Korean American families experience cultural and linguistic gap which discourages intergenerational dialogue. We hope to break some of those obstacles to help each generation fully hear and understand each other’s stories.
How to Participate
Legacy Project recording sessions are about 45 minutes long and the conversations will be video recorded. Don’t worry, we will provide you with a list of potential questions as well as a document which will explain what to expect on the recording day.
Participants will receive a copy of the full interview for their family records, along with photos taken during the recording. A copy of each interview is also preserved in the Korean American Digital Archive at the University of Southern California, where it becomes part of a growing collection documenting the Korean American experience for future generations.
Your recording may also be selected to be edited and shared on social media to encourage others to participate in the project.
To find out more about the Legacy Project or to be added to our waitlist, please sign up below.
Most recordings take place in New York City, but stay tuned for announcements when we come to your city!