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Semester Reflections: Intersectionality in VOSMU Interviews

Post author By Jill Kelly
Post date December 4, 2024
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By Michelle Ma, Class of 2025

Each year, from September 15 to October 15, we celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month in order to remember the histories and contributions of those with Spanish, Latin American or Caribbean ancestry. In 1968, the Johnson administration started a Hispanic Heritage Week, which was expanded into a 30-day period by President Ronald Reagan. On August 17, 1988, this observance was enacted into law. Notably, this month stands out because the dates occur between two months. This is due to many independence movements that started around September 15th and carried on through the rest of the 30-day period. Hispanic and Latinx communities have always been crucial to the activism that has strengthened our democracy.

We also celebrate LGBT History Month during October to remember the achievements of influential LGBT icons. This observance was started in 1994 by Rodney Wilson and other teachers who believed a month should be dedicated to teaching gay and lesbian history. They chose October because previous existing traditions such as Coming Out Day (October 11) occur that month and public schools are in session. The history of many LGBT leaders and pioneers is not often taught and too often overlooked. So, LGBT History Month aims to recognize the role models that have contributed to this community and additionally to our country.

To highlight the overlap of these two celebratory occasions, the VOSMU team wants to call your attention to an interview that addresses intersectionality. Coined by Professor Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989, intersectionality is a sociological analytical framework used to understand how the social and political identities of different groups and individuals result in unique combinations and experiences. These factors could be gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, etc. Oftentimes, these social identities intersect with one another and overlap, creating different dynamics. The conversation with intersectionality is long and complicated, so for the sake of this post, I will only be focusing on the basis of this theory. As conversations grow and change, we want to focus on the point that many of the students attending SMU do not only belong to one group; they belong to many that don’t always have shared factors. Voices’ goal has always been to spotlight the individual stories of members in marginalized communities. We hope with each story, we promote a deeper understanding of what people in underrepresented groups experience at SMU.

Please take a look at this interview with Harvey Luna, who was interviewed back in 2022. Harvey Luna grew up in Dallas, Texas, with parents who immigrated from Mexico. He attended SMU from 2010 to 2014 and majored in Political Science and Economics. During his time here, he was very involved in student organizations advocating for LGBTQ+ rights such as Spectrum and Student Senate. You can watch the full interview at this link.

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Surprises and Stories

India Simmons graduated with majors in Human Rights, International Studies, Political Science, and minors in History, Arabic, and Women & Gender Studies. She is currently preparing to acquire her master’s degree at American University in Washington D.C.

India presenting at an academic conference

I have always found it curious the way things work out in life. I initially entered SMU as a member of the Women’s Track and Field team, but I soon became medically disqualified and in search of a new avenue to pursue my passions for civil rights and advocacy. One of the best decisions I ever made was taking Modern African History with Professor Jill E. Kelly during Spring of my sophomore year. By the end of the semester, Professor Kelly invited me to work on a blossoming oral history project during the summer with another peer, Carson Dudick. My immediate professional and scholarly thought was, “Sure, why not?!”

And with that I found myself spending the summer as a research assistant, of all things! It was a good thing that Carson and I were only first and second-year bright eyed undergraduate students. We spent the next several months lugging massive bags of tech equipment across campus in standard Texas summer heat. With time, Carson and I found efficient and strategic ways to conduct the interviews across both the university and the city (without panicking several minutes before the participant showed up because we were practically gleaming in sweat). From taking Ubers across the city (with bags of equipment worth our room and board); to being given personal tours through a judge’s own court; to being repeatedly locked out of buildings on Friday evening; to being invited to capture a woman’s story in her family’s home; to enjoying sparkling flavored water and conversating with a Reverend prior to their interview. I never would have guessed the adventures that would come with an oral history research project.

And throughout it, I found I was consistently having the time of my life. Conducting the oral history interviews allowed me to make personal and meaningful human connections with the individuals I was sitting down with. I quickly found myself immersed into the participants’ stories and feelings, and for an hour each day, I was appreciative of having the opportunity to witness another individual reclaim their story, their history, in their own voice and words. Language is a powerful thing, and often when younger individuals of a disenfranchised group find themselves in situations of injustice or unfairness, they may not always be equipped with the words to accurately describe what they are feeling or experiencing. For the majority of my life I have been such an individual, and I know how daunting it is trying to reclaim a space you have the right to or try to vocalize your (unpopular) thoughts. Perhaps without surprise, I found myself becoming emboldened with each story we captured, and over time I felt myself slowly gathering the courage- and words- to properly claim my own space.

Voices of SMU is a long overdue project for the university. Since its emergence two years ago, over 150 individuals have come back to campus (some for the first time in decades) to tell their story, and in doing so reclaiming their space.

But it gets even better- with a team of a dozen staff including faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students, the project reached another layer of application, as we began working with offices on campus to improve the lives of minority students at the university. And as this work spread to multicultural organizations and other offices, it also began to spread across the North America continent. During the first initial months, Professor Kelly would often pass along invitations or opportunities to present at conferences or local engagements. And each time she passed along an opportunity, my immediate instinctual thought always appeared- “Sure, why not?!” As the years progressed the excitement remained, and the thought process matured as I began to grasp the depth, importance, and impact of traveling to different places and sharing the project with other scholars and educators. Before I knew it, Voices of SMU had traveled to over a dozen speaking opportunities, from Washington, D.C. to Merida, Mexico. And with that, other scholars and educators often took away pieces of the project with them, and many of color related to the material on a personal level.

I never once anticipated the numerous complexities, layers, and opportunities that would arise from joining Voices. Perhaps the biggest surprise came when the project faculty and staff took a giant chance on me and promoted me to Senior Research Assistant. The new responsibility consisted of leading meetings, managing the first half of the interview workflow, and networking with other campus organizations to find more narrators. I am entirely convinced that my acceptance to graduate school is owed to the development and growth and experience I gained during the two years working for the project. This work has challenged me in numerous ways. For example, I check my own biases when handling disagreements in different speaking engagements. I have also learned priceless skills like learning the ins and outs of project management, the ethical dilemmas and questions that arise from research projects, and when to expand its reach and material. I have gained lifelong mentors and friendships who have redefined my undergraduate experience. As I began counting down the remaining meetings I had left with the team, I knew deep down that I would never find as warm, well-intentioned, and loving a work group as this one.

Tell me a Story

We tell stories to children to teach them values that are important to us (“The Little Engine that Could”). Our grandparents tell us stories about our family so we know who we are. And when we come to the University, we tell stories about ourselves so people will know us. Everyone has a story.

Southern Methodist University has been involved in gathering stories and recording oral histories since the 1960s—both formally and informally. Hastings Harrison became a fundraiser for Southern Methodist University in 1959 and created and told his stories about SMU on tape. Those 15 reel-to-reel tapes with his memories await digitization and transcription.

As a part of our University’s 75th anniversary in 1986, the SMU Woman’s Club interviewed 49 alumni, faculty, and staff. Those tapes and some transcripts are available for research in the DeGolyer Library.

History professor Ron Davis was a prolific oral historian interviewing more than 475 people. His interviews focused on the vaudeville and show business community. The bound transcripts are also accessible at the DeGolyer Library.

The SMU Video Archive Series contains videotaped oral histories with leading administrators, faculty, and staff whose careers spanned many decades at SMU. The series was created by Central University Libraries to capture the extensive knowledge base of SMU retirees. The 72 interviews were created between 2000 and 2005.

And now, I am so pleased to be involved in this program, “The Voices of SMU.” These oral histories are conducted by students and are focusing on those folks who don’t always show up in the SMU Archives. Alumni and staff from underrepresented communities can be found, but it is more difficult. There may be a sentence here–or a paragraph there. Finally, SMU Archives has begun to document their stories with the Voices of SMU Oral History Project. To date, we have done over 130 interviews with alumni! I am proud to be a small part of this project.

The difference between this new oral history project and past oral history programs is digital. Students do the interviews using digital video–and sometimes remotely using Zoom technology. The transcripts of the interview are done online using digital technologies, instead of listening to tape and typing each word—as was done with the past. The videos are shared to the world on a digital platform. There are only three old-fashioned parts to this project: 1) researching in the Bridwell and DeGolyer Libraries, 2) interviewing people face-to-face, and 3) connecting to people to let them tell their story.