x Funding for the Project
This project is part of the DC Oral History Collaborative, a partnership between HumanitiesDC and the DC Public Library. The project was supported by a grant from HumanitiesDC as part of the Humanities Grant Program, an initiative funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
x What is Oral History?
Oral history is a method of gathering, preserving, and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events, according to the Oral History Association.
x The Oral History Interview
In oral history, the person being interviewed is called the narrator. The interviews for this project will ask about the narrator as a person and their early life, their connection with DVRP and their involvements, their practice as an artist, healer, scholar, social worker, case manager, advocate, or any other role.
x About the Project
The Asian/Pacific Islander Domestic Violence Resource Project makes history as the only pan-Asian organization serving A/PI survivors in DC, MD, and VA. Founded by a group of women in 1995, the history of the organization has yet to be systematically accounted for. This oral history project seeks to document the story of DVRP, its community, and its work in supporting survivors of gender and power-based violence in the DMV area over 30 years.

As the A/PI population in DC continues to grow, this present exploration on gender and power-based violence and community responses for and from this cultural group can be used to further connect with the community. Future DC residents would be able to learn more about DVRP and culturally-specific DV programs as a resource, promoting the sense of community and collective care and safety in the area.

In addition to commenting on gender and power-based violence social service provision for A/PIs in DC, DVRP also hosts unique arts and cultural-based programs uplifting the creativity of the A/PI community. Artistic practice is named as an essential part of the work of healing and liberation and positioned as an alternative to Western modalities of healing. Tracing the history of DVRP's integrated arts practice sheds light on the process of building up community-based arts and the connections between arts and healing.

How has the work of supporting A/PI survivors in the DC area evolved over time through community memory? What recurring and/or key themes are emerging about community dynamics, culturally specific program delivery, and the movement against gender and power-based violence? From examining materials from the early 2000s, it looked like DVRP started as a women-centered organization providing safety and advocacy services. Over time, it became a place that connects with multiple genders and has grown in political identity and educational frameworks, raising questions about how this evolvement happened and what iterations existed in between the beginning and the present.

The method of oral history allows for deep and compassionate inquiry by honoring the significance of related personal experiences. Oral history has also been recognized as suited to the purposes of feminist inquiry, emphasizing that the participants are the experts in their experience. This philosophy mirrors the work of DVRP where survivors are positioned as leaders and experts in the movement to end gender and power-based violence. Oral history promotes open-ended storytelling to capture cultural nuances and gain an understanding of not only the information requested, but the person sharing their narrative. Oral history encourages individual subjectivity to coexist with facts and data, making this method ideal for culturally-specific and community-based exploration.
x Methodology
This project will recruit 7 to 11 narrators who are A/PIs in the DMV area involved in addressing gender and power-based violence in A/PI communities. DVRP will identify narrators to participate in the oral history interviews, who would either be current or previous staff members, volunteers, and consultants in arts-based or somatic healing. They would be adults who can read and speak English. Narrators will be recruited through direct outreach from the project manager.

Narrators will sign a release form and a consent form to participate, and they can be identified by a pseudonym if that is preferred. During the interview, narrators can withdraw their participation at any time, take breaks, refuse to discuss any topic, and would need to give verbal consent to be recorded, both in audio and video. Consent for donating, archiving, and sharing the interview should only be obtained after the interview is over, and narrators can review their own transcript. Each interview would take an hour to 90 minutes to conduct. After the interview is concluded, each narrator would receive a $200 honorarium for their contribution. The project manager will also reach out 1-2 weeks afterwards to ask if any follow-up interview is needed.

The audio recording will be transcribed word-for-word using TheirStory.io, a platform to capture, transcribe, edit, and preserve oral histories. The following files would be uploaded to the People's Archive at DCPL: Media files, Transcripts, Indexes - time-coded summary of different segments, Metadata - date, place, names, and Release forms. The copyright is assigned to DCPL, making the interviews publicly available, and the narrator keeps the non-exclusive right to copy, use, and publish the interview.