Chien-Chi Huang is a survivor of breast cancer. Born in Taiwan, she was the first person in her neighborhood to go to a Catholic school in Taipei. An immigrant to the United States, who made her journey 30 years ago to attend graduate school, she was the first person in her family to marry a non-Asian husband.
“My father said to me, ‘Your life will be hard living away from us. But if this man makes you happy, then I am happy,’” Huang said.
Huang was just one of six performers to share her story during Pao Arts Center and PRX Podcast Garage’s “Personal storytelling for social change,” on Nov. 23. Held at Dudley Café in Roxbury, the event was the culmination of four weeks of workshops, during which participants developed stories, grounded in life experiences, about immigration, identity, mental health, and more. The narratives were written with the intention of shifting the way people see the world and sparking change within communities.
“What makes the best stories is some connection to what it means to be human or a fundamental human experience,” said Lawrence Barriner II, who led the workshops with radio and audio producer Heidi Shin. “A story might start with something really specific to me, but it would develop in such a way that other people can see how one of their experiences is connected to mine.”
Huang’s performance was followed by Elga Santiago, a first generation Cape Verdean American, who vividly described how she was caught in a drive-by shooting, at 19.
Frederico Lapa performed an improvisation, abstractly evoking images.
Musician Layle Omeran played the Arabic lute and described her experience coming out as a queer woman. She asked the audience to reflect on something they never imagined they would be able to do.
Barbara Sahli shared audio recordings she had collected that gave voice to the stories of Muslim youth, including a narrative about facing discrimination on a bus and hiding identity in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
“They’re really about assumptions that people make about unfamiliar others,” said Sahli. “In this case, it’s about Muslims, but one thing I wanted to convey is that it’s not just a problem Muslims deal with. It’s the problem of being ‘othered,’ or assumed to be a certain way.”
The evening concluded with a reading by Crystal Lee, who described her experience with bipolar disorder and eventually learning to accept herself for who she is. While establishing a system of tracking her daily routines and behaviors, she “discovered it’s not about finding a new and improved self” but found a way of “reconciling different parts of me.”
The event at Dudley Café was preceded by an earlier storytelling showcase, held Oct. 25 at the Pao Arts Center. Opened in 2017, the Pao Arts Center is Chinatown’s first community-based arts center and celebrates Asian culture. PRX Podcast Garage, which helped to organize the workshop and performances, is a community recording studio and event space for audio storytellers.
Barriner said hearing the personal stories of individual community members is extremely valuable and helps people find connection.
“It’s important for people to hear these stories because honestly, a huge part of the brokenness of our societies is we don’t know our own stories or each other’s stories,” Barriner said. “When people don’t individually believe their ability to tell their own story matters, it becomes easy for our society to inherit the stories that are told to us and creates societal and systemic problems. … Stories are an important piece of the puzzle that is making the world a place that works for all of us.”
