Diablevert

Cud! Fresh Cud!

My old professor wrote me back! I am psyched.

I wrote her a few weeks ago, because her specialty was in immigration (to the U.S.) and I thought she would have some good links for me. She didn’t write me back for a while, and wasn’t sure what to do. It’s always difficult to try and imagine what going on in the ether at the other end of an unanswered email. Did you get binned on sight when they didn’t recognize your address? Spam-filtered? Did they read it and forget about it? Should you pester them again, after they evinced such an overwhelming desire to correspond with you the first time? I decided to give the professor another go. (I have the feeling that if I were English that last bit would sound dirtier.)

Turns out she didn’t reply the first time because she was giving birth to her firstborn child. Keeps you busy. She even remembered who I was, which was also cool.

But clearly coolest were the links she sent me, to here , which had links to here, which is a repository of oral histories and suchlike stuff from people who immigrated and people who didn’t. Or, plenty of stuff that’s right up my alley. Facts and figures, callou, calley! Tables, charts! Ye-ah!

The latter site in particular is neat; they have almost a hundred interviews of about an hour each, many with pictures and other pieces of documentation thrown in. The earnestness of grad student interviewers to recording all this stuff is in sharp contrast to the rather more blasé attitude of the subjects toward the importance of their own experience, but the good heartedness of all involved comes across quite clearly. You do wish they'd speak up a bit, though.

I can't wait to ruminate, man.