Reading Forum- Chapters 35-39 Essays Example

The connection and possible collaboration between oral history and reminiscence is the key issue for Joanna Bornat in Chapter 35. The main difference of the two fields, according to Bornat is its focus: “Where oral history tends to focus on the content of memory, what is perhaps more characteristic of reminiscence and life review is attention given to process and outcomes for participants”. The blending of these two can lead to surprising revelations about the historical and social context of the past that often break national barriers, as the author own experience has shown. Both practices, although different in purpose, can benefit tremendously from understanding and using each other, reaching in the end a better understanding of the person, who is at the center of both reminiscence and history.
William Westerman in Chapter 38 deals with testimonies from El Salvador, their connection to religious beliefs and movements and their impact on American society. Testimony from refugees from El Salvador and for those who stayed behind fighting, was a form of action that was sanctioned by their religion. But apart from being a personal, religious action with therapeutic results and a political dimension, the author also explains that these testimonies also served in constructing recent history. As he writes: “Rather than existing in isolation, these testimonies were each part of that larger mural of the recent history of Central America, and they corroborated one another by offering overlapping perspectives of the same historical event”.
Rosanne Kennedy, in Chapter 39, deals with the issue of “truth” in personal testimonies, the primary tool of the oral historian. How truthful are those testimonies, and how can they be used in the process of truthfully reconstructing the past? This has been an issue of controversy among historians, not only on a general level but for specific cases as well. As Kennedy suggests this controversy demonstrates a number of other issues in the way history is understood today, including “who owns the past, and who can speak as an authority on the significance of past events”. Testimonies can be seen as unreliable because memory can often be faulty or deliberately altered. But at the same time, they question the historian’s own expectations and biases.