Forty-two Chicago high school students from immigrant families will gather at DePaul University a week before Independence Day to participate in an innovative oral history project, called "In Our Own Words," that will challenge them to explore who they are through the stories of their families’ diverse journeys to America.

Nominated by public and private high schools across the city, the sophomores and juniors will engage in a series of exercises led by DePaul educators to discover and tell their families’ stories on the university’s Lincoln Park Campus from June 22 through June 27. The program targets academic achievers from low-income backgrounds who are immigrants, or the children of immigrants, from a wide range of Latin American, African, Asian and Eastern European countries. This year’s group speaks 11 languages in addition to English. The program is designed to give students the skills necessary to understand and embrace their family histories without letting their backgrounds become stumbling blocks for their continued academic success.

Workshop leader Juana Goergen, a professor of modern languages, will teach the students storytelling techniques and guide them in collecting interviews with relatives, as well as photos and documents, to weave into their oral history presentations. For some of the teens, the project will prompt the first in-depth discussions with family members about the circumstances—from poverty, persecution and war to profound yearnings for greater opportunity—that led them to immigrate to the United States. The teens will present these moving narratives to an audience of their parents, grandparents, siblings and teachers at the conclusion of the workshop on Saturday morning, June 27.

The program was created by DePaul’s Center for Access and Attainment, which has earned national recognition for its innovative programs supporting first-generation college students, in partnership with the Chicago Public Schools’ International Baccalaureate curriculum for gifted students. The number of participants has more than doubled since the annual workshop was launched four years ago, according to Brian Spittle, assistant vice president for Access and Attainment at DePaul.

"We created ‘In Our Own Words’ to address the challenges facing many talented high school students from immigrant backgrounds who contemplate college," Spittle said. "Many of these students could find success at four-year colleges, but set their sights lower because they lack confidence and believe that advancing their educations may pull them away from their families and cultures. The immigrant oral history project provides students with an opportunity to explore and embrace their identities and heritages while contemplating their futures in a campus setting."

The family stories discovered by the students are powerful encouragement, too, according to workshop leader Goergen. Though they represent the experiences of parents and grandparents from many lands, the common theme is of hardships endured to create opportunities in America for this younger generation. "These stories give them wings," Goergen said. "When these students later think of themselves and their futures, they say, ‘yes I can.’"

That theme is evident in the oral history story narrated by student Gabriel Gamez Jr., who participated in last year’s workshop and posted a video of his presentation on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rXfImLdEdM). Gamez has since graduated from Hubbard High School and is heading to Lake Forest College in the fall.

Gamez’ presentation begins with a series of photos of his smiling mother, Angela, and her children in Chicago, as Gamez explains that he and his siblings wouldn’t be here if not for the sacrifices made by their mother, who fled El Salvador more than 20 years ago. He then describes Usulután, the region where Angela grew up, as a "precious place" over photos of its waterfall, volcano and lush landscape. These peaceful images give way to brutal photos of violence from El Salvador’s civil war, which raged from 1980-1992, as Gamez tells how the war affected the country’s people, including his family. "One day, Angela’s father, along with her older brother, went out to do farm work," he narrates. "They never came back. Three days later, they found their bodies."

The teen tells about his mother’s escape to the United States and her fruitless search for news of relatives who disappeared in El Salvador. "For many years she would continue to think about El Salvador, thinking about how cruel humanity could be, destroying and exploiting the innocent," Gabriel narrates. "But instead of feeling hate, she decided to turn to God and she decided to teach her children how in reality the world is not cruel. Instead they could find a lot of hope…."

DePaul plans to gather the students’ stories into a book so that they may inspire others.

Editors’ Note: Reporters interesting in covering a workshop session or the June 27 final presentations should contact Robin Florzak, DePaul Media Relations, at (312) 362-8592 or rflorzak@depaul.edu.