Lizzo says in her song, “Juice", "that I’m out here making news." The fact of the matter here is that all of us are. It was hard for me to believe that my little every day existence is going to be a part of history until I took Creating and Telling Fact-based and Historical Stories this semester. The people I met in the stories were trying to live their best lives during the time period that they lived.
I met a woman who caught my attention in a “Google Doodle”. She was interested in showing African American women in beautiful and smart as well as seeking fair treatment for all people. I can say with a great deal of certainty that having her likeness drawn as a “Google Doodle” for being the first African American cartoonist in syndication was not her motivation. My next story was about a Grateful Dead fan who is Black. He does not listen to their music with that in his mind. He, like the rest of us simply listen to music that he enjoys. In my assignments I met a woman who lived the life that she was supposed to live for her time. She even kept secret that she had about not being happy shortly after childbirth because feeling that way was wrong. Twenty years later, she found that she was not the only woman that had those feelings and that she could get help without shame.
Historical stories also show what life was like in a certain time period through a specific event. I learned about the lives and working conditions through an event Mary Gay Ducey tells about a fire in a shirtwaist factory in New York. We also learn about what New York was like at that time.
Yes, one day someone will tell about this time period. Don’t be surprised if part or all of your life is being told while you were just living the best that you could.
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