Stories

Abstract

In this chapter, Mallman presents the elusive and intangible ways in which the culturally diverse second-generation migrant women connected with their family culture. This includes visits to ancestral homelands and collecting stories through research, archives, and testimony. A visit to the ancestral homeland is one form of story collecting. By physically being there, the women began storying their lives and writing themselves into their family narrative. When visits were not possible, research became another form of actively seeking out stories in order to understand their parents and cultural heritage. Many of the women collected biographical documents as well as audio and video recorded their parents’ oral histories. Through the collection of stories, the women told of re-storying their past experiences of having rejected their cultural background and, for some, of having undergone childhood trauma. Further, they talked about coming to empathise with their immigrant parents lives.