In Transit: An Oral History Project about Crossing Borders, 2020-2021
Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- In Transit: An Oral History Project about Crossing Borders
- Subtitle:
- An Oral History Project about Crossing Borders
- Dates:
- 2020-2021
- Extent:
- 4 gigabyte(s)
- Language:
- English .
- Preferred citation:
-
[identification of item], In Transit: An Oral History Project about Crossing Borders (SC1581). Department of Special Collections & University Archives, Stanford Libaries, Stanford, Calif.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The collection contains oral history interviews primarily with international students at Stanford University during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interviews cover visa laws and travel, both during and before the pandemic.
- Biographical / historical:
-
On March 20, 2020, the US Department of State announced that "[i]n response to significant worldwide challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of State is temporarily suspending routine visa services at all US Embassies and Consulates." Exacerbating this situation, on September 25, 2020, the US Homeland Security Department proposed a new rule that would restrict student visas to two years for citizens from fifty-nine countries. Such visa restrictions can negatively impact student diversity, academic freedom, plurality of ideas, and cultural and linguistic heterogeneity at academic institutions such as Stanford University.
Taking this context into consideration, and given that 25.64% of the Stanford student population in 2019 consisted of international students (according to the 2019 Annual Report released by the Bechtel International Student Center), the primary purpose of this project is to understand visa-related difficulties and travel restrictions international students at Stanford are facing since the pandemic started. My larger research project explores the ways in which immigrants and international students experience rights violations and the loss of dignity in the process of securing the right to immigrate and settle down in the US. Given that the visa system was introduced to limit the mobility of European Jews during World War II, and the inherently racist, discriminatory, and neocolonial bases of these laws, my work is an attempt to understand how such laws continue to impinge on the rights and dignities of applicants.
The oral history project "In Transit" was run in collaboration with the Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program and the Poetic Media Lab, which is a digital humanities research and design group based at the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) at Stanford University. It aims to create a digital archive of oral histories that capture the lived realities of those who experience rights violations and indignities as a consequence of pandemic-triggered visa restrictions. It complements my larger dissertation research by capturing via oral narratives the lived realities and struggles that "aliens" have been going through since the pandemic began (and continue to undergo). Oral history interviews were conducted with immigrants, international students, as well as administrative staff who work on visa-related issues. This project has so far collected, and is in the process of transcribing, twenty-five interviews with international students, both graduate and undergraduate, at Stanford University from twenty-three countries on the topic of immigration and visas. A long-form oral history interview has also been conducted with John Pearson, Director Emeritus of the Bechtel International Center at Stanford University.
- Acquisition information:
- Interviews were conducted by Stanford graduate student Dharshani Lakmali Jayasinghe with support from the Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2025-04-10 15:57:13 -0700 .
Access and use
- Restrictions:
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Due to the personal nature of the interviews, all content has been embargoed until at least September 2026, with some content embargoed for longer or indefinitely. All materials are restricted to users with a Stanford University ID.
- Terms of access:
-
While Special Collections is the owner of the physical and digital items, permission to examine collection materials is not an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Any transmission or reproduction beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the owners of rights, heir(s) or assigns. See: http://library.stanford.edu/spc/using-collections/permission-publish
- Preferred citation:
-
[identification of item], In Transit: An Oral History Project about Crossing Borders (SC1581). Department of Special Collections & University Archives, Stanford Libaries, Stanford, Calif.
- Location of this collection:
-
Stanford University Archives, Green Library557 Escondido MallStanford, CA 94305-6064, US
- Contact:
- (650) 725-1022