About
Soon to be part of the East Side Freedom Library’s permanent collection, the Young People's Archive records, preserves, and interprets historical information that helps listeners identify and understand the tensions inherent in American cultural values, norms, and beliefs. YPA interviewers are producers who learn from aesthetics-based education methods to help them listen across difference™, build understanding, and disrupt notions of difference. Using audioethnography, a creative production process that involves compassionate interviewing engaged listening, and decoding created by Lisa Arrastia, producers center the voices of narrators in audio and visual oral history remixes.
If you are a researcher looking to access the collection or want to learn, study, and produce with YPA, please get in touch with us.
“A lot of us, when we listen to people, we’re already planning our response before a person even stops talking. At YPA, we use our audios as a way to connect with people in the way we’ve always wanted to. So, to be quiet and to listen, as YPA says, “beneath the words,” what we’re doing is actually understanding others’ perspectives. That’s life changing.”
– Adult Education Teacher
“I’ve actually started less talking and more listening. Then, when I ask questions, my friends are shocked because they realize I’m really listening.”
– College Baseball Athlete
