Themes: Self & Identity

"I think for a lot of people, being black, and even being a man can be very difficult. But I chose not to have that as an issue. And I think that I’ve survived life better by not allowing that to be an issue. I don’t want to be bitter, and I don’t want to be angry."

"My grandmother had 7 children. And all the children were very close, there were no fights or anything. As a little girl some of the happiest moments were going to my grandmother -- we used to go every Sunday and have chocolate cake...We left Linden Boulevard because the depression was on and we couldn't afford the rent. I think the rent was $90 a month or something."

"I was already dating my husband, and my friend kept on trying to set me up with this guy. He's actually a very nice guy. He'd be great for someone else. But what she kept on talking about, “He's also biracial, Jasmine. He's also black and he's also white. You guys should date.” I was like, “I already am seeing someone.” She's like, “But I think you guys are really good.” It was like that was the key."

"Right before my bar mitzvah, when I was hating the studying, I was 12, and I already knew that I was, at the least, agnostic -- I kind of yelled at her, “I don’t want to do this. I don’t believe in God.” And she said, “Well, I don’t either, and you’re going to do it.” And it was really interesting to me because at that point and for the rest of her career she had already dedicated herself to working as a Jewish communal professional in the Jewish Community Centers movement.

"So on one hand like I grew up being told that the Russians saved my grandfather’s life, because they did, but on the other hand like he’s Latvian, so -- my grandparents just had this very sort of mixed thing. Because on one hand they were Jewish, but on the other hand they were Latvian, and so they had Jewish allegiances and then they also grew up in Latvia and loved their country."

"When I got into Princeton, suddenly everyone who thought it was cool that I was from Venezuela attributed the fact that I got in there to the fact that I was Hispanic. And so that became really difficult for me, because I thought I had earned it, and suddenly, all these kind of weird feelings start coming up around my heritage, because I only got where I was getting to because of this, according to my peers.

"I like to lead by example. Sometimes I don't like to lecture people. Even though I want to, but a lot of times I just lead by example, like you do what you do, I do what I do, just live life."

Oral history allows for multiplicity: for the varied, nuanced, and complicated stories of identity and experience to be told, instead of flattened to static racial categories.