Browse Items (13 total)

Linda Wong is one of the daughters of Tom Wong, the man that opened up the first Chinese restaurant in Coralville, Ming Garden. In this interview, she reflects what it was like growing up in Iowa as the only Chinese family from 1957 onward and how it…

Vishalini was apprehensive to speak with me at first. As a relative newcomer to America much less Coralville, she expressed worry that she would not have much to add on an oral history about residents in Coralville. Instead of focusing heavily on…

When I first approached Leah, I told her this was an interview about her affective experience living in Coralville. While this is always true for all my interviews, I also focus on the narrator’s life story outside of Coralville. As a city located in…

In an interview scheduled to go from 9 AM to 11 AM, councilwoman Hai Huynh and I spoke for over five hours. Between laughter, tears, and reflection, Hai told me how her grandma taught her the meaning of community, how she struggled and succeeded…

Rehab's story was incredibly powerful. The first few moments of the interview she was admittedly nervous. However, after a few minutes, she settled into the interview and began telling amazing stories. The story that will stick with me the longest is…

"As an adoptee, I feel like a lot of people will go through different periods of their life where they are very interested in their adoption, and then they're very like, "I don't want to ever think about this and think about why, and I don't want to…

Hai's commitment to community is obvious if you live in Coralville. Besides being a city council member, she works for the Coralville food pantry, has worked in the Iowa City school district, and can be found all over the city volunteering. This…

Coming from China to America as a dependent to her husband who was a PhD student at the University of Iowa, Qing Xu spoke little English. To learn she took English classes at the Coralville Public Library and Kirkwood Community College for a couple…

Omega tells us about how Asia Fest was ten years in the making. With a small group of moms that live in the Coralville area, they set out to create a festival to celebrate Asian culture and fight against the rise of anti-Asian racism.

Celine's story most succinctly captured a theme I had noticed throughout many of my interviews. Celine told me how she grew up in North Liberty, she went to school in Iowa City, but she became an adult in Coralville. That element of becoming an adult…

Rehab tells a story about fighting employment discrimination at Wal-Mart. She convinced her local Wal-Mart to hire her despite their misconstrued belief of what she was and was not capable of as a Muslim woman. With the belief that she can fight for…

In this vignette, I ask Qing about why and how she composed a piece about water. She tells me that the ocean was something she longed for as a kid. Armed with images of water from TV shows, movies, and books, she tried to compose a piece about the…