Browse Items (9 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…

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…

My interview with Celine was filled with laughter but also quite a few somber moments. Between hearing she was named after Celine Dion and how she wants to make Coralville’s nickname “the ville,” she told me stories about being a care-taker for then…

This was my second time interviewing Omega Dancel. The first was for another oral history project that aimed to capture the stories of Asian American students and alumni at the University of Iowa that you can find here. In that first interview with…