We are writing to invite you to become part of a journey with us: a journey to explore the story of two people finding each other across 40 years of time, to look at the issues of adoptees and their families, and to make sense of what it means to construct family in the twenty-first century. 

Our names are Tatiana Beller and Joe Lambert.  We are both writers and media professionals.  We are both steeped in the issues of story, of life, of culture.  We were both born in Texas.  We both have boys, 19 years old, one Sebastian, one Massimo Sebastian, born 2 weeks apart.   

Joe is Tatiana's birth father. Tatiana is Joe's biological child. Father? Daughter? The names give us trouble.  We are strangers who know each other in a very peculiar, a very profound, way. 

Editor’s Note: Elizabeth Peck is the Public Policy Director of the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, a partner on the “Hear Our Stories” project. A partnership of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the Care Center, the Center for Digital Storytelling, the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program at Hampshire College, the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy, and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the project aims to recalibrate the existing conversation about teen motherhood from stigmatizing young moms to promoting their sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice.

For all the Loves that are ours, and yours, instead of chocolate or flowers,
we give you stories, and a poem.
With hearts full of gratefulness for the gifts of listening, and telling,

– StoryCenter

“I got very emotional when I read my story aloud in the first story circle before the recording. Probably it’s because November was the month when Esther passed away; this is the fifth anniversary of her death. When I said that line about the anniversary of her death, I just broke. I felt so vulnerable because I was embarrassed and then Mr. Westmoreland said, ‘Just breathe.’ That was when I was able to actually sit up and continue to read the rest of what I had written. Then when I actually did the recording, I didn’t cry. I started to get choked up toward the end, and I got choked up when Eugenia played it back. But when I actually recorded it, I didn’t cry. I’ll never forget that, when Mr. Westmoreland just said, ‘Breathe.’"

“When I told my story in our small breakout session, I got the whole point of storytelling. It’s a way to initiate conversation. That’s when other folks were asking me, ‘How is your brother a U.S. citizen, but you’re undocumented? How come your parents didn’t do it this way or that way?’ That’s when you actually sit down and have the conversation about this is how our legal system works. For example, my mother had her work sponsorship from 2001, and it wasn’t until like last year that her appeal for residency was even taken into consideration. That’s when you can talk about the 10-year backlog in our current immigration system. You can talk about what it’s like to be a youth living through that with no control of the matter. But it’s that initial storytelling that opens up that conversation.”

“I'm a Southern boy. I was born in Alabama. My dad was from Mississippi. This was in the Twenties and Thirties, and I grew up in an extremely segregated society. I ended up clearly outside—far beyond—the racial rage I was raised in as a child. I gave that up. There was something obscene about it.”

“The March on Washington: I remember my parents being very afraid for me to go. You know, thinking something was going to happen. I was kind of afraid too, but I knew that I had to do this, that it didn't matter whether I lived or died. I was going to go peaceably. I wasn't trying to fight. I wasn't going to get arrested, but I wanted to be there.”

Our All Together Now series of free civil and human rights Storied Session workshops is about bringing generations together to learn from each other what it means to stand for our rights. But it can be a challenge to make that learning reciprocal: how do you ensure that each generation feels equally welcome to listen deeply and speak truly? How can elders learn from youngers and vice versa?

Philadelphia is a long way from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, but Lisa Haynes was thrilled to make the trip this past weekend to co-facilitate the very first half-day Storied Session in our free All Together Now series of civil and human rights workshops.

To the contrary, Lisa knows how important it is to bring the generations together for these groundbreaking conversations. “The stories that were around that table,” said Lisa, “we could have been there for four days getting very significant, rich stories about their experience in Elizabeth City dealing with racism and the civil rights movement. There is such a need to talk and have exchanges. It's just so unbelievable to me how deep the well is. The older people were like, ‘Oh, I can't wait to give this website to my grandchild so they can see.’ That's what they all wanted. The younger people left that workshop that much more empowered, understanding the history of this, that this is not the first time these challenges have happened. You can't discount that sort of exchange.”

“Four little girls were killed in Birmingham yesterday. A mad, remorseful, worried community asks, ‘Who did it, who threw that bomb?’ The answer should be ‘We all did it.’ Every last one of us is condemned for that crime and the bombing before it and the ones last month, last year, a decade ago. We all did it.”

This past Sunday marked the fiftieth anniversary of another bloody and tragic Sunday, one that inspired civil rights lawyer Charles Morgan to make the speech that starts with these powerful lines. On September 15, 1963, just a couple of weeks after the massive March on Washington for Jobs and Justice, a member of the Ku Klux Klan bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls: three 14 year-olds—Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley—and 11 year-old Denise McNair. The bomber was initially convicted only of possessing dynamite, receiving a six-month sentence and a $100 fine. It took 14 years to bring him to justice: the case was reopened in 1971, and he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1977.

Berkeley, CA (September 16, 2013) – Center for Digital Storytelling (StoryCenter) is sharing its expertise in powerful personal storytelling with video editors and content developers across the WeVideo user spectrum.

"The world is moving to the cloud, and so is Digital Storytelling with the enormously innovative online tool WeVideo," says Joe Lambert, Founder and Director of the Center for Digital Storytelling. "The cross platform, affordable, and easy-to-use editor has the potential to revolutionize the practices of Digital Storytelling in countless contexts. We can see teachers creating collaborative projects in international educational exchanges, small companies encouraging storytelling about their engagement with customers with the customers themselves, social service and human rights advocates working in new partnerships with local communities via the web, and many, many more uses. We are more than pleased to join forces with WeVideo."  

"It was very obvious, it was really very visceral and very upfront what people's prejudices and stereotypes were when I was a kid growing up," Alberto Olivas told us, describing his early childhood in rural Georgia in the seventies. Alberto directs the Center for Civic Participation for the Maricopa Community College District in Phoenix, Arizona. Next month, we'll be offering one of our very special series of free Storied Session workshops across the U.S. at the Urban League in Phoenix, and Alberto was explaining why he supports this project. All Together Now: Intergenerational Stories of Civil and Human Rights is aiming to bridge the generation gap and honor a legacy by engaging elders and young people in sharing stories of standing up for hard-won rights.

Dr. Eugenia Gardner, an oral historian and digital storytelling facilitator-in-training, attended the 50th Anniversary March on Washington this past Saturday. She joined thousands in honoring the civil rights pioneers who gathered fifty years ago today, on August 28, 1963, for the original March on Washington for Jobs and Justice. She has been helping StoryCenter to organize and lead a very special series of free Storied Session workshops across the U.S. All Together Now: Intergenerational Stories of Civil and Human Rights is aiming to bridge the generation gap and honor a legacy by engaging elders and young people in sharing stories of standing up for hard-won rights. . .

For those who cherish civil and human rights, this is a year of many anniversaries. One is very much on our minds right now: the epochal events of August 28, 1963, when 250,000 Americans joined the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." StoryCenter is planning a series of free All Together Now Storied Sessions as our gift to communities across the nation this fall. If you like the idea, we'd love to hear how you can help. We'll announce the schedule in coming weeks, so please watch this blog for information on how to take part. 

The Center for Digital Storytelling has been busy facilitating workshops in which the inspirational participants brought together by the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center's (A&PIWC) Banyan Tree Project have told the stories that are featured in these events to celebrate Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on May 19. Since March 2012, the Center for Digital Storytelling has partnered with the A&PIWC on four workshops in the Bay Area, Guam and Honolulu, and will teach three more workshops this summer.

Sometimes this job affords you amazing contrasts. Here is one week in April:

Tuesday afternoon.
New Haven, Connecticut.

A mad dash to finish a group of stories by rambunctious teenagers. Hip hop music is playing. They are getting up and wandering around and laughing with each other. Especially the tall skinny kid from California; he seems like he belongs there, trading rap lyrics and talking smack.  

They must have been friends for years, right?

But most of these young people only met three days before.

"Why do you volunteer?" The SharedTime project asks volunteers at nonprofits in Toronto to answer this question and to probe deeply, unearthing the real reasons they started – and continue – to give back. Over the past two years, the Center for Digital Storytelling has worked with Volunteer Toronto on the SharedTime project to help capture the spirit of volunteerism in Toronto.

Eric held us spellbound. We knew we were witnessing a moment especially rich in humanity, in dignity, in compassion, in nobility, in tapping into the most important things that make us human. His story was about finding out he was HIV-positive. All the storytellers in the room were also HIV-positive and were telling different versions of this story. About how HIV made them stronger and wiser and better able to support their friends and the people they work with in their communities.

For 20 years (this month!), the Center for Digital Storytelling has been supporting people in sharing meaningful stories from their lived experiences – because stories matter. Last week, Joe Lambert (our Founding Director) and I were in L.A. teaching a workshop at the Museum of Natural History. As we drove past the American Film Institute, he said, “This all started right here 20 years ago this week, at our first digital storytelling workshop hosted by AFI.”