Minnesota Immigrant Oral Histories

Oral History interviews with some of Minnesota's newest immigrant groups

Immigrant Oral Histories presents a collection of over 300 oral history interviews conducted between 1967 and 2011 with recent immigrants to Minnesota and their American-born children.  Previously only available on audio cassette, these interviews are now available here as streaming audio files with full text searchable transcripts.  These interviews are a unique source of contemporary history through the experiences of the newest Americans, in their own words.

Since the mid-20th century Minnesota's population has been augmented by successive waves of immigration, especially from Asia, East Africa, and Latin America.  The Minnesota Historical Society has traditionally documented the lives of its residents by collecting objects like letters, photographs, clothing, furniture, and diaries.  But immigrants, especially those fleeing civil war and strife, often arrive with little in the way of possessions, and even less that they would be willing or able to part with.  Oral history offers a superb opportunity to document recent immigrants during the period of settlement and acculturation, thus building bridges into communities that would otherwise be left out of the documentary mainstream. 

The Minnesota Historical Society has used oral history since 1948 as a means of documenting Minnesota's past and present. The Society's oral history collection now includes hundreds of interviews with Minnesotans from all walks of life and all corners of the state.  As new oral history projects with additional immigrant groups are completed or existing projects are digitized they will continue to be added to this site.