The Recent Past

Essay Question:

What events in the past twenty-five years or so have been most significant in shaping your family?

To support your argument, think about whether national events (like presidential elections) or personal ones (marriages and divorces) are more significant for your family. The following questions should elicit family stories that will be useful to you. Composing your own questions might be even more successful, especially if you base those questions on your knowledge of your family chronology and history.

• Which national events of the last twenty-five years seem most unforgettable to people in your family? Which have had the most effect on them?
• Which personal events of the last twenty-five years seem most unforgettable to people in your family? Which have had the most effect on them?
• How did your informant hear about the 9/11 attacks? Has 9/11 had different effects on different generations of your family?
• How memorable were the attacks on Rodney King and on Matthew Shepard?


• When did people in your family begin using computers, and why? When did people in your family start using the internet? Facebook? cell phones?
• Do people in your family worry about online privacy or identity theft? government surveillance? security versus convenience at airports, etc.? Do different generations differ in their concern about these things?


• Did anyone in your family get a tattoo in the twentieth century? When and why? How do they feel about it now? Do different generations feel differently about tattoos?
• What did people in your family think of shows like Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Friends, or Twin Peaks? In the past twenty-five years, have there been movies or television shows that more than one generation of your family has enjoyed?
  
  
  
  

For further conversation, ask your informant about yourself:

• What does your informant remember about the day you were born (or the day he/she heard about your birth)?
• What does your informant remember most about your childhood? Did you do things when you were young that really irritated him or her? What did you do that your informant was most proud of?
• Does your informant think that you are now fully adult? How does he/she know?
• Who in your family are you most like, according to your informant?
• Can your informant make predictions about your future, based on how other people in your family have turned out?
• If your informant could only give you one piece of advice, what would it be?