Sonic Histories with Chinatown Records
Chinatown Records 華埠錄音 is a homegrown community effort to celebrate the richness of music, memory, and history that comes with inherited family collections. From our favorites on the radio to the conversations woven over them, our living rooms ring with the sounds and stories of our families.
Sonic Histories with Chinatown Records brings together the music we love and the histories behind them into the classroom at Brooklyn Collaborative for a week-long residency with three 6th grade social studies classes, as a part of the classes’ “Identities” unit to start the year.
Rooted in the belief that we can all be DJ historians, students will learn examples of how to start conversations with family members through music. Pulling from the ever-growing Chinatown Records archive of 30+ record collections inherited from my family and neighbors, we'll listen together to songs that have long filled Chinatown living rooms – and how these songs have sparked conversations about the histories and memories behind them.
Students will then talk with a family member about a favorite song and the special memories that come with that beloved song. Students will then share with the class and submit their family member’s beloved song and memory on a Chinatown Records carbon copy receipt. Each student will take home one copy to act as a reminder to keep talking to their family about their favorite songs and memories. I will take the other receipt copy to createompile a class playlist as a musical record collectively created by this class of up-and-coming DJ historians to remember our Sonic Histories time together.
On the final day, we will host a celebration dance party, soundtracked by the class playlist – a party DJed by our students and their family members. Family members will also be invited to this celebration to hear their favorite songs together with us.
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