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Library

Amy Keegan Safranek

June 24, 2025

|

Hudson, NY

Song

Recorded by

Emma York

This interview is available in-person only. Please get in touch if you would like to listen.
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Summary:

This interview was conducted with Amy Keegan Safranek in Hudson, NY, on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, as part of Oral History Summer School. Amy and Emma were both students in the OHSS cohort, and Amy had just interviewed Emma before this interview as part of a reciprocal exercise. Amy is a white, queer, and non-binary sibling, friend, spouse, cat companion, introvert, and organizer who had recently turned 40. They believe deeply in the power of storytelling and are developing their skills as a death and grief worker.

Born in the Pacific Northwest, Amy moved frequently and speaks about saying goodbye to a family cabin in Idaho, their life in Los Angeles, and their desire to stay in one place long enough to grow roots and engage in community-based activism. They discuss experiences of bullying, anxiety, and depression, the power of finding language for their gender identity, and the body modifications that helped them feel more like themselves. These experiences have shaped how Amy prioritizes relationships—both through their intimate connections and through creating spaces where others feel safe to be themselves.

Amy reflects on what they learned in their 30s, the process of aging, and holding power and privilege as a white person while reconnecting with ethnic roots and rituals. They share joy in learning about Judaism from their partner, with whom they recently celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary. Amy also discusses relationships with both biological and chosen family, the influence of growing up with a father who worked on climate change, and their ambivalence and longing about becoming a parent.

This interview may be of interest to those curious about how white activists navigate power and privilege, the role of chosen family for non-binary people, the ways people grieve, and how climate change shapes decisions about parenting in the 21st century.

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Themes:
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Interviewer Bio:
Emma York

Emma York, 28, is a white woman from a working-class, multicultural city in the Northeast. A graduate of a large urban public high school, she became a 7th/8th grade Humanities teacher to help young people see themselves as agents of change. She served on the Reimagining New England Histories Curriculum Committee, collaborating with Indigenous leaders and educators to recover Black and Indigenous histories in K–12 education. Emma holds a BA in English & Africana Studies from Williams College and an MA in Teaching from Brown University.

She is now Associate Director of Education and Community at the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center and Project Manager for Casting a Wider Net, a multilingual oral history project at the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center that trained community members to interview local people in the fishing industry and co-create a traveling exhibit. An oral historian, educator, and public programmer, Emma curates spaces for deep listening to one another and to history’s silences. Her interests include immigration, labor, diasporic identity, rest, resistance, and joy—and though she never learned to ride a bike, Max’s enthusiasm for the Bike Co-Op may finally inspire her to learn.

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Additional Info:
Interview language(s):
English
,
Audio quality:

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Permissions: 

This interview is hereby made available for research purposes only. For additional uses (radio and other media, music, internet), please click here to inquire about permissions.

Part of this interview may be played in a radio broadcast or podcast.

Oral history is an iterative process. In keeping with oral history values of anti-fixity, interviewees will have an opportunity to add, annotate and reflect upon their lives and interviews in perpetuity. Talking back to the archive is a form of “shared authority.”

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