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Library

Emma York

June 24, 2025

|

Hudson, NY

Song

Recorded by

Amy Keegan Safranek

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 by Amy Keegan Safranek, on Tuesday, June 24th, as a part of the 2025 Oral History Summer School cohort. Emma York grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where she has deep roots. Emma's learning-orientation and curiosity are a thread throughout the conversation, as well as her commitment to weaving the personal and political throughout her life. Emma shared about her many different educational experiences, as well as teachers, artists, and projects that have been formative for her. These experiences have cultivated in Emma an analysis of power and systemic oppression that has informed her vision of a future where everyone sees themselves as agents of change and actors within and on history and understands how their liberation is tied to others.

Emma has made some big changes in her life in recent months, ending a long-term relationship and moving from New Bedford to Providence, Rhode Island. She talks about taking intentional risks in her life, personally, creatively, and professionally. She is learning to take up space and use her voice in new ways including through poetry, political activism, public programming, and a podcast about the ways 20 and 30 somethings are navigating personal and political transformation and breaking with long held beliefs to reimagine their lives and world. Emma talks about exploring her Judaism, in conversation with members of her family, through travel abroad in South Africa, and more recently, in finding friends in the Jewish community who share similar values. At the end of the conversation, Emma talks about being on the precipice of her 30s and her hopes for her next decade of life.

This interview would be of interest for anyone exploring their ancestral and spiritual roots, Judaism and anti-zionism, cultivating a life of activism and commitment to social justice, creating space for creativity, curiosity, and artistic expression, grappling with collapse and the current state of the world, and emerging from one's 20s.

Themes:
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Interviewer Bio:
Amy Keegan Safranek

Amy Keegan Safranek is a white, queer, non-binary person. They live with their partner and two cat family members in Los Angeles, CA. Amy is currently beginning my journey to become a death/grief worker and am launching a project to create a listening and witnessing space for dying and grieving people to share stories that matter to them. Amy is a facilitator and community builder in progressive organizing spaces. They are passionate about creating spaces where people feel more human. In life outside of work, they love reading, creating art, writing letters, listening to music, and going for walks in their neighborhood in Northeast Los Angeles. Amy has had a book club with their sister for over a decade and it is one of their greatest joys.

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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