The first story I listened to was about a mother and her child speaking about the child’s autism diagnosis and how they navigated it together, which piqued my interest because of my similar diagnoses. In contrast to the stories we listened to in class, they jumped right into their discussion, with no fear or beating around the bush. Because it is a conversation between the two, the editing is minimal, allowing the listener to hear the space between them and the pauses as they understand each other. Even when the child stumbles over words, it is left in, enhancing the discussion over their differences. They finish their conversation with a laugh that fades into music, illustrating how despite the topic being potentially quite heavy and difficult, they have worked hard to make this hurdle a joy for them instead.
My second story was about the “Mother of Women’s Judo” Rusty Kanokogi. Her student Eve Aronoff Trivella and her daughter Jean Kanokogi take the opportunity to remember her legacy. Jean tells a story of how her mother had a medal stolen from her when the tournament director found out that she was a woman. She has these pauses in between her words and phrases as she reveals this information, and they haven’t been edited out. The pauses are used as a point of impact for the audience to absorb the information, and it adds weight to the realization that gender discrimination in professional athletics was not that long ago, only a generation or two. But their voices in the second half of the story and the way they revere her show a clear tone change, and their laughs being left in at the end are celebratory of the progress that Kanokogo brought to the women’s sports scene, even if she didn’t personally get her shot.
A Community Audio Journal