As children lofted soccer balls in MacArthur Park and ice cream vendors passed with bells ringing, a dozen Latino parents and the Real Madrid girls' soccer team crowded around an unfamiliar silver Airstream trailer earlier this week, full of questions.
A Honduran immigrant, Miguel Velasquez, emerged and explained in Spanish to the group that the trailer is part of StoryCorps, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based oral history project sponsored by National Public Radio, the Library of Congress and private companies. Staffers have been traveling the country since 2003, building an archive of more than 15,000 everyday life stories. By year's end, StoryCorps staff will have recorded stories in each of the 48 contiguous states.
The StoryCorps trailer has parked in Southern California before -- in San Diego and most recently in Santa Monica, but this time organizers wanted to chronicle an immigrant neighborhood; they chose MacArthur Park after reading about immigration rallies there last spring.
Stories collected include that of Miguel Velasquez. After Velasquez immigrated to Los Angeles in 1984, he lived in the park for a time, washing himself in the pond, sleeping under discarded furniture and eating food left by passersby.
Velasquez, 47, eventually found work as a janitor and graduated from community college as a nurse assistant. Now a case manager at St. Barnabas Senior Center near the park, he is working on his bachelor's degree in social work at Cal State Los Angeles while raising two children.
He heard about StoryCorps through his job and decided to be interviewed by his boss, who spent the recording session asking Velasquez about how he immigrated to L.A., including a bracing swim across the Rio Grande.
Most people who tell their stories agree to have them archived at the Library of Congress, open for study by academics and future generations. Some of the recordings become special StoryCorps projects, chronicling the lives of African Americans, families living with Alzheimer's disease and survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Some people made reservations months in advance to tell their stories in MacArthur Park. There is time, too, for walk-ins. People can interview one another or talk on their own in the back of the trailer.
There is a $10 suggested donation, but volunteers told MacArthur Park regulars they can participate at no cost. Each participant receives a free CD of his or her session.
