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An
Assignment
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In the following quote, friend Deena Metzger
relates a story Myerhoff often told:
"Many years ago, Barbara Myerhoff was teaching a
class at the University of Southern California in
urban anthropology. As part of the course, the
students were required to interview someone very
different from themselves, someone with whom they
would not normally converse. One young man in the
class, who had lived an unusually protected and
insulated middle-class life, was having such great
difficulty in finding a subject that he considered
dropping the course. However, the day the paper was
due, he arrived in the class ecstatic.
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"'I was at my wit's end,' he said, 'when it
occurred to me to interview our Guatemalan
housekeeper. Naturally, I was very nervous
because I had never really spoken to her, and
it was rather late at night. But as I had to do the
paper, I went to her room and knocked at her door.
When I entered, I explained my need, asking if
it would be a terrible nuisance for her to tell me
something about her life. She looked at me
strangely and my heart sank. After what seemed a
very, very long time, she said quietly, 'Every
night before I go to sleep, I rehearse the
story of my life, just in case someone should ever
ask me. Gracias a Dios'."
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How to Cite This Page
For a bibliography:
Jewish Women's Archive. "JWA - Barbara Myerhoff - An Assignment." <http://jwa.org/exhibits/wov/myerhoff/assign.html>.
For a footnote:
Jewish Women's Archive, "JWA - Barbara Myerhoff - An Assignment," <http://jwa.org/exhibits/wov/myerhoff/assign.html>.
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