>> this next piece is another russian piece. it's done in many ways. we decided to turn it into something different today. [music] yesterday i was standing outside. there was a deli. a lot of people outside and i say, gosh, did [inaudible] they are in love and i'm sitting here alone trying to keep dry from the rain.

they have an umbrella. what am i going to do i'm all alone xi think. may be they are not so happy. ever think of that? [music] i think to myself --

here comes [inaudible]. i think, well -- he asked me for the time. that's all he wanted was the time. i look up -- quarter to 3. he said, thanks. i knew better because i thought, next time he'll ask me something more interesting than the time. [laughter]. [applause].

okay. so, we have 2 more songs for you this evening. this second to last song is a beautiful song. it kind of is a folk song people know. probably when you hear it you know it if you heard yiddish songs before. it's talking about a little girl, don't say a word. the god of abham will come. not yet, you have to respect there is not 3 stars in the sky means the jewish is that bot will apeer. wait a minute and it's a beautiful song i hope you will enjoy.

♪[applause] well, thank you

so much for being a fabulous

audience. i hate to say goodbye but i must. come to the jewish music festival. there are appetizers and there are amazing evening planned for you. come and be a part of it learn about yiddish. if this interested you at all come and learn more. there is so much richness no matter if you are jewish or know yiddish. there is so much to learn and enjoy. i hope you enjoyed. i want to give a thanks to john. [applause] [inaudible]. [applause] and i want to quickly say i have some cd's down dollar. one more song. one more song. thank you.

so, i wanted to say really quick i have cd's if you want to purchase them. [laughter]. [laughter] wow! i never gotten so -- um -- so, thank you. anyways i have cd's if you are interested i have cards and bios and cd's please, sign up. i usually perform. come out. the last song so put your hands together and clap or i will be angry. thank you, again. [music] ♪[applause]

>> thank you. [applause] all right. you guys want to -- so, there is a little song that some people know that you have seen before. a little song by a kind of food, right. and none of us like it if you had it or we tolerate it because we have to.

i happen to be allergic, lucky for me! but now i sing this song because that's all i can do. put your hands together again. [music] ♪[laughter]

>> a little too much. [laughter] [music] [laughter]

[music] [laughter] [music] [laughter] ♪[applause]

>> thank you.

>> i want first to introduce margaret cooley who writes nonfiction and poetry. also with us from boston but having stepped off the plain from dublina daniel to be lynn a writer at emer son college. i want to start by reflecting back that those of you folks endeavored to reveal hidden histories of your family lives. we have spoken in advanced of today's conversation. it's clear to me you pursued the stories of your families histories for decades through genealogical work and writing and reflection. i'm wondering if can describe

how you dot work you do and where the seeds of your curiousity, how they were planted and want compelled you to do this work. >> i would say that i was have much inspired since i lived in san francisco, california. we are a country of immigrants. in san francisco in particular, we have so many first generation americans. my husband is just became an american citizen a couple of months ago. i have friendlieds who are first generation from vietnam. palestine, israel. mexico, as i watch them struggling with their cultural identities and trying to maintain the identities and have the respect as the american citizens they are in this

country, it got me to thinking about my family heritage and thinking about how history really does repeat itself. because i know that my people want through these same issues in the famine times when they came. and i thought to myself, why are not more of these stories being told? we need to collect these stories. i am at an age where my parents and their cousins, their siblings, they are getting close end of their life. one of the main ways i collect my information is through oral history i knew time was on the essense. there were stories that would be lost if i didn't collect these stories immediately.

and that's what i embarked upon doing. >> i grew up in brooklyn, new york. my experience was landing by birth into an urban town land. my family, my mother is first generation i'm second generation. my grand mother lived in the apartment building with us. i had aunts upstairs. another aunt lived close by. pretty much 4 days a week my great uncle would come in and visit all of these people my uncle, my grand mother and so forth, all were from a town land called outside of robin. when i was growing up i would hear the names. and they would conjure the sense of another world i was no longer a part of but was connected to. i think the -- i came to the

brink of this sort of, you know, really quest gradualy by hearing the names. the other experience i had when i was growing up is music in my grand mother's house. my grand mother live on the first floor of the apartment building the door was open. everyone in the apartment building stopped there after work. they would stop for a drink and play polka, not polka, poker. and lynched to john gibbons play an accordion on his wooden leg. you had the sense of people having come over if not in mass by a great number to this other place with a kind of echo of that place being transposed into the world that became my world. so that of my mother's side of the family. my father's side was more

mysterious. over time i heard stories of lost aunts and saint john >> new found land which is not where they are from and a deeper echo further back. i had my grandfather's passport from 1918, you could smell the must on it. all of the mysterious presences were there. my father's side was a mystery which we will get to eventually. and the third component is similar to what margaret was talking about. i irish american. i didn't know what a pure american was. none of my friends were pure americans. a lot of my friends were lebanese and from syria.

i had yewish and irish american friends. all of our identities were mixed. my sense of being american was being in a mix of things. >> margaret could you also reflect in a prior conversation you talked about your father had a sense of where he came from and it was a little more difficult for your mom to articulate that? >> sure. mother's side is irish american my father come from a different heritage. he is a genealogy. he traced his family all the way back to the times when they

moved from spain to a region of france. that's where his family came from as peasants in 1850. and for generations, his family members had been going back to this place to visit their distant cousins. they knew exactly where it was. i was thinking that was a year after my irish american family came here. why don't my irish american family know this information. i want to try to find out what it is. i didn't know at that time what i was undertaking. i heard it said with irish american it's not genealogy it's archaeology. i found out about that later. it's exciting to hear the nuts