Valerie Wayne on Family History

Valerie Wayne, Professor of English at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, will give a talk entitled "Small Light: Recovering My Father's Story," on Thursday, September 4 from 12:00 to 1:15 in Henke Hall 325, 1800 East-West Road, UH Manoa, as part of the Brownbag Biography series.

Valerie Wayne writes:

For most of my life I have not known my father's family, for he changed his name and left his Hungarian Jewish identity behind him when he moved from New York to Chicago around 1940. He died when I was in my late teens. This talk describes my search for his identity and mine, which began in the National Archives in Washington D.C. in 2004 and continued during meetings with first cousins in New York a year later. More questions were answered when I traveled in 2007 to the small town in Transylvania where my father was born. Old documents, generous strangers, and family grocery stores in Romania and New York figure in this narrative.

Event Sponsor
Center for Biographical Research, Manoa Campus

More Information
Stan Schab, 956-3774, biograph@hawaii.edu