Established in 2015, the OGUS Project is a multifaceted interdisciplinary research project supported by the UF Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP). Its main goal is to inspire scholarly research about the experiences of Ottoman Greek immigrants and refugees in the U.S. as well as to raise the public’s awareness of the issues they faced.
To achieve this goal, the project is interviewing descendants of immigrants in the U.S. from regions of the former Ottoman Empire (which constitute contemporary Turkey). Thus far, the OGUS project has collected 251 interviews and is planned to include more interviews next year.
2 Responses
Interesting topic and what an immense collection of interviews!
Congratulations on an amazing and formidable project! Its interdisciplinary and multifaceted approach is truly an inspiration and an example for others to follow. I wonder to which extent the immigrants were able to “self-identify” themselves when arriving to the United States. Was their nationality/ethnicity recorded solely based on what was written on their travel documents? It would be really interesting to see how they identified themselves coming from such a multi-ethnic and multicultural area.