Have you ever wondered how memorials play a crucial role in communities? What constitutes a memorial, and how does it impact our memory of an event, person, or item?

Hello, my name is Iris Bas, and I’m Gabrielle Zepeda. We are graduate students at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

This Fall 2025, we are working with Dr. Priscilla Martinez in our Theories, Methods, and Uses of Oral History course to produce a season of the Amplifying Identities podcast. For this season, we’re collaborating with Baylor University’s Institute for Oral History, using their extensive archives to explore some of the big historical questions that connect our communities.

This episode, titled, “What We Leave Behind—Resilience Through Memory and Memorials,” explores the oral histories of World War II service members Gerd Miller and Ruth St. Claire Murphy, their vastly different roles and experiences during the war, and how their individual memories impact the collective memory of WWII. We also analyze how individual and collective memory can either validate or contradict what monuments represent. This project seeks to understand the complications and impact of trauma, power, and nationalism on post-war collective memory as well as address some of the silences.

Check out the full episode on our podcast stream. Make sure to like and subscribe to the Amplifying Identities Podcast so you never miss an episode! Follow us on Instagram at @ampidpod for all the latest updates and behind the scenes content!

A special thank you to Baylor University's Institute for Oral History for partnering with us on this season of Amplifying Identities. To learn more about their collections, visit https://library.web.baylor.edu/oralhistory