Summary:The introduction of this book explains how they interviewed people and asked them about their experiences during the civil war. They listened to their stories and they were completely astonished. They explain how important oral history was, and how we don't have it written down in actual history books. Studs Terkel was mentioned as the person that's the best able to bring oral history to a large. The introduction also just informs us and gives us examples of the interviews that we will read throughout the book. The first interviewee was Chris Ochoa who was born in El Paso, Texas. Ochoa was wrongly convicted of raping and murdering Nancy DePriest who was his manager at Pizza Hut where he worked. Chris talks about his childhood, his teen years in school, and eventually the future and how he ended up being convicted for a horrific crime. Chris Ochoa gave us specific details about the interview and the things that the officers were doing in order to get him to plead guilty to the crime. On Christmas eve Chris had been in jail for 10 years and he had thoughts of ending his own life but then he decided not to. His life in prison was really hard, he felt as if he were completely alone. When Ochoa was finally released from prison he was not angry and not bitter, he was just happy that he was finally out. When Ochoa was released from prison he had a fresh new start and got accepted into the University of Wisconsin Law School. The next person interviewed was Beverly Monroe, born in Marion, North Carolina. Beverly found her companion Roger Zygmunt de la Burde dead in his house and the medical examiner concluded it suicide. Eventually Beverly was forced into confessing to her husbands murder even thought it really wasn't her.
Comment: Reading about these interviews was very interesting. It is very hard to believe that they were both falsely convicted of a crime that they did not commit. If this were to happen to me or someone in my family I would be absolutely devastated. When I was reading the interviews I was in complete shock. The stories were very interesting, they both made me want to keep reading and know more about what went on. One thing that really surprised me especially about Chris Ochoa is that he never lost hope in himself and he was never angry when he got out. He was just happy that he was out and he was able to start fresh. If I were in his place I would be very mad, I don't think I would be able to forgive the people that locked me up for more than 10 years of my life. I am very interesting in reading more stories in this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment