Elegant stories from Bay Area immigrants - young and old - about their rich experiences

Immigrants' stories going back more than 100 years have surprising similarities, regardless of the country they came from.  - - Donna Poisl

By Sharon Noguchi

PALO ALTO -- The land of endless transformation and rebirth often has greeted newcomers abruptly: with imprisonment on Angel Island, sudden vistas of wealth, and often mixed and confused identities.

On Sunday afternoon, eight storytellers distilled the mosaic of immigrants' lives in an afternoon program at the Mid-peninsula Community Media Center in Palo Alto.

"Foreign Correspondents: Immigrant Odysseys" was part of the Media Center's "Made Into America" history project, which invites the community to post family stories online -- to preserve and share them and to build understanding of immigrants. On Sunday, project director Elliot Margolies said, it "gives us a chance to walk in someone else's shoes for a while."
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