StoryScope Studio · Archives in Love and War
The living layer of Archives in Love and War. Where individual voices replace institutional records. Where the history that belongs to us becomes us.
For fifty years, our story was told by others. By journalists, by agencies, by governments, by people who were not us. StoryShare is where we take the telling back. Not a correction of the record. A completion of it. In our own words. On our own terms.
The mandate
The story of Operation Babylift has been told in newspaper headlines, government reports, documentary films, agency records, and academic papers. All of them were told by people who were not us, about us, without us. StoryShare is the answer to that absence.
Not someday. Not in an archive that opens in twenty years. Here. Now. In this room, on this night, with these people. The record being set straight in real time by the people it belongs to.
The placeholder numbers in the archive will be replaced by actual numbers from people who lived them. The institutional descriptions will be replaced by the words people use to describe themselves. As we gather more information, the history that belongs to us becomes us.
Adoptees owning the narrative
StoryShare is not an abstract platform. It is already happening. These are two examples of adoptees taking the telling back, through exhibition, through facilitated conversation, through art made from the archive that holds their origin.
What connects them
Both are examples of adoptees taking the story back from the institutions, the journalists, the governments, and the agencies that have held it for fifty years. A gallery exhibition. A facilitated conversation. A live evening of presentations. An oral history program. These are all the same act, the act of speaking first, in your own words, on your own terms, with your own context. StoryShare is where that act lives.
Stories are finding their way to the surface, intertwining individual pasts and shared histories. This evening brings together diverse perspectives connected by Operation Babylift, using StoryScope Studio's trauma-informed oral history methodology.
Presenters
Run of show
| Time | Segment | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 5:00–6:00 PM | Set Up | Signal Form camera locked in. Primary capture night. |
| 6:00–7:00 PM | Doors Open | Greeters: Kori and Aryn. Arrival atmosphere photography. |
| 7:05 PM | Welcome, Deanna Byck | Deanna opens the evening. Mike Marrotte behind camera for this segment. |
| 7:10–8:00 PM | StoryShare 1, Huyền Friedlander | 50 minutes. Full archival recording. |
| 8:00–8:05 PM | StoryShare 2, Kim Delevett | Mic, audio, projector. Full archival recording. |
| 8:05–8:25 PM | StoryShare 3, Ingrid Templeton | Full archival recording. |
| 8:25–8:35 PM | StoryShare 4, Mike Frailey | Mic, audio, projector. Full archival recording. |
| 8:35–8:45 PM | StoryShare 5, Miguel Lechuga | Mic, audio. Full archival recording. |
| 8:45–9:00 PM | Q&A + Close, Mike Marrotte | Emcee. Facilitate Q&A. Close the evening. The emotional centerpiece. |
| 9:00 PM | Clean Up | Signal Form: back up all footage same night. Individual consent clips produced post-event. |
The oral history program
For fifty years the story of Operation Babylift has been told by journalists, agency workers, government officials, and documentary filmmakers. Many of them told it with care. None of them were us. The oral history program exists because the most important version of this history has not yet been recorded, the version told by the people who lived it, in their own words, with their own context, under their own authority.
These three streams are not separate. ARVN veterans remember the evacuation. Vietnamese families remember children who left. Adoptees live the consequences. The invisible threads connect them.
Governed by Love Ethic Archive Practice
Individual past, shared history
The archive holds what the institutions recorded. StoryShare holds what the institutions missed, which is most of it. Every contribution expands what the archive can say. Every voice makes the history more accurate, more complete, more true.
You do not need an Operation Babylift Collection record to contribute. You need a story that belongs to the Children of War.
The placeholder data will be replaced by actual numbers from people who lived them, not just reported them.
You share only what you choose. Every domain has its own consent level. You can contribute to the archive without your name attached. A Love Ethic Archive Practice practitioner is present for every in-person contribution session.