Research and Interviewing

by Andrea Mary Paez Lozano
(West Covina, California)

THE BOY MESSENGER

Hi,

I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Andrea Paez Lozano. I am a new member. Currently, I am working on a story about my uncle. When he was a child, he became a courier for the Filipino-American Underground Movement in World War II Philippines at the tender age of 7. His story is so unique and inspiring and I am trying to share it with the world by putting it down on paper. However, I feel that historical accuracy is of the utmost importance.

I guess, my problems writing this story at the moment are the following:

1. Research - and a lot of it. There isn't much information I can get about the town where my uncle grew up from the internet. This town is the setting of the story and I need a little more than just its history, population and whatever basic things they write about a town. I have to research as far back as December 10, 1941, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. There is, however, one BIG piece of information I was so lucky to find. Surfing the net one day, I came across the book "The Bataan Diaries", written by Chris Schaefer (he did 5 years of research for this book - that is monumental to me. He has a website and everything). In his research documents, I found the name of the Underground guerilla association that served in my uncle's hometown, who founded it and the name of the person that headed it around the time that my uncle had joined the Underground. Possibly my uncle reported to him and did some courier services for him.

2. My other concern is how to interview my uncle. I have never interviewed anyone in my life before so I really do not have a set formula of how to interview someone for something like this except for questions that I have myself like who got him into the Underground Movement, did he know the dangers he was facing, how did he keep his involvement with the Underground secret from the family, etc. Another big problem I have is 3.: Uncle is in the Philippines and I am in the U.S. and I really am not a person of means that I can just up and fly to the Philippines to stay there for a few months to do some research and interview my uncle. But to get this story on paper is one of the things that is close to my heart.

Thank you for taking the time to read my input. I hope I have interested someone enough to give me some advice.

Sincerely,
Andrea