It Started With Her Grandparents' Stories. Now, A Bay Area Teen Is Capturing Her Community's Voices

FREMONT, CA — Sitting in a Bay Area senior center, the woman answered Aashi Gupta's questions quietly.

Until Aashi asked about her late husband.

She recalled how he made her laugh, Aashi said. And as the woman spoke, her voice perked up and her energy sharpened.

It had been years since anyone had asked her about the person she loved most, she told Aashi.

"That stayed with me," Aashi said. "It showed me that sometimes what a person needs is not advice or help, but simply someone willing to listen to what they have already lived."

This is just one of dozens of stories currently preserved by Aashi, a 16-year-old Fremont resident and Mission San Jose High School student, who's been on a mission to keep what she calls the "community storybook project" going.

Aashi visits older adults at senior community centers across Fremont, Milpitas and Newark and writes down their favorite memories, recipes, songs or life lessons.

The 16-year-old then turns that material into a book, which she gives to her participants and their families, Aashi said.

So far, she's finished six books featuring the stories of several people across her community.

"So many of the seniors I meet feel as though the world has moved on without them," Aashi said. "I wanted them to feel that their lives still matter and that someone genuinely wants to hear about them."

Preservation

The Community Storybook Project started with Aashi’s grandparents. The 16-year-old said she grew up listening to their stories and realized one day that those memories could vanish “simply because no one ever thinks to write them down.”

"Some of my favorite memories are of sitting with my grandparents while they talked about their childhoods in India and what it took to build a new life here," Aashi said. "I never got tired of listening to them."

So she started preserving them.

Soon she realized the work she was doing went beyond her family. Aashi says she thought about how many older adults she had previously met, and how she could preserve their stories too.

Aashi reached out to the Ruggieri Senior Center in Union City, and they welcomed her with open arms, the 16-year-old said. By the end of the summer, she’d have the first book of her project completed.

From there, Aashi says, she expanded to Newark and then a few places around Fremont, growing connections and sharing people’s wisdom, one line at a time. Since then, she’s been able to share dozens of stories from all walks of life.

"It's a really meaningful and moving experience," Aashi said. "People frequently tell me things they say they have not spoken about in years. Someone might tear up, or suddenly laugh at a memory, and I feel like I’m experiencing the memory right alongside them."

One particular moment that stood out to Aashi about the impact her books could have was during a reading she hosted.

Aashi and members of a senior center she had written about sat in a room ready to hear the journeys and lessons they had shared for the project.

"The part that surprised me most was not handing people their own stories, but watching them learn about one another," Aashi said. "As I read out loud, seniors who had been sitting in the same room for years discovered things they had in common for the very first time."

The older adults at the center immediately began conversing, comparing stories and blossoming friendships with one another, Aashi said.

"I started out trying to preserve each person's individual story, but I realized the book had done something I never expected, which was to bring them closer together," Aashi said.

Life Lessons

When Aashi asks people at senior community centers what they want to share with others about their lives, she says they hardly ever talk about careers or money.

"They talk about the people they loved," Aashi said. "In their own words, they tell me not to wait, and to hold onto the people who matter while you still can."

These are not just opportunities for people to share their stories, but to reflect on their lives and memories that may not have been thought about in years, Aashi said.

The 16-year-old said that if people actually sat down to listen, they’d see that elders have a lot of lessons to teach.

There’s Mrunal, who got polio when she was only three-and-a-half years old, a diagnosis that would change her life forever.

Confined to a wheelchair, she remembers how supportive her family was. How they helped her enjoy life and focus on what she could do rather than what she couldn't. It was that support that helped her

Sudha had just moved from India to America to start her career when he father passed away. Her mother, always the guiding light in her life, told her to stay in America, to continue pursuing her career.

Sudha described her mother as "incredibly strong," according to Aashi. The support her mother showed during this period helped Sudha navigate a difficult time in her life.

"When I’m interviewing someone, everything else sort of goes away. I’m not thinking about school or my phone, I’m completely there with them," Aashi said. "And when I’m putting the book together, I feel a responsibility to get it right, because it is someone's life story that I’m capturing."

Legacy

Aashi’s dream is to attend Brown and become a doctor, a career she believes her work on the community storybook will help in.

"What draws me to medicine isn't only the science; it's the people, and this project has shown me how much you can learn about someone just by sitting down and truly listening," Aashi said. "I think it will make me a better doctor one day, because I want to understand my patients as people and not only treat their symptoms."

When she’s not working on her own dream, reading, hanging out with friends or competing in speech and debate, she’s in her community preserving stories.

Not only does Aashi hope the project will continue after she graduates high school, but that it will inspire others to preserve their community’s stories before it’s too late.

Aashi is also experimenting with ways to transform these books into podcasts where listeners can hear stories directly from the source, which she says "carries something the written page cannot."

Aashi says she wants to train others and put together materials so that another person can one day carry the torch of the community storybook project.

For now, anyone who wants to suggest a loved one whose story should be preserved can contact Aashi on her website, "shared-stories.org," where she’s publishing her books.

"This project has taught me to be genuinely present and to really listen, which is something I was not always good at," Aashi said. "It has changed the way I see older people, and it's given me a real sense of purpose. Of everything I do, it is the thing I am most proud of."