“To Remember Is to Live Again”: Geragogical Approaches to Online Storytelling With Older Immigrants

Seeing aging not solely as a biological process but as a meaning-making practice, this paper presents findings from an exploratory study conducted within a community-based organization’s transition to online educational programming during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aimed to explore how collaborative storytelling functioned as a geragogical practice in an online setting . The study involved 17 Spanish-speaking older immigrants in co-designing an age- and culturally responsive online storytelling curriculum. Through creative and reflective prompts, the virtual sessions facilitated autoethnographic and collaborative storytelling on a range of topics. Thematic analysis identified three interrelated themes in participants’ experience: connection in a time of isolation; anti-ageist reclamation; and temporal transcendence. Participants revisited and reinterpreted personal histories, reclaimed a sense of creative authorship, and envisioned new forms of community participation. The paper offers practical strategies for co-designing storytelling activities in community-based learning environments.