Week 6: Preserving Stories One Scan at a Time

This week, I want to share a project I’ve been quietly working on behind the scenes: what we call the “digitization project.” On paper (no pun intended), it’s a straightforward administrative task. In practice, it’s been something far more meaningful.

The goal is to create a complete digital home for all of GAIN’s case files, both active and closed, for both primary applicants and their derivative family members. As you can imagine, these files are vast. Some are short. Others span 400 pages or more, filled with supporting documentation: identification photos, intake forms, personal declarations, receipts, correspondence, medical records, handwritten notes, and often a few surprises tucked in between.

The first step is creating an inventory of what we have. Then we scan every page, making sure nothing is missed. Then we upload each document into the proper digital case file so that staff can access them more easily going forward. It’s tedious. It’s repetitive. It requires a level of attention to detail that can be exhausting. And somehow it’s been one of the most grounding experiences of the summer.

Our digitization team is a mighty group of three: me, another intern, and our task supervisor. We’ve developed a kind of factory-line system that works surprisingly well. I’ve taken on the role of scanner, which, to my dismay, might be my weakest skill of the summer. Paper has a way of humbling you. It sticks. It jams. It refuses to feed smoothly. Some of these documents haven’t been touched in years, and they don’t exactly glide through modern scanners. But somewhere between wrestling with ancient receipts and meticulously flattening crinkled forms, I started to think about what these files really are.

They’re not just records. They’re stories. They represent individuals who fled unimaginable violence, people who have endured trauma, uncertainty, and the long, complex road of the immigration process in search of safety. Each case file is a snapshot of someone’s courage, a paper trail of resilience. And it’s a reminder that behind every redacted form or notarized letter is a real person who once sat across from a GAIN attorney and told their story, often for the first time.

It also makes you appreciate the work done by the legal staff at GAIN. These are not easy cases. They require time, creativity, persistence, and often, a great deal of emotional labor. Many of these files represent years of advocacy and care, hours spent fighting for someone’s right to stay, to be safe, to belong. As I scan and upload, I think about that. About the staff who made that possible. And about how lucky I am to play even the smallest role in helping preserve that work for the future.

In some ways, this project has been a meditation, on the quiet labor of justice, on the importance of honoring every part of a person’s journey, even the paperwork. It’s reminded me that advocacy isn’t always about courtrooms or bold arguments. Sometimes it’s about making sure no page gets lost. No detail overlooked. No story forgotten.

So yes, the digitization project has tested my patience. But it’s also reminded me of what it means to care, even in the most seemingly mundane tasks. Because when the work is about people, nothing is really mundane.