Oral History Commons^™

Mcconnell, Mickey, Christina Miner

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Mickey is a graduate student at USM studying Social Work and is an Adult Learning Coach at USM. She is 31 years old and is bi-sexual. Mickey grew up in Brunswick, Maine and her mom raised her and her two sisters. She has been in a seven year relationship with her partner David. She came out about 14 years old, however, it was not well received by her mother, and Mickey remained quiet about it for several years until more recently. Her mother has relaxed more about it, is more accepting and wants her to be happy. As a result …

Lo, Q, Rheros Iliad Kagoni

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Q Lo is a 45 year old transgender man, the son of two Chinese immigrants who grew up in New York. Q discusses growing up as a queer person of color, how his gender and sexual identity was impacted by the lack of representation he saw around him, how his upbringing in Chinatown influenced his view of the world, and how his immigrant parents influenced his relationship with school, work and creativity. Q talks about attending college, dropping out of college, and his experiences going to MECA in Portland Maine while grappling with the classism and privilege he was experiencing …

Marine, Benn, Andrea Carpenter

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Benn is a 37-year-old trans man living in Maine. He identifies as being pansexual because he feels that he falls in love with personalities regardless of the person’s gender. He grew up with his family in rural southern Maine. He describes feeling that he was different than others from a young age and that, as he describes it, God made a mistake and he was supposed to be a boy. Yet he pushed those feeling under the rug for a long time. He first came out as gay, and much later he came out as trans in his mid-20s, and …

Farnsworth, Susan, Larisa Filippov

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Susan Farnsworth is a 75 year old lesbian who has lived in Maine for over 50 years. She currently resides in Hallowell, ME, but has lived all over Maine and other places in New England. Farnsworth is an attorney and has her own law practice where she helps a variety of clients with their legal problems. She realized she was a lesbian while she was in law school during her marriage to a man. Farnsworth attended Bates College for her undergraduate degree before going to the University of Maine School of Law in Portland. The multiple political organizations she has …

Blanchard, Mike, Micaiah Wert

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Mike Blanchard is a 60 year old gay man from Westbrook Maine. He has struggled as an alcoholic due to repressing his queer identity, but has been sober for 33 years (since 1989). Through addiction recovery he was able to come out as gay in 1992. After years of struggling with alcohol and rough relationships, Mike met his husband at Blackstones in Portland, and describes their relationship as, “nothing I ever chased and everything I could have hoped for.” Mike worked for a long time in the field of recreation, but left after feeling as though he could not be …

Rand, Erica - 2022 Follow Up, Sofia Oliveri

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Erica Rand is a professor of Arts and Visual Culture at Bates College, an adult figure skater, author and activist. This is a follow-up interview to her previous interview for Querying the Past in 2017. Erica Rand was heavily involved with ACT- UP Portland and more specifically the branch of ACT UP called: Pissed Off Dyke Cell and Women’s Health Action Crew. But more recently she has been involved with a new form of activism through sports and writing. At Bates, she is pushing the importance of trans-inclusion policies in sports and even testing the gender limitations put in place …

Brownlee, Margaret, Gretchen Muehle, Shelice Wilson

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Margaret Brownlee is a multi-racial/Afro-Latina Lipstick Lesbian who was born and spent most of her life residing in Maine. Margaret was 16 when she came out and is now married to a woman and has a daughter. Margaret attended multiple universities–including Wells College, Lesley University, and the University of New England–as a first generation college student in her family with the goal of becoming a dancer. Margaret is currently a Burlesque dancer and instructor and is also employed with the Maine Department of Education. She has been involved in political activism and a number of organizations based in Maine–including Portland …

Wanderer, Nancy, Mary Wallace

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Nancy Wanderer is a professor at the University of Maine School of Law and was also the first Director of the Legal Writing Program at Maine Law. She received a B.A from Wellesley College, and M.A. from George Washington University, and a J.D. from University of Maine School of Law. Nancy Wanderer has dedicated her life to women’s rights and protecting and fighting for the rights of other minorities as well. Since growing up in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, Wanderer has always been drawn to education and Academia.

She was married to her ex-husband during her Junior year at Wellesley in …

Chann, Marpheen, Kendall Garland, Meghan Horner

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Marpheen Chann is a Cambodian, Asian-American, gay man living in Portland, Maine. He was born in California to an immigrant mother and later moved to Maine, then adopted by a white, Evangelical family. He spent his childhood in the church and would later attend Valley Forge Christian College. Then later transferring to USM to earn a Bachelor’s in Political Science and later attended Maine Law. Chann participates in advocacy work with organizations, such as the Equality Community Center and is the president of Khmer Maine. He currently works for the Good Shepard Food Bank as their Community Impact Manager.

Please …

Gifford, Dan, Erin Schott, Hailey Kamenides

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Dan Gifford is a gay white man who grew up in Arkansas, and eventually moved to Maine with his partner. Dan is now an employee at the Portland Museum of Art, where he enjoys his job and being close to art. Dan has always known he was gay, yet to some in Arkansas this was viewed in a negative light or simply swept under the rug. Dan explains that the first time he visited Maine he felt “home”, and enjoys that he can be his true authentic self here, without the scrutiny that he experienced in the South. Dan also …

Hine, Rook, Ty Bolduc

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Rook Hine is a 47-year-old transfemme non-binary person from Connecticut. In this interview, Hine describe their life experiences, from challenges in her household, zir benefits and complications within education, and finding their identity as ze grew up. They discuss masking, performing arts as an outlet for gender expression, activism in college and beyond. Ze also mentions developing their non-binary identity, use of the term metagender, polyamory, and internalized transphobia, as well as adventures around the country - attending Sarah Lawrence College in New York, spending time in New Orleans as a tarot card reader, stripper, and phone sex operator after …

Linus Babcock, Oral History Interview, 2022, Cellach Allen

COVID-19 Oral Histories

In October and November of 2022, You Li's Journalism 313 students conducted oral history interviews with one another to document the student experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this interview, EMU undergraduate Linus Babcock describes the early days of COVID, the initial shutdown of the university and the experience of moving back home with family and siblings.

Labbe, Roland, Wendy Chapkis

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Roland Labbe discusses growing up in Maine in Millinocket, Winterport, and Lewiston, before moving to Worcester, MA at 14 with an older lover. He also talks about his time as a young man in New York City; that made him realize that Portland needed a gay bar which he opened in 1967: “Roland’s Tavern” on Forest Ave. He shares stories about challenges he faced in opening Portland’s first gay bar, including licensing struggles with the city of Portland and hostility from police and some of the public. He discusses his tremendously supportive family, with his mother and siblings often working …

Macnaughton, Daniel, Wendy Chapkis

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Dan MacNaughton was born in 1955 in Bangor, Maine, and raised in Hampden, Maine with his mother, father, and older brother. He came out as gay in high school with supportive teachers and classmates who were either supportive or indifferent. However, he had deeply internalized homophobic attitudes and believed that being gay meant he had very limited employment options. In college at the University of Maine Orono, MacNaughton became active in the newly formed Wilde Stein student group where he became the first Vice-Chair of the club, met Sturgis Haskins, and became involved in educational efforts on campus. He also …

We4: Leisure Quotes, Lance Gibbs Phd

We Exist Series 4: Quotes

Welcome to the fourth exhibit in the series of “We Exist”. In this section we have selected quotes that represent and explain how Maine’s Black residents’ create the processes behind their engagement in particular leisure activities. The quotes also highlight the particular types of leisure activities that Maine’s Black residents suggest that they are involved in. The quotes are taken from transcripts of the oral history project "'Home Is Where I Make It': African American Community and Activism in Greater Portland, Maine”. The interview subjects are all native to Maine or are longtime residents of Maine. The original intent of …

Tom Coyne On A Walking Tour, University Libraries

East Campus Oral Histories

Tom Coyne leads Cassie Kotrch on a personal walking tour around East Campus on Prospect Hill in the fall of 2022. Tom talks about his time working at WMU and living in the houses on East Campus as they walk around Heritage Hall and Walwood.

Critique Beyond Judgment: Exploring Testimony And Truth In The Classroom, Sean Sidky

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This essay offers a set of strategies for utilizing the words of survivors and of witnesses to genocide in the classroom. Including the voices of survivors and victims in our classroom conversations about genocide, its impact, representation, and the possibilities for its prevention is crucial to an ethical and wholistic pedagogy of genocide. Discussion of these events in the classroom often finds us confronting questions from students about truth, historical accuracy, authenticity, and authority. Addressing such questions requires careful framing that takes into account student assumptions and cultural discourses about memory and witnessing, as we work with students to develop …

Id138 Oral History, Uniting Cultures

Uniting Cultures: Who We Are, How We Got Here: Collecting Stories Oral History Collection

Woman born in the mid 60s in Guatemala. Talks about growing up in poverty in Guatemala, near the border with Belize. She came to the west coast of the United States and then with her child, moved to St. James. Throughout her life she worked hard, relied on her faith in God, and survived many challenges.

Gatumba Massacre, Background Essay, Christopher Davey, Ezra Schrader, Fidele Sebahizi, Jean Paul Iranzi

Background

On August 13th 2004, 166 people were killed and 106 were wounded at the UN’s Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi. Nearly all the victims were members of the Banyamulenge community, a Congolese Tutsi ethnic group who were deliberately targeted in the attack. The massacre was carried out by the Forces Nationales pour la Liberation (FNL), a Hutu supremacist rebel group fighting in Burundi’s civil war. Understanding the Gatumba Massacre requires understanding what forced those Banyamulenge refugees to flee their homes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and why the FNL targeted them. This background essay addresses the context …

El Canto Del Río Ayampe Que Corre En La Mitad: “La Narración Socioecológica Y El Conflicto Territorial Entre La Comuna Ancestral Las Tunas Y El Recinto De Ayampe”, María Juanita Durán González

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En La Comuna Ancestral Las Tunas existe un legado de narración socioecológica, o socioecological storytelling. Las historias cuentan las luchas medioambientales del pasado en defensa de su tierra colectiva y las riquezas que viven en ella. Pero, como se escucha por las voces de los comuneros, la pelea por proteger su territorio ancestral es constante. Actualmente, enfrentan un conflicto territorial contra el poblado de Ayampe que busca empoderarse del territorio para institucionalizar su independencia. Cuentan que los líderes de la independencia no tienen raíces ancestrales en Ayampe, pero quieren hacer crecer su dominio para que eventualmente se incluya el Río …