Series:

Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness

Topic:

Environmental Illness

Social Movements

Interviewer:

Yiu, Wei Si Nic

Interviewee:

Farnan, Ash

Persons Present:

Farnan and Yiu

Place Conducted:

The interview was conducted using the Zoom video conferencing platform

Supporting Documents:

Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library’s Center for Oral History Research.

Interviewer Background and Preparation:

This interview was conducted by Wei Si Nic Yiu, a graduate student researcher, for the Center for the Study of Women; PhD student in Gender Studies, UCLA. Yiu’s dissertation focuses on queerness and archives of Asia. and Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Genderqueer student at the Masters of Social Welfare program at the University of California Los Angeles. They highlight the difficulties of accessing safe housing for folkx who live with multiple chemical sensitivities.

Processing of Interview:

The interviewer prepared for the interview by reading a pre-interview questionnaire completed by the narrator.

Length:

2.25 hrs

Language:

English

Copyright:

Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.

Audio:

Series Statement:

Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability related to chronic, low-dose exposure to toxicant chemicals. The procurement of this collection (from March 2019 through September 2020) was sponsored by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women under the directorship of Rachel C. Lee, with interviews conducted by six undergraduates, five graduate students, two career staff, and two faculty members at CSW.

Note:

Please delete PDF file size 481056; did not include table of contents.

Personal Background--Day-to-day life--Moving to Seattle, first discovery of mold sensitivity--Experiencing ‘homelessness’--How the illness affected her physically--Navigating illness and emotions--Being lucky to be surrounded by caring people--Finding doctors, getting diagnosed--Alleviating symptoms--Self-advocacy--How it affects their family relations, forming new relationships

Navigating higher education and internship with symptoms--Self-doubt when advocating for needs--Gender structuring their experience--Self-advocacy in finding housing--Maintaining and forming relationships--How the illness affected them mentally--Personal achievements--Becoming more aware of the environment and people’s detachment from their bodies and nature--Steps to becoming less detached