Series:

Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness

Topic:

Environmental Illness

Social Movements

Biographical Note:

Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Lives with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). College-educated, Al-Anon peer counselor with an array of pink collar and blue collar work experience. Filed lawsuit contesting the denial of her request for social security disability benefits based on environmental illness.

Interviewer:

Antoine, Katja

Interviewee:

NoName, Maya

Persons Present:

NoName and Antoine

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 Katja Antoine, Research and Program Developer at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. Antoine has a PhD in Anthropology and her research focuses on the topics of race, gender, and US culture. Her dissertation is titled “‘Pushing the Edge’: Challenging Racism and Sexism in American Stand-up Comedy.”

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:

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Personal Background--Childhood abuse from parents--Becoming ill from swimming pool--Community she grew up in--Getting chronic fatigue syndrome and recovering--Moving to a moldy apartment after leaving her ex--Chemical electromagnetic, dietary sensitivities--Unhelpful medical doctors--Helpful naturopath helping her in filing lawsuit--Become bedridden, self-advocacy in housing

Jobs--Connecting illnesses to work--Discovering Gupta program and recovering--Discovering chemical sensitivities--How the illnesses affected her social life--Jobs; part-time jobs, schools--Friends and online communities--Difficulty getting a full-time job; co-workers not believing her--Filing for social security disability claim; attorneys not believing her and her private information put up online--Al-Anon being of big help--How she changed as a person because of the illness