Description
Janice Cardoza is a 73-year-old lesbian woman from Norway, Maine. She has lived in many places around New England and went to college in Boston, at the University of Massachusetts. She is a quiet woman and the youngest in the 3-child family. Cardoza grew up in a Catholic household but, as she matured, became disillusioned with the Catholic church and religion. She considers herself a Unitarian Universalist and attends a church in Norway, though she describes her relationship as more spiritual than religious. She met her wife at The Underground bar in Portland 40 years ago and they’ve been inseparable ever since.
In this interview, Cardoza talks about where she was during the AIDS epidemic and her long-time work as a volunteer for Fenway Health in Boston, which she describes as “a health center for gay people, primarily gay men”, as well as her frustration and shock at the way people with AIDS were treated even among fellow medical personnel. She also discusses her relationship with religion, her formative growing up years, feminism, and the impact of culture and art on her in the different places she lived.
Publication Date
11-23-2024
City
Portland, Maine
Keywords
Querying the Past, Oral History, Boston Massachusetts, Cambridge Massachusetts, Catholic, Gay Bars, Gay pride, HIV/AIDS, Iris, Lesbian, Lesbian Feminists, Feminists, Fenway Health, LGBTQ+ discrimination, Norway Maine, Portland Maine, Queer community, Queer, Stevens Memorial Hospital, The Saints, The Underground, Unitarian Universalist
Disciplines
History of Gender | Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies | Oral History | Women's Studies
Recommended Citation
Morales, Silvio, "Cardoza, Janice" (2024). Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection. 124.
https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/querying_ohproject/124
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Included in
History of Gender Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Oral History Commons, Women's Studies Commons
