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Oral history interview with Rahel Nardos, 2018 March 28

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Scope and Contents

From the Collection:

This oral history interview with Rahel Nardos was conducted by Sankar Raman and Maleya Luis on March 28, 2018. The interview was recorded for The Immigrant Story, an organization that documents and archives the stories of immigrants and refugees in the United States. In this interview, Nardos discusses her early life in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, including life under communism, access to health care, and her education. She talks about her experience attending the International Community School in Addis Ababa as a scholarship student. She also talks about the famine in Ethiopia during the 1980s. She then talks about applying for college in the United States and attending Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; about the barriers to her plans to attend medical school in the United States as an immigrant; and adjusting to life in the U.S. She also shares an anecdote about her first encounter with the U.S. customs agency. She discusses the U.S. political climate at the time of the interview in 2018, including her experiences with racism. She talks about attending Yale School of Medicine, including financing her education; her reasons for specializing in obstetrics and gynecology; and settling in Oregon. She speaks about a 2018 op-ed she wrote for the Oregonian newspaper, titled “My patients don't care I'm from a ‘shithole’ country,” and talks about the increase in racism since Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. She discusses balancing family life with her career as a doctor; her work in women’s health in Ethiopia with Footsteps to Healing; and her other volunteer work. She closes the interview by discussing her cultural and ethnic identity.

Dates

  • Creation: 2018 March 28

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Extent

From the Collection: 77.5 Megabytes (1 online resource (1 audio file (1 hr., 23 min., 45 sec.))) : MPEG-4

Language of Materials

English

Repository Details

Part of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library Repository

Contact:
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Portland OR 97205 United States
5033065204
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