KPFA's Chana (Karen) Wilson's interviews her mother, Gloria Wilson. The two women are both lesbians, and the interview focuses on Gloria's coming to identify as a lesbian and the multiple psychiatric hospitalizations she endured to "treat" her depression and homosexuality. Music breaks: Elizabeth Cotton "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad"; Alix Dobkin "A Woman's Love"; Suzanne Shanbaum "Damn Crazy Feeling" (recorded at KPFA); Suzanne Shanbaum "The Fury" (recorded at KPFA); Nina Simone "O-O-h Child".
Note from producer: "In 1974, my mother, Gloria Wilson, visited me in Berkeley. I was a member of the collectively produced radio show "Lesbian Air," on KPFA-FM in Berkeley which had begun in 1973, premiering as one of the first lesbian radio shows in the country. "Fruit Punch," the gay male counterpart to "Lesbian Air," began on KPFA at the same time. My mother stayed with me in my lesbian collective household, sleeping on our frigid, unheated back porch, chipper and uncomplaining. (I was 23, my mother was 52) My housemates loved her: the hip lesbian mom, happily eating our vegetarian meals and sharing our feminist vision. She agreed to my interviewing her at the KPFA studios." See more about Chana and Gloria Wilson here: http://www.ridingfuryhomebook.com/
This recording has been digitally preserved as part of Pacifica's American Women Making History and Culture: 1963-1982 grant preservation project, and is available for research and reference . Please contact the archives via telephone: 818-506-1077 or email: americanwomen at pacificaradioarchives dot org for information on how to obtain a copy of this program. Thank you.
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