This oral history interview was conducted with Julieta (Julia) Giner on February 5, 2024 by Anthony Zhao as part of the Bass Connections Agents of Change Oral History Project.
Duration: 01:28:00 (stereo)
Duration: 01:27:52 (mono)
During the interview, Giner discusses growing up in Massachusetts in an immigrant family; her family background and traveling to Europe in her youth; path to working as a nurse at Duke; her early friendships within the LGBTQ community; taking care of a good friend with AIDS, so he would not die alone; working as an STD/STI health educator at a community health organization in Boston, Massachusetts; sad and consuming nature of early work with HIV/AIDS patients; family and friends reactions to working with HIV/AIDS; her work taking care of HIV/AIDS patients at Duke Hospital and finding work at Dr. John A. Bartlett's clinic at Duke; the reputation of Bartlett's clinic within the Duke University Health System (DUHS); the lack of education about HIV/AIDS; her extensive involvement with the Community Advisory Board (CAB) including the formation of CAB, the role of CAB and the impact of their work, changing demographics of CAB that matched the changes in HIV/AIDS demographics, the relationship between CAB, clinical researchers, and principal investigators, and the empowering role of CAB for previously silenced people in the community; her successes and failures with health education about HIV in Durham, North Carolina; the unique bond within the clinic staff; seeing the many layers of stigma of HIV/AIDS; working within and advocating on behalf of communities she was not a part of; her relationship with John and Patricia Bartlett and the team dynamic within the clinic; memorable moments providing care to patients; and her final thoughts highlighting the work of all others in the clinic. The themes of this interview include LGBTQ issues, societal stigmatization, community activism, health education, and advocacy.
Digital files include interview metadata and transcript (DOCX), interview with stereo (WAV), interview with mono (MP3), consent form (PDF), an image (JPG), and TXT files.