Martha Sklar and Jonathan Sklar
Recorded
September 25, 2020
Archived
September 11, 2020
43:55 minutes
0:00 / 0:00
Id:
ddv000201
Description
Martha Sklar (80) talks with her son Jonathan Sklar (48) about her life and work in academia. She remembers the challenges that she faced on the way due to anti-semitism and sexism, and how she navigated them.Subject Log / Time Code
MS talks through her family’s journey to the United States. Her parents were Eastern European, they moved to Cuba first, then to the U.S. in 1949.
MS was the first in her immediate family to go to college. She talks through her thinking in deciding to go, and to study to be a teacher.
MS went to Roosevelt University; she explains that she wasn’t admitted to Northwestern due to discriminatory quota policies related to anti-semitism.
MS reflects on other experiences of anti-semitism, at work, related to housing, etc.
MS remembers some challenges she faced as a woman - after her husband died, she faced difficulty getting a credit card and how she worked her way out of it. “I’m a fighter when I think I’m right,” MS says of the experience.
MS taught at Los Angeles City College. She describes her career there.
MS remembers her journey into leadership- at first it was difficult to get a role in administration, but she won a faculty election; led work on an accreditation for the college.
What is MS most proud of when she looks back on her career? All the lives she touched. She talks about running into students in and outside school.
Closing reflections; her regret? not going to the March on Washington.
JS reflects on his mother’s life.
Participants
- Martha Sklar
- Jonathan Sklar