Page 1 of 23 
 
Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Miriamma Mae Carson 
May 10, 1992 
Cassette 2, Side 2 
 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  00:00 
The things were very much into my doing anything to save myself. And so I--see, I never got in 
those situations. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  00:09 
And you never had a battering husband or anything, either, did you? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  00:12 
No. No, my mother was so wildly against men hitting women. In her opinion, her second--first--
her first husband did, and she left right away and went home, and her family accepted her with 
open arms. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  00:26 
Wow. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  00:27 
Because of that-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  00:27 
That's lucky. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  00:28 
That wasn't acceptable in their family. So, I think that I recognized men like that, and I just am 
like a magnet. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  00:36 
And you also knew you had somewhere to go, away, that people would support you if you were 
in that situation, that that was wrong. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  00:43 
Yeah, yeah. That was definitely [inaudible]. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  00:45 
Page 2 of 23 
 
So that security is good. Huh. That's interesting. And you never had abortions. You had sex 
twice and had a kid [laughs]. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  00:49 
Mother said, If you have sex without birth control, you'll get pregnant. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  00:56 
Oh, yeah, you didn't have sex in high school, right? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  01:00 
Mm-mmm. Those guys, they wanted to, but I didn't, and I just stopped making out. I stopped 
parking. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  01:06 
So--oh, did you ever any--have any issues with makeup and stuff? Like, during the '60s, did you 
wear makeup, eyeliner, and all that junk? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  01:14 
Yeah, I wore all that stuff until I got involved in the women's movement-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  01:18 
Did you shave? Do you still shave? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  01:21 
I did shave all the time, and then I stopped when I got involved in the women's movement. And 
then I took it up, just of my legs, in the summer when Marcus wanted me to when he hit puberty, 
so [laughs]. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  01:34 
So, do you still shave? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  01:35 
Yeah, up to my knees in the summer. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  01:36 
Oh, that's so funny. Do you shave your armpits? No. Kind of interesting.  
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  01:39 
No [laughs]. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  01:41 
And so, how did--what happened with the makeup thing? You got through that? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  01:44 
Well, I stopped using that, you know, when I got involved in the women's movement. I wear a 
little makeup now sometimes, but when I go to the opera and stuff, but usually [inaudible]-- 
Page 3 of 23 
 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  01:51 
So, what does that have to do with the women's movement? I've been trying to figure out the 
correlation with makeup. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  01:57 
Well, the idea was that we spent all this money and all this time trying to make ourselves 
attractive for men, and we should just be ourselves, and if a man came along who was right for 
us, that would happen. And we didn't have to do all this stuff. That was the idea. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  02:12 
Huh. And when you wore miniskirts, were you, like, into being sexual? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  02:22 
Oh, god yes. It was [?the women?]--but what I liked about miniskirts, really, was the freedom of 
it, because that was right after the stockings came out, that came to your waist. Pantyhose. And 
pantyhose are so wonderful because you don't have to worry about that gap between the top of 
your hose and your underpants. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  02:38 
Your garter thing? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  02:39 
Yeah. Your garter--belt business. So, you could just, you know--so you didn't always have to 
worry about keeping your skirt down that much. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  02:47 
Never thought of that. Miniskirts, it would show that. You're right. Now it's fashionable, but 
back then, it wasn't. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  02:53 
And then with tight skirts, you couldn't walk. And you could move with miniskirts, you could 
move any way you wanted to. And with those long crinoline skirts--crinolines had--and all that 
sort of business, you always had to be worrying about your skirt all the time. You never had to 
think about it when you had a miniskirt, they were just grand. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  03:09 
Yeah, as a kid, I enjoyed wearing dresses, all the short dresses, because you could always do 
more in them. Yeah, that's interesting. And so, did--what about this thing--did you go through a 
thing between your sexuality for men and your sexuality for yourself? You know, like, if you're 
wearing a miniskirt and you're looking sexy for other--there's like a difference between coming 
into your own sexuality or being--looking good for a guy. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  03:38 
Oh, well, I did this great thing during that period. My second husband had dumped me rather 
unceremoniously, and so I was sort of crazy for a year. I mean, it was a good thing, [inaudible], 
Page 4 of 23 
 
because I was quite crazy then. And so basically, I just had--I just was, like, sort of turned on all 
the time, and picked up people. You know, I used to pick up five people a week or so, you know, 
and take them home and have a wonderful time, and give them a wonderful time. And then 
they'd leave and I'd say, Bye [laughs]. It was never [inaudible], but it was just sort of marvelous. 
It was a sort of equality for me, in that I wasn't feeling less equal than them, and I always made 
sure I had a good time, and I always made sure they had a good time. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  04:26 
So did you always--this is a crazy question, but did you always have orgasms with men from the 
beginning? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  04:32 
Oh yeah.  
 
Kirsten Anderberg  04:33 
Really? Did you have to assert that? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  04:35 
Lots of men--no. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  04:36 
Men just did that? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  04:38 
I have never had a bad lover. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  04:40 
So that must be you. It couldn't be them [laughs]. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  04:44 
Well, I think it's a combination. I think it's a combination of what I put out--like, men who are 
not good at sex, I think are not attracted to me because they feel like-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  04:56 
Boy, I need that. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  04:58 
They would feel like they would be a failure. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  04:59 
Oh, that's an interesting thing.  
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  05:01 
Because I think I put out--I think I've always put out that I'm good at sex, and--even when I 
wasn't, but I think I always was because of just the way I was brought up and my genes-- 
 
Page 5 of 23 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  05:08 
But you didn't feel that it was weird--you didn't--like, I was raised to get the man off, kind of, 
was the deal. It took me a long time to figure out how the women get off during this thing, you 
know, and so that never even--that just--did your mom talk to you about orga--who told you? Or 
did it just--it was obvious? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  05:35 
Well, I didn't even know--I had orgasms by myself from a very early age. And then, it was my 
first husband, he was a very sick man, and he told me I was supposed to be having these things 
that I didn't realize I was having one, so. And I ended up being totally frigid with him. And then I 
had this boyfriend after him, who thought it was his mission in life to gently teach me to have 
orgasms. And he succeeded, and we had a wonderful time. And after that, it just got easier and 
easier and easier and easier. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  06:09 
Really? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  06:09 
Yeah. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  06:09 
That's really funny. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  06:06 
Assume it's no big deal. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  06:07 
And did you ever have a thing with weight? Did you ever feel fat? And dieting? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  06:09 
Oh, I've felt fat my whole life.  
 
Kirsten Anderberg  06:10 
Really? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  06:10 
Of course, all of us do, even when I was 120 pounds [laughs]. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  06:10 
I know. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  06:10 
Well, the thing about some of it is that you compare yourself to the man you're sleeping with. 
And men are built differently from us. You know, we have all those little bits of fat around us 
[?that are right for us?]-- 
 
Page 6 of 23 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  06:27 
Right, they have skinny legs and stuff. Yeah. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  06:27 
I think that's part of it. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  06:28 
Really? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  06:29 
Sure. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  06:29 
And of course, Barbie doesn't help, hanging out there. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  06:31 
Well, I didn't have Barbie dolls too. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  06:39 
What'd you play with as a kid? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  06:41 
Lots of other dolls. Lots of dolls and trucks. I played with my brother's trucks, and my dolls, and 
flower lotto games, and I read lots and lots and lots of books, and-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  06:44 
I had a flower lotto too. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  06:49 
Did you? God, love that. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  06:52 
Yeah, I loved that, too. I kept it for so long, so beautiful. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  06:56 
I had all kinds of dolls. My mother loved dolls. [?I bought them little?] dresses. I had paper dolls, 
I love paper dolls. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  07:01 
And so, were you ever fat? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  07:02 
No. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  07:02 
You just always thought you were fat. But did you ever think you were really fat? 
Page 7 of 23 
 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  07:08 
No, I was fat just now, you know. Like, I gained weight in my 40s, but now I've lost it. I'm not 
fat now. I need to lose 10 or 20 more pounds, but I'm okay now. But I went through that period 
there. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  07:26 
But as a child, you never felt ugly or anything. Did you feel-- 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  07:29 
Oh, I always felt ugly. Oh yeah. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  07:33 
Why? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  07:35 
Well, I was very skinny. As a child, I had a nervous stomach, and I threw up and I couldn't eat a 
lot. And the way that they set it up at our elementary school was just marvy. Our lunch pails 
went in the sunshine all morning. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  07:50 
What a bunch of weirdos, ick!  
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  07:50 
So, I couldn't eat more food, especially since my mother gave me real food. The kids who got 
fake food-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  07:56 
It would be cement by then, yeah. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  07:59 
They could eat it, because fake food stands up better to half a day of the sunshine than real food 
does. Lettuce and mayonnaise after half a day of the sunshine, [groans] great stuff. And my 
mother was so crazy, and everything was so crazy, and there was so much yelling and screaming, 
I couldn't eat most of the time. So I was very, very thin. And because our family disintegrated so 
badly, I felt ugly, and bad, and miserable. [?And because I was oldest, I had to serve?]. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  08:27 
Did your parents stay together the whole time you were home? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  08:30 
Well, it's a hard question to answer. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  08:33 
They stayed legally married [laughs]? 
 
Page 8 of 23 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  08:35 
Yes, they stayed legally married. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  08:36 
Did they live in the same house? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  08:38 
No, my father decided he couldn't find work in the United States, and so he worked out of 
Brownsville, Texas on a boat going up and down the coast. And then he got work in Peru. So he 
was out of--or, first of all, before then, he was fishing out of San--at Long Beach--no, out of San 
Pedro. He's fishing out of San Pedro. So, he would be gone for long periods of time, then come 
home for a week or so. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  09:06 
And your mom was alone at home? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  09:08 
Mm-hmm, teaching school. And he didn't ever get it--her--together so that her cars worked well, 
and so she was always hysterical, because her cars might break down when we're 40 miles away, 
and she never got it together to do it either. She can't think and they can't discuss things. So it 
was always chaotic. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  09:32 
Do you think your calmness comes from her chaotic-ness? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  09:37 
Probably, because I hated it so much, and because I hate that rising tide of hysteria coming up in 
myself. I always push it down and try to figure out some other way of doing things. And because 
so often when I was a child, I had to stay calm to manage things, because I started problem-
solving these problems at a pretty early age. Like, one of her favorite things [laughs], oh, is to get 
lost driving around. So she asked somebody for directions, and then she says, Oh, I don't think 
that's right. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  10:08 
God, she sounds like a male. That's crazy. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  10:10 
Oh, my father won't even ask for directions. He's one worse. So I learned to read maps at a very 
early age. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  10:23 
Oh, wouldn't that be even worse? Because now you know where you're supposed to be going, 
but she won't listen? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  10:25 
Right, that's exactly what happened. But then finally she gives up, [inaudible]-- 
Page 9 of 23 
 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  10:26 
And you know where to go. Oh, no. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  10:27 
So you know there's an end to it you're going to find. And I learned that before we went to Peru. 
I was 11 when we went to Peru. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  10:30 
Oh no. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  10:30 
And then when we were in Peru, I was--how old was I then--I was 16 that year. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  10:32 
How long did you stay in Peru?  
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  10:32 
Oh, 11 to 16, 17. We were 16, and we're trying to get by boat from Callao, the port of Lima, 
through canal into Venezuela to La Guaira, which is the port of Caracas. And we were going 
from boat agency to boat agency trying to find passage, and we couldn't find a boat that went 
where we needed it to go. And the way we would do this is that Mother would start yelling at 
them in Spanish and English combined. I would go underneath and say it in Spanish to the guy, 
he would understand me. He would tell her in Spanish what it was. I would tell her in English, in 
her ear what he had said. So finally, one of these guys tells me about travel agencies, which I had 
never heard of before. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  11:34 
Oh, this is so sad! You're like the mom. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  11:37 
So, this guy tells me about the existence of travel agencies so--and where there is one. So, we get 
out there, and I hustle her somehow, get her to go to this travel agency. And then, of course, all 
our problems are solved. All we have to do is tell them is, where are you and where do you want 
to go? And they tell you what ship lines do it. Because telephones--you didn't have telephones. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  11:58 
Why? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  11:59 
Because you couldn't sit out, you couldn't get in the yellow pages and use the phone. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  12:03 
Because it was... 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  12:04 
Page 10 of 23 
 
Well, they just weren't technologically that advanced. I mean, there was-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  12:07 
So, they had it in America, but not down there yet. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  12:09 
Right, right. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  12:09 
Wow. So, [laughs] how long till you left? How old were you when you left? You went to college 
to get away. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  12:22 
Yeah, yeah. 18. Almost 18, just a few--couple weeks. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  12:28 
And how long did it take you till you realized that your parents were dysfunctional? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  12:33 
Well, I'd always known that. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  12:34 
Oh, you recognized that early on. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  12:36 
Oh, yeah. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  12:37 
How'd you know? You figured out other people weren't like that? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  12:40 
Well, because things blew up when I was six. Things were pretty good until about six, and then 
they blew up. And Sam was four. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  12:47 
And so the contrast somehow clued you in? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  12:50 
Oh, yeah. I knew how things were supposed to be.  
 
Kirsten Anderberg  12:52 
Did you--you never took it in personally? I mean, you never had low self-esteem? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  12:56 
Oh, I had terrible low self-esteem. 
 
Page 11 of 23 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  12:58 
How come? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  12:59 
I thought it was all my fault, and if I had just been good enough, I could have kept it from 
happening [laughs]. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  13:06 
Interesting. Do you think it's innate? I don't think it's just--do you think men--boys and women 
both have the same amount of low self-esteem things? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  13:14 
Yeah. It just come out real differently. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  13:16 
Yeah. And so did self esteem ever--you see it in your life in some ways? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  13:24 
Huh? 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  13:24 
Did low self-esteem show itself in your life somewhere--some ways so that you could start 
identifying it and take care of it? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  13:30 
Oh, yeah, I was depressed all my life and kept me from doing things. And flunked out of college, 
and I got in these stupid marriages. Jesus.  
 
Kirsten Anderberg  13:43 
So then, when did you change that? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  13:47 
Well, I was in therapy when I was married the first time until I got divorced. The therapist 
suggested I could live [inaudible] with the kid, and I could live with [inaudible] and figure it out. 
And you know what, he was right. And then, he was really helpful. Then the women's movement 
was just incredibly helpful. Then I had another therapist when I was living with Doris, and she 
was really helpful, and I'm seeing one now who's really helpful [laughs]. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  14:18 
So, do you feel like you'd be a different person without the feminist movement? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  14:21 
Oh, god yes. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  14:21 
Really? 
Page 12 of 23 
 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  14:22 
Oh yeah. Oh god, the women's movement's given me life. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  14:27 
Really? Like why? In what way? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  14:39 
Oh, this sense of power. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  14:42 
And you didn't have that before? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  14:43 
Not at all. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  14:44 
Not in that way. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  14:44 
Not at all. When I was real active in the peace movement, and I was in Women Strike for Peace, 
primarily. That was my primary organization, and I was real active against war stuff, you know, 
bombers and stuff like that. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  14:57 
I was going to ask you what you did during the Vietnam War.  
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  15:00 
Well-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  15:03 
And that whole, you know, they're all the--it seemed like my mom was involved in a lot of anti-
racism marches during that time. Did you end up doing some of that? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  15:12 
I did a little bit of anti-racism stuff. The most--most of what I did was think about it, and read 
about it, talk to people about it and what where I worked, but I was real active against the war. I 
got a lot of people to write a lot of letters, and I went to a lot of marches, and I had my own 
Women Strike for Peace group, and I was Prison Visitor to Lompoc for the Central Committee 
on Unconscientious Objection for a year. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  15:35 
Oh, for people that were in there for conscience--oh, that's great. What would you do, go in there 
and-- 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  15:41 
Page 13 of 23 
 
I went once a week, and the associate warden had a list, and he would take four, and then the 
next four, next four, and have them all come meet me. And that was great, because then they got 
to know each other, and they didn't know who-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  15:54 
That's great. And what would you talk to them about? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  15:57 
About the war, about things that we were doing, what magazines and books they wanted, 
because Women's Strike for Peace paid for their magazines and books, and Papa Bach bookstore 
gave them to us wholesale. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  16:11 
That's great. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  16:11 
So, I was able to get whatever people wanted in and it was great. It was really good. And I took 
Nicholas with me a few times, and he would play with the guys, and they couldn't touch 
anybody, you know, it was very bad for them. They were young men, so they could touch 
Nicholas and throw him [?up in the air?] and stuff. He loved it, they loved it. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  16:41 
Oh, that's cool.  
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  16:36 
They loved it. And he said he was going to be a conscientious objector; I'm like-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  16:43 
[Laughs nervously]. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  16:44 
Luckily, he didn't have to do that. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  16:42 
What was it about the war that--what was it about it that--like, sometimes I get upset now, like 
when this war just happened with Iraq, I had friends who told me that there's no time to worry 
about homophobia and feminism now, because there's a war on, and I got really nervous that, Oh 
man, you know, every male issue comes up, and feminism gets thrown in the back burner, and 
I'm real concerned, because it's mostly men doing the war thing, and maybe we don't have time 
for that right now, because feminism has to be dealt with. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  17:14 
That sounds quite vague. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  17:15 
Page 14 of 23 
 
And I didn't really hear that from the '60s war women. It seemed like the feminist movement just 
went in there, and it was mainly men that were being drafted and fighting. And I don't-- 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  17:27 
Well, the women's movement mainly grew out of the women who were working against the war. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  17:31 
That's what I wondered. In the civil rights movement, it seemed like the two of them together. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  17:37 
People started working against the war because Vietnam was this little, tiny country and our 
great big country went in there to try to keep them from having self-determination, and all of us 
knew that our country was supposed to support self-determination. So, everybody was against 
this. And-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  18:00 
Why aren't we against it now? Any insight on that? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  18:03 
Yeah, because we aren't against self-determination. We're against anybody not doing what we 
want them to do on the business level. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  18:15 
So, it's changed. They don't have to--now they package it differently? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  18:19 
Well, it's a whole different issue. Before, they looked at--before the United States's wealth was 
derived primarily from within the United States. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  18:28 
Oh, now it's third world. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  18:30 
Yeah. And then women were active in different organizations opposing war, and they had a lot 
of problems being taken seriously. I myself, of course, didn't experience that, since I worked 
with Women Strike for Peace. And so that's when women's movement came out. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  18:53 
And so, what was their angle on it again, that they just--they were--because they didn't want 
Vietnam exploited? Was that the main reason? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  19:01 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  19:02 
Why is it the women's movement was into this anti-war thing, or just because it grew out of it? 
Page 15 of 23 
 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  19:07 
Yeah, the women's movement grew out of the anti-war. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  19:09 
And what was the main part of the Vietnam War that like--what didn't you like about it? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  19:15 
That it was a country that was trying to have self-determination, because that country had been 
conquered by the French, and then the second world war came along, and the French were driven 
out by the Japanese, who conquered them. And then when the Second World War was over, in 
Japan lost, and the French went back in to take over their former colony. And the Vietnamese 
hadn't liked any of this. They fought against the French the first time, against the Japanese, and 
now were fighting against the French the second time. Then the French got kicked out. Finally, 
the French lost. Of course, they were losing everything; Algeria and everything else at that time. 
And then we took over. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  19:51 
Oh no. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  19:54 
Instead of letting them have whatever they wanted to have, you know? 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  19:58 
So, was it mostly an alignment with Vietnam--was it against--did you--was there hostilities 
towards the American government? Or was it-- 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  20:08 
Not initially. Initially, it was just to show--initially, it was thought that it was a mistake, and that 
if we showed the government that it was a mistake, that they would stop doing it. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  20:20 
Oh, wow. [Snorts]-- 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  20:22 
And then-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  20:22 
Fooled you [laughs]. No! Well, how long did it take women to realize that wasn't gonna happen? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  20:29 
Well, everybody realized it, you know, slowly, I mean, as things went on. And then people just 
started getting hysterical about it, because it was such a mistake, and they were seeing it on 
television every night. And then, you know--and some people were hysterical because the 
Vietnamese were being murdered. Other people were hysterical because their friends and 
relations were being murdered, and so everybody was just getting hysterical, you know. And 
Page 16 of 23 
 
people were setting themselves on fire in the United States, you know, half a dozen people did 
that. Other people were-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  20:58 
During the Vietnam War? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  20:59 
Yes, because the monks, the Buddhist monks in Vietnam, were setting themselves on fire. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  21:07 
Why? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  21:08 
To protest the war. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  21:09 
Oh, geez. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  21:10 
And so, people started doing that here and-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  21:12 
Oh god.  
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  21:13 
You know, dousing themselves with gasoline and then setting it on fire. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  21:18 
Why not shoot--you know, Abby often said, if you're gonna commit suicide, take a cop with you, 
you know [laughs]. Go into a police station, shoot a cop, let him shoot you back. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  21:19 
Well, that was other people's--that was another reaction from different sort of people. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  21:19 
Oh, god. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  21:19 
And people just got so hysterical because they just couldn't believe it was still going on. My 
second husband said, All right, we've been talking about this long enough. We've decided the 
war should stop. It's over now. And he said that 10 years before it was over. And it just kept on 
going, and people just kept on protesting in more and more and more ways, and, really, the 
powers that be made a terrible mistake in not stopping that war, because it really led to all the 
bad things that are happening now, because everybody felt certain that it should end, and the 
longer it went, the more people searched for and found corruption in the government. Searched 
for and found influences on the government that we didn't learn in civics books. So that the 
Page 17 of 23 
 
longer that war went on, the less--the more reasons people found, therefore, the more people 
because everybody has their own reason that makes it to them, found to really distrust the 
government and the large corporations. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  22:50 
And see, that's what as a--that's what's been always hard for me to figure out because I grew up 
in an era where everyone talked about how screwed up their, you know, government is, and CIA, 
and all these things. And it always seemed so naive and innocent, these people in the '60s seemed 
so naive, you know, like, they were just saying, Well, it'll stop him. And I kept thinking, Well, 
don't they know the CIA is doing--and now I realized that, no, people didn't know. You know, 
it's from that distrust that this stuff started coming out, so that I know, and my generation knows 
to distrust the government. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  23:17 
And they would just do incredible--somebody would expose something, and the government 
would do things to try to stop it that were totally transparent, and they would say they were for 
other reasons, but it was so transparent and totally futile and would only make them look bad, so 
every response they made was counterproductive for their own ends. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  23:42 
Were you ever patriotic at some point in your life? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  23:46 
Well, I'm patriotic now. I mean, I've always been patriotic. I always think this is the best country, 
but I never quite know what that word means, really. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  23:56 
Well, I would feel that it would get really challenged during a period like that. You'd get caught 
between your love for your country and the government. It's almost like you want to take the 
country from the government, or-- 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  24:09 
Well, I just love the Constitution. I learned it really well. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  24:14 
Me too. But did you feel less patriotic or more patriotic during that? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  24:19 
I don't know what that word means. The problem with that word is that it gets used so much-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  24:21 
Yeah, it's so crazy.  
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  24:21 
The last scan--the last refuge of a scandal is patriotism, somebody said? Was that George 
Bernard Shaw? Somebody like that anyway. 
Page 18 of 23 
 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  24:39 
That's true. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  24:21 
Yeah. I think that one can be--I mean, one is always on one's own side, but critical of oneself. So 
I might as well be on the side of one's country, but continue to be critical. I mean, I certainly 
wouldn't want us to lose any wars. I mean, in terms of people having--gaining our land, you 
know, that kind of war. I wouldn't want any other country to have power over us. But I don't 
think that it's good for us to go having power over other countries either. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  25:09 
That's really odd. And you escaped the crazy free-love drug thing of the '60s [laughs]? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  25:18 
Well, I just don't have--drugs never done it for me. And I had a child, you know, and 
responsibility, and I was the oldest children of three in a dysfunctional family, I was the mother 
to Mother, you know? And to sometime extent, to the Father, so-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  25:35 
That usually drives people to drugs, so let's see. So, it didn't--you just didn't do it all. You don't 
really drink, huh? Interesting.  
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  25:43 
You know, I don't think I have the chemistry for it. Also, there's total alcoholism in my family, 
and I just--not my parents, but all my mother's family. It's just, I don't see that it does anything 
really good. And acid--my husband, my second husband, took acid and it made him crazy. And 
my best friend took acid and made her crazy. She went to mental hospital. And I figured I could 
get crazy without it. So, I didn't need that. Did mescaline, and I love that.  
 
Kirsten Anderberg  26:11 
Why didn't you do it again? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  26:21 
There isn't any around. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  26:22 
Just too much. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  26:23 
There hasn't been any around in years. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  26:25 
What was that like? Did you trip for hours [laughs]? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  26:25 
Page 19 of 23 
 
Oh, I screwed.  
 
Kirsten Anderberg  26:16 
Oh, that must been interesting. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  25:58 
[Inaudible] for hours, we walked in the light under the trees, it was real sensual. [Inaudible] nice. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  25:49 
Have you ever been to Europe? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  25:52 
No! I want to go. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  25:52 
You want to do that stuff? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  25:58 
Oh, yes, I need to do that. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  26:01 
Really? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  26:02 
Oh, yeah. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  26:02 
Cool-- 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  26:53 
That's one of my plans, I want to work in Spain for a year so I can travel over here. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  26:57 
Really? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  26:58 
Yes. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  26:59 
Yeah, three years ago, I wouldn't know Spain was in Europe. Thank god for college [laughs]. 
Jeez, I was shocked when I found that out. Really, I was. That should be really fun. What are you 
gonna do over there? Are you gonna-- 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  27:10 
Women's healthcare, [?I like doing it?]. 
 
Page 20 of 23 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  27:12 
Really? Do you speak Spanish? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  27:15 
Oh, yeah, sure. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  27:15 
Ah, good. I'll have to come speak with you sometime. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  27:20 
I have lots--I used to have lots of Spanish speaking patients. We did Spanish births. I can do 
United Nations type translating. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  27:32 
Really? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  27:40 
Yeah, I did it at a birth. Was really funny. The woman who was in labor spoke only English, her-
-I mean, only Spanish. Her husband spoke both languages. Their best friend spoke only English. 
Her brother spoke only Spanish. Barb spoke only English, so therefore, whenever anybody said 
anything, I translated it. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  27:53 
Wow.  
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  27:53 
It was great fun [laughs]. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  27:53 
And you learned that as a kid, I guess, in Peru, right?  
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  27:54 
Yeah, I was in Peru. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  27:54 
Did they teach you before you went there? They just took you there as an English speaker, and 
you just had to adapt? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  28:00 
Oh, I just learn. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  28:02 
Did you go to school--you must've gone to school there. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  28:06 
Page 21 of 23 
 
I went to school, but not for very long. I just went to school for a short while. And then I did 
correspondence courses from Calvert School in Baltimore, Maryland for seventh and eighth 
grades. And then I was here for freshman year and sophomore year. And then my junior year, I 
did correspondence course from University California, Berkeley. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  28:24 
In California? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  28:26 
I was in Venezuela, and then I did my senior-- 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  28:29 
Well, that's another thing where you didn't get socialized. You were doing correspondence-- 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  28:41 
I never got to go to--what's that kind of school--they call that kind of school? They call it middle 
school now. Now, what did they used to call it? 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  28:42 
Junior high. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  28:42 
Junior high. I didn't--I never set one foot in junior high [squeals and claps]. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  28:48 
Well, that's really why you weren't socialized so much! That's how you knew how to have 
orgasms [laughs]. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  28:26 
You think junior high is where you learn how to do that sort of thing? 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  28:59 
Oh yeah, man! Oh god, junior high almost killed me [laughs]. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  29:01 
I know, junior high is such a horrible place. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  29:05 
I know, it isn't safe. I don't know why people send their kids there. Well, that's cool that you got 
to do that. Did it--was it interesting being in a different culture down there? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  29:17 
Of course it was interesting. But, I mean, I didn't enjoy it, but years later, I knew it had been 
really good for me [laughs]. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  29:22 
Page 22 of 23 
 
Oh, no. What kind of--this is a crazy question, but have you ever been into like, certain kind of 
music influencing you? Have you ever had, like, some big thing with music that really inspired 
you, or anything? I used to have different musicians that I'd really get off on and make my time. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  29:42 
No, because I think musicians are too unstable. I think only if musicians carry--I think somebody 
else has to make the message and the musicians have to make it powerful. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  29:57 
Oh, yeah, I [inaudible] that. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  29:57 
So, I mean, I loved the rock music of the '60s, you know, I loved the women's music. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  29:57 
You did? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  29:57 
Oh, yeah. Some of it. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  29:57 
Find it boring at times.  
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  29:57 
Well, I wasn't very musically sophisticated then. I got musically sophisticated later. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  29:57 
Oh, so it bores you now, more than it did? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  30:17 
Yeah, yeah. Liked it then. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  30:18 
Have you--really? Do you still like it on a whole? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  30:21 
No. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  30:22 
Me neither. It's really depressing [laughs], I want to like it, you know? 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  30:27 
Mozart, and Haydn, and Mahler, and those people. I wish there were some women classical 
composers. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  30:34 
Page 23 of 23 
 
Yeah, that should be interesting. I hear Benjamin Britten was gay, I didn't know that. I like some 
of his stuff, it's good. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  30:41 
Eh, I don't like much. You know, the only--there's a period in history of artists where there are a 
whole lot of women artists. It's on those still lifes, Flemish still lifes, those flower paintings, a lot 
of those are women. 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  30:57 
Huh. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  30:57 
I have a book; do you want to see it? 
 
Kirsten Anderberg  30:59 
Yeah. 
 
Miriamma Mae Carson  31:00 
Okay. I have these things called the Metropolitan--[tape cuts off]. 