Interview with Jan Steckel, January 5, 2024
Project: Peace Corps: The Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Oral History Project
Interview Summary
Jan Steckel served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic (DR) from 1985-86 in a health program. She discusses feeling discriminated against by Peace Corps staff in training because she said she was Jewish and bisexual and provides examples of discrimination against women by conservative Catholic Peace Corps staff. She discusses her medical experience prior to service; training midwives and providing health services in the DR; and her post service medical career. She also talks about her health problems during service including getting sick in the first village in which she lived because of poor conditions; not telling Peace Corps about her asthmatic condition; having to pay for her asthma medication; and being med-evacuated because of asthma-related complications from a fall. She discusses not fitting in well in the conservative society; racism in the DR; and the community descended from American slaves with whom she worked. She questions Peace Corps goals.Interview Accession
Interviewee Name
Interviewer Name
Interview Date
Interview Keyword
Peace Corps (US) Dominican Republic (Country of Service) Health (Peace Corps program) 1985-86 (years of service as Peace Corps Volunteer) Peace Corps (U.S.)—Management LGBTQ+ Little Havana, Florida (site of 2-week initial training) Los Alcarrizos (site of three month in-country training) El Valle (the first town in which she lived) Villa Claro(the second town in which she lived) Marcio (formal name Isidro), (her counterpart in the health project) Glenn Milstein (her boyfriend and fellow PCV) David Winge (another PCV) Villa Clara, Samaná community descended from American slaves CIA in the Peace Corps Peace Corps goals.Interview Rights
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Steckel, Jan Interview by Evelyn Ganzglass. 05 Jan. 2024. Lexington, KY: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.
Steckel, J. (2024, January 05). Interview by E. Ganzglass. Peace Corps: The Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Oral History Project. Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries, Lexington.
Steckel, Jan, interview by Evelyn Ganzglass. January 05, 2024, Peace Corps: The Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Oral History Project, Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.
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