Description:

Nora Valencia was born in Montenegro in Quindío, Colombia. Her father worked a coffee buyer and her mother was a homemaker. She grew up in Montenegro and then lived in Cali. When she was three years old, she contracted polio. She discusses her life as a polio survivor and how living with a disability has impacted her life in both Colombia and the United States. She went to convent schools and conveys in the interview the role that religion played in her upbringing. In 1989, her father came to the U.S., motivated by economic opportunities. The family gradually followed her father, and she moved to America in 2011. In the interview, she discusses types of jobs she has worked, including working at a Casio factory and cleaning offices. She comments on the diversity of Latinx communities in New Jersey. In a separate interview with the Voces of a Pandemic project, Valencia delves into her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic as a factory worker in a job sector that continued to work during the pandemic shutdowns. This oral history interview was conducted as a part of the Latino New Jersey History Project, directed by Dr. Lilia Fernandez.