Jan Haaken

Although it would be something of a misnomer to call Jan a late-bloomer, such an appellation also contains a kernel of truth. It wasn’t until her mid-fifties that Jan embarked on a whole new career as a documentary filmmaker – a pursuit that has now become her passion, along with her work as a teacher, researcher, writer, and clinical therapist. In addition to bringing her students into her documentary projects, Jan sees her documentary projects as part of her ongoing commitment to social justice activism.

Much of Jan’s work draws on interdisciplinary perspectives and cultural studies, particularly feminist and psychoanalytic cultural studies.  She was one of the co-founders of Portland’s Red Rose School, an informal educational school of radical thought. Jan is also part of The Old Mole Collective which puts on a weekly radio program of left politics and culture on Portland’s community radio station, KBOO. In addition to numerous scholarly articles, Jan is the author of Pillar of Salt: Gender, Memory and the Perils of Looking Back, and co-editor of Memory Matters: Understanding Recollections of Sexual Abuse-- both of which address cultural aspects of remembering. She co-authored a curriculum on the multiple meanings of covering among Muslim women, which was a memorial to the work of her sister, Joan Bohorfoush, who was also a feminist documentarian. Jan produced with her son, Caleb Heymann, a video documentary entitled Diamonds, Guns and Rice that focuses on refugee women during the Sierra Leonean civil war, which was distributed with the curriculum book, Speaking Out: Women, War, and the Global Economy. She carried out a series of qualitative studies on how social and cultural contexts shape how stories of how domestic violence get told, consolidated in a forthcoming book entitled Hard Knocks: Domestic Violence and the Psychology of Storytelling.  Jan is director of the documentary Queens of Heart: Community Therapist in Drag about Darcelle's drag club—the oldest continually operating drag club in the nation, and she is producer of the documentary Moving to the Beat, a film about Africa, America, and hip-hop activism. Currently, she is at work on a documentary about the use of the insanity defense in criminal cases with the working title Guilty Except for Insanity. And last but not least, Jan had the germinating idea and was the initial impetus and an ongoing participant in the creation of the park in which you are now standing—The Walk of the Heroines.

Jan’s adult life, however, did not start out on the trajectory described above. Raised in a strong Christian family, Jan early on learned the importance of taking a moral stance in the world and working to make a difference. Though eventually leaving the faith, nothing changed in her sense of commitment. Jan’s first career choice was to enter nursing, a profession in which she first worked as a psychiatric nurse in a children’s clinic at the University of Washington. Her co-workers, if not Jan herself at the time, recognized her great potential and convinced her to go back to school. So at the age of 27, Jan enrolled at the University of Washington to finish her undergraduate degree and then moved on to the Wright Institute in Los Angeles for her doctorate. And the rest, as they say, is history.  

Of all her many accomplishments, Jan would undoubtedly consider her greatest accomplishment to be her mothering of her son, Caleb Heymann. While many around her saw her parenting theories as a bit over-indulgent, and her decision to share joint custody (an untried and not commended practice at the time) with her former husband Richard as questionable, Jan has been completely vindicated by the fine young man Caleb has become. Caleb paid the following tribute to his mother on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday:

[We are a family] that’s never gone on vacation, but have taken a hell of a lot of really expensive field trips. Every city became a museum, every sport a sociological study, and every action flick was okay to watch as long as it was followed by an in-depth analysis of the underlying messages. It can be difficult to keep up with such an intellectually demanding curriculum, not just as a kid but even on our most recent trips.

But then what kind of teacher would you be if you didn’t help to make sense of the world, and what kind of scientist without an inquisitive mind? While it’s not exactly easy to grow up with a Marxist/feminist/self-proclaimed sexologist/teacher mom, it’s got to be more interesting than most other childhoods. How many third graders get to deconstruct X-Men? But as I’ve grown up, I have realized how lucky I am to have a mother who is also a mentor and the wisest person I know. You help me to put challenges in perspective and to make sense of confusing times. When I feel lost you remind me of what is most important and offer a moral compass. I know I am only one of the countless people whose lives you have brightened with your zeal, although as your son I’m perhaps the luckiest of all. As they say here [Caleb currently works as a filmmaker in Cape Town, SA], “you’re such a legend!”

The author of this short bio (Jan’s partner) can only concur with all that Caleb has so eloquently expressed.