92
10
1775
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e486bf1044a77c12bb2cbef997e23f23.mp3
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Kurdish Oral History
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Aynur de Rouen, Ph.D.
Description
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<p>In 2011, Binghamton University Libraries received the donation of the Vera Beaudin Saeedpour Kurdish Library and Museum Collection. The acquisition opened a dialog with the local Kurdish community in Binghamton, N.Y., which led to the creation of the Kurdish Oral History Project.</p>
<p>These interviews provide deeper insight into the history of the Kurdish culture through personal accounts, narratives, testimonies, and memories of their early lives in their adoptive country and back in Kurdistan. This growing collection holds interviews in English and/or Kurdish with informants of all ages and a variety of backgrounds from various parts of Kurdistan. The interviewees share remarkable stories of their migration, their persecution in Kurdistan, the resilience of their Kurdish identity in assimilating into the host culture, and the ties they maintain with their homeland in diaspora.<a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/sustain"></a></p>
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In copyright
Relation
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<a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/oral-histories/index.html#sustainablecommunities">Sustainable Communities Oral History Collection</a><br /><br /><a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/76">Vera Beaudin Saeedpour Kurdish Library & Museum Collection Finding Aid</a>
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Date of Interview
- 13 June 2016
- 27 June 2016
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Marwan Tawfiq
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Sardar Sabah
Language
Kurdish
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University
Digital Format
Audio
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
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Interview with Sardar Sabah
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15a6f6f115d47bc8e0692015fc0056a9
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-07-01
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Fred R. Harris, 1930-
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Fred Harris is a former Democratic United States Senator elected twice from the state of Oklahoma. Harris received his Bachelor's and Law degree from the University of Oklahoma. He won a special election in 1964, succeeding Robert S. Kerr. In 1976 and he also became a professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":4995,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Fred Harris is a former Democratic United States Senator elected twice from the state of Oklahoma. Harris received his Bachelor's and Law degree from the University of Oklahoma. He won a special election in 1964, succeeding Robert S. Kerr. In 1976 and he also became a professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
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144:35
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Native Americans; Comanche nation; Comanche culture; Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO); Civil Rights Movement; Integration; Taos Pueblo; Menominee tribe; Racial stereotypes; Baby boom generation; Activism; Native American/ American Indian Movement (AIM)."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5009,"3":{"1":0},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":0,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Native Americans; Comanche nation; Comanche culture; Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO); Civil Rights Movement; Integration; Taos Pueblo; Menominee tribe; Racial stereotypes; Baby boom generation; Activism; Native American/ American Indian Movement (AIM).</span>
Subject LCSH
Legislators—United States--Oklahoma; College teachers; Harris, Fred R., 1930--Interviews
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Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Senator Fred Harris
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 1 July 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:08):
Testing, one two. Ba, loud. And again, thank you very much. It is an honor to talk to you. Before we even start, I consider you one of those great senators of the senators that I got to know, I think, that were really men of character back in the time when Senator McCarthy and Senator McGovern and Senator Nelson, who I all know or knew. So again, thank you very much.
FH (00:00:40):
[inaudible] well, thank you, Jeff. That is very nice for you to say.
SM (00:00:41):
Yeah. First question I have is, how did your growing up years in Oklahoma make you the person you are today, including where you grew up, your high school and your college and your early political efforts? I say this because I am very impressed with your background because things that stand out in your background include things like human rights. You dealt with the issue of desegregation, caring about the plight of African Americans, women, and Native Americans. So, just a little bit about how you became who you are.
FH (00:01:18):
Well, I grew up in a working class family. By most standards, we were poor, but we did not really feel poor. We would grow a big garden and we raised our own beef and pork and chickens for food, and I grew up in little town where it was not a place where there was a great deal of economic stratification where there are rich people and poor people; we were all fairly alike. I think that was a big help. Went to public schools there in that little town of Walters, Oklahoma. The interesting thing is, I was just back to a class reunion and it was amazing how many out of my class graduated class there in 1948. There were just two of us, I think. A potential majority got a college educations and a significant percentage, advanced degrees. I do not know, but that seems very unusual to me. I think we just all somehow always thought we would go to college, and did, and I did though no one in my family had ever been in college before. When I was a sophomore in high school, I somehow decided I wanted to be a lawyer, but I was not quite sure what a lawyer was. But I did think, I think now looking back on it, that it was sort of involved with being in politics, too, which I was intrigued by very early. About race, I do not know. I grew up in the school and in the county, the town where there were a lot of Comanche Indians. I later married a Comanche Indian woman, LaDonna Crawford, and some of my closest friends then, and that remained true through the years were members of the Comanche Indian Tribe, and I think maybe that gave me a somewhat different perspective than I might otherwise have had in regard to race. I was writing a memoir book not long ago and I was remembering that in a high school speech class, there was one little project where we had to recite some passage from Shakespeare. I chose the Shylock speech about the Jews, but I changed it. I did not really know anything much about Jews then, and I changed it to "negro." For example, as I gave the [inaudible] I said, "If you prick a negro, will he not bleed," and so forth. Where I got all that, I do not know. But ever since I remember, I had a great deal of interest in equality, ethnic and racial equality. Of course, that was something that I got very much involved in both in private life early and when I was practicing law on integration and then in the Oklahoma State Senate where I offered the bill that created the Oklahoma Human Rights Commission and prohibited discrimination in state employment, and then eventually starting right off in the United States Senate, but sort of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. That is a short amount. That is kind of my background.
SM (00:05:54):
Yeah. What really intrigues me about your background is why you became a leader at such a young age. Some people I know... The only other person that was as young as you was Senator Biden, who became a United States Senator in at the age of 29. When I look at your background, and I do not know, I have not studied Vice President Biden, but I know that he was a senator at the age of 30. You both became leaders at a very young age. What was the inspiration there? Did you feel that you were ahead of the time, that you felt you had to play an important role in some of these decisions earlier rather than later?
FH (00:06:36):
Hey, I do not know exactly why, but I do know this. I was always sort of grown, I think. I really enjoyed being around older people and listening to their conversations. It was sort of the practice among the people I grew up with there in Southwestern Oklahoma, and it certainly was true of my own father, that they gave the boys a lot of responsibilities at an early age. That was the way my father was with me and it was, too, of several of my classmates. They treated us more or less like adults and gave us the responsibility. I think that I was considerably more mature than I would have otherwise been. But that was, too, a lot of my high school classmates.
SM (00:07:33):
Do you remember, you have given a lot of important speeches in your life, certainly in the United States Senate, when you were in the State Senate, and maybe even in high school, and even now that you have been a professor for so many years... But do you consider one of your speeches the most favorite of all time? Was there one that you felt dealt with an issue better than anything you had ever dealt with before? What speech stands out?
FH (00:08:04):
I do not know. It is probably obscure kind of a subject outside of New Mexico. But I led the fight in the United States Senate for the return to Taos Indian Pueblo here in New Mexico their 48,006 Blue Lake lands. [inaudible] was not in my home state, but I got very interested in that after talking with the old leaders of the Pueblo. It was a precedent-setting bill that we passed. The tribe had gotten a claim against the federal government, a court of claims that was upheld for the wrongful taking of that land and were going to be compensated for money, but they would not have kept money. They wanted the land back. It was inside of the National Forest at the time. So, it was not in private hands, and we finally got that done. I would say my speaking on the floor of the United States Senate on that circuit was probably something that I am proudest of, though as I said, it is not a thing known much outside of the state here in New Mexico, my adopted state where I have lived now since 1976. Taos Pueblo is such wonderful, generous people, gentle people. They have had I do not know how many different ceremonies where they have thanked me and my then wife, LaDonna Harris, for our help on returning that land to them. That is about to happen again. They are going to have a 40th anniversary celebration this September of 2010 [inaudible] their land returned and again, honoring us.
SM (00:10:22):
Well, that is excellent. Since the project I am working on is, of course, dealing with the boomer generation, and that is those individuals born between 1946 and 1964, and I preface this by saying that many people, one-third of the people I have interviewed, are not boomers; they are older than boomers. Many people that were born, say, around (19)40 to (19)46, many of them consider themselves boomers even though they do not fall into that timeframe. I have had a lot of different people comment on the generation itself. But what I am looking at here is what was America like during the following periods in your eyes? Because you experienced it growing up after the war, after World War II. And of course, you went to college in the early (19)50s, you became a lawyer in the (19)50s and then, of course, you were serving already at that time before you went into the (19)60s into the Senate. But if you, and just your own words, I am looking at the years that boomers have been alive, which means that the oldest boomer now is 64 this year, and the youngest one is 48 this year, if you were to describe the period 1946 to 1960, how would you describe America?
FH (00:11:43):
Well, it was almost a nation. I actually was born in 1930 in the midst of the Depression and Dustbowl days in Oklahoma. I grew up in those years prior to 1946 with people who that...
SM (00:12:20):
Still there?
FH (00:12:22):
...if they had been victims of circumstances beyond their control and that the government had to do something about it, my people who were not active in politics revered Franklin Roosevelt, and I think we grew up thinking that the government could be, it should be your friend. Then came at World War II and the world just radically changed. People moved all from their home place, became very mobile. And that was true of my own family and friends. People scattered and went elsewhere to find jobs and so forth. You had this pent-up consumer demand during the war which suddenly caused enormous economic activity and growth. You had the GI Bill, which provided for those boomer people who would come back from the war, or actually they were earlier than the movement of people that came back from the war, the opportunity for higher education and showed the rest of us, too, that if we would go to school, we could go to college and university, and we did. So, it was just a radical change in American life and the national life about the time these people were born, this boomer generation. I think everybody was growing and developing as the country was, and I think there was just sort of an inevitable optimism as that group was growing up, as was true for me, too, that the possibilities were unlimited, that you could do almost anything you wanted to. It is the kind of thing that the Clintons, one of the boomer generation, used to say, people that played by the rules, worked hard, you could do just about anything you wanted to. I think that was the general feeling of that era.
SM (00:14:59):
Because that is from (19)46 to (19)60. And then we get into the era of 1961 to 1970, which is the Kennedy being elected, and of course we get the Vietnam War. Just your thoughts on that tumultuous decade.
FH (00:15:13):
Well, the Vietnam War of the (19)60s, I think for the first time caused people of that boomer generation, and a lot of rest of us as well, to come to the really shocking and depressing view that the government was not always right. There was a real question whether our leaders could be trusted, and they had gotten into this terrible mess in the war. Then, we sort of papered over, white people had, the terrible fight of the African Americans in particular, Indians, too, and all of that came to the forefront in the (19)60s. We had the terrible riots, which exploded in Black sections in most of America's cities. In the summer of 1967, I was evidently appointed by President Johnson to the President's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, the [inaudible] commission to report and recommend concerning those terrible events. That was kind of with the war and these horrific conflicts, racial and ethnic conflicts in the country that told us what America was really like, and a lot of us had not thought about it that much. That really sort of destroyed the innocence of the people at that time. I think that made people a lot more distrustful of government, a lot more concern. Maybe there are not any solutions to some of these problems, and made people somewhat more fearful and more self-centered about their own families and their own problems, and less willing, as have been true of that Depression generation, to reach out to others and to cooperate and so forth. The (19)60s was a time of enormous change and rapid depression.
SM (00:18:01):
Where would you place the (19)70s? Because we all remember Kent State and Jackson State in the middle of 1970. Then we get into (19)71. We all know what happened with Watergate and those early years of... A lot of people say, I do not know how you feel about it, that the (19)60s really continued right through about 1973 or (19)74. A lot of people-
FH (00:18:27):
I think that is absolutely true. I think what happened... Back in the (19)50s, we had men all very optimistic and cheerful during the Eisenhower years, that is evidenced by white people and the people in the dominant society. Then the (19)60s really shocked us into a depressing reality, and then with the (19)70s, the beginning of the (19)70s particularly, the events just sort of confirmed the kind of increasing distrust and fearsomeness or fearfulness that had developed in the (19)60s.
SM (00:19:19):
Well, when you get to the end of the (19)70s, Jimmy Carter's ousted from office and Ronald Reagan comes in. Then when you talk about the (19)80s, (19)81 to (19)90, it is really the era of Ronald Reagan and George Bush I. Just your thoughts on the (19)80s and its reaction to the (19)70s.
FH (00:19:45):
There has always been two mainstreams, I think, in American life. One, that we are neighbors and neighbors ought to help each other, and we are all in this thing together. And then the other thing has always been lift yourself up by your own bootstraps; do not be going around begging other people to help you. I think the (19)80s, the advent of the Reagan and Bush administration, the thing that became dominant was this idea that you were on your own. Nobody was going to help you; you got to yourself, and quit complaining and protesting. Straighten up, take care of yourself, or you will be sorry.
SM (00:20:45):
Well, what is interesting, Christopher Lasch, the author wrote The Culture of Narcissism, and he wrote that in the late (19)70s, and he said, many of the people that grew up and were formed by the (19)60s and the (19)70s became so into themselves, they did not care about anybody else. They became narcissistic. They cared about a nice car, a beautiful home, just basically narcissism. Do you believe that?
FH (00:21:18):
I think there is some of that. I think there is something to that. With the riots, for example, in the mid-1960s or later, there was, I think, a feeling that... Well, for example, my own father, who [inaudible] and believed in me, when he read about the Carter Report as a result of those riots, the way he saw our report was that it said, "Mr. Harris, you ought to pay more taxes so we can help poor Black people who live in Detroit," and he was thinking to himself, "Wait a minute. I am paying too much taxes myself and we never protested and rioted, and I do not think we ought to condone or reward that kind of disorder." I think that began this idea of distrusting each other and began to erode that feeling that had developed back in Roosevelt years, that government ought to help those who are left fortunate, who cannot to help themselves and that we ought to help each other. Then I think Reagan, and Nixon to some degree, and then later when Reagan got elected as a benefit of that kind of individualistic tendency in the country.
SM (00:23:08):
Dr. King used to always talk in his speeches about "we." Even though he was up there on a platform, he always looked in the audience and says, "You are me, because it is about we. It is not about me." I think the question that always comes up, there is always exceptions to the rule, but whether as a generation as a whole, when you look at the fact that this generation of 74 million, people I have talked to say that only between 5 percent and 15 percent, depending on who you talked to, was really involved in any kind of activism. The 85 percent just went on with their daily lives, but were certainly affected by everything. So-
FH (00:23:49):
President Carter was a disappointment as president. He did not push enough in the right directions, and very early lost his mandate. He became the greatest and best former president we ever had [inaudible]. Bill Clinton I think sort of turned us back toward this idea that we are our brothers' keepers and that we ought to cooperate together, work together. But Clinton, too, he lost the control of the Congress and really pulled his own horns in on the great issues. He lost on some of them like health insurance, and the nation then just moved on more toward this individualistic kind of tendency [inaudible] before [inaudible]
SM (00:25:01):
Right. You remember this, even whether you liked President Reagan's politics or not, he and Tip O'Neill got along quite well. Remember Tippo used to always say, "All politics is local." They used to debate a lot and had tremendous disagreements, but when the day was over, they would shake hands and if they could have, they would go out and have a drink. But it was just a different time. It seems like when Ronald Reagan came in, maybe it is a result of what from LBJ and Richard Nixon and what they did to America and divided the country, that when Reagan and Clinton were in office and even George Bush II, I mean, the divisiveness and the dislike for them as leaders was immense. What has happened between 1980 and 2010, in your opinion? It has been 30 years in the boomers' lives as their middle years going into their now senior citizen status. What has happened to America in the divisiveness, and do you see any links between this divisiveness and unwillingness to work together and if someone said, "Today, if President Obama likes this, then we have got to be against it even though we might like it, but if he is for it, were against it." I mean, where did this all start?
FH (00:26:22):
Well, I think a few things we ought to think about. One is I think the approach, the appeal of progressives in politics and government, it was not very effective because it tended to be preachy and to call on people to do the right thing, for example, in regards to poor people or in regards to Black people because it was the moral thing to do, appeal to the people's morality and sense of the right and wrong. I thought that back then, and I still do, that it was far more appropriate and effective to, and I called this the populism, to appeal to people's self-interest, to say to a person like my dad, "You are not going to be able to live in a society of self-esteem where there is security and stability unless there is some better distribution of the income and power in this country." You may think that problems of poor Black kids down in Mississippi and [inaudible] education which consigns them forever to poverty, or that heavily discriminated against and unable to reach their full potential, you may think that is not your problem. They are off down there in Mississippi or they are up there in Harlem or something. But we are all in this thing together. They do not stay in one place. For example, they may move from Mississippi to New York [inaudible] state. You are going to [inaudible] these kind of things one way or another. As Jesse Jackson was saying at the time, "It is a heck a lot cheaper to get in on the front end, to give people some real opportunity in their education and so forth, than it is to send them off to prison or put them on welfare or whatever." That is the one thing. I think that we could have made a better...
FH (00:29:03):
That is one thing. I think that we could have made a better appeal on the basis of the [inaudible] of everybody rather than just on morality. And the other thing that we should notice is what was happening in the country, and therefore, in the Congress. When I first went to the United States Senate in 1964, there was no Republican member of the Senate from any of the old 11 Confederate states. And I think there are only about two Republican house members from that whole Confederate area. And all that now has changed. The majority of them in both houses are Republicans. In those days, the Democratic party in those states was an all-white racist, highly conservative party. Well, that all began to change with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. So that black people who had been prevented from voting and throughout the south, from as far back as President Wilson's day, suddenly flooded into the voting poll. And they were overwhelmingly Democrats. And the white people fled. And after a little trouble with Strom Thurmond, for example, moved into the Republican ranks. And the same thing was happening all around the country as people, the electorate began to differentiate itself on a long party line based on economic flags. And people working in [inaudible] and below were increasingly Democrat, and the others were Republicans. African Americans and the growing numbers of Hispanics were overwhelmingly Democrat. And they were increasingly different on those who identified themselves as Democrats and those who identified themselves as a Republican on issues. And that was especially true of the party activists, the people who nominate the people of Congress so that the hard right of conservative Democrats in the House and Senate disappeared, and the liberal Republicans in the House and the Senate disappeared, so that we came to have, from the (19)80s on at least, we came to have two parties in each house that were internally homogenous, and therefore, very much unlike the others. All major votes of any conflict became party line votes for a majority of one-party votes against the majority of the other. And very often, nearly all, or sometimes all, of one party voted against nearly all, or all, of the other party. So we have become highly partisan and it has made it extremely difficult to reach any compromise on any major issues.
SM (00:33:05):
I think this was also seen when President Kennedy was elected because he certainly cared about civil rights and the plight of African Americans, but he was a little hesitant knowing that the South was basically southern Democrats, and if he wanted to be reelected, I think there was a concern there. And I like your thoughts on that. But also the fact that on the 1963 March on Washington, when he brought the civil rights leaders into the White House, he was a little hesitant and a little fearful that the march could become a riot. And I know he was concerned about John Lewis's commentary and [inaudible] Randolph told him to really cool it, so to speak. But your thoughts on the... He was a pragmatic politician basically.
FH (00:33:51):
That is right. You take, for example, in the Senate in those days, and when I first went there also, in the Senate, we could not take the position as a party on issues, although we tried a time or two in the Senate talking to do so, because we were split. We had people as liberal as George McGovern, and as conservative as John Stennis and Jim Eastland. And Kennedy was having to deal with that kind of situation, both in the Congress as well as in the country. So as you know, [inaudible] his election back then the first time, he did not want to make a big fight out of civil rights. And the thought was that if he could get reelected, they would begin to pick up that issue after. Johnson who had a great change of heart himself on those kinds of issues, Lyndon Johnson came into office. We had begun to see on television the terrible violent things against black people and the horrible way as many of them were [inaudible], and we would see it on television. And then with the outpouring of sympathy, there was about... on the assassination of President Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson was able, finally, to get a filibuster broken in the Senate and pass and the Civil Rights Act of (19)64, the Voting Rights Act of (19)65. But up until President Kennedy's assassination, I think the view of his administration was that a rising tide lifts all boats. And while we will not single out African Americans to help if we do something for all people, particularly in poverty and so forth, that will automatically help them, which was true of course, but it was not enough.
SM (00:36:23):
When you look at that period from (19)46, actually right through to 2010, who were the role models and people you looked up to the most during this timeframe? People you worked with or people that inspired you. It does not always have to be in politics. And who and which leaders do you feel had the greatest impact on boomers themselves, both good and bad?
FH (00:36:50):
Well, a magazine once said that I was the only person in Washington who could have a breakfast with Lyndon Johnson and lunch with Vice President Hubert Humphrey and dinner with Andrew Robert Kennedy. And that was true, and they all knew that I got along with each one of them. But I was closer to Hubert Humphrey and to Robert Kennedy. Robert Kennedy was my seatmate in the Senate and we lived around the corner from each other in Virginia, and we know each other a lot. [inaudible] work together. And he was, in a way, like me. When I went to the Senate, in the process of becoming himself, he was terribly injured, as you can tell, damaged himself by the defamation of his brother. And he was deepening in his concern about the poor people and about African Americans and others. I liked him in [inaudible]. And then Hubert Humphrey was, of course, the greatest legislator of my generation. And then several others. He was a very well-motivated person who became awfully handicapped by his association with Lyndon Johnson as his vice president, and was very much convened by Johnson, and was put in the terrible position of having to support the Vietnam War until he finally was liberated when he was running for president himself. He almost got... I was together with Senator Walker Mondale, national co-chair of the country campaign for president, and we almost won. The country would have been a much different country had we pulled it out.
SM (00:39:13):
This is important because even in the history books that I have read said that if it had been two more weeks, two more weeks before the election, he would have won, that he was really rising. And even at two or three or a month earlier, he would have showed a difference between Lyndon Johnson and himself, he would have won.
FH (00:39:34):
Well as Larry O'Brien, who was the Democratic chair just before me, and then the National Democratic Chair took advocate, has written, and I have too... Humphrey promised him and promised me and Senator Mondale that he was going to break with Johnson on the war and called for unconditional [inaudible] and for de-Americanization of the war so that we could begin to pull out of there. And we had a platform blanket at the Chicago Convention in 1968 to do exactly that. And then Johnson moved in and blocked it. I bet his office did. And Humphrey backed down a little and compromised, which I found very disappointing. But finally late in the campaign, I was with him and helped write the speech he should have given much earlier on Vietnam, breaking with Johnson. And from that moment, we began to go up in the polls. It was not as strong an anti-Vietnam war speech as I wanted, but it was taken by the country and by people like Ted Kennedy as a peace speech. And Humphrey went up in the polls everywhere from that moment. At the very last, he went down to Texas. It was very well received and the polls in Texas showed that we had gone ahead. We went up from there to California for a last night, a national television program, and the field poll, very respected California poll, showed that we pulled even and were still moving. Other polls showed us that we were really coming up, up to that time, for a long time. Humphrey was the only one who thought he could win, and he just kept working at [inaudible]. So we went to bed that night. We flew back from California with Humphrey to Minnesota so he could vote the next morning. And when we went to bed that night in Minnesota, election night, we were pretty well convinced we were going to win it. But turned out we do not win by... they do not win the presidency by the popular vote. You have to think of states that led up to a majority of electoral college. And the next morning when I got up, I started thinking about that. I could see we were not going to make it, and of course we did not. The country would have been a wholly different country if he had been elected and Richard Nixon had not.
SM (00:42:50):
I agree. Let me... Okay, great. Question here. In John Kennedy's speech, " Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," certainly was a major influence a lot on the young people that... Actually boomers were just going into junior high school at that time. I am one of them. And I mean, that was one heck of a speech. And you all knew it was about the Peace Corps and Vista. And serving in the military, I guess, was maybe not like it was in Korea and World War II, but in the early (19)60s people were still serving. And do you believe the Vietnam War was a class war based on the fact that the large proportion of the minorities, low income people who were white, served, but people that were more educated and were in college and got deferments or hardship cases or went on to grad school and all other reasons for not serving or abated the draft. How would you define that war and the whole concept that really surprises me as James Wood or Senator Webb has said in a book he wrote quite a while back that here was a generation that was inspired by Kennedy to serve, and yet we have so many of the most educated and elite who did not want to serve.
FH (00:44:25):
Well, I think the result, it was people who were in lower economic brackets who did the fighting. There was no press about that mostly, although nobody sat down and [inaudible] on that in advance. But I never was caught up in the Kennedy thing at first because while I could not attend the convention in Los Angeles [inaudible], I had to been a supporter of [inaudible]. I kept hoping that that Stevenson might be able to pull off first nomination. But I did get very excited about the John Kennedy campaign and was a member of the group, an informal group, in my hometown in Oklahoma. So we had to call upon the Baptist preacher and threaten him with campaigning ourselves at church if he continued to speak against Kennedy from the pulpit as he did. And I think he did that as preacher, not so much because Kennedy was a Catholic, although that is what he gave as the reason, but because he was liberal. And so I was very much caught up in the excitement of the campaign. And I do not think we listened clearly to those words about... that were really sort militaristic in a way, in their anti-communism of their breadth. We were just caught up within the thing, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you do for your country." And that was, I think, a great inspiration for people to get involved in public service. I already was. But during that war, I had Robert Kennedy down to Oklahoma one time, and he spoke in the Fieldhouse on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. And he had a question after session, afterwards, that... He was asked at one point, "Do you favor the continuation of the student deferment from the draft?" And he said, "No, I am against that." And they was booing, a lot of booing. And he said, "As long as a person's economic class or income determines whether or not they go to college, which is largely true," he said, "I do not think that there ought be an automatic deferment for college." And then after some other questions and so forth, he said, "Let me ask you all some questions." And he said, "On Vietnam," he said, "how many of you support the position of Senator Eugene McCarthy for an immediate unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam?" Well, there was a smattering of the pause. It was certainly a small minority of the two who agreed with that. "How many of you," he said, "agree with my position that we ought to begin to de-Americanize the war and begin to turn it over, over time, to the Vietnamese?" And again, there were some... it was more applause, but it was still a minority of the students that agreed with that. And then, "How many of you agree with the President Johnson's policy of just sort of continuing to muddle through, doing what we are doing?", and there was more applause but still a distinct minority. And then he said, "How many of you think that we should, as some are suggesting, escalate the war and increase the military involvement and effort?" And there was a huge applause. There was a majority.
SM (00:49:08):
And what year was this?
FH (00:49:10):
It would have probably been about 1967 or somewhere in there, something like that. It was after Robert Kennedy had finally come out against the war, and it was just before I, myself, had finally come out against the war rather late. At any rate, the majority were for escalating the war. And rapidly, just immediately, he said, "How many of you who just now voted to escalate the war also support the student deferment from the draft?" And there was just a gasp in the crowd as people realized what they had just done. And then they break into applause. And I asked him, I said, "Have you done that before?" I asked him afterwards. And he said, "Yeah, I do it everywhere." I said, "Was it different here?" And he said, "No." He said, "It is a minority of students that against to war," but like that Newfield wrote, they are a pathetic minority. They are going be growing. But he said, "The same result, I get everywhere."
SM (00:50:45):
Wow. And of course, after (19)67, (19)68 things really changed.
FH (00:50:48):
Yes, they grew and the percent of people that finally grew into a majority vote in the country... getting out the war.
SM (00:50:59):
And what-what was really amazing, you talk about, you knew Senator McCarthy and Senator Kennedy, and I think there was an extreme dislike between the two. That might be mild. I do not know the whole story. I know when I interviewed Senator McCarthy many years back, the one section that he had kind of hesitated on responding, and he just simply said, "Read it in my book," was when I said what his thoughts were on Bobby Kennedy. Do you feel Senator McCarthy was really upset with him because he decided to run for president after he had told him he was not?
FH (00:51:35):
Yes.
SM (00:51:35):
Is that the main section?
FH (00:51:38):
By the time I knew McCarthy, and he and I were on the Senate Financial Committee together, and I saw him socially too a lot. He was a fairly bitter... He was a very witted person, but his wit was very often sharp and bitter. His first business was against Johnson and also, therefore, Humphrey because Humphrey had sort of dangled the vice presidential nomination back in 1964 in front of McCarthy. And then later, it became clear that he never intended to choose McCarthy; he always intended to choose Humphrey, but had only banded around McCarthy's name like he did Senator Tom Dodd because they were Catholic. And McCarthy was quite bitter about that, and really bitter about Humphrey for that reason too. The Kennedy people, they did not respect McCarthy. They thought, in a way, he was kind of...
SM (00:53:09):
He was what?
FH (00:53:18):
He was...
SM (00:53:18):
Oh, okay.
FH (00:53:20):
He did not really get down him to the trenches and fight like crazy. I do not know if it was true but they thought he was a supporter of the oil companies, for example, on the depletion allowance and on some non-liberal kind of subject like that. I know that they did not think he was the right leader to oppose Johnson and to lead the country on the war and on other issues. And I know that was Robert Kennedy's feeling. But I think that Robert finally decided to run after McCarthy, ran surprisingly well against Johnson in New Hampshire. I think he finally got to see that there was a possibility that this could be done. And there are no questions that, that certainly embittered McCarthy at his... I think he felt, also like Eleanor Roosevelt and others, that John Kennedy was too conservative, and that he and Robert both had been supporters of Joseph McCarthy.
SM (00:54:44):
Right.
FH (00:54:45):
And so there was some of that. But a lot of people felt... A lot of McCarthy's supporters felt that Kennedy was an opportunist, and only after McCarthy showed he might be able to beat Johnson for the Democratic nomination did he finally come in.
SM (00:55:07):
I know that the Clean for Gene group, which was the young people that had their haircut short, and I remember Senator McCarthy really had nothing to do with that. I interviewed the person that was responsible for that. He went along with it, but he was not the guy that told them to cut their hair, but he went along with the people that were advising him. But several of the people that were in the Clean for Gene said they really, when they heard that Kennedy was running, they really would have liked to have switched but feared doing. But I guess the question is, why, after Senator Kennedy, was killed, why he kind of just dwindled, just kind of petered out?
FH (00:55:57):
I think he was really just really very bitter, just generally. And so for example, he would not enjoy Humphrey, and even said then and later publicly some generally good things about Richard Nixon... in a way in support of Humphrey.
SM (00:56:12):
Yeah. The next question, how is your cell phone doing?
FH (00:56:26):
What did you say?
SM (00:56:27):
Is your cell phone still strong?
FH (00:56:29):
Well, hold just a second. I am going to have to... but I will be right back.
SM (00:56:33):
Yep. Okay.
FH (00:56:35):
You mind calling me on this home phone now?
SM (00:56:37):
Yeah. Let me get your phone number.
FH (00:56:49):
It is 5 oh 5-
SM (00:56:49):
505. What is it, 505-
FH (00:56:49):
898...
SM (00:56:49):
What was the last four?
FH (00:56:58):
0860.
SM (00:56:59):
Okay, I got 505-898, and what are the last four?
FH (00:57:00):
0860.
SM (00:57:02):
Okay. I will call you right back. Yep. Okay.
(00:57:08):
I knew because I have interviewed some other people and their cell phones went dead about 45 minutes. My cell phone is actually only good for 45 minutes.
FH (00:57:17):
Well, this is working good here. I live in an adobe house too, and sometimes that does not help the signal. But anyway, we are okay now.
SM (00:57:27):
Okay. Could you discuss a little bit about the anti-war movement? Were the United States Senators at that time, and I am talking really the senators in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, were they sympathetic to the college campus protests? I say this because Nixon was emphatic right around the time of Kent State, where he said that they never affected him or his policies. They can do all the protesting they want. And Johnson, on the other hand, even though he withdrew, he saw Ted in 1968 and he saw what McCarthy did up in New Hampshire.
SM (00:58:03):
1968, and he saw what McCarthy did up in New Hampshire. I think, and correct me if I am wrong, that he was seeing the college students, and what they were saying, and it was a failed policy in the end. So basically, I am saying, how important were the young activists at the time, in shaping the views of Congress?
FH (00:58:21):
I think they were quite important. As I mentioned, Jack Newfield wrote a book, he was a columnist for the Village Voice, he wrote a book called I think, the Prophetic Minority. So his idea was the people particularly the students who were protesting against the war, were a minority to start with. But they were a prophetic bunch of minority, they were going to become a majority. I think that is exactly what happened. Very early right away in the Senate there were a lot of people, Robert Kennedy was one, and so was Ted Kennedy, and George McGovern, and Gaylord Nelson, and some others who I think began to react to that. I think McCarthy came to it late, but for example, I came to it late, but even before I changed my public position, about before, I was busy with the current commission, which is a full-time job in regards to riot. I sort of suspected be to focusing on this before. My daughter, Catherine Harris, now Catherine Harris [inaudible]. She was a student at Harvard and [inaudible] a protest.
SM (01:00:09):
Hello? Hello?
FH (01:00:16):
The effect of those student activists against the war, was especially pronounced when members of Congress had some contact from their own family members, student family members, or directly without the students. And that was certainly true in my case, my daughter Catherine Harris, that was a Harvard student and she came down one weekend with a group of other Harvard students, to take part in an anti-war protest, in Washington DC. This group camped out at our house in McLean, Virginia. The next morning it was just really was very moving to me, as I watched them prepare for their riot, I mean for their protest. They were worried about a police riot, they were worried about getting beat up. So they pinned to their clothes, their contact information, their names, and phone numbers, and so forth. They tapped to their wrist some gauze that had Vaseline on it, that they were going to use. How they knew how to do all this? I do not know. They were going to use in case they got into tear gas. Here they then bravely marched off, these kids to take part in this anti-war protest.
SM (01:02:09):
Wow.
FH (01:02:21):
I found that in just overwhelmingly moving. I think there must have been a lot of other situations like that, where members of Congress saw the same thing. In addition to the public protests, both all that had begun to work.
SM (01:02:23):
As a person who was heavily involved in the campaign of (19)68, began the campaign of Senator Humphrey. Chicago in 1968, was like the epitome of all the tragedies that happened that year. From Dr. King's assassination, Bobby's assassination happened early in the year. President Johnson announces he was not going to run, and there were some riots going on. Just everybody knew that something was going to happen in Chicago, and it did. What are your thoughts as, what were your thoughts then, as a person who was an elected leader in Congress? Secondly, as a person who was helping the campaign to see these students and police going at each other, and there were even skirmishes inside, with some of the newsmen being arrested, I remember Dan Rather was arrested, or he was taken away. It was unbelievable.
FH (01:03:26):
Well, 1968 was just a horrible year for America. Not only that situation, and the convention, and struggle. Also, the earlier assassination of Robert Kennedy, and then the later assassination of Dr. King. Walter Mondale and I, as I said, we were co-chairs with the Humphrey campaign and brought in Mario Bryan, to sort of spearhead it, prior to the convention. We, Mondale and I, started seeing what was likely to happen in Chicago, went to the Attorney General Ramsey Park. That Johnson had sort of put in charge of planning for the convention, Lyndon Johnson had, and we asked him to change the location of the convention to Miami. That was our only other choice, because the Republicans were planning on having their convention in Miami. So the logistics would work on a sort of price basis, and we told Ramsey Park what our concerns were about their Chicago situation, and Mayor Daley, and so forth, the planned protest. He did not agree, I am sure he was protecting something, those feelings, something obligated to Mayor Daley. So we could not get it changed, and our worst fears were realized. We not only had those huge protests against the war and against the auction, but we had all sorts of strikes, communication strikes, [inaudible] strikes. The city was just in a mess, and one scene that was indelible in my mind, backstage of convent watching on closed circuit television, because a lot of it was not on television. My daughter Catherine, and my son Brian, and I, sitting in tears watching the clubbing of these kids and all that. I went out once and rescued a paraplegic Vietnam veteran Tommy Frazier, in his wheelchair up against the hotel where we were, [inaudible] good police cut him into the hotel. Way up on the-the top floors of our hotel, the tear gas came all the way up there. So, it was just a horrible thing, then when the Humphrey.
SM (01:06:57):
That me again? Hello? What is going on here? What is going on here? At the end of the Chicago convention there?
FH (01:07:00):
Yeah, I left the convention after we had had Howard Kennedy's vaccination and then we had all terrible, well Humphrey backed down temporarily on the anti-Vietnam war flank, and we did not get that speech until later. Then the horrible, what the Citizen Commission called, the police riot in Chicago, at the convention. I left there very dispirited and depressed, and I did not get involved again in the campaign until much later, when Larry O'Brien, by then partly my doing I was in on asking him, had become the chairman of the Democratic Party. He asked me, he called me and asked me, to join Humphrey's plane. To be sure that the speech he was-was going to give on national television out of Po Lake, would be a strong enough anti-war speech. So I got back in his campaign then, but that is a horrible year.
SM (01:08:07):
Yeah. One other thing too I just wanted to mention here, is about Martin Luther King's speech against the Vietnam War. Did that surprise you? Or you thought it was appropriate too, because he was criticized heavily, within the civil rights community?
FH (01:08:26):
Well, I thought it was a justified thing. It was quite logical with what else he was saying, but I did not really focus that much on it at the time. I was very much involved with the current commission on Civil Rights, and the anti-poverty program like we recommended.
SM (01:08:58):
What are your thoughts on all those movements that evolved in the late (19)60s, and early (19)70s? We had the women's movement that many people say evolved because of the sexism that was prevalent within the civil rights and anti-war movements. Of course they went on to form the National Organization for Women, and other groups. Again, we talked briefly about the Native American movement, but the period 1969, to (19)73, was a very strong period with Alcatraz in (19)69, and Wounded Knee in (19)73. Of course, you had the environmental movement with Earth Day in 1970, you had Stonewall in (19)69, that was linked to the gay and lesbian movement, kind of inspired it. Then at the very same time within the civil rights movement, during these mid to late (19)60s, you had the more of a black power mentality. Where you had Malcolm X challenging Bayard Rustin. Or Stokely Carmichael challenging Dr. King. Concept of, say some people thought nonviolence going to violence. So that you had, what you had in the early (19)60s, were people like Dr. King, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, John Lewis, and Robert Moses or Bob Moses. Then in the later (19)60s, you have Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton, Bobby Seal, Angela Davis, Fred Hampton, a whole different type of a mentality. I know I am giving an awful lot here, what are your thoughts on these movements that evolved in that period? Because the (19)70s, seemed to be the period where a lot of them really gained strength. Then when the (19)80s came, and they kind of seemed to go separate?
FH (01:10:44):
In 1965, I made a trip with Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, down to in the number of Latin American countries. In one, in Peru, in Lima in it they had the oldest university in this hemisphere, San Marcos University, there in Lima. And found that it was closed down, that the activist students had taken over the campus and they closed down the university. We both thought to ourselves, well that is very interesting that students here and elsewhere in the world have become very active, and we do not see that at home. Well it is just a matter of, wait a minute and you would. The same thing was true, the civil rights movement, I think, began to show people that you have got to stand up and not just beg for what is yours and rightfully yours, but you have got to demand it. We saw that with the student population then, we saw it with women. Frantz Fanon had written that, "Oppressed people," and studies showed this was absolutely true, "Come to have the same, hold the same bad areas about themselves, that the dominant society has." We will not really work, and we are not reliable, or women cannot be managers, and just that. "How you get out of that," he wrote, "Was confrontation." I think, he believed violence. I think it is true, it takes confrontation for people to change their self-image. I think what changed, or the main thing that changed for example, in regard to African Americans in the country, after 200 years. Was that they came to view themselves differently, and they came to feel that they had to stand up. In the process of standing up to authority, they became different people. That is what happened I think with students, with the African-Americans, then with Indians, Indians and Hispanics for example, women profited from the African-American example, but without so much of the terrible violence being practiced against African-Americans. I was very much involved together with my then wife, LaDonna Harris. With people like Gloria Stein, and Betty Friedan, and others formation of the national organization for Women, of Women, the National Organization of Women. And the Women's Democratic talk and so forth. I was involved with them when they eventually ringed around the capital building in action against, the protest against the Vietnam War. I saw that Betty Friedan was quite right, that the old [inaudible] concept, that women had to change their consciousness. They had to begin to change the way they thought about themselves, and that is what had happened in all these groups. So that for example, the success that African-Americans had eventually, in changing the laws and practices. Came as a result of their own effort.
SM (01:15:13):
I know the environmental movement in Earth Day in 1970, Gaylord Nelson, he met with the anti-war group to make sure he was not stepping on their toes. Because they had just had the moratorium in (19)69, and they used to teach in. So even that movement at the very beginning, Senator Nelson was, I am glad he was honored this year at the 40th anniversary, because he is the man that made it all happen.
FH (01:15:44):
Absolutely. He was truly a visionary in regard to that, and the poor people were really that conscious of it. That is a movement too, as your question indicates that benefited from the example of the African-American correction.
SM (01:16:03):
Just a thought, because you have seen this today being a professor on universities, the movements became so special interest. One of the critics, the critics today, the conservative critics say that all these movements, and throw the gay and lesbian movement in there too.
FH (01:16:16):
Yeah.
SM (01:16:17):
Became so special interest, that there seems to be no unity today. In the very beginning they were working together, you could see them at protests, but now they seem to be more insular. Am I correct? This is a perception I have. Do you think that groups have become more insular, and they were not working with the other groups anymore, they were all just doing their own thing?
FH (01:16:42):
Well maybe that is probably true. I do not know. I think that the main problem is, it is both an advancement and a retreat in a way, is that all over the country, I do not care what city you go in, you find all sorts of really successful, vigorous local citizen effort of various kinds. Whether it is against banks redlining poor areas, or black areas. Or against some utility raising freight unjustly, or whatever. In every community in this country, there are those kinds of efforts going on. It is just amazing, and quite successfully in the local community. My friend Jim Hightower.
SM (01:17:36):
Oh, yeah, the journalist.
FH (01:17:38):
Yeah, and a great text to the populist, but he says, and this is the thing we had to fight to do this when I ran for president, is that many of these people, they are willing to work in a place giving out the free food to poor people, but they somehow do not see that you have got to get active in politics in order to change things. So that there will not be so many poor and hungry people, and Hightower feels, and worked for this. That if you could get those people like that, all they seeing their common interests and understanding that if they did not get active in politics and work together, they would be adjusted in principle majority. I think that is a tremendous populous challenge, and one that Hightower is working on, and that I also talk about.
SM (01:18:45):
When you ran for president in (19)72, and (19)76, what did you learn most about America, that maybe surprised you before you ran? And, what did you learn about young people, that you did not know?
FH (01:18:57):
Just about what I said, I will give you an example. One time I went to Hattiesburg, Mississippi and I have put together a tremendous rally. This was in (19)76, (19)72 really, I did not run for president, so much as I jogged. I did not ever enter in, I did not ever, was not able to raise money and get the kind of people that had already signed up with for government. (19)76, I really ran for president. Anyway, I put together this meeting down there which is sort of a metaphor for the whole campaign, and what I learned. There were a lot of African Americans in the crowd, a lot of Choctaw Indians, from nearby reservation. A lot of what I jokingly called, but truthfully called my redneck kin folks, my dad's people all came from Mississippi. I told that group when I got up to talk I said, I was in Minnesota last night, and I told them I was on my way to Hattiesburg, Mississippi and that I was going to put together here the darnedest, the best I could say, the best political rally anybody ever saw, or the damnedest race riot. One or the other. Everybody laughed sort of nervously and so forth. I said, my feeling is you do not have to love each other, I wish you would. All you have to do is recognize that you have common interests and that if you get yourself together, you are a majority in this country. I said, I came down here when I was 12 years old and stayed where the great aunt, who had an elderly black couple come and clean her house all day, washed all the sheets, and aired all the mattresses and everything, washed down the walls of this pine house. She paid them with a jar of end green beans, and a bucket of ribbon cane syrup for their daily work. I am sure she did not realize, that that was one of the causes for the fact that a lot of folks were working for 25 cents an hour. Afterwards I had a great uncle come up me, he had tears in his eyes, and he called me Freddy and he said, "Freddy, I have been waiting all my life to hear somebody talk like that." I think that is the kind of thing that was in the country, we talked to people about their own self-interest that would work. For example, I spoke that same year in Akron, Ohio, where most of the people in the audience were rubber workers. Somebody asked me a question about gay rights and I said, "I think the government has got enough to do, without worrying about what people are doing in the privacy of their own homes." It did not fit in the flow. I said, I really thought it was true. Like George Wallace said at the time, "You be to get the hay down where the goats can get at it."
SM (01:22:53):
Let me change my tape.
FH (01:22:53):
I think it is the McGovern, are you ready?
SM (01:23:04):
Yep, I am ready.
FH (01:23:05):
I thought at the time, that if McGovern could talk that way and couch these matters, in terms of the death interest of his listeners. He could have put that thing together. Instead what Nixon was able to do, and then later Reagan, was to appeal to people's concerns, and fears, and so forth. That trumped what would have been sensible off on economic.
SM (01:23:49):
Both you and your wife LaDonna, have been involved with Native American issues all of your lives.
FH (01:23:54):
Yeah.
SM (01:23:55):
Where is the movement today? I have read some books on the, that the Native American movement was actually pretty strong even in the (19)50s, and the (19)60s. Then of course, then the American Indian movement came about. What were the successes of the 1960s, and (19)70s, with respect to Native American issues? Your thoughts on the American Indian movement, which people say it was only four years from (19)69, to (19)73. It started where they overtook Alcatraz, and then it ended with the violence at Wounded Knee. When you think of the American Indian movement, I think of Dennis Banks, there is one other person I forget his name now, there is two that come to the forefront.
FH (01:24:39):
Yeah.
SM (01:24:41):
Just your thought about that?
FH (01:24:43):
Dennis I thought was, he was a very sensible and steady person, not a kind of wild radical. But I did not agree with a lot of Roseanne people, or lot of the SDS student people. Violence as a tactic, I think that was actually wrong. I often heard people advocating, in those days, violence as a tactic. Who themselves, would not be found within 100 miles of the actual violence. They sort of this thing, let you and him fight. I thought that violence was often hurting people, and was inhumane therefore, and that it was impractical. That you could not beat the government, or those with power. Because, they wind up having a hell of a lot more guns than you got. That set us back somewhat I think, people who advocated or used violence, on a whole range of those issues. It was the more activists, and really very strong and big activists, my former wife Ladonna, who actually accomplished it. What happened with Indian movement, is they were successful. We were able to write into the laws all sorts of provisions for self-determination, for Indians to run their own programs, to run their own schools, and to run their own governments. Princeton governments, courts, Indian courts and so forth, and that is the situation today. There is still, of course those that have not been able to, or were not able to set up casinos, gambling casinos, are still struggling economically. It is pretty interesting that Indians who for a long time were victimized by black people, are now making money off of them.
SM (01:27:01):
Yeah, that that is right.
FH (01:27:01):
I do not like gang.
FH (01:27:01):
... making money off of them.
SM (01:27:01):
Yeah, that is right.
FH (01:27:03):
I do not like gambling, but it has provided a way by which tribes have been able to [inaudible] their governments and their economies, and also to preserve their traditions and ancient ways.
SM (01:27:20):
When I think of the last 20 or 30 years in terms of writers, of course, you think of Dee Brown and I think of Mr. Alexie, Sherman Alexie-
FH (01:27:30):
[inaudible] yeah.
SM (01:27:30):
...who was another great writer, and Vine Deloria.
FH (01:27:35):
Yeah, Vine.
SM (01:27:36):
But then there was also Ward Churchill, who has become very controversial.
FH (01:27:40):
Well, I do not think he is Indian, really.
SM (01:27:42):
Yeah, I do not know what your thoughts are. He has written a lot about the Native Americans. As a lawyer, what were the most significant laws that were passed after World War II during this time frame between (19)46 and 2010? We are talking about the years that boomers have been alive. I have asked this question and I started out by saying that I think Roe v. Wade in (19)73 and certainly the Brown vs. Board of Education (19)54 and the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, (19)64, (19)65, are those the four that really stand out in terms of impact on America, as well as even I could say impact on the generation?
FH (01:28:25):
And I think they are symbolic of a lot of other laws, and I think because a lot of them fit in with what we came to call self-determination for American Indians. It gives people more control over their own lives and knocked down the barriers that kept them from becoming what they want to become.
SM (01:28:52):
Are there any laws that you would like to add to that you think were very important, particularly for this generation that is now between the age of the 48 and 64?
FH (01:29:03):
Well, one important development was we moved toward, but in a fairly meager way, more of federal aid to education. And we need to do a great deal more in that respect, for smaller classrooms and better prepared teachers and so forth. And also a huge hole in our social fabric was the lack of any kind of national health program. And we have made a major step in the right direction there with Obama. Obama's election I think was really historic. And I think that while for the short run, the Republicans are able to delay and block a lot of what he is going to do and wants to do and said he would do, they are increasingly marginalizing themselves, I think. I mean, if you look at the demographic between number of Hispanics and African Americans, the greater progressive activism of students and all of that, I think makes things look pretty bad for the future for the Republicans, but we are going to win out more issues-
SM (01:30:41):
So the criticism of President Obama and some of the politicians of the left... I just interviewed a person a couple days ago. Why does he, and why does the left, and why did the liberals always think that they know better what to do about my life than I do?
FH (01:30:57):
I think that is a serious claim. That is simply not true. All of the things that Obama ran on and that he was pushing are supported by a majority of the people in the country [inaudible]. And he, after all, was elected.
SM (01:31:16):
Right. The Kerner Commission, you mentioned it earlier, but I want to talk about it now, which is the National Advisory Council on Civil Disorders. Why did LBJ form the committee? What were their findings? What were the main reasons for the riots? And was this a change? I guess I cannot read the file. Did this have anything to do about this change between what we called nonviolent protests, the Ghandian type of attitude that King professed, and the more violent protests that was actually happening in our cities?
FH (01:31:57):
Well, we had had a terrible riot in Watts, in the Black section of Los Angeles, in 1965. And we thought that was kind of an isolated thing, but it turned out to be a harbinger of things to come. We had some more of that in (19)66, but not a whole lot. And then terrible explosions in the Black sections of nearly every city in the summer of 1967, and caused enormous concern and fear. I got the Walter Mondale to co-author a resolution in the Senate to create a blue ribbon citizen commission to look into the causes and prevention of such a riot. And I had the resolution sent to my subcommittee that I chaired, the subcommittee on government research. And we held hearings. We had Daniel Patrick Moynihan, not yet in the Senate, and Whitney Young headed the National Open League as witnesses and [inaudible] about it. And then it occurred to me after a day or so that we did not have to wait until Congress passed the law and created that commission, but that the president could do it himself. So I got the majority leader, Mike Mansfield, to say he would bring it up with Johnson at his meeting that night with the president, and also talked with Douglass Cater on the president's staff, and suggested that he do that. And then it was announced that he was going to make a publicly televised speech doing that. And he called me just before his speech and he said, "I am going to appoint you to that commission that you have been talking about, and I am going to put you on it." And incidentally, he said, "I want you to remember" ... Well, first he said, "I do not want you to be like some of your colleagues and I appoint them to things and they never show up." And I said, "Well, I will show up. I will work at it." Another thing, he said, "Fred, I want you to remember you are a junction man." I said, "Yes, sir, I am a junction man." And he said, "If you forget it," he said, "I will take my pocket knife and cut your Peter off." There were some people were back in my living room, we were going to watch this thing on television. And I came back, they knew I was talking to president. They said, "What did he say? What did he say?" And I said, "Well, some of it was kind of personal."
SM (01:35:07):
Yeah, I heard he used to have meetings in his bathroom [inaudible].
FH (01:35:11):
Oh, yeah.
SM (01:35:12):
And then of course, we met with Senator Fulbright when I was working at the university. And Senator Fulbright, when he went against Johnson, Johnson told him, "You will never be invited ever again to the White House." He never was, never invited to a dinner, nothing. There was a complete break.
FH (01:35:32):
Well, we started ... we had just a wonderful staff, David Ginsberg, who just died lately, [inaudible] lawyer, was our executive director, and put together a terrific staff. And we authorized a lot of academic studies and surveys, and then we divided into teams. John Lindsay, the mayor of New York, and I were one team. And we went to various places in the country where there had been riots. And John and I, for example, went to Cincinnati and Milwaukee and just spent the day walking around talking to people. And then we held interminable hearings. I got a room in the Capitol building where we met most of the time. Sometimes we met in the Indian Treaty Room, in the Executive Office Building. And we met days and days and days and days and days. And this was a commission written report. In these hearings, we had witnesses from J. Edgar Hoover to Martin Luther King, and lot in between. And we eventually voted line by line on every word that went into that report. What we found was that... well, the most famous words of course in the report were that America was moving toward two societies, one white, one Black, separate and unequal. And what most people cannot understand is that racism, white racism, is very much involved in what is happening in the ghettos or where people live with inferior schools, no transportation, no jobs or virtually no jobs. Jobs have moved out of the central city and gone to the suburbs or disappeared altogether, gone overseas. And so we recommended vigorous enforcement of the recently passed civil rights laws and massive new federal programs, particularly around jobs, but also the training and education and so forth. We know that a member of the commission leaked to Johnson the idea, I mean we learned later, "That this report," they said to him, "condones riots, and they do not have a good word to say about you." All of that was quite wrong. But our idea was that we would ask Johnson to continue our commission in operation for an extra six months so that we could lobby for and push for our findings for recommendations. And we set up already an official meeting where he would receive the report and so forth. But he canceled that. He would not see us, and he would not agree to have the commission's life extended. There were... both Hubert Humphrey, the vice president, for example, and Willard Wirtz, the Secretary of Labor, and others, who did endorse our findings. Willard Wirtz [inaudible] in the commission, in the words of the great American philosopher Pogo, has said that "We have met the enemy and he is us."
SM (01:39:22):
Golly.
FH (01:39:22):
And Robert Kennedy strongly supported our findings and recommendations and was involved in the Senate hearings where we appeared and [inaudible] the paperback edition of our report, which the New York Times published, was a bestseller, runaway bestseller, amazingly. And we made progress, America [inaudible] of race and poverty for about a decade after the report. But with the advent of the Reagan administration, that progress stopped and we began to go backwards.
SM (01:40:09):
I was reading one of your interviews that you did in 2008 on the web, and I love a quote here that the interviewer said, you remember this. You said in your announcement speech in 1972 something along the lines of, "A lot of people cannot believe America has ever been to the moon because they doubt the credibility of government." That is a classic quote. And then something else here, what you said in this interview that actually I think you have already talked about it, but I want to put it on record here. You said in response to the question to this interviewer, "No, no. Starting with the Vietnam War and with Richard Nixon, we have never recovered from the great skepticism of government. I think the skepticism about government is generally pretty healthy, but I do not like the aspect of it which came out of the Ronald Reagan years; the government cannot do anything right and everything you try turns out badly and so forth. I wish we had a little bit more skepticism of the military than we do, but it is going to be a while before we build back the sort of confidence in the government that we once had." I think that is beautiful.
FH (01:41:18):
That is absolutely true. I think it is true that one of the worst things that come out of the Reagan administration was that government cannot do anything right and that everything we tried, for example, even with a New Deal, failed. That is not true. Virtually everything we tried worked. We just quit trying it or we did not try it enough. And we began to move back toward doing something about all these problems with the election of Bill Clinton, but then we went the other way again with the eight years of George W. Bush.
SM (01:41:59):
Did-
FH (01:42:00):
[inaudible] a very heartening thing that Obama was elected, saying all the things that I believe in.
SM (01:42:09):
I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly, who I think is single-handedly responsible for the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendments.
FH (01:42:16):
That is right.
SM (01:42:17):
But do you believe ... And this is what she said. She said that she believes that the troublemakers of the (19)60s now run today's universities. And she says they have taken over women's studies, Black studies, Asian studies, Native American studies, environmental studies, Chicano studies, GLBT studies. She was mainly referring to women's studies, but the reference was there toward all of them. Do you believe that?
FH (01:42:42):
Well, she and her fellow right-wingers, they are always critical nowadays of universities and academia generally, because they say, "They need more balance than they need more Republican hired as teachers," and so forth. But it should occur to them, I think, that what most professors believe, they believe because it is correct and it is the sensible position, and that theirs is the more selfish and the incorrect position.
SM (01:43:24):
This is a university question, because you are a professor and have been one since the late (19)70s. And I spent 30- some years in higher ed. But what did universities of the (19)60s and (19)70s teach the universities of the (19)80s and beyond? Did they learn about the importance of student empowerment as opposed to student power? Or are they afraid that it could happen again, what happened in the (19)60s, more controls? What I have seen in some universities is they are trying to get more controls again over students. Students today are so busy, they do not have time to protest or even to be active, although they get involved in volunteer work. And even on college campuses today, space is allocated for protests. They just cannot go anywhere. They can only have a little dinky space on campus. And I know if I was a student, I would be fighting that, but-
FH (01:44:17):
I think there is a distinction in that respect between the faculty and the administration. I have found administration really nervous about any kind of student activism. It worries them. But faculty, I do not think tend to feel that way. They are closer to the students. And on students, I worry about these students being too serious and too intent on getting themselves credentialed with their college and university education. And up until the Obama election, I found them not willing to be active in politics, rather disdainful of politics, and back starting with Reagan, more reflective of their parents' conservative views than is today the case. Now but even then, and especially now, what I have found for years, many years, is that there is an extremely high percentage of students who were involved in some kind of service activity. And a lot of them also began to, I was glad to see, get involved in politics, with the campaign of Obama. I am worried about them, just as I am worried about a lot of progressives who supported Obama, that they were becoming sort of disappointed and disillusioned that everything he advocated and they thought they were fighting for by supporting him cannot be done right away. A lot of them did not realize what an intransigent bunch the Republicans are in Congress, and how the archaic rules of the Senate allow a minority to block [inaudible] majority, and just became disgusted with the long fight over health insurance and so forth, health reform. So I do not know what is going to happen, just a lot of those are not going to be active, I am afraid, in the 2010 Congressional race. We always lose seats, the president's party loses seats in the years after the election. And how many depends primarily on the condition of the economy. So we are going to lose seats. I am worried about disillusion rather than about the economy as to how many we lose.
SM (01:47:08):
One of the things that as a professor who has taught students from... You have probably taught three generations of students now-
FH (01:47:14):
Yeah.
SM (01:47:15):
...the boomers, the Generation Xers that actually were born between 1965 and 1982, and then you have got the millennials that are in college right now-
FH (01:47:25):
[inaudible]
SM (01:47:26):
...with the Generation Ys now being in elementary school.
FH (01:47:30):
That is right.
SM (01:47:30):
And I do not know if you sensed this when you were teaching in the (19)80s, but there seemed to be friction between Generation X and the boomers. We had panels on this, and I do not know if it was just our campus, or my observation is just my observation, but they seemed to have two reactions to the boomer generation. One is they are sick of hearing about the nostalgia, about what it was like then, with all the protests and activities and all the rock and all the music and all this stuff, or they have a feeling, "Gee, I wish I lived then, because you had causes that were important to you. We have nothing." And that was the Generation Xers. We are not talking millennials now. Did you sense that at all?
FH (01:48:17):
Well, I do not know. Here is my overall feelings [inaudible]. When I first started teaching back in 1976 at the University of New Mexico, we still had quite a few older professors who were still having trouble with affirmative action. My chairman said to me one time... We were talking about women, "We ought have more women on our faculty," is what I was saying. And he said, "You know what? I think we ought to just hire people on the basis of qualifications," with sort of the [inaudible] implied idea that if we gave special attention to hiring Black people and women, we were reducing the quality of the people we hired. But all of that has changed quite a bit. But what I found today is that white kids and Black kids really have no idea of how it used to be. And it embarrasses Black kids a little bit in my class when I talk about segregated water fountains, even. In Oklahoma, there was a law that Blacks and whites could not play chess together. And then much more bitter things like killings and lynchings and bombings, and so forth. It was a shock to people to really hear that from a person who lived it and knows it. And from young women, I used to hear this, it is getting a little better, I think, used to hear a lot of them saying, "Well, I think women ought to be able to go to law school and to med school and all right. And I think they ought to have equal pay for equal work, but I am not a feminist. I am not one of those feminists." But just by definition you are [inaudible] believe in those things.
SM (01:50:28):
Right.
FH (01:50:31):
But I think a lot of young people simply think, "Well the way things are now is the way they always have been and the way they were going to be." And it takes sort of eternal vigilance, as Abraham Lincoln said.
SM (01:50:49):
With your kids, did you have a generation gap? I can remember there is a LIFE magazine cover that showed the face of a student wearing sunglasses. I have it framed. And it shows the father and a son arguing. Was the generation gap... was it pretty strong then? And then I followed this up with an interview I had a couple days ago with James Fallows. You probably know him.
FH (01:51:16):
Yeah.
SM (01:51:18):
And I was reading something in a book, I am not sure if he said it, but there was a discussion where the generation gap was not that bad between parents and students. The generation gap is really between those who went to the Vietnam War and those who did not. The real gap is within the generation in between those who served in war and those who protested the war or evaded the draft or service. So the history books say the generation gap is pretty strong.
FH (01:51:50):
I think it was, probably, but it narrowed because of the kids, just like my daughter being against the Vietnam War before I came out against it, and what influence her own example and feelings had on me. Or even smoking, my youngest daughter as a little girl saying, "Daddy, why do you keep smoking?" Or on something even more mundane than that, you threw down the piece of trash or something: "Oh, daddy, you want to see beauty, you have got to leave beauty," straight off the television. So I think there was a generation gap. A bigger gap for a good while was an economic class gap. For example, my dad, [inaudible] farmer in southwest Oklahoma, and my son, he had hair... my son had the hair no longer than the Beatles. But at the time we thought that was long. And my dad would always make it a point to say to my son, "You look like a girl with that long hair." But eventually, and it was not too long after that, you see these country and Western stars out in Nashville with long hair and mustaches and so forth. So things began to change, but there was, I think, an economic class gap on these social issues. And perhaps to some degree there still is.
SM (01:53:45):
And also, you think there was that generational gap too between those who fought and those who did not?
FH (01:53:49):
I suppose that is true. And I think if there was resentment on the part of those who went to Vietnam against those who did not, that would be understandable, because here were people going to college and having a good time and doing all right, while these other people went off to the war. I never heard of what you now hear sometimes people say, that people were disdainful of the Vietnam veterans when they came home, or spit on them, or whatever. I never knew of any such thing as that.
SM (01:54:34):
Yeah. That leads me into my next question. Bear with me as I read this little information here on the Vietnam veteran, because I have gotten to know them quite well, a lot of them. And I pay my respects to the people who served this nation. I have gone to the Vietnam Memorial every year since 1994 on Memorial Day and Veterans Day to pay respects to Lewis Puller, who wrote Fortunate Son. But this is the question here: was the My Lai incident and others like it, including those scenes... I remember there was many scenes on television where Vietnam vets were using their lighters to burn down villages. Do you think that these were the main reasons why vets were treated so poorly upon their return to America, this kind of baby killer image? Secondly, from the veterans I have talked to, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legions, did not want them in as their members, even though they run the organization now. And I worked on a university campus in my very first job, and they were treated so poorly that affirmative action became... they were put into affirmative action plans, which now included hiring Vietnam vets. There seemed to be a hostility on the home front that had been against the policies of the government, but I did not sense that people disliked the vets. They disliked the government that sent them to Vietnam. So there was a lot [inaudible] -
SM (01:56:03):
...the symptoms of Vietnam. So there was a lot going on here. And my final thing, when I throw this in here, is that people who did serve, and came back, also oftentimes had bad experiences at health centers and in hospitals. They had served, like Kennedy had asked them to, but they were not treated well, even in the hospitals. And you can sense this over the years of battles over Agent Orange and post-traumatic stress disorder, which now for all Vietnam vets is recognized as a problem, but it took 20-some years, "Prove that you became stressful and have anxiety due to your experiences." So there was a lot happening here. And I do not know what your perceptions are of Vietnam vets, but just in reaction to what I just said here.
FH (01:56:54):
Well, I never knew of that kind of mistreatment of Vietnam veterans by people back home. But I do know this, even now we have had problems with the Veterans Administration operating in a bureaucratic way. Just like insurance companies try to pull their losses down, and their payments down, I think the Vietnam... I mean the Veterans people, even now, have been much too strict and rigid in recognizing legitimate veteran claims in regard to health and so forth. But I never saw that. I saw the other thing in Oklahoma, where particularly early, until fairly late in the war, where a majority of Americans were for Johnson, and Johnson's war policy on the Vietnam War. When I was beginning changing in the other direction. I remember, for example, I was holding town meetings around the state shortly after the My Lai incident became known, and I had a sheriff and his wife in one meeting, and I think they were drinking a little bit too, so they were pretty vociferous and forceful in the way they talked, but they just thought it was terrible. I said, "Well, now wait a minute, we are going to find out more about the facts, but you do not believe that our people ought to be shooting women, and children, and the innocent non-combatants and so forth, do you?" And they both said, "Hell, they are going to grow up, and they are the enemy, and they ought not to be around there if they are not part of the Viet Cong and supporting them." I heard that kind of stuff a lot, until very late in the war. But I never did see, maybe it is because it was Oklahoma, I never did see the anti-vet.
SM (01:59:09):
Did you have a chance to work with any Native American vets who talked about their experiences? Because even... Again, I read too much. And, again, it is only based on what you have read, and what people have told you, it may not always be fact. But that Native American Vietnam veterans were also felt put upon when they served over there, because they were automatically put on point, because the discrimination there was, well, they are Native American, and they must be great leaders, in terms of being heads of units or whatever. And so a lot of them died, because they were put on as the front of their units there.
FH (01:59:51):
Well, I never was aware of that, and I had not heard it. What I noticed always among American Indians, a very proud tradition of serving in the military and-
SM (02:00:10):
Yes, that is true.
FH (02:00:11):
A warrior tradition. And they are much honored in the tribe and at home. We never had a powwow, or any kind of thing like that, in Oklahoma, during or after that war, that it did not start off with some kind of tribute to the veterans and-
SM (02:00:31):
Good. Well, that is good news.
FH (02:00:33):
Yeah.
SM (02:00:33):
I think that is true, they are very proud. But sometimes it upset them that they used qualities that they thought they possessed, and it cost many, many lives in Vietnam.
FH (02:00:48):
Yeah. I just do not know about that.
SM (02:00:51):
Yeah. Well, we are getting toward the end here. I got a few more questions here. There has been some commentaries too where general statements are made about blaming the generation, or that period of the (19)60s and (19)70s for the problems we have in our society today. Issues like the drug culture, the welfare state, big law government versus small government, the creation of the isms, the divorce rate, all these things, the family is important. So that period of the (19)60s and the (19)70s is oftentimes condemned by many, probably on the right, more conservatives, as opposed to liberals. Do you believe that?
FH (02:01:35):
Well, I think there were just millions of people who, as I was growing up and entering into politics and so forth, who were living lives of quiet desperation, and, well, they decided not to be quiet anymore. Much to their credit. They changed America. They have changed the way they thought about themselves. They developed a much better and stronger self-image in the process. And they changed us too. And they changed society much for the better. So I think that is one of the proud results of the (19)60s, is America is much closer to its ideal than it has ever been in history.
SM (02:02:26):
I know you cannot generalize on 74 million people, because that is how many there were. And some people will not even respond to this, except based on personal experience of people they knew, but are there any positive or negative qualities that you can place on the generation? And when I say generation, I am meaning everyone. This project that I am involved in here, it is not just about white men and women, it is about African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, gay and lesbian. It is not so much about Asian culture, because we do not hear a whole lot about that during this timeframe. But how do you respond to that?
FH (02:03:06):
I think that they are much more aware of the world, and how it worked, and of their place in it. And they are more self-confident than was true of generations before them. I talked to, in the old days, I talked to people like my uncles who went off World War II, and they did not know anything about the world, and they had no self-confidence. They felt like victims. The times were hard, and they had a hard time finding a job that was worth a damn and so forth. I think most people today have a much stronger feeling about things like that than the people-
SM (02:04:01):
In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin, and when did it end, and what was the watershed moment?
FH (02:04:08):
Well, I think the watershed moment probably was with the election of John Kennedy. He was the of that post-war generation himself, and he said the torch passed to a new generation of Americans. And this was a different crowd. I entered the University of Oklahoma in 1948. And a lot of people that were in college with me then, or just before me, were veterans. And they were the kind of people who were not going to take that shit anymore. It used to be, I understood, the hazing of freshman, and all that kind of stuff, and people were ordered around and so forth. And these were people that just were not going to stand for it. And it rubbed off on the rest of us. So I think when John Kennedy came in, in 1960, that tendency was accelerated.
SM (02:05:18):
So the beginning was when Kennedy came in, and the watershed moment. When did it end?
FH (02:05:25):
Well, I do not think it has ended. I think it has been renewed with Obama. We backslid during the Reagan, and Bush, and the second Bush times, to some degree. But, still, I think people just, they will not stand for being held down and pushed around anymore. And I think that is all for the good. And that is true of people who are right-wingers too, they do not want the government telling them what to do.
SM (02:05:58):
That is the Tea Party movement that is going on now.
FH (02:06:01):
That is right. People see, they know... I think the Tea Party movement... People see all these changes in the country, for God's sake a Black getting elected President of the United States, and things are changing, and the world seems as dangerous, and I think they just are very fearful, and unhappy, and angry. And the kind of remedies they talk about do not fit with what the fears are. For example, they say stop raising our taxes, and Obama's taxing us. Well, there is recent studies that show that our combined tax burden now for individuals, their state, local, and federal, is the lowest since the 1950s. But people's perception is, "Well, they just keep taxing us, telling us what to do and so forth." There is just a lot of that. But nobody... I never got elected by a unanimous vote. There has always been a lot of people that are dragging along their thinking, and frame it, and I suppose that is always going to be true. We have to, I think, do our best, as Obama has tried, to reach out to them, and fill their fears, and appeal to their self-interest in doing the right thing. But some of them we just are not going to get.
SM (02:07:45):
...We are here too. Because I got... And your answers are just fantastic. Vietnam... In the university, being in there for so many years, two words that seem to really stir people up when we are dealing with foreign policy on any particular issue, if you mention the word Vietnam, or you mention the word quagmire.
FH (02:08:10):
Yes.
SM (02:08:11):
I can remember, during the Gulf War, when Vietnam vets were coming out saying that they were against the war, a lot of them. Of course, then it kind of waned, it did not last very long. We lost some lives. But certainly the Iraq war, and where we are in Afghanistan right now, and I know it upsets... Many of them are Boomers. They get tired. They say this has nothing to do with Vietnam, and has nothing to do with the quagmire. They do not like going back to that period, because I think, whether it stirs up memories they want to forget, or they want to have amnesia, or... What I am getting at here is that when President Reagan came into power, he said, "We are back." It was kind of a feeling that we are back. And then President Bush number one said the Vietnam syndrome is over. And my feeling about this is that... President Reagan said we were going to have a strong military again. The military fell apart in Vietnam, now we are going to build it up again, and have a strong military, and we are going to bring values back. Our values are gone. And then Bush saying this Vietnam syndrome was over, saying we do not have to talk about it anymore. It is a different world. Your thoughts on those kinds of attitudes by those two presidents?
FH (02:09:27):
Well, the thing, to me, that Republicans began, especially with Reagan, to talk about, we got to get back to family values. Here was Reagan, he never went to church. He had a dysfunctional family, but was talking about family values. Or Phyllis Schlafly, she is against the women working and so on, and that is all she has ever done.
SM (02:09:56):
Or Newt Gingrich talking about values, and he is running around with a woman while his wife is fighting cancer.
FH (02:10:03):
Absolutely. All of that seems awfully hypocritical to me. But I think that over time America rejects elitist warmongers like Henry Kissinger, and Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush, and rejects their idea that it is just terrible that people have gotten involved in making foreign policy and national security policy, because it puts too much limits. Democracy has a hell of a time on the world stage, because the people limit what they can do. I think that is a damn good thing. I think I am for a populist of foreign and national security politicians. It has limits on what they can do, because the two worst things a government can do to us is tax us and kill us, or send us to get killed. I would like to have a lot of popular restriction on that. It is, I think, very difficult for a democracy like America to be involved in a long war, because people began to question, as they are now with Afghanistan, saying, "What the hell are we doing? Is this in the interest of our people?" And they begin to say, "Wait a minute, we ought to get out of this. We got a lot of problems here at home we ought to be dealing with, instead of this. Are not we killing a whole lot of innocent people in the process?" I think that is a good development. They will let you do it for a while, but over the long pull, they are going to begin to ask a lot of questions. Just as this Afghan war has become unpopular now. That really irritates the elitists, who some I have mentioned, like Henry Kissinger, and George Bush, and Dick Cheney and so forth, but I think it is good for America to speak.
SM (02:12:10):
This is a question I have asked everybody that is been involved in my interviews, even way back to Senator McCarthy back in 1996. That is a question of healing. I used to take students to Washington DC. I got to know Senator Nelson when we brought him to our campus twice for Earth Day events. And after his first speech, I said I was trying to get ahold of Senator Fulbright. I knew he had a stroke, but he had not said yes, or had not said no, to meeting our students. And finally Senator Nelson said, when he was here, "I will contact him. I will get him over to the Wilderness Society." So it began the first of nine senator visits, where Senator Nelson gave us almost two and a half hours with each of these unbelievable people. And the question, when we went to see Senator Muskie, he had just gotten out of the hospital, he was not feeling well, and he had just seen the Ken Burn series on the Civil War, which had really touched him. But the students came up with this question, and this is the question... Due to all the divisions that took place in America in the 1960s and (19)70s, divisions between Black and white, between male and female, between gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who were against the war, those who supported the troops, and were against the troops... Then they brought up the riots in the cities that they had seen in the (19)60s. These were all people who were not born at the time. Do you feel that the Boomer generation that experienced all these terrible events are going to go to their graves... That includes not only the activists, but those 85 percent who were not activists, they were going to go to their graves not healing from a lot of these divisions that were part of their lives? Like the people in the Civil War never healed. That was the question. Do you think we have, as a nation, and particularly the Boomer generation of 74 million, that there is a problem with healing?
FH (02:14:14):
I think most are healing, and will heal, but we are always going to have a minority of people, just like in the South, who still want to complain about the war between the states as they call it. And there is a lot of people who, they do not like to say it aloud these days, but who are worried about women getting out of their place, and the pushy African Americans, and these longhaired kids that are not so longhaired anymore, but that are much too activist and independent. There is always going to be people like that. But I think there is healing. And I think Obama's election showed it.
SM (02:15:11):
Yeah. I think Senator Nelson mentioned that, he said, "People do not walk around Washington DC with a lack of healing on their sleeves." But he said it permanently affected the body politic.
FH (02:15:25):
Yeah.
SM (02:15:26):
And Senator Muskie did not even comment, because the students wanted... They thought they had a golden opportunity, here was the man that was picked at the last minute to be Humphrey's running mate.
FH (02:15:35):
Yes.
SM (02:15:35):
And he did not even comment on 1968. He looked up and he... Actually, he is pretty emotional about it. He looked up and he said, "We have not healed since the Civil War over the issue of race." And then he went on to talk about that. Never even mentioned 1968, which meant the divisions go back to the Civil War. So that was a pretty interesting experience.
FH (02:15:58):
The decision came down to me and Muskie, did you know that?
SM (02:16:01):
Yes.
FH (02:16:01):
Yeah.
SM (02:16:02):
Yeah, I knew that. Well, actually I have read that in books. I read a lot of history. I read your book too, many years ago, but I was rereading it again, and did you feel, right to the last minute, you were going to be the person?
FH (02:16:20):
Well, he had us up to his hotel room, and each in an adjoining bedroom, at the last, and each of us did not know the other was in an adjoining bedroom. But he came in and talked to me awhile. And then he would say, "I will be right back." Do not know where he is going, but it later turned out he was going across the hall into the bedroom with Muskie.
SM (02:16:48):
Oh my gosh.
FH (02:16:56):
And then he came back again, we talked some more. Did I know anything that he should know that might make it difficult for him to choose me and whatever? Then he went across the hall. And then he came back. The last time he came back, had tears in his eyes. We were very close friends. He had tears in his eyes. Humphrey was very emotional. And he said, "Fred, I am going to have to choose the younger man." And so I said, "Well, if that is your decision, I will nominate." And he said, "Will you?" And I said, "Yes." He said, "Will you go with me to tell him?" I said, "Yes." I did not know where we were going, but we walked across the hall, opened the door, walked in there, there was a bunch of people just standing by the bureau over in the corner. And Humphrey said what is probably the longest sentence I have ever heard, he said, "Ed, shake hands with the man who is going nominate you."
SM (02:17:49):
That is a great anecdote.
FH (02:17:52):
And I did nominate him. I was the one who nominated him.
SM (02:17:57):
I heard that ... I did not know him that well, but I heard he had a temper at times.
FH (02:18:03):
Oh yeah.
SM (02:18:03):
But, oh my God, the students loved him. He was so good with the students. You could tell he loved students.
FH (02:18:09):
You mean Muskie or Humphrey?
SM (02:18:12):
No, I am talking about Muskie.
FH (02:18:14):
Yes, Muskie, that is true, both. Yeah. See, I told you that though, because what Humphrey gave in his reason, which was a good way to say it properly too, because it did not indicate he saw any fault in me.
SM (02:18:33):
Was not it because you were too young?
FH (02:18:35):
Yeah, that is what he said.
SM (02:18:36):
You were 37 years old.
FH (02:18:37):
Yeah. He said, "Fred, I am going to have to choose the younger man." That is why I told you that anecdote, because that is the reason he gave, and I think maybe that was the main reason.
SM (02:18:51):
Yep.
FH (02:18:52):
He later told somebody that he thought he and I were too... I do not know how he... That Muskie seemed stable compared to me and him. We were both very enthusiastic and so forth. I think the age thing was an indication, sort of, of how he felt about it.
SM (02:19:21):
One of the qualities, that may be a good quality, but I would like your thoughts, is that this generation is often looked upon as the generation that does not trust people, because so many of the leaders lie to them, whether it be Watergate, Nixon, the Gulf of Tonkin with Johnson, even President Eisenhower lying on TV, that we found out later about U-2. There were questions about Kennedy and his knowledge of the overthrow of the Diem regime, although I do not believe President Kennedy ever wanted him killed, but he just wanted him sent off to France or whatever. And, of course, McNamara and the numbers game that was really not really true. Do you think-
FH (02:20:02):
Well, I think that is absolutely true. There has always been, I think, a very healthy skepticism about the government. I have thought there was too much of it, but I see the justification for it.
SM (02:20:24):
Yeah.
FH (02:20:27):
When people say, "Well, we lowered your taxes," well there is a minority of people, the teabaggers and ... who do not believe it. Or say this health thing is going be good for you.
SM (02:20:43):
When I first started asking this question on trust, I did it because I remember a Psychology 101 class that I took in college, and I graduated in 1970 from undergrad, and it was basically the professor saying, "If you cannot trust people, then you will not be a success in life. Trust is a very important quality you must possess." And so I said, "Well, if my generation did not trust anybody, and they are passing this on to their kids and grandkids, that is not good." But then you take Political Science 101, and it says basically that... Because I was a history political science major just like you as an undergrad. And I learned that trust shows that democracy is alive and well, that dissent is part of our society, so lacking trust is a good quality.
FH (02:21:30):
You bet. I think so too. We went through the (19)50s, where we were too satisfied, and did not ask enough questions, and so things got worse. Well, I am sorry, but I am going to have to... They were waving to me here, I have got to take off.
SM (02:21:46):
Can I ask one last question?
FH (02:21:47):
Yeah, you bet.
SM (02:21:48):
What do you think the lasting legacy will be of this generation when they pass on? The best history books are often written 50 years after an event, like the best ones of World War II are being written now. What do you think the sociologists and historians will say after the last Boomer has passed away? Kind of like what they do over in Gettysburg, when the last Civil War soldier died, they have a statue to him over there, he died in 1924. But what do you think they will be saying about this generation that grew up after World War II overall?
FH (02:22:34):
I think they were more self-confident, and more concerned about others, in addition to themselves.
SM (02:22:50):
Well, very good. Well, Senator, thank you very much.
FH (02:22:53):
All right.
SM (02:22:53):
I do not know, you have mentioned your wife, or your former wife, she would be great.
FH (02:22:58):
Yeah.
SM (02:22:59):
How would I get ahold of her?
FH (02:23:02):
LaDonna Harris, and I do not have it right in front of me here the... Well, let us see, if you hold on a second, I can find it.
SM (02:23:09):
Either that, or you can email it to me.
FH (02:23:11):
Yeah. She is in... Well, I will just tell you. Hold on a second. I will look it up. She lives here in Albuquerque. I have been remarried for nearly 30 years. But let me just, if you hold on just a second here, I will look on my Blackberry, and I will tell you what...
SM (02:23:30):
If she has an email or...
FH (02:23:35):
Yeah, her email is AIO, that is the name of the organization which she heads, Americans for Indian Opportunities, aio@aio.org.
SM (02:23:52):
Aio.org. And the last question, how would I get ahold of Senator Mondale?
FH (02:23:57):
I do not know. Somebody just talked to him the other day, and sent me greetings. He is up in Minnesota, but I will be darned if I-
SM (02:24:07):
Yeah, I want to try to get ahold of him. And also Geraldine Ferraro is another one, but she is in New York. Senator, thank you very, very much.
FH (02:24:15):
All right.
SM (02:24:16):
I will keep you updated on everything. You will see the transcripts. I will need your picture though.
FH (02:24:21):
Okay.
SM (02:24:22):
But I will email you on that.
FH (02:24:24):
All right.
SM (02:24:25):
You have a great day.
FH (02:24:26):
All right. Thanks a million.
SM (02:24:27):
And thanks for serving our country, because you did a great job.
FH (02:24:30):
Well, thank you. That is very generous of you. Thank you.
SM (02:24:33):
Yep. Bye now.
(End of Interview)
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Senator Fred Harris
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Harris, Fred R., 1930- ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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Legislators—United States--Oklahoma; College teachers; Harris, Fred R., 1930--Interviews
Description
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Fred Harris is a former Democratic United States Senator elected twice from the state of Oklahoma. Harris received his Bachelor and Law degree from the University of Oklahoma. He won a special election in 1964, succeeding Robert S. Kerr. In 1976, he became a professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico.
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2010-07-01
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In copyright
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eng
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Sound
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.128a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.128b
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2018-03-29
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McKiernan Interviews
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144:35
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/5d4c797751fa45bb17b6ae887e92a43b.jpg
a4c079a074970c3da0c3993789e161d9
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3b34154c31e6be1c012acf5563be5028.mp3
0e516e7b49bc6ac776ab65f050ed51c0
Dublin Core
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
1996-09-21
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Harris Wofford
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span>Harris Wofford is a lawyer, educator, politician, author, and co-founder of the Peace Corps. Wofford has more than sixty years of experience, starting with the Army Air Corps in World War II and continuing through government and community service during the terms of ten Presidents. </span><span>Wofford also served as the first President of SUNY School at Old Westbury and Bryn Mawr College. </span><span>He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and he graduated from Yale and Howard University Law Schools. </span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
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62:11
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam Veterans; Baby boom generation; Contemporary American Society; Rock and Roll; Drugs; Andy Warhol; Jimmy Carter; Gerald Ford; Nineteen eighties; Bill Clinton; John F. Kennedy; Lyndon B. Johnson; Richard Nixon; Spiro Agnew; George H. Bush; George W. Bush; Barack Obama; Vietnam Memorial."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Vietnam Veterans; Baby boom generation; Contemporary American Society; Rock and Roll; Drugs; Andy Warhol; Jimmy Carter; Gerald Ford; Nineteen eighties; Bill Clinton; John F. Kennedy; Lyndon B. Johnson; Richard Nixon; Spiro Agnew; George H. Bush; George W. Bush; Barack Obama; Vietnam Memorial.</span>
Subject LCSH
Lawyers; Politicians--United States; Authors; Wofford, Harris--Interviews
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Senator Harris Wofford
Contributor
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Wofford, Harris ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lawyers; Politicians--United States; Authors; Wofford, Harris--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Harris Wofford is a lawyer, educator, politician, and author. Wofford has more than sixty years of experience, starting with the Army Air Corps in World War II and continuing through government and community service during the terms of ten Presidents. <span>Wofford also served as the first President of SUNY School at Old Westbury and Bryn Mawr College. </span>He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and he graduated from Yale and Howard University Law Schools.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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1996-09-21
Rights
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In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.123
Date Modified
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2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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62:11
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/33fb307a69f2ffdbe8a82db4dbe70f65.m4a
c398f41ccb42a7a33adf0888faffb2cf
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Title
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Ukrainian Oral History
Publisher
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Binghamton University
Rights
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In copyright
Contributor
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<span>Aynur de Rouen, Ph.D.</span><br /><span>Heather DeHaan, Ph.D., Associate Professor in History</span>
Description
An account of the resource
The Ukrainian Oral History project consists of a collection of undergraduate student interviews with immigrants from East Central Europe, particularly the lands of what is now Ukraine. Four interviews took place in New York City and record the memories of Jewish immigrants. A few interviews testify to specifically Russian identity and experiences, while the rest of the collection is comprised of interviews with members of Binghamton’s Ukrainian immigrant community.
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/oral-histories/index.html#sustainablecommunities">Sustainable Communities Oral History Collection</a>
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Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Allan Gendelman
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Sergey Gendelman
Biographical Text
Sergey Gendelman is a first generation immigrant in America. His roots are in Moscow, Russia. He received a degree in electronic engineering. He went on to further his education in the Soviet Union as a programmer. He immigrated to New York City in 1993 and he worked a few odd jobs until becoming a programmer once again. He continues to live in New York City area with his family.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
61:26 minutes
Date of Interview
2016-04-10
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Language
English
Material Type
Sound
Collection
Ukrainian Oral History Project
Subject LCSH
Gendelman, Sergey Peter.--Interviews; Russians--United States; Diaspora, Soviet Union—History; <span>Communism and culture--Soviet Union; </span>Russian; Jews; Migrations; Ethnic identity; City and town life--New York (State)--New York
Interview Format
Video or Audio
audio
OHMS Object
URL
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=SergeyGendelman.xml
Accessibility
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Keywords
Interviews; Russians; Immigrants; Soviet Union
Rights Statement
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Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ukrainian Oral History Project</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interview with: Sergey Gendelman</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interviewed by: Allan Gendelman</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Transcriber: Allan Gendelman</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Date of interview: 10 April 2016 at 10:41am</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interview Setting: 2636 East 23rd Apt. #2 Brooklyn, NY 11235</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">(Start of Interview)</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sergey Gendelman: I was born in 1959 in Moscow in Soviet Union.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Allan Gendelman: And uhh, (is it, is it) how was your childhood? Happy memories? Good memories? Or more of a negative?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: My childhood, it's mostly happy. Probably everybody's childhood—when you are a kid, it's, everything is good. You have parents, you have someplace to live, you have food. So you are happy. You have friends to play with. So, you are happy.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So, tell me a little bit more about that. Where exactly did you live? Which neighborhood did you live in?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Okay, it was Moscow. It's the capital of the Soviet Union. It was not downtown, but it's some sleepy area of Moscow.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So, pretty quiet?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, pretty quiet. It used to be pretty safe. So, we could walk around and play around by ourselves, without parents. Just with friends. We have yards around our houses. I mean, not houses, buildings. Most of us have buildings. So, we have yards. And we have place to play. So that's how we spent our childhood.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It was more of an urban setting, right? More of a city, not a village, right?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, it's a real city. Moscow is a huge city. It's just one of the sleepy areas of Moscow.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Sort of how Brooklyn is to Manhattan? We all live in New York, but Brooklyn is a little bit quieter.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, kind of.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So, tell me about the building you grew up in. How was that? Describe it to me physically. How big was it? How many floors? What did it look like?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Okay, it was a five story brick building. No elevators. We lived on the third floor. We had two rooms. When we moved in—we got lucky, we moved in a separate apartment, because most of the people lived a few families together in the same apartment, just one room, and shared a kitchen, and bathroom, and other common places. So we got lucky when I was born, my family got a new apartment. It was two rooms, and it was six of us living in two rooms.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So are you saying that at some point you did live in a communal area where you had to share the kitchen and other amenities?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Actually for myself, personally, I had never lived with other people in the same apartment. So, as I said, I got lucky. We got, we got a new apartment when I was born. It was too many people for our old apartment. It’s, so—and six people in two rooms. I don't know how—by Americans’ measure, it’s probably still too much.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It’s actually interesting that you said that. So you didn’t grow up in a communal setting, and you’re saying that’s how people usually lived?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, I would say 50 to 60% of the people live together, a few families to the same apartment.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So would you say you living in an apartment that you didn't have to share with other families in a non-communal setting—do you think that had any impact on you, growing up? Because I would think that if everyone else is growing up with other families, maybe the way they—not just the way they lived, but the way they grew up, the principles they grew up with could be different.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It’s difficult to say, because I didn’t have, actually, other way to live, so— So it's the only way I— I don't know what to say. I never lived in other conditions, so it’s what it is.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: That’s true. Well, do you think you grew up a little bit differently than the people around you? The kids around you?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I would say that my condition was a little bit better than some of my friends. I visit them, my friends, and we play together, and I saw how they lived. My condition, it was better. Yeah.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Not just conditions, really. What I'm really asking is—so, you're my father, I've obviously known you growing up, and it seems apparent that—your friends and a lot of your family stayed in the Soviet Union and Russia, and you moved. And from what I know, this is something you always wanted to do growing up.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, it’s— At my childhood, when I was a teenager, I was thinking I am living in the best country in the world. So, I didn't have any problems when I was a teenager. It happened later, when I understand what's going around me in other countries. And it's—most of what we know is just a lie, and it's not true, and I'm pushed to do what I don't want to do. And my understanding, it happened, probably, when I was about 15, 16, when I got more information outside. It was difficult to get this information back then. I was trying to listen to some foreign radio. It was not allowed. First I started listening because of music—foreign music—I loved it and I love it now as well. And also I listened to the news and I started thinking, “Most of what our government said to us, it's not true.” It's how it started, my different view on my country. But when I was a child, I was thinking, “I'm living in the best country in the world.” It was my belief.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You said you were pushed to do something you didn't want to do. What do you mean by that?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Uhh, okay. When you are in school, you have to be in Pioneer Organization. It's like Young Communist [League], you have to do certain things—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Like Boy Scouts?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, like Boy Scouts. But it's not your choice. You have to do it. Otherwise you will be like—umm, umm.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: A traitor?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, a traitor. So it's going to be much more difficult for you to be in school, to be in a community. Like all people. And you will not have any future, if you do not follow what everyone else is following.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Your career choice, your school choice, the profession you chose to pursue in the Soviet Union: was that largely your choice, or do you feel like you were pushed to do that?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, it was my choice, but it was a choice with a lot of limitation for some reason. First limitation because I am a Jew. And not all colleges accepted Jew people. And if they accept, it was just for a limited percentage, very very limited percentage. So—and you have to be a Young Communist to have more possibility to get into college. So it was my choice, but it was limited choice.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Why don't you tell me about what you did pursue? What did you actually study and what did you end up working as?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I graduated as an engineer. Electronic engineer. So what I studied was a lot of math, a lot of physics. Automatization systems. What else—and of course I have to learn some Communist Party history, and that was probably the most important subject in college. There's a special test for that, and if you fail it, you will not get a diploma of engineer.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: And what did you go on to become? What was your job?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: My first job, I was a construction engineer, so I developed some schematics for automatization system for agriculture. So I was obligated to work three years for some company I was sent to work. So there were some choices, but not many, and I had to work for at least for three years. After three years, I had a choice to quit and find a new job. So I quit, and moved to a new job in the field.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What was that field?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It was—I just—I was, special tools for auto manufacturing. It was electronic devices that I had to adjust. It was like mini computers so it was more interesting for me. So it's like work in field. I was not sitting in one place, but I was moving to different companies to help them to adjust the tools.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Was that the last job you held in the Soviet Union, or were there more?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, I had then—when computers started to introduce in our environment, I started learning programming. It's how I started programming. So my last job was programmer, so it helped that when I moved to the United States I had some background to start with.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I want to come back to that, I want to ask you right now about your second job. You said you had to travel a lot for that job, right?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, I travelled in Soviet Union—cities, towns, different places, yeah.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So outside of Russia, right?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Mmm…Outside of—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: —the Russian Federation.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Outside of the Russian Federation, yeah. Yes.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Was that common? Were people allowed to do that, or was that a special privilege that you got?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, you could travel anyplace in the Soviet Union. What wasn't allowed was to travel outside of the Soviet Union. It was a real privilege, so to leave the country for travel, for business, for whatever it is, so it’s— So you couldn't just go wherever you want to go outside the Soviet Union. You had to get an out visa, not a visa to get in the country, but a visa to get out of the Soviet Union. And it was really difficult. Very limited people could do it.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Would you say it was feasible—would you say it was possible for people to travel the way you traveled for your work? Or were they too impoverished to do that? </span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Uhh—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Because—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, people travel, but what we earned, it was, it wasn’t big money. It’s money to feed yourself and your family, and it’s what you mostly spend your money for. I said I lived in Moscow in Soviet Union, and Moscow is absolutely different than other Soviet Union territories, because it was difficult in Moscow to buy some foods, but there still—there are foods in stores in Moscow. But from other regions, people come to Moscow to buy something: clothes, food, something. It was much much more difficult to buy something outside of Moscow. I was lucky, again, to be living in Moscow, not other regions of Soviet Union. I got to see how other people lived. Sometimes people were happy when I could come and bring some food with me and share it with people. They were very happy.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Tell me more about that. Did you learn anything while you travelled and you got to see how other people lived? Did that impact you in any other way?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, I saw people live much, much worse than people in Moscow and it—sometimes it was real poverty. Because in Moscow, I didn't see actual poverty. Everything was—most of, 90% of the people was—equally, I would say, not poor, but they couldn't afford any car, they couldn't buy any apartment, any—that was just, government could just give it to people, and if you don't have a good apartment or any… Everyone had an apartment. It wasn't, maybe, good, it was maybe overcrowded, and people didn't have money to buy something new; and a car was…a real, real luxury, to use a car. But you had public transportation, it was pretty much good, and I didn’t think—I never thought that I’d need a car, because it was beyond my possibilities, beyond my actual wishes. It’s not—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You're saying it was too luxurious?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, yeah. It was too luxurious. Only people who were in crime could buy a car. Or some famous people—academics, famous artists, some—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You're saying criminals could buy cars.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: And criminals, yeah. Criminals could always buy cars, yeah. Because they steal something from other people. Or people actually who work for, actually, for government, or for Communist Party. They had more possibilities to buy a car.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What did you—so you’re saying you saw a lot of poverty when you left Moscow. Do you have any particular memories of your travels, any particular story you want to tell? Do you remember what kind of foods you ate, something like that? Something unique that you encountered that you didn't before?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Some trips were very good. I would say Georgia, I remember, it was a very nice country, very nice people, very kind. And so, food was interesting, it was different. It was a nice experience to go to Tbilisi, it was the capital of Georgia. But some region was very poor and I couldn't buy anything in stores and I had to use some cafeteria in places I worked for, and it’s, it was, I couldn't eat what they fed me. So I was trying to do my job, instead of a week, let’s say for two days, and just leave, because it was not a pleasure to stay there, so I worked fifteen hours a day, just to leave the place.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What did you eat in the cafeterias? Describe the food.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Oh, ok. I don't know. It was some cutlets. And okay, if you don't have bread to, to not taste of the—or smell whatever you're eating—I don't know what it was, but it was something not edible. And always, when I went on a trip, I always had some food with me, so I could have my breakfast in the hotel room, so—and some late dinner in hotel again. So in some places, I just didn’t eat anything at all during the day—just worked for twelve, fifteen hours and ate just early morning using my own food I brought from Moscow, and late, late dinner. And just, my dream was just finish the job I had to do and just leave it, leave this town I stay in. </span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: How long did you do that job for? How long did that last for?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It's about six years, I’d say. Six or seven years. It was, it's not for the same company. I used to work for one company, for—then I moved to other company, this offers better conditions, but still the same kind of job. And then I move to some plant and I start actually to study programming, and that's how I start as a programmer. I start actually fixing computers first, learning the hardware part of the computers, and then study programming and converted to programmer.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What made you do that job for six years? It sounds like you weren’t happy doing it—what was the motivation? Did you not have the opportunity to find another source of employment, or did you just not think about moving?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, I didn’t say I wasn't happy about the job. I was happy about the job; I liked it. But I wasn’t happy in some places I visited to do my job, just because of conditions I lived in. But the job itself, I liked it, it was good.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Why don't you tell me about how you got started in programming? So you said you started studying hardware first, but then you moved on to learning programming?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, it was—I was working for some company to—adjusting their tools for, uh—tools with controllers. So it was an electronic job. And then the company start—they created a department of, a computer department—it just started in Soviet Union. So—and I was, at the beginning, I actually helped the company to choose computers, to buy computers, to set it up, and fix if any problem happened. And parallel, I learned how to program, and I went to college again to get some programmer diploma, but it’s at the same time I was working for the company. So, and that's how I started programming. When I come to America, actually it’s not the same kind of programming I did in the Soviet Union, but—and I also went to school to learn something new, and—but it was much, much easier for me to be in the field, because I already had some basic knowledge and knew how to program.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Do you remember exactly how you started programming? Did you just discover it? Did someone tell you about it? Do you remember the day you decided to become a programmer?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, it wasn't a day. It was, as I said, I just started to know something new, and it’s, I learned more and more and more, and I did some projects creating some software. And at the same time, I was responsible for supporting computer hardware, so I did both jobs, so that’s how my knowledge—that's how I gained more knowledge. So I create more—some, create more software.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Was it someone in particular that opened you up to programming? No?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Not really, as I remember, no. </span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You were just interested in it?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It was interesting. It was something new to learn, so I started learning.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You said you went to school, and you worked at the same time when you were learning programming. Was that challenging? Because I would imagine having a full time job and going to school is always challenging.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Oh, I don't remember if it was challenging; it was interesting. It was about thirty years ago, so I don't remember. It was interesting. When you are interested in something, it's much easier to be successful in it.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So you said you came to America and you eventually became a programmer, and you said it was a lot easier for you to do that because you were in the Soviet Union and you already had some sort of training, some sort of education, some sort of experience in the field. Did you come to the United States and right away become a programmer?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It actually was my third job. I am not, um—when I was a student in United States, I did some jobs, you know, just temporary jobs, just to feed my family. And you just was born, and so—and so we didn't have much money, so I had to do some temporary job just for small money, but it was very helpful.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Tell me about those jobs. Tell me about those temporary jobs.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It's something, I distributed some advertising—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: —flyers?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: —Flyers, yeah. What else? I can't remember now. [Pause] Ok, it’s—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You don't recall?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I don’t recall, it was— It wasn't the happiest days of my life.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, you didn’t like it, so you—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It was difficult and it was, I mean, not what I would like to do. It’s—it wasn't the reason I came to America, to do this kind of job. But it was a good experience, to—and it's what I had to do for my family. So it’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s what happened. I knew immigration is—when I moved from Soviet Union to America, I knew it was difficult to absorb a new style of life and, uh, to start speaking in English, it was most difficult, probably. To understand what people are saying, to speak myself, to explain what I would like to other people. So it was difficult times. But I did not regret I did this move.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So you are saying the language barrier is what was the most difficult part—not understanding what people are saying. </span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Right.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Was there anything else that was difficult? Was it culturally different? Were people different here than they were back where you were from, from the Soviet Union? Or are people just people everywhere?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Most of the people are people, as you said, everywhere. And I had my close relative here, my uncle, who helped me a lot with—he explained to me a lot of things, what’s going on around me. And so for all my questions I could call him and ask, “What does it mean? What should I do with it?” and how to behave. So I was open for new relationships, for new people, for everything new, so—so, I was open for it, so I accepted it as it is.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Was there any cultural shock? Anything in particular that surprised you?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Usually when Soviet people come to America first, what they’re shocked about is when they go to stores and see how many foods in stores and how many clothes in store—it’s mostly what [made] people shocked. It didn’t shock me because I was prepared for this, because I had some information from people who lived here already, so—and I communicate with them before I left the Soviet Union—so I was prepared for that. It was interesting, but I wasn't shocked. What actually—I was not shocked, but very pleased with, is that people smile, on the streets, on transportation. Whatever you are going to, you see people smile to you. Not as in the Soviet Union. It's not in the behavior of Soviet people. Probably still they don't smile.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Smiling. That was big for you?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah. Smiling was actually the most—most—[pause]</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: —positive—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG: </b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> —positive, yeah, impression that I got.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So was it your first time in America when you immigrated here? Did you immigrate straight here and this was the first time you’d ever been here, or had you been here previously?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, first I went here in 1990, just for travel. My uncle sent a special invitation to me, because otherwise I couldn't leave Soviet Union. It was already opened up by Gorbachev for people to go around the world, but it was still limited, so you had to get some special invitation from other country to be allowed to go. So my first experience, I went in 1990, I said. So I spent a month here in America, in New York. My cousin got me around to other countries—other cities—so I fell in love with America, so I decided, “so I am going to leave Soviet Union for United States.”</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Was it—that month you spent in America, was it like you expected it to be from the information that you got from the American radios in the Soviet Union, or were you surprised at the living conditions? Tell me. Tell me how it was for you.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Surprised? Actually, I already had information, so I wasn't surprised too much, but I loved New York itself, I mean, Manhattan, how it’s—I was happy to see it with my own eyes, not on television, or some other image, some other sources. But I was—maybe I was shocked when I saw, first time, Manhattan, so I was—felt in love. I came as a tourist, so it's different when you live in a country and when you just travel. You see a different side of life. Everything was good. People were nice to me. It was a pleasure. I knew if I am going to move in permanently here, it will not be so easy to be part of this country, these people. So I knew it was challenging, but I was ready for that, for these difficulties. When I moved in permanently, I was open for all difficulties I met.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Why do you say that you knew it was going to be challenging? What led you to believe it was going to be challenging?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Because my English was very, very, very limited, and I knew to do some job I had to speak fluently—I had to understand people, what they’re saying, what I’m supposed to do, as my responsibility of some job. So I knew it's always difficult, because when you live in one country and everything is familiar to you, and people speak the same language and you knew all habits, everything around, everything, how it works… New country, absolutely new country with different culture, different people, language and everything—it's always difficult. But it's a good experience. But I'm happy you don't have to get through it because you were born here. It's your country—and it's my country too, but it’s your country from the beginning, and you don't have to get used to it.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What kind of other difficulties did you face when you came here? Was poverty an issue?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You mean in the United States?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: In the United States, yeah.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Poverty…I mean, yeah. I had some money to pay for my rent and for food, but I learned how to do shopping so I knew where sales, I knew how to buy things so I could save a lot of money by doing it. I didn't have a lot of money to buy any extra, it was okay. I knew it was just temporary for some period of time. My goal is to find a job I would like and everything would be changed.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When you came here, you grew up eating kotleta and borscht and all of that really Russian Soviet Union stuff. Is there anything that you came here and you were really—you really liked or you really didn't like, out of the foods?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Actually, I like to try new food. First when I saw sushi, I couldn’t try it because I'd never eaten raw fish before and it was really strange for me. But my friends showed me how to eat it, so I tried and I didn’t like it, first time. In some period of time I tried it again, and it was a little bit better. And now I love it. I miss it if I don't have it for a couple of weeks. So I miss it. So, I love to have—to go to different restaurants to try new foods, and to different country and different style food. So—I’m open for that, I like it.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Did you buy any frozen food, anything in the supermarkets? I mean, if I lived in a country where I was really limited in the cuisine I had and the kind of food that I had, and I came to a country where there’s all these different foods, I think I would just buy everything. I would just want to try all this strange new food. Is there anything—did you do that? Or did you only try to buy food that you knew or were familiar with?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I buy mostly what I knew. I don't buy new food because I don't know how to cook it—maybe very rare, some… But, most of—to try new food, I just go to some specific restaurant: Turkish, Lebanon, or maybe Indian. So—and actually, with Indian food as well, when I first tried, first time trying Indian food, I couldn't eat it. It was very spicy, I couldn't eat it at all. But now, again, I get used to it, and time to time I like to have Indian food. But actually I'm still trying, as I start—when I came to this country and I tried to save money for shopping, I still do it. I try to save money and to buy most of the food on sale and save this money for, actually, what I really would like to do all my years when I was living in the Soviet Union, to travel to different countries. Because I was real, real, actually limited to see the world. Now I enjoy it, and so I’m trying to explore as many countries as I could.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, we just came back from Italy, so it’s interesting that you said that. We do travel a lot. Do you think that the way you’re living your life now—what you just described, saving every penny that you can so you can get the things that you want—do you think that's something uniquely Russian? Do you think that’s something you do because you were taught to do it? To save every penny? Because from my experiences here in the US, people aren't so conscious about their spending, what they spend their money on, and they don't wait for sales. If they want food, they just go buy it.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I don't know why I do it. Maybe it's in my nature to not overpay for something if I could actually save money. It's like for me, sometimes it's like sport, you know? If I see something I could buy for half of the price, it’s— So I'm looking for bargains. I prefer to visit two, three different supermarkets to buy food on sale and save money than just go in one place and buy whatever I see. I don't know. Maybe it's in my nature. Not because I’m from Soviet Union, because I know other Russian people, and they actually don't save money for food and buy whatever they want to.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I guess it depends from person to person.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, I think so.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So, you came here. You handed out flyers. You didn't live in the best conditions. What was the first apartment that you lived in? Or the first place that you lived in?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It was an interesting experience. We just start looking, and first we stay with our relatives for a couple of weeks and start looking for apartments, and what we saw, it was killing us. It was dirty, it was with cockroaches and with—it was something with awful smell. Actually, it’s because we had little money to spend, we were looking for very, very cheap apartments, so— My wife was crying and she said, "Okay, I would like to go back. I don't want to live in those apartments." Because in Moscow, it was a small apartment, but it was clean—it belongs to us so we care about that and it was clean, and okay, it smelled good— Okay, but when we saw an apartment which was just renovated, and that it was clean and no smell, and so we loved—it was small, it just was studio with kitchen. So we loved it and we moved in—it was just two of us, it was more than enough for two of us. It was in the Bay Ridge area, a good safe area in 1993 when we moved to America. So that's how we started. But then, when you were born, we had to move to a new apartment, a little bit bigger. But I already worked at that time, so we could afford it. It wasn’t a good apartment. It was two bedrooms, a two bedroom apartment, but it was small and not as good. So in a few years, I keep working, and we moved again to a much better apartment, still in Bay Ridge.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: And you liked that apartment?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, we liked that apartment. And the best part of that was the view. It was a view on Downtown and Midtown Manhattan, Statue of Liberty and Hudson River, and the view was just amazing. It was so I could look at it every day for a long time, and it always was different because of how the sun is—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: —shining—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: —shining through, yeah, and nighttime, so it was very good. And I was—so enjoyed it, probably, until 9/11. Because when I saw everything that happened on 9/11, it actually really changed me. Because I had been working very, very close to the Twin buildings. I saw it just from a very, very close distance, how it happened, how the building collapsed, how the planes hit the buildings. It was a nightmare.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You worked close by there?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah. Not quite about a mile, I would say less than half a mile from the Twin buildings.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Would you say that changed your view of America in any way?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Not America itself, but something really changed. It was like, you know, you lived in some sunny conditions, and then clouds came. It's like everything is the same, but something is different, and you couldn't explain, actually, what’s changed, but it was.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Did it impact your view of how safe you felt in America? Did you feel safer before 9/11, or the same? Do you still feel safe? Do you feel safe?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Pretty much, I do feel safe, but before 9/11 I didn't think about safety, actually. The Bay Ridge area was very safe, and so we could walk around at midnight without, actually, to be afraid of people around us. Because in—when I left Russia, when I left Moscow, it was the 90s and it was very, very dangerous there, so—it was very dangerous just to walk around. If you don't have to go out, it's better to not go out. But when I came to America, it was very—I was so impressed, I don’t feel any dangers around me.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Did you—so you had this really safe view of America, and you could go out and it was much safer in your eyes than it was in Russia when you left. Did you think about going back to Russia to live there because—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, never. </span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Never?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Never again.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You didn’t feel like the dangers of another terrorist attack warranted going back?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Whatever could happen, now it's my country. Whatever will happen, now I will be part of that. So I'm not thinking about to go back, whatever it is.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So would you say you identify as an American now? If someone asked you what you were, would you say you’re an American, or—</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Definitely.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You wouldn't say you were a Russian?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Nope. </span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Interesting.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: My roots are Russian. I still speak in Russian, that’s…[inaudible]</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What do you think it means to be an American? What is an American? </span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I don't know. </span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What does it mean to you?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I just live in a great country. It doesn't mean I like everything that is happening to our country, and it could be much better, and it's probably getting worse than it used to be in the 90s. But I believe in America and I believe we could—but I believe we could do better.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Do you think it's worse than when you came here?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What do you mean?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You said you think it's not as good as in the 90s, right?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, and because of, it's because of economy, because of, actually—probably it started from 9/11. It's how the country started changing, and—we are not so open as we used to be, and that's what I liked about America.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What do you mean by open?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Open to—ok, open to do things we would like to do. We are not limited to anything by, but by law only. And—so I understand, some things are done for our safety, and I understand it, and I agree with it. But it’s—it is different now, than it used to be. So when you go somewhere, and now when you—we just came from Italy, and when you go to airport, it’s a few checkpoints when security screens you. I remember days when we just go to the airport and sit on the plane and go to another country without any screening. As I said, I agree it needs to be done and it's for our safety, but it’s different.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So you're saying when you went to the airport before 9/11, there wasn't any security? There was no—?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: There was security, but they didn’t check actually your luggage. They didn’t check you, so you just pass by on your flight.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Really?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yep.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Do you feel confident in America’s future. Do you feel like I will have as future—a good as life as you did? As better, or worse?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I don't know. It looks to me that the labor market is much worse than it used to be in the 90s. And I see a lot of young people who graduated in colleges, they couldn't find a job. But I believe America could change something about that. To create more workplaces—so for your future, as well.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, a lot of people in my school, in my college, they are very cynical about their futures, and from what we talk about in class, a lot of them feel like their futures won't be as good as their parents’. Granted, their parents, a lot of them weren’t immigrants like mine, so they didn't have to go through as rough conditions, but they don't seem as hopeful for the future as perhaps I do, or you do. Do you think I'll earn as much as you, or have as good a job as you? Do you feel confident in that?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Not so comfortable. Not so confident. But I still believe in America. America could do something about that. I believe in it.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Do you think hard work—if you work hard in America, you will be successful here? That you will achieve your dreams here?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, I think so. I think so. Yeah. If you work hard, if you have knowledge, if you have ambitions. You could do whatever you want to do, you can achieve whatever you want to achieve.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Where do you think that attitude comes from? Do you think—we were taught growing up that that’s the American dream, an American idea. But I seem to think that that’s a Russian ideal. That if you work hard, you will succeed. That you have to work hard, that you have to, that you really have to try. You really have to hustle, that you really need to bust your ass to do everything you can and go to sleep tired.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I don't think it's a Russian idea. In Russia, you could work hard and you could be very smart, but to be successful, first of all, you have to have connections. Only connections could help you with some goals, not yourself. There are some exceptions, but I mean for a majority of people, it's just by connections, not by your talent. And again, in Russia, back in my time, if you’re Jewish, you are very limited in the position you could obtain, so… A lot of limitation for Jewish people. At least used to be.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: From what I know, maybe not you, maybe not Mom, but my grandparents—your parents—had to do two or three jobs on the side just to earn money. Right?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Most of the people just work one job. We didn't pay for much, we didn't have mortgages, so we don’t have to pay. We didn’t have to pay for mortgages, just for food. Just save some money for vacation. It was actually the purpose to earn money. Salary wasn't big, but you didn't have to pay for education, you didn't have to pay for medical service. Medical service wasn't good, but you didn't have any choice. And probably you—you didn't have to pay for that, but you had to give some gifts, something meaningful to get good medical service. And sometimes you had to bribe to get into college as well.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: To give bribes, rights?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You'd say you are a hard worker. You and Mom work hard, right?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I think so.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Why do you think you do it? What makes you work hard?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: First, I like my job. And actually, I have to earn money. I don’t know, if I had enough money for all my needs, maybe I would afford early retirement and travel, and go spend my life, maybe more interesting than just work, sometimes much more than eight hours. But I have to earn money to pay my mortgage. It’s just twenty-six years left to pay off my mortgage. I hope I will still be alive at that time. So I had to do it. And I like to do it. Sometimes it’s difficult, and it’s a lot of pressure, a lot of stress. But it’s—what is it? What it is.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So you do it for your family? You do it so that you can afford the things you want in life?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It's for my family, to be able to travel, to be able to pay for your education. For other things. To go to restaurants sometimes. To afford things I would like to afford.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I think we could do this for many, many days, weeks. It's been an hour, and I did learn a lot about your life. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me? Anything in particular about your experiences in life or here? Or anything you’d like to share with people? Maybe some hopeful message?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I don't know, actually.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Any advice you would give for people to be successful?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Be a good student. Learn a lot. Be a hard worker. To be ambitious. And you could achieve whatever you would like to.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>AG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Thank you very much, Sergey Gendelman. That was a great interview. Thank you for that.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You’re welcome.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">(End of Interview)</span></p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Sergey Gendelman
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Contributor
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Gendelman, Sergey ; Gendelman, Allan
Format
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audio/mp3
Description
An account of the resource
Sergey Gendelman is a first generation immigrant in America. His roots are in Moscow, Russia. He received a degree in electronic engineering. He went on to further his education in the Soviet Union as a programmer. He immigrated to New York City in 1993 and he worked a few odd jobs until becoming a programmer once again. He continues to live in New York City area with his family.
Date
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2016-04-10
Rights
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In Copyright
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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Sergey Gendelman.m4a
Date Modified
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2016-04-13
Is Part Of
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Ukrainian Oral History Project
Extent
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61:26
Subject
The topic of the resource
Gendelman, Sergey Peter.--Interviews; Russians--United States; Diaspora, Soviet Union—History; Communism and culture--Soviet Union; Russian; Jews; Migrations; Ethnic identity; City and town life--New York (State)--New York
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/4c64c733ec9ae4bd0df2466db16abaf4.jpg
ad3c922c6231a85ac929459490f0a6ab
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3279e67db1969e6c1dd271093ac41629.mp3
849c2ac33c9ee5c4f840ebc53b0dc412
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
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</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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English
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Interviewee
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Shawn Wong, 1949-
Date of Interview
2010-08-23
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Stephen McKiernan
Language
English
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Binghamton University Libraries
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<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Shawn Wong is a Chinese American author and scholar. He received his undergraduate degree in English at the University of California at Berkeley and his Master's degree in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. Wong was a Professor of English, Director of the University Honors Program, Chair of the Department of English, and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Washington."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13309,"3":{"1":1},"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"9":0,"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Shawn Wong is a Chinese American author and scholar. He received his undergraduate degree in English at the University of California at Berkeley and his Master's degree in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. Wong was a Professor of English, Director of the University Honors Program, Chair of the Department of English, and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Washington.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Communism in China; Baby boom generation, Asian-Americans; Civil Rights Movement; Internment camps; Gender roles; Vietnam War; McCarthyism."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Communism in China; Baby boom generation, Asian-Americans; Civil Rights Movement; Internment camps; Gender roles; Vietnam War; McCarthyism.</span>
Duration
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228:32
Subject LCSH
Chinese American authors; Scholars; College teachers; Wong, Shawn, 1949--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Shawn Wong
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 23 August 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:03):
Testing one, two, three. Very good. I got a series of questions here and, of course, a lot of it may be spontaneous too, in response to your replies. I thought before we even start, I just want to say that I think it is very important in this project, when I am looking at the Boomer Generation, that I include everyone, and I have been trying to make this effort. And I also realize that sometimes when you talk about the Boomer Generation, born between (19)46 and (19)64, that ... I am looking at Boomers now more in terms of spirit because some of the people that were born say in (19)38 to (19)45 have told me, in no uncertain terms, that they feel like they're part of the generation, and then some even born afterwards too. So, it is kind of a spiritual thing as well as years-wise. First question. Still there?
SW (00:01:03):
Yeah.
SM (00:01:03):
Could you tell me a ... I have read your background. I know about it, but this is going to be in the book. Could you tell me a little bit about yourself? I know you grew up in Oakland. Your growing up years, what it was like being an Asian American male in Oakland, in the Bay Area, and basically information like who are your role models, people that you looked up to?
SW (00:01:28):
Sure. Actually, I was born in Oakland, but I grew up in Berkeley. We were living at Berkeley at the time, and my parents were students at UC Berkeley at the time. And other than the most obvious, parents being your role models. Both of my parents came from China, so they were part of that generation that came over after World War II, and intended to go back to China. But the communists took over China in 1949, and they elected to stay in the US, and the US allowed them to stay. So, I was born in (19)49, and I think I was lucky in that I was born in the Bay Area, and grew up in the Bay Area, because there were sort of Asian American role models around. I remember my mother always telling me that I was Chinese American but, as a kid, you do not really understand that. She said that my dad and her, they were Chinese, but I was Chinese American. And of course, I did not understand what that meant until years later. But one story that I always tell is that when I was about eight years old, UC Berkeley had a great football team. And I think in 1958, it was the last team to go to the Rose Bowl. But on the football team, they had a Japanese American football player, and his name was Pete Domoto. And I had never seen an Asian American doing something like that. Most Asian Americans were, Asian people, were engineers and doctors, not really any faces in pop culture or sports. And as a kid, I used to go to the Cal football games and, at the end of the game, a lot of kids would run down on the field, and try to get autographs or ... I remember football players often gave away parts of their uniforms, like their chin straps and stuff like that. And I remember running down there, and trying to get a close up look at Pete Domoto to see if he really did look Asian, and to get his autograph. And I never got his autograph, but I remember he was a real role model to me.
SM (00:04:39):
What became of him?
SW (00:04:41):
I will tell you in a second. One of the funny things is that [inaudible 00:04:46] kids, just like other kids at the time, I wanted to be Willie Mays, and things like that, but there were no Asian role models except for Pete, because he was on this famous award-winning football team. He became kind of a target of mine. And when I played football with my friends, my buddies, I would always pretend I was Pete Domoto. He did not play a glamorous position, he was left guard, but that is what I wanted to be. A left guard. And so when I first started ... I used to tell this story a lot, and when I moved up here to Seattle, I remember somebody asking me the same question about role models. And I told this story. And one day I was sitting here in my office at the UW and I get a call, and I answer the phone, and the person says, "This is a voice from your past."
SM (00:05:57):
Oh, my gosh.
SW (00:05:58):
I go, "Who is this jokester?" [inaudible] And you never know who is at the other end. And he said, "This is Pete Domoto." And I was stunned. I felt like I was eight years old. I said, "Pete Domoto? Number 60? Left guard at the Cal Bears?" I knew ... I remembered his number. And he goes, "Yeah."
SM (00:06:28):
Oh, my gosh.
SW (00:06:29):
[inaudible] talking about me. And I said, "Yes, I have." I said, "Wow, I cannot believe you're calling me." And I said, "Where are you calling from?" And he goes, "Well, it just so happens, I am the head of pediatric dentistry here at the University of Washington."
SM (00:06:50):
Oh, my gosh.
SW (00:06:53):
And he says to me, "Would you like to have lunch?" And I go, " Yeah."
SM (00:07:01):
You can get his autograph.
SW (00:07:03):
Yeah. I even said on the phone, "Can I have your autograph?" I reverted to my eight-year-old self.
SM (00:07:12):
My, what a story.
SW (00:07:14):
So, we went and had the lunch, and I remember calling a friend of mine as soon as I hung up, who was an executive at Budweiser, Anheuser-Busch, and he was my age and grew up in Berkeley, and he was also Chinese. And I called him and I said, "Andrew, guess what? Guess who just called me?" And I said, "Pete Domoto." And he goes, "No way." And my friend Andrew said, "I still have his autograph."
SM (00:07:45):
Oh, my gosh.
SW (00:07:47):
So Pete had a, I think, a big effect on Baby Boomer Asian kids growing up in the Bay Area. And this was way before having a role model like Bruce Lee or other Asian Americans who have sort of made it into pop culture. The only Asian images in the movies were these very, very stereotypical images played by actors who were not even Asian, like Charlie Chan. Or we were always the villain or the enemy in World War II movies, or ... there were not really any positive images, or we were Hop Sing on Bonanza. Servant, laundry man, soldier, enemy soldiers, things like that. So, it was important to have somebody like Pete Domoto around.
SM (00:08:53):
Yeah, that is an unbelievable story.
SW (00:08:56):
Yeah. We became friends. I got his autograph. I even brought a ... at his retirement party, he asked me to come and speak at his retirement party. I brought a football. A UC Berkeley football, and I asked for his autograph again.
SM (00:09:15):
Wow. You're talking about growing up in the late forties and (19)50s, a lot of the Boomer kids, and whether ... I read the history books. Now we are talking general histories now, we are not talking Dr. Takaki and some of the others that have really concentrated on the Asian American community. I was a big Iris Chang fan too, and that was a big loss killing herself. But the thing is, what was it like ... when you watch those television shows, a lot of people look at 1950s TV, and certainly if you're an African American, you rarely see a person of color except for Amos and Andy. And then Nat King Cole had a six-week run in the middle (19)50s. And other than that, you wait to the early (19)60s for I Spy and-
SW (00:10:10):
Right. All you had were, if you look at other role models, [inaudible], Tonto.
SM (00:10:19):
Now, you obviously were very conscious of not seeing very many role models. Was that pretty prevalent amongst kids your age for that period?
SW (00:10:32):
Yeah, I think so. We looked at our peers, and lots of our peers had role models. Baseball players, football players. Or we found role models and other people that were involved in pop culture. Musicians, artists, things like that. And I think we were looking specifically for Asian American, not Asians from Asia. Obviously, people would say, "Well, be proud that you are Chinese. Chinese invented gunpowder and paper," et cetera, et cetera. I'd never even been to that country.
SM (00:11:26):
When I first started this process, I remember one person said to me, "You are talking about the Boomer Generation. When I see that term, I think of white men. I do not even think of people of color." And they were not even thinking of women. They were thinking ... but I said, "No, the effort is to try to reach all particular groups, because the Boomer Generation was a boom for everybody." And in your own words, can you describe, as best you can, the Asian American experience in the United States in the following timeframes? I know this is just general, which in ... I know I am going to get more specific later on, but what was America like for Asian Americans during the following periods? And the first one is 1946 to 1960.
SW (00:12:20):
Well, that was a time when, certainly, I was in school, and schools were dominated by pretty much monocultural education, as you know. Columbus discovered America, George Washington never told a lie, et cetera, et cetera.
SM (00:12:41):
He cut down a cherry tree.
SW (00:12:44):
And someone like me never saw an image in any of the books that had any kind of resemblance to reality. Obviously, multicultural education was a long ways off. And I had the good fortune of going to schools that were, for the most part in the Bay Area, and they were very sort of racially mixed, especially in Berkeley. But I do remember, in the second grade, my father took a job as a civilian engineer for the Navy. And my first grade, I was lived on Guam. And second grade, we moved to Taiwan. And that is my first experience being in an Asian country, other than visiting Hong Kong or relatives or stuff like that. But we lived in Taiwan, and the first day of school, the US Navy bus came by to pick my mother and I up, and she went with me. And I remember the story my mother tells me, told me the story, I do not quite remember it, but I remember parts of it, the US Navy bus came by, this gray typical Navy bus, picked us up in front of our house, and we both got on the bus. And as soon as I got on the bus, all the kids on the bus started chanting, "No Chinese allowed on this bus," because it was basically a white ... all for white American kids. And I remember thinking to myself, "Oh, it's okay. She's my mom."
SM (00:14:43):
Wow.
SW (00:14:44):
I think they were referring to me. And I sat down in the chair, and this is the part I do remember. A little girl named Pam came up to my mother and said, "Can I sit next to your son?" She said, "Sure." And she sat next to me and held my hand, and we rode together on the bus every day after that.
SM (00:15:13):
And what was your age?
SW (00:15:15):
Second grade. I was like seven or eight. I think I was seven, at the time. And so, it was really interesting to be an American in a Chinese country, and to have been brought up American, and I did not really speak Chinese. I sort of understood it. My parents spoke Mandarin. But growing up, at that time, that was sort of ... since my father worked for the Navy, we traveled around a lot. And by the third grade, he had come home to Berkeley. My father passed away of lung cancer when I was seven.
SM (00:16:07):
Sorry.
SW (00:16:11):
So we grew up there, and then my mother remarried a few years later. We moved to LA with my stepfather, which was a real awakening, I think. In the sixth grade, I went to inner city school in LA. And sort of been coddled in this nice Berkeley school, suddenly I find myself in the inner city with African Americans and Latinos. And they were hardcore kids, but certainly not as hardcore as they are now. But it was a real wake-up call. The whole school was Asian, and Latino, and Black, and different kinds of Asians. It was really shocking to me, and I thought I would not even survive that last year of [inaudible] elementary school.
SM (00:17:12):
And what year was that?
SW (00:17:14):
That was 1960.
SM (00:17:19):
(19)60.
SW (00:17:20):
And from there we moved to the suburbs, and the school became basically entirely white.
SM (00:17:30):
When you look at that period right after the war right to the time that President Kennedy was elected. Obviously, Japanese Americans had been interred in World War II concentration camps, really, out in the West. And of course, when the war ended, there was this attitude in America against the Japanese. I can remember growing up as a kid in the (19)50s up near Syracuse, and Ithaca, and Cortland, New York, World War II people saying Japs. They always used that term, because they had really ... they had hurt our boys, as they said. They had really done terrible things to our boys. So, the basic question I am asking you, and I know that the Chinese Americans, at that particular time, were working in all kinds of plants. So, they were more favored at that time, were not they, than Japanese? And then the restriction between those groups. So, there's not only cultural issues, but there's groups issues between Asian Americans.
SW (00:18:42):
Oh, absolutely. I mean, in many ways, the history of Chinese in America is that they, in the 18 hundreds, they were the pariah race of America, all these exclusion laws to keep them out of the country. And then, when World War II broke out, they were praised for, basically, not being Japanese, and then received acceptance until, of course, the communists took over China, and then Korean War came, and suddenly China became a threat. So the Chinese went back to being suspect race in many ways. And then, in the early (19)60s, when the civil rights began, Asians were then praised again for not being black, and the depiction of the model minority sort of started. There was a Newsweek article, I think, or US News and World Report article about 1962, I believe it was the first article to reference this model minority thing. And the article was called Out Whiting the Whites, and creating ... and essentially, congratulating Asians in America for their achievement. But the underlying message was you are not Black, and you are not [inaudible] all this ruckus. So, it has been an interesting history of what you might call ... oh, I do not know. In one book I wrote, I called it The Great Suffering and Acceptance Sweepstakes. You go through these periods of acceptance and rejection.
SM (00:20:59):
When you think of the (19)50s, you do not even ... again, I am just using this as a white person who's done a lot of reading and scholars, you hear about the Japanese and the Chinese, but you do not hear about many of the other groups. And occasionally, you might hear a little bit about the Vietnamese even before then, but other than when you're talking Asian Americans, you really ... people are probably only thinking Japanese and Chinese, are not they, really, in the (19)50s?
SW (00:21:27):
Much until after World War II, and then more Filipinos started to come. And after World War II, you had a lot of war brides. And then, of course, after 1961, immigration laws were ... LBJ signed into law reforms on immigration [inaudible]-
SM (00:22:01):
But what do you think the-
SW (00:22:03):
Remove some of the quotas. But essentially there were severe restrictions on Chinese until 1943, and World War II basically removed all of those immigration restrictions against the Chinese. It had to, because now China was an ally.
SM (00:22:28):
The question I always bring up here, particularly for those Asian Americans that were born in the United States, either during World War II or after, I consider them kind of together. I am learning that they need to be together, because that had similar experiences, and spiritually they went through a lot of things together.
SW (00:22:51):
And also judged by the same stereotype. It did not matter if, say, you were Chinese or Japanese. [inaudible] media stereotype [inaudible].
SM (00:23:01):
What do you think the impact on Boomers that were born in that period, who were Japanese and Chinese, the ... were they having the same ... they were having the biases and prejudices within the American society, but were they ... African Americans were still fighting for equality in the South. We had young, even white and Jewish Americans going South, and Catholic priests, to help the African Americans in the early (19)60s. And then, of course, we had the free speech movement. And just so much happening in the (19)50s that really was the forerunner to the (19)60s, and I just want to know the influence that this had on Asian American Boomers.
SW (00:23:54):
Well, I think among the Boomers we identified with the ... we came of age during the civil rights movement. So we stopped being Orientals and became Asian. And the term Asian American was coined. It became a political term just like Afro-American during [inaudible 00:24:19] particularly. So the beginnings of the free speech movement, particularly if you lived in Berkeley, you were affected by that movement. And then I went to UC Berkeley during the ... all the period during a demonstration. And Boomers grew up during the, not only civil rights, but also Vietnam War. And particularly for Asian Americans in which US was fighting a war against an Asian country. Again, when we were children, we were now also depicted as enemy. And so that stereotype of the ... it did not matter whether the enemy was Japanese or Vietnamese or communist Chinese, it all got blended together in terms of popular media. And you're sitting there as a member of the Asian American Boomer Generation, and watching the war unfold on TV, and those images of Asians as the enemy.
SM (00:25:39):
Do you have the number of Asian Americans who fought in the Korean War, and in the Vietnam War?
SW (00:25:46):
Yeah. There was a number of Asian Americans in World War II, and the Korean War. World War II, of course, the Japanese Americans, they got the highest profile for 442nd regiment. But in the Vietnam War, there were a lot of ... I do not know the number, but there were a lot of Asian American veterans. In the early (19)70s, some friends of mine, we had a little radio show on KPFA in Berkeley, in which we interviewed returning Asian American Vietnam men, and the difficult adjustment they had in the military as well as afterwards, in which they were subjected to a daily barrage of racial stereotyping, and the enemy being referred to by all the derogatory Asian names.
SM (00:27:06):
Wow.
SW (00:27:06):
And I remember one veteran telling me when he got to Vietnam, his sergeant told him, "Ever take off your uniform, grow a beard, and do not ever go swimming, because we cannot tell you apart from the enemy." So, there you are living in that kind of state, and listening to the kind of racial epithets every day.
SM (00:27:44):
So basically, the Asian American military experience in Vietnam may be similar to what African Americans were going through, because the nation was really split apart at that time. And African American vets, particularly between (19)67 and (19)71, when they say the military really went downhill, they got involved in drugs and long hair and rock music. Were Asian Americans in the same boat, except they ... they had similar feelings?
SW (00:28:22):
Well, I think so. As you know, the draft was on then. So, the draft, obviously, targeted people who did not have a deferment at the time. No student deferment, no ... so many of the soldiers came from a particular class of America. And then, of course, later in the war, they removed all deferments, so you could not even get a student deferment. As we know, it was not only an unpopular war, but those who did serve, they, I think, got it from both sides. They got it not only from within, the racism that was present within, the culture of the armed forces then, but also on the outside from those of us who did not believe in the war. I think nobody blamed the soldier, but certainly felt alienated.
SM (00:29:35):
When you look at, going the next period, you have talked already a little bit about the (19)60s. But that being an Asian American during that 1961 to 1970 period, I might even say (19)61 to (19)73, because a lot of people say the (19)60s really ended ... went until (19)73, (19)74, and the Vietnam War ended in (19)75. So maybe from (19)61 to (19)75, what was it like to be Asian American in America at that particular time? And I also, and I am going to preface this by saying, were Asian Americans also involved in the anti-war movement?
SW (00:30:15):
Yeah, they definite ... well, I have a little bit of acute view having grown up in Berkeley, so I cannot really speak for all Asian Americans across the country. But certainly Asian Americans were very much politically involved, particularly, from where I stood. And it was not only the civil rights movement going on, but the anti-war movement, but also the rise of the demonstration to establish ethnic studies in universities, and Asian American studies. And everybody was sort of involved in the act of renaming themselves and re-identifying themselves, picking on political labels like Asian American. Negroes stop being Negroes. It became Afro-American. Asians stopped being Oriental, became Asian. Things like that. So, I think, as I recall, it seemed like the entire population was united in all of these efforts to end the war, to make, since we were all in college at that time, to make our universities be relevant to our experience, to recognize us, and to sort of react against that kind of monocultural education that we grew up in. Education ... I did not find out about Japanese internment camps until I was a senior in high school, which little paragraph in the history book. I went to Berkeley High School, and there is this little paragraph, and I remember sitting there going, "What are these?" And what's interesting is even my Japanese friends are saying, "Well, what are these things?" And we were up in arms. Finally, we had a cause.
SM (00:32:31):
Yeah. It is like-
SW (00:32:32):
It rooted itself in history. And I remember my Japanese American friends would go home and say to their parents, "Wow, there are these internment camps." And the parent said, "Yeah, we were in them." And then the kids would say, "Well, why did not you tell me about them?" "You never asked." And it was something that Japanese America was ashamed about and tried to erase.
SW (00:33:03):
About and tried to erase and tried to keep in the background. But the boomer generation that arrived in college now wanted to make some noise. Now wanted to rectify history. Later in the (19)80s, it was that boomer generation that started the redress movement to get redress for town.
SM (00:33:26):
That was the (19)80s to (19)90s period of the Reagan and Bush.
SW (00:33:29):
Yeah. So Reagan finally signed into law redress and Japanese Americans who were in camp got paid redress. Then it was the boomers who finally arrived in positions of influence as civil rights attorneys, et cetera, et cetera. Who brought that cause forward. All of that stuff that was happening in the early (19)60s was our education outside of academia to build a social and political consciousness that would move forward with us into our professional careers.
SM (00:34:17):
Obviously, you were at Berkeley and Berkeley has always been a progressive way ahead, a forerunner of things to come. A lot of people criticize it now that it is not doing that. Except I believe it still is because we see the students protesting their tuition increases. Some graduate students have actually left out of silent protest over those increases. But when you look at the period from the (19)90s, let us say from when Bill Clinton became president through George Bush and then President Obama, that 20-year period, what have the (19)90s and the first 10 years of the 21st century meant? For not only boomer Asian Americans, but Asian Americans as a whole?
SW (00:35:08):
Yeah. Well the face of Asian America changed completely post mid-(19)70s. When I was going to college, even at UC Berkeley, Asian Americans made up 6 percent of the student population in Berkeley. And it was mostly Chinese and Japanese American middle class. And now on any big metropolitan flagship public university, you might have anywhere from 12 to 15 different kinds of Asian ethnic groups on campus. I think the face of Asian America changed drastically with that new immigration. That new first generation gave birth to an Asian American generation that grew up in America and entered college. During that period, the first Vietnamese who came over and after the fall of Saigon, those kids are the ones who just starting college during the period you are talking about. So, what you had was an interesting mix of maybe fifth, sixth, even seventh generation Chinese Americans and the fourth generation Japanese Americans mixed in with brand new immigrants and second generation, southeast Asian generation. And in American Chinatowns for example, the face of an American Chinatown changed drastically. Chinese Americans at the time would go into Chinatown and not recognize any food anymore. Cause new immigrants took the place that traditional American Chinese American Chinatown, the town.
SM (00:37:41):
I know Vietnamese food is unbelievable.
SW (00:37:44):
Cuisine chain. Part of that typical Chinese American fair the Chinese Americans could not even recognize. I remember during that time in maybe the late (19)70s being asked at a restaurant one time, "What kind of noodles do you want?" What do you mean what kind of noodles? And then they rattled off a list of the different kinds of noodles.
SM (00:38:15):
Wow.
SW (00:38:16):
Oh wow. I do not even know what they are. Shanghai noodles and this kind of noodles. And so whereas other ethnic communities tended to stay the same. I remember a great article in San Francisco magazine in which an Italian American in North Beach was lamenting that his buddies, his neighbors, his Chinese neighbors that he's lived with his whole life have moved away. And he's saying, my new neighbors do not even speak English. That was a great comment because he's lamenting that the other Chinese moved away. Replaced by these new immigrants.
SM (00:39:08):
Well, when you look at higher education, and of course the evolution here of going in the 1950s, when you see the numbers of students in the (19)50s and going into the (19)60s and (19)70s, and you see this major progress with the state universities, not only in California but in New York Community college, state university systems. They're evolving at the same time that the increase in population of Asian Americans is happening. And then to me, and this just as a white person who has spent 33 years in higher education, that Asian Americans, their future is so directly linked to higher ed. And they were with it, so to speak, in terms of making for progress and for growth and development and developing careers. They saw the value of education.
SW (00:40:06):
Yeah. Right. I think that a case in which the previous generation who grew up after World War II or even before World War II, our parents' generation, they lived during a time in which there was second class citizenship. You could have been trained to be an engineer, but you could not get a job as an engineer even if you went to college. And my father was an exception that they actually got a job as an engineer. But it was difficult for our parents' generation to, even if they went to college, being able to find work because of there were not any equal opportunity things or [inaudible] laws, stuff like that. This is the time. I remember my mother going on a rant one day about when she was laid off from her job. This was after she had married my stepfather. And she and my stepfather both worked in the aerospace industry. She was a draftsman, an engineer. And she got laid off from the job and she came home and she said her supervisor told her she was laid off because one, my stepfather still worked for the company and two between her and the other guy, the other draftsman had to support his family.
SM (00:42:02):
Oh my gosh.
SW (00:42:04):
Of course, this is also at a time in which women were paid less than men. And I remember my mother just going on this rant because she was a single mother after my father died and she had to work to support us. And just at a time when all of my friends' mothers were home and they were housewives. None of my mother's friends worked. And those are the last vestiges of 1950s America.
SM (00:42:52):
So, people think, again, they always think of these white fathers and mothers where the mother's at home, but this is really America.
SW (00:42:59):
I remember it was my first lesson in gender issues. I remember thinking to myself, that is unfair. I was there when my mother had the struggle.
SM (00:43:16):
Go ahead.
SW (00:43:17):
So I think a lot of that, the boomer generation took forward because we were that first generation who got to go to college and go into the field that we majored in and graduated. Finally, that opportunity was open. I think our parents wanted us to go to college. But also, I think it was different for my parents because they were both college educated and when they came to America, they were already read and speak English. But for families that had to make a big cultural adjustment, they saw that as the opportunity for children to improve.
SM (00:44:25):
I had just some developments that happened in the United States in the world after World War II and wondering how they affected the Asian Americans here on the home front and also the immigration of those who came here during this time. I will just lift these and then you can comment on any of them if you want to. We all think about Mao Zedong and the Chinese Revolution in the late forties. And of course college students were carrying his little red booklet around college campuses. I know a couple students that actually read it too. So, it was not like it was just for show for some, but what Mao really stood for. Secondly, we know that Nixon went to China and despite what a lot of people dislike about him, a lot of people think that was a very important thing to happen. Thirdly, Iris Chang who passed away, she gave a speech about a couple of months before she died, and she talked about in the (19)90s about the spying about Asian Americans being accused of being spy. So, now Chinese Americans, again, were being looked upon in a negative way. And the fourth item, and you can comment on any of them, de facto may have had on the population as a whole, Tienanmen Square to me, was one of the most important events in my lifetime as a person who devoted my life to higher ed. And to see what happened to those students at Tienanmen Square was like the students at Kent State University. There is no excuse for it. And I just want to know what those events, how those four things affected the Asian American community.
SW (00:46:24):
I think those of us who were born in America and were Chinese American, I think we had a very complicated relationship with those world events. The first being Nixon's visit to China. You have to remember it is a country that our parents may have come from, but we had never been to, and suddenly the world's attention is on. And there was a great CBS documentary that was done just before Nixon went to China and it was called Misunderstanding China. And it was a look at narrated by Charles Kuralt, who had hair then. He introduced the documentary by showing all of these stereotypical movie images. So, this is what we know about China. Then they move into reality, the kind of China that you might be exposed when Nixon goes there in the media. So, I think for many of us, we have been combating media stereotypes of being Chinese in America for such a long time. Now we are on the cusp with Nixon's trip to China and afterwards of reality. And even China of itself is being revealed in a way that has never been seen before. I remember a bunch of things. Insane or really interesting things like the Chinese food is not like the Chinese food we have at home, my God. But there were a bunch of things that happened during that period. I think Chinese Americans fought hard not to be defined by it because it was on everybody's tongue. It was now acceptable to go to China. Nixon opened to China basically, and now Americans could go there to get visas to visit China. And then years later when everybody started to go to China, I remember people would tell me about their visits to China and they would talk to me as if I knew what they were talking about. They would say, oh, you know, Forbidden City. And I would just nod my head. I felt reluctant to tell them, in the (19)90s, but I had not been there. They just assumed I have been there, somehow, I have been there. My first visit to China was not until 1998, and that was to, we were not counting Hong Kong, but that was to Shanghai for three days. I arrived there and I figured it out, but something like 50 years to the day when my parents left China. And so we had this odd relationship, that China not really recognizing Chinese Americans for decades. Because I think China felt that you were in that generation that left China, but you overseas Chinese were basically clumped together. And in China we did not really have an identity in a way. Only recently has China shown real academic interest in Chinese America, Chinese American history.
SM (00:51:02):
The Tienanmen Square situation though in 1989, I would like your thoughts on it because obviously it was a major event in the world. But I can remember coming back to my university in late August, September. No one wanted to talk about it. And what amazed me is we had quite a few students from China, the international student organization, that did not even want to talk about it. And I think maybe they were here on visas and they were fearful of it and I could not understand. So what I ended up having to do was I went to Temple University and got three graduate students who were not afraid to speak up. They were strong activists and I brought them to the university and even still then the Chinese students did not come out to see them for fear that if they were in the audience, they would be watched. We were a small school. What is it about Tienanmen Square? To me it was about democracy.
SW (00:52:06):
Yeah. I think for the foreign students, it was something that they were, I think rightly afraid of to comment on. Get them expelled from the US they thought, or they might have repercussions back home, or their family. But I think for Chinese Americans, boomers particularly, it was something we recognized. It was that kind of public defiance that we grew up with at the (19)60s and (19)70s and it resembled the free speech movement. It had all the earmarks except for the tanks and all the earmarks of the things that we had gone through. But even with the tanks, I mean certainly we got tear gas from helicopters and things like that. And then as you mentioned, Kent State.
SM (00:53:14):
Yes.
SW (00:53:16):
On one event, it captured all of the events of the (19)60s and early (19)70s when our campuses were on fire and on strike and being shut down. Civil disobedience was something Boomers recognized [inaudible] plot. And if you look now you look at China. You think, oh, I do not think this is what Mao had in mind.
SM (00:53:55):
Well, it is interesting though that my nephew went to China about four years ago. And when he got on the plane, they were all counseling. They said one thing you do not talk about when you get over to China, it is Tienanmen Square. And you're going to go Tienanmen Square but if you start talking about the 1989, they will put you on a plane back to America.
SW (00:54:16):
Yeah.
SM (00:54:17):
And I say, you got to be kidding me. No. Then they will not allow any protests even to this day on Tienanmen Square. And-
SW (00:54:25):
You can talk about it now.
SM (00:54:28):
You can talk about it?
SW (00:54:30):
Yeah. I mean, a few years ago I was there on a trip during that exact period you are talking about. When the book Gentleman Papers came out. I was on a trip for the State Department visiting southern China, some universities there, and you really could not talk about it then, but now you can. I was just on a trip there a couple of years ago and as a guest of what the equivalent to like the USIA in China. And they said to us right off the bat, there's a group of writers, you can ask us anything, we will talk about anything. We talked about Tienanmen Square, we talked about banned books. These are officials.
SM (00:55:33):
Based on your experience...
SW (00:55:35):
They were intent on changing. I have never been in a country which the entire country was intent on changing its image. And this was just before the Olympics. We knew we were on the very manufactured kind of visit, but still, they kept reassuring us to talk about anything. We will talk about it. The idea was it's a new China, entirely capitalistic now, and it was. They were trying to change their identity prior to the Olympics.
SM (00:56:26):
One quick question though regarding it. Put your thinking camp on regarding what was happening here in the United States in the fall of 1989. At the university you were teaching at, I do not know if you were at the University of Washington, but was it also quiet there? No one talked about it? Or is it just our college?
SW (00:56:46):
Well, people noted it, I do not know. I do not recall what the Chinese student reaction was. But I think publicly Asian students as a group supported what was going on. And I think it may be different on the West coast.
SM (00:57:13):
My thought was here we have college administrators running universities who were boomers and they immediately saw Tienanmen Square and they thought uh-oh, activism. And so they were very happy that colleges were quiet in the fall. We brought Lee Lu to campus and he believed that one day they would come back and take over the leadership of China. I will get back to the question here in a minute. There was a faculty member on our campus who was probably in her late forties, and I mentioned about Lee Lu and about Tienanmen Square and some sort of a conversation. She went into a rage saying those students were the worst. I lived in China then, and those students were terrible. They tore our country apart. She did not care that they were killed. It was just amazing the reaction of a person who was probably pro-government, an anti-student. Looking at some of these other things here. When you look at the 1950s again, Asian Americans had issues in America during the time that, well, all boomers were younger. These are some of the issues and can just, this is kind of the mentality that was happening in say from the 1950s through the 1980s. We had McCarthyism where there was a fear that people were communists.
SW (00:58:49):
Hang on one second.
SM (00:58:50):
Yep.
SW (00:59:11):
Sorry Steve.
SM (00:59:11):
That is okay. Did McCarthyism and that attitude not only of HUAC, but of McCarthyism in the late forties, and then of course the (19)50s affect Asian Americans? Because in reality, anybody who supposedly had been a member of the Communist Party, they were looking. They were looking for communists everywhere. And that must have made Asian Americans feel tense.
SW (00:59:39):
Oh yeah. Lots of things in Chinatowns, for example, ended during that McCarthy period, Chinatown had a healthy group of labor unions, for example, and all of those disappeared during the McCarthy era. The labor unions whatever manufacturing was going on, or the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance and other places, Chinatown, all of those labor unions disappeared because labor unions were looked upon as a socialist construct. And so Chinese went into a period in which the last thing you want to do is be perceived as a communist or any red or pink, and to disassociate yourself with communist China. You had public demonstrations embracing the nationalist Chinese flag in the streets of American Chinatowns during festivals and embracing a country, almost none of the Chinese of Chinatown ever been to. And disassociating themselves from post 1949 China. Not to mention that China, the China that these immigrants had left is no longer in existence.
SM (01:01:18):
Let me turn my tape here. Hold on a second.
SW (01:01:25):
I might take something that was on my iPod.
SM (01:01:31):
Oh yeah. Well I am old school, but they still sell these.
SW (01:01:42):
Or what was it? I picked something on iMovie.
SM (01:01:42):
Well, when you go interview people, you got to have a recorder. You can continue on McCarthyism.
SW (01:01:49):
Right. So again, even in the (19)70s there was a red scare. And Hoover was investigating American Chinatowns for secret communists. He posted these hand bills around Chinatown in Chinese. One second, I will read part of it to you.
SM (01:02:23):
I also know that Lyndon Johnson feared that communists were behind the anti-war movement. The dissonance.
SW (01:02:29):
Hoover posted these leaflets around Chinatown and (19)71 and (19)72. I will just read you the beginning and the end. "Now that you have settled in America, you are not only entitled to enjoy the various blessings of America's free political system, but in addition, we will be able to shoulder the responsibilities of protecting these free traditions." Blah, blah, blah. "Communists frequently engage in secret activities within America's borders and plot to destroy the free traditions of China. While our bureau is on constant alert, it pays close attention to these matters. From now you too may join our defense against communism."
SM (01:03:17):
Oh my gosh.
SW (01:03:22):
"This, while in America you'd become aware of communists or [inaudible] spy who are engaged in intelligence or destructive and subversive activities, you are urgently requested to telephone the local branch of the FBI."
SM (01:03:37):
Wow.
SW (01:03:39):
But down at the bottom they talk about, all you have to do is report. You do not have to carry out your own investigation. And then it says, "You must realize that investigation is a specialized and sophisticated profession, and if ordinary people attempted, they not only risk their own safety, but also risk startling the snake from his hiding place."
SM (01:04:02):
Wow.
SW (01:04:02):
Signed J. Edgar Hoover.
SM (01:04:02):
You got that framed?
SW (01:04:02):
These are posted in Chinese.
SM (01:04:02):
Oh my gosh.
SW (01:04:14):
Around Chinatown.
SM (01:04:16):
That is a collector's item.
SW (01:04:18):
So these leaflets obviously placed the entire population at risk. Of course, now, because it was signed by J. Edgar Hoover, he was a little off his rocker.
SM (01:04:34):
We found out he also wore dresses. I do not know if that is true.
SW (01:04:36):
So yeah, he had a name too for himself, I forgot what it was.
SM (01:04:52):
When you look at some of the other things here. I guess mainly I just want to know that the Asian American boomers and families were well aware that these things were impacting their lives as well. Obviously the Korean War. How were Korean Americans treated in the 1950s during this particular war? We have talked about the Chinese and Japanese, but how were Koreans treated?
SW (01:05:12):
I do not really know too much, but there was not a huge population of Korean Americans around the time, not like there is now. So, their immigration is [inaudible] numbers is basically post 1961, (19)63, when they started to arrive in the larger numbers.
SM (01:05:39):
Were Asian American students or youth boomers involved in the counterculture in the 1960s? I bring these things up. Woodstock and the Summer of Love and 1968, which tore the nation apart and the assassinations obviously, and then even going back to where... And even going back to where Asian Americans aware of Freedom Summer in (19)64 and what young people were doing in the South in early (19)60s, risking their lives.
SW (01:06:12):
They're all certainly part of that. But I think all the boomers, no matter where you were from, got involved in pop culture of (19)60s and (19)70s. I graduated from high school (19)67, the summer of love, lived in the Haight-Ashbury while I was going school and that kind of thing. And I saw around me a lot of Asian Americans who embraced that culture and everything about it, our hair long, but we went to college.
SM (01:07:09):
Yep, and you were influenced like all of them.
SW (01:07:12):
We were doing it. We were not exactly dropping out, but-
SM (01:07:17):
In other words, you were basically inhaling and not-
SW (01:07:22):
No-no.
SM (01:07:23):
You were inhaling but you were not taking, right?
SW (01:07:26):
Right. We were not actually holding it. Going, in those days, you went to other public place and just sort of stood around, you could not help but inhale.
SM (01:07:37):
I know, that is why Bill Clinton saying he never inhales really is amazing.
SW (01:07:41):
If it is a rock concert, you do not have to touch one, but you are inhaling constantly.
SM (01:07:50):
To me, 1975 is a major year. Vietnam means a lot to me. If you can tell, my whole life I have been involved in civil rights, and I have actually worked with a lot of Asian American students. I have advised Asian American students for over 20 years, and so I got to know a lot of them. They were always in my office talking. But one of the areas, I was very close to Vietnamese students, and I still, most of my Facebook is with Vietnamese students, have gone on different careers and so forth. 1975, when the helicopter went off the top of the embassy, we all know the people that did escape and were on the ships and everything, they got back to America or different parts of the world, and of course that was the beginning of the boat people. And then we know what happened in Cambodia with a Khmer Rouge. We have had [inaudible] on the campus, and the exodus of people from Cambodia. I have known students from Laos and Thailand and even India and Pakistan. What is it about 1975 and that helicopter that really not only impacts boomers who were really in the anti-war movement and veterans who were in the war itself, but also to possibly Asian Americans themselves as a symbol of the new flood of immigrants into the United States?
SW (01:09:30):
I am thinking one thing from Asian American point of view, watching the fall of Saigon, in some ways there is a sense of relief. Now the war's over. We're not the enemy in the media every night. And so that image is, people I think felt finally will go away. It may take some time, but it will go away, or at least until the next war against an Asian county. And I think there were two significant events. Prior to the helicopter lifting off from the American embassy, the other one I remember when I was in college was LBJ saying he was not going to run again. And that was, I remember standing there with a bunch of other people, wow. We might see an end. And we thought, I think that too was a significant moment. And I think other people, or Asian Americans, other things happened following that. During the Iranian hostage crisis and stuff like that, when there was talk of any kind of internment, Iranian American, Japanese American boomers spoke. History repeats itself. And I think what happened was, among boomers particularly, is that in the early (19)60s through civil rights and on, not only did Asian Americans sort of reinvent themselves in a political way by renaming themselves, but also, they, I think established a political coalition among all Asian Americans. Whether you were Middle Eastern or Asian from Asia, the idea of things that we learned from history have to be brought up in a way that is politically supportive. I remember Japanese Americans speaking up on behalf of Iranian Americans at the time.
SM (01:12:48):
Well, the boat people is kind of a sad story because as many as 2 million people I think tried to escape and many died. But one of the, I used to mention this to the students, your mom and dad never would have met if they had not met in a camp. And they never thought of it that way, because a lot of the Vietnamese students that I have known, their parents met in camps.
SW (01:13:12):
Yeah, the very first ones who came over in (19)75 were ethnically Chinese. So that was interesting to see that, particularly from our point of view as Asian Americans. When the Vietnamese came over, they were Cantonese speaking Vietnamese. We realize, oh, these folks are Chinese.
SM (01:13:43):
It is interesting, there are a lot of naysayers and doubters and critics. There is still a lot of bigots in this country as you well know. And it's interesting that in the Vietnamese population that came over here in 1975, I have heard this from others, not from students, but from people that I think are a little biased, they say, "Well, if the Vietnamese can come over here in 1975 and be a smashing success in life with good jobs and everything, and they have had to work, some of them worked in the cities and sold things on the streets and they worked their way up, why cannot African Americans do the same? They have been here 200 years." Have you heard this before?
SW (01:14:29):
Oh yeah.
SM (01:14:31):
They always talk about the Vietnamese. It's the Vietnamese comparing them to the African Americans.
SW (01:14:36):
Yeah, I mean it is a popular racist assumption.
SM (01:14:41):
Yep-yep.
SW (01:14:41):
Minority group off against another.
SM (01:14:47):
Yeah, I think that exists today.
SW (01:14:54):
Yeah, oh absolutely.
SM (01:14:57):
Yeah.
SW (01:14:57):
And you cannot fall into that trap.
SM (01:14:58):
Yep. Agree. I am going to go back to Berkeley here. I am all over the place, but you were on the Berkeley campus as a student from (19)67 to (19)71?
SW (01:15:04):
I was actually at San Francisco State for two years, (19)67 to (19)69, during the Hayakawa years.
SM (01:15:14):
Yeah, those were all over the news.
SW (01:15:18):
And I got disgusted with Hayakawa, so I left and went back to UC Berkeley, and I graduated from there in (19)71. And then I went back to San Francisco State for graduate school in creative writing and ended up having SI Hayakawa's name on my diploma.
SM (01:15:37):
Oh my gosh. Well he went out and become a senator.
SW (01:15:40):
Yeah.
SM (01:15:42):
What is interesting about him is-
SW (01:15:42):
Ronald Reagan's name on my diploma.
SM (01:15:47):
Wow. That is a historic document.
SW (01:15:50):
Ronald Reagan.
SM (01:15:52):
Two people that really, really put their careers on the line against students really. People's Park happened in (19)69 when you were there, I believe, at Berkeley, and that was a pretty rough experience. And then of course, Hayakawa had his experience with the African American students at San Francisco State. Just, obviously, again I am asking, maybe repeating myself and the experience that you have, but in your peers and your Asian American students at that time, they were experiencing both of these. How were they taking this in, the People's Park and the SI Hayakawa confrontations?
SW (01:16:36):
Yeah, I mean Hayakawa was, just infuriated Asian Americans because of his, not only his conservative stance, but he also took a very sort of conservative view on the internment camps too.
SM (01:17:07):
Oh wow.
SW (01:17:08):
He was Canadian. He would not even speak out against the internment camps. I forgot what he said, but I remember he said about-
SM (01:17:14):
So where was he during the internment camps?
SW (01:17:14):
Well, he was Canadian, so I do not know where he was, but he certainly did not experience it. But the Japanese Canadian experience is much worse than the Japanese American. Japanese Canadians were sent to abandoned mining towns. Now they were not allowed back to the West Coast until (19)49 or something.
SM (01:17:28):
Right.
SW (01:17:42):
But yeah, Hayakawa was just, every Asian American just wanted to disown him.
SM (01:17:45):
What is amazing is he was a very highly visible person then.
SW (01:17:48):
Yeah, and was just, as I recall it, just infuriating because his stance was basically anti-student.
SM (01:18:00):
Wow.
SW (01:18:00):
I think we went through six presidents that year until the governor finally was able to, because none of the governors wanted to bring police on campus. None of the presidents wanted to bring police on campus at San Francisco State, and so they were fired. And finally, Hayakawa was hired and immediately brought the police on campus, which of course caused the riot.
SM (01:18:30):
You wrote the book, American Knees. Now I have got to admit, I have not read it, but I will within the next month because every person I interview, I must read their books. Now, I read someplace in one of the things on the web that said that it was a cultural, that you wrote American Knees as a cultural response to Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club. Is that true?
SW (01:18:59):
Oh, I do not think that is quite accurate. I remember somebody saying that, but now I do not know.
SM (01:19:10):
How do they differ? How do those two books differ?
SW (01:19:14):
Well, I mean, Amy Tan's book is a very, very commercial sort of venture. And I mean, for what it is, I have to hand it to her, the chief kind of commercial success that book put on me, but I do not personally agree with her stance in the book which is basically, to put it in a very short form, you read her book or you see the movie version and you come away with one conclusion, which is, Chinese culture sucks. And I have aunts who are the same generation as her main characters and they never talk about their culture like that. If anything, they go the opposite way. They're just boring me to death about how great Chinese culture is. And to represent Chinese culture as misogynistic or more misogynistic than any other culture is, I think, wrong. But my book is certainly not a response to her book. I do make a mention, I allude to her book late in my novel, and that is the only illusion to Joy Luck Club. And that is probably the only dig, and it is really about the readers of Joy Luck Club rather than the book itself.
SM (01:21:00):
Yeah. I read an interview that, you have seen it too on the web, which is the one where you and filmmaker Eric Byler were together?
SW (01:21:09):
Yeah, Byler, yeah.
SM (01:21:09):
And you were talking about the model minority. And I think it gets, in the conversations that I have had with some of the female students who were Asian American, many have gone on to become doctors and nurses and accountants and everything, they really got upset when they hear that term model minority. It really, and it is even today, it is something that just, and they kind of laugh it off and all this other stuff, that we are so much smarter. I know a couple students that had some hard time in math, so you cannot stereotype. But can I read something here, because I want your response to it?
SW (01:21:56):
Yes.
SM (01:22:00):
Because it is from the interview, and I might, it says here, "So now we have Raymond Ding in the novel, a lady's man, almost a womanizer. And so those people who have this agenda, they claim that finally we can say that Asian men are virile, sexual, charismatic, charming. We can finally show that we can dress up in clothes, and we can appropriate their version of masculinity." And then down below here is, "We can be just like you. Is not that what the model minority myth is all about? Where the mainstream culture says, 'Hey, there is a place right here next to us.' It is almost as high, your chair will be almost as high, and that is the best you can do. And all you have to do is follow these little rules: be a model student, be a model minority, be a model prisoner, follow the rules, and you will be next to us." I think that is beautiful because of the fact that is kind of like joining a fraternity and it is-
SW (01:23:01):
It is about conformity.
SM (01:23:04):
Yeah, and I just think at the bottom here it says, "And yet there are performances in American Knees that are very, very Asian, very Asian American, that do not suddenly throw off our own culture in order to burrow into another." And I think that is be who you are and do not be a copy of what other people want you to be.
SW (01:23:26):
Right. Right. Well, actually, Raymond Ding, the main character is very flawed individual and he sort of comes to terms with that during the book, as well as the film. The film's obviously very different from the book. I am thinking only-
SM (01:23:56):
Would you say that Asian American boomer men and women have had to deal with these perceptions, not only today, of the last 20 years, but-
SW (01:24:05):
In a different way. So we work hard to reject not only the most obvious media stereotypes, but also the negative stereotypes, but also those sort of so-called positive stereotypes, being the model minority and college educated, quiet, hardworking. Another statistic out there that says Asian households have highest income, does not take into effect there might be more working members in the household, that kind of thing. That model minority myth is out there, simply as we noted earlier, its main purpose is to pit one minority group off against another. And you cannot accept that label when you realize that it becomes a stereotype. And the goal of any racial stereotype, the ultimate goal of any racial stereotype is to have that racial minority eventually believe in the stereotype. So, if the stereotype is you work hard, but you keep quiet and you do not upset dominant society, and you do not try to be aggressive and things like that, if you believe in that stereotype, then you're doing the work of the oppressor for them.
SM (01:26:05):
Very-very well said.
SW (01:26:07):
Same thing like the gender issues. A woman's place is in the kitchen, not the boardroom. So the ultimate goal of that stereotype is for the woman to believe that, "Oh, I could never be a CEO. My role is in the kitchen." So, believe that, and you are made to believe that stereotype, then dominant society or male dominated society does not have to expend any effort or attention to keeping that engine going.
SM (01:26:41):
I think Phoebe, you know Phoebe Yang?
SW (01:26:44):
Yeah.
SM (01:26:44):
Well, Phoebe was on our campus right after she got married and before she wrote her first really big book, actually it was her second book, and she mentioned she had been a lawyer and was involved with [inaudible] Magazine. Now she's gone on to do unbelievable things, very success in everything she does. But she said she went to China and she was at a conference in China and she was in a boardroom. And they were all sitting around this table in, I think it was in China, and one of the men looked at her and said, "Can you go get me a cup of coffee?" Because he did not, she was the only female in the room. She was a lawyer too. And she said that was so prevalent in China. The attitude that men have over there toward women is go get me a cup of coffee. Well, she did not get them a cup of coffee, but that was a very revealing experience that she told our students. And here she was a lawyer at that time and all the other things, but it was perception people have of women, maybe not only here but around the world.
SW (01:27:52):
Well, certainly, I think so. But to represent, I think it's wrong to represent China as being more misogynistic than any other culture. Look at Italian culture.
SM (01:27:52):
Oh, that is true.
SW (01:27:52):
Or there is somehow, another popular stereotype is to show that China is more misogynistic.
SM (01:27:52):
Did the Asian American community, after World War II, concentrate on dealing with xenophobia and pure racism, excuse me, and pure racism, but once after years they were accepted as Americans or some people label a model minority? I think what I am getting here, because this makes us feel, I guess what I am saying here is could you describe xenophobia in America? Is it as American as apple pie?
SW (01:29:02):
Yeah, I think it is sort of like, as you know, the progress or the latest immigrant to arrive in America always occupies the bottom rung of the ladder. As you recall, so Chinese of course, were once the pariah race of America, but so were the Irish, right, or the Italians or whoever the latest immigrant is. Not only does the racial hatred follow them, but also, and look at the vicious stereotypes of Irish and Italians during the early 20th century. The attention spent on the kind of xenophobic energy is an American tradition certainly, but it has not always been about people of color. And the only difference is, to quote Richard Rodriguez, is that during this history in America, Western Europeans had stopped being who they were, could choose to stop being German or choose to stop being Irish. You could change your name, but people of color did not have that luxury of deciding to stop being whatever culturally ethnic roots they come from. And as you know, even in the 2008 election, America has a very, very difficult time talking about race, and still does. I find it, everybody finds it difficult to talk about race, and we still do not get it right.
SM (01:31:12):
Yeah, there is a professor at, I think he is at New York, is it, no, he is at Columbia. He's an Asian American professor. He has written a couple books and he said-
SW (01:31:21):
Yeah, Gary Okihiro.
SM (01:31:24):
No, I am interviewing him. No, not Gary. One other professor is Lee, Dr. Lee or Lou? Anyways, he has written a couple books about the fact that America's forgetting the issue of racism, and he was really talking about the Bush administration putting it on the back burner. So he's written some really good books. What laws were passed since World War II that have had the greatest impact on Asian Americans?
SW (01:31:54):
I think just, well, just prior to World War, or during World War II, 1943, they ended, Chinese Exclusion Act ended in (19)43. So that had the biggest effect on Chinese American, Chinese. And then the Immigration Act of, some people say (19)61 to (19)63, was revised a few times, but between (19)61 and (19)63, I think the Immigration Act was finally rewritten so that issues of race were removed from immigration laws. It is all about nationality rather than race. And the quotas moved up for the people for every country. In (19)43, when immigration was relaxed or Exclusion Act ended for Chinese, the quota was just, I forgot what it was, 109 per year. So effectively, it was still on, or 105 I think per year, and then there were lots of exclusions to that. So, after World War II, Congress had to pass the War Brides Act, and then after that they had passed the GI Finances Act. And then in (19)53, what is it, the Cable Act. I am a little fogged here, copies for quite a while, but '53 race was removed as a bar to immigration. So, I think all of those things.
SM (01:34:08):
And Brown was very important too, Brown versus Board of Education?
SW (01:34:13):
Oh yeah, Brown versus Board of Education.
SM (01:34:15):
And the (19)64, (19)65 civil rights bills?
SW (01:34:18):
Obviously, the Civil Rights Act, ending second classes citizenship for at least the outward, obvious second class citizenship. And also after World War II, for Asian Americans, World War II actually gave them the opportunity to leave their ethnic community. Hawaiian Americans could leave the plantation and join the army. Asian Americans who were in the Army got the GI Bill, et cetera, et cetera. So the same thing that was happening for women in the workplace was happening now for, I think, minorities. All people of color found opportunity during and after World War II.
SM (01:35:24):
Who are the best writers, the books that you really liked, that had an impression upon you when you were younger in the (19)50s, (19)60s, (19)70s, (19)80s say, that personally had an influence on you? And then if there is any Asian American writers who think that people need to read this if they really want to understand the Asian American community, not only in the past, but now.
SW (01:35:56):
Well, it is interesting. I mean, when I was at Berkeley, I think I was 20, I decided I wanted to be a writer. And I remember thinking to myself at the very moment that I decided that, I also realized I was the only Asian American writer I knew in the world. I could not name one, and no teacher, no high school teacher had even mentioned the name of one, or no college professor ever mentioned the name of an Asian American writer or assigned a book by an Asian American writer. And I remember going to my American literature professor and asking him, "I am interested in Asian American literature. Can you suggest a book?"
SM (01:36:50):
And what year was this?
SW (01:36:50):
This was in 1970.
SM (01:36:50):
Unbelievable.
SW (01:36:55):
And I decided, well, I got to do this on my own because I cannot be, somebody must have published something before me. I went and started researching the field and I ran into a couple of other young people who were my age or a little bit older, Frank Chin, and Jeffrey Chan and Lawson Inada, and the four of us started looking for Asian American literature for all sort of young writers, pretty much unpublished. And we found them; we found these books. They were out of print. They were in used bookstores, but basically outside of academia. We found these books and we ended up publishing the first Asian American literature anthology in 1974, and it basically started the study of Asian American literature. You read any sort of literary lit crit work on Asian American literature, they always mention our anthology. And at the beginning, they also take exception to our point of view, which is healthy.
SM (01:38:16):
And that is really when Asian studies was starting right then too, correct?
SW (01:38:20):
And so I always say I became a professor by accident because I just wanted to be a writer. And I thought, well, I will end up being a waiter for the rest of my life, or taxi cab driver, like most artists. And when I came out of school, I went to undergraduate school, I went to graduate school in creative writing back in San Francisco State, and while I was in graduate school, ethnic studies departments were just starting. And there was a job at Mills College and- There was a job at Mills College and we had a brand-new ethnic studies department, so I applied for the job. I had no graduate degree yet, no teaching experience whatsoever, and no publications. They asked me, they interviewed me and said, what can you teach? I said, I can teach a class in Asian American literature and only one other person, my colleague Jeff Chan, was teaching a class at the state on the subject in the entire country. They said, you are hired.
SM (01:39:06):
Wow, that is good.
SW (01:39:06):
And I was sitting there thinking, wow, do I really want this job? I was working as a gardener at the time. I think I was making more money, and then I noticed that Mills College was an all-female college and I was 22.
SM (01:39:06):
Oh.
SW (01:39:06):
I said, I think I will start my academic career. But it's funny, I tell people I started my academic career teaching a subject I had to teach myself, that I did not learn that at university.
SM (01:40:17):
That is a story in itself.
SW (01:40:18):
Then we published the first anthology of Asian American literature. It was Published by Howard University Press, and African American publishers were the first ones to recognize Asian American literature. They published our anthology, published my first novel, Homebase, they published my second anthology. So Asian American publishers, I mean African American publishers, were quick to understand where Asian American literature stood. After our anthology came out, Aiiieeeee, it was reviewed everywhere. It was astounding, the reception. We did not think anything like that would happen. It was reviewed in Rolling Stone, New York Times, and Dr. Robert Polls wrote an essay about it in the New Yorker. There I was in my early twenties, and all I was trying to do was legitimize the field of literature I wanted to go into.
SM (01:41:49):
That is-
SW (01:41:49):
I am trying to educate the readers to something called Asian American literature.
SM (01:41:49):
That could be a movie.
SW (01:41:49):
Which I would eventually belong to, tried to belong to.
SM (01:41:50):
It is interesting because as an Asian American you were not able to find anybody who knew anything about Asian American writers or Asian writers per se. When I think of my first contact with learning anything about Asia or any of the countries in that part of the world, I think of Pearl Buck. I think of Graham Green and Tom Dooley. I do not know if you know all three of them.
SW (01:42:15):
Yep.
SM (01:42:15):
Because Tom Dooley was over in Vietnam in the (19)50s, and he was on Jack Paar's show, and, of course, Pearl Buck's right from Bucks County here, and she wrote some things. Now only until Dr. Takaki, we had him on our campus, bless his soul. His books are unbelievable. But you really have a telling true story here.
SW (01:42:43):
In the early (19)70s there were no books available. If you started teaching Asian American studies, there were absolutely no books, zero, available. When I taught Asian American literature, all the books had to be Xeroxed for the students. It is interesting you brought up Pearl Buck because after Nixon opened China, Pearl Buck applied for a visa to go back to China to visit the China of her youth, and the Chinese government refused her visa. In a public statement, the reason that they refused her visa was for the years and years of her distortion of the Chinese people.
SM (01:43:19):
Oh, wow.
SW (01:43:35):
It is interesting that they came out with that statement.
SM (01:43:36):
Wow. I know we are heading a little over. I got two more questions.
SW (01:43:40):
Sure.
SM (01:43:43):
One of the questions is I have asked everyone is the question of healing. I took a group of students to Washington DC in 1995 as part of our Leadership On the Road programs. We worked for the former senator, Gaylord Nelson, from Wisconsin, and we met nine former US Senators, and that day we met with Senator Muskie. So, the students and I came up with this question, and the question was based on, they thought, 1968 with that terrible convention and the cops and the young people, and of course the year was bad with two assassinations, and Tet, and the president, and the whole story. The question is this, due to the divisions that took place during the 1960s, the divisions between black and white, and I got, yellow was not in the question here, but divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who were against the war, those who supported the troops and were against the troops. Do you feel that the boomer generation of 70 plus million will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing from the terrible divisions that divided the nation during the time that they were young, and it's subconsciously affected them the rest of their lives? The students knew that only between five and 15 percent of the boomers were really involved in any sort of activism. So, they knew this when they were putting their question together. But there was a belief that if you lived at that time, even if you were not an activist, you were subconsciously affected by everything. So, what is your answer to that question? Do you think we as a nation or that this generation, now your part of it, is going to go to your grave or its grave, and where do you think Asian Americans are on this because all the divisions that they have had in their lives, particularly the boomer generation, as they are heading to social security now.
SW (01:45:50):
That is for sure.
SM (01:45:51):
It is unbelievable.
SW (01:45:52):
I think, well, I tend to be an optimist. I would say that those times, (19)68, et cetera, made us who we are. You cannot sort of say, well, I wish we had not done this, or wish we had not started UC Berkeley on fire. I think that is defined who we were, and it became part of our identity, whether or not you were actually active or not. It drew everybody in, particularly in light of the fact that everybody, because of the draft, for example, you had to have, you were actually out on the street demonstrating because of the draft, and as a young man you were part of it. You were made part of it. When you sat on the floor listening to the radio for your birthday to come up for the draft lottery-
SM (01:47:06):
Oh, yeah.
SW (01:47:07):
[inaudible] deferment. You sat there, and I remember the relief when my birthday came up 324.
SM (01:47:12):
You are lucky. I was 72.
SW (01:47:24):
And my other roommate was 348, but our third roommate was something like 36.
SM (01:47:31):
Oh, boy.
SW (01:47:37):
So, I think part of our generation is that partly you feel that tremendous relief that in one sense you had, and at the same time a guilt, in that you were suddenly you are this outspoken, vocal, committed generation, and then in one minute you were relieved from making that decision of whether you would go into the Army or go to Canada. And at the same time, you're looking at your roommate and he has to report for action physical.
SM (01:48:20):
Wow.
SW (01:48:20):
So everybody knew somebody who was at the wrong end of the ladder or had to go into the Army or died in the war. So, you struggle with the sort of dichotomy of having escaped, being escaped, having to even make a decision and being a part of your peers’ lives who had to endure the next step.
SM (01:48:53):
Right.
SW (01:48:53):
I think our generation was always, sort of had to deal with that kind of dichotomy. At the same time, I remember Tom Brokaw saying something key is that when we look at the world from our point of view of the (19)60s and (19)70s, and we look at the world as it is now, we bring our experience forward. Nobody's asking us our opinion. And he says, at the same time when we were in the (19)60s, did we ask anybody in the 1920s for their advice?
SM (01:48:53):
Yeah.
SW (01:48:53):
But we did not.
SM (01:48:53):
Yeah, that is true.
SW (01:48:53):
So, it is interesting that feel. I think we feel, or at least at times we feel, the generation that struggled to be as relevant as possible is now sort of becoming irrelevant.
SM (01:50:12):
Well, what Senator Muskie said is that he did not even respond to the (19)60s. People thought he would respond to the convention because he was the democratic vice-presidential running mate, and he said, "Well, we have not healed since the Civil War because of the issue of race," then he went on to talk about it. About the issue of race and the loss of lives during that war. So, thought that was interesting. Do you think the Vietnam Memorial, have you been to the Vietnam Memorial?
SW (01:50:40):
Oh, many times.
SM (01:50:42):
Yeah. What was your experience when you saw for the first time, do you think... Jan Scruggs wrote a book called, To Heal a Nation, and I have been to the Vietnam Memorial because to me it is the number one event of the entire boomer generation, Vietnam, and I feel I have to be there. So, I have been there since 1994 for Memorial Day and Veteran's Day experiencing it and trying to get a better grasp of it. And I have seen many Vietnamese there that are in the audience and walking around and thanking the American troops and so forth, and then I see many that are kind of distant and whatever, and the Hmong, I think it is the Hmong, they have been there too, as well. But what was your initial thought the first time you saw, when you walked to that granite wall? And the second part of the question, has it done anything to heal the nation from the war?
SW (01:51:36):
I think, you know, there were two things that struck me. Not only, it is basically everybody up there is my generation and the immensity of seeing 58,000 names inscribed on the wall. It's one thing. But at the very same time, I am also cognizant of who designed it.
SM (01:51:36):
Oh, yeah.
SW (01:51:36):
They hounded her as a young 20-year old architectural student being called all these derogatory racist things. And in the end, what I feel is what everybody feels, at the end she was right.
SM (01:51:36):
Mm-hmm.
SW (01:51:36):
Maya Lin was right. And people often ask me the standard interview question, what person would you most like to meet? And I always say, Maya Lin. I would like to meet her just to say what everybody says, I think. I just want to meet somebody who had that vision, who had that vision so young, and that she knew this was the right thing to do. I want to meet people who knew at whatever age that they knew the right thing to do. So, you feel, one, this intense loss, but you also feel that somebody did the right thing and that she's Chinese America.
SM (01:53:30):
Well, you reach a good point because when we are talking about women's issues too, it is interesting that two of the three statues were designed by, the wall was designed by Maya Lin, but the Women's Memorial was designed by Glenna Goodacre, and then the third design of the three-man statue, I forget his name, but that says a lot about women, too. That in a man's war...
SW (01:53:55):
Right.
SM (01:53:58):
And it was also a woman's war, and we cannot forget that. We continually forget this in history how important women were on the side of the Vietnamese. And so, women were very, and of course the nurses and the donut ladies and all the people involved on our side, so we have a tendency to make this a man's war, but it is a human war.
SW (01:54:20):
Right. As you know, the history of the controversy before the wall was built.
SM (01:54:28):
Right.
SW (01:54:28):
Maya Lin just had to endure all kinds of really vicious racism then.
SM (01:54:38):
Well, there are still people that do not like it. I interviewed a professor up in Boston who is a Vietnam vet, and he still does not like it, but there are a lot of different opinions. But I think it is unbelievable. It is the most widely attracted wall in Washington, I mean for tourists.
SW (01:54:58):
Yeah. I used to work for the, sit on a lot of national endowment for the arts panels in the early (19)90s. Every time I would go to DC, I would go visit the wall.
SM (01:55:11):
My last question then I am done, and it is real fast. And I only got about two, I think two minutes left on my tape here, two or three minutes. I am just going to list these names and neatly when I, as a white person now, as a person, and I am sure a lot of boomers if they were asked to list all besides entertainers now that have come about the last couple years or politicians, these people really stand out to me that had tremendous influences not only in the world, but in terms of... Still there?
SW (01:55:46):
Yeah.
SM (01:55:46):
And still in terms of our attitudes, Mao Zedong, Kim Yao Jung, President Thieu, Vice President Ky, Di Em, Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge, Chiang Kai-shek, and the Dalai Lama. I just brought them up. I do not know if they have any significance, to you or...
SW (01:55:46):
Well, they are certainly part of all that. All those names are part of the history of the boomer generation. I think there are probably some Asian American names in there you could probably add.
SM (01:55:46):
Well, Senator Inoyue is another one that is...
SW (01:55:46):
Yeah, Daniel Inoyue and other politicians like Gary Locke, the governor of State of Washington. So, others who actually, well, Daniel, I know he is not, but you know boomer generation Asian Americans who went on to become really figural on the ground stage in any case, or at least in our eyes.
SM (01:57:18):
Yeah. And finally, what do you think the lasting legacy will be of the boomer generation when the best books are written 50 years from now?
SW (01:57:26):
I think I do not want to know. I think the desire to live a life that is relevant and respond to the things that go on around us. The injustice, simply just to be cognizant and relevant to your society, no matter when you are living, even if you are on the cusp of facing social security.
SM (01:57:56):
Right.
SW (01:57:56):
I was speaking up.
SM (01:58:00):
Yep. I agree. Well, that is it. Do you have any questions that you thought I was going to ask that I did not?
SW (01:58:06):
No, I encourage you to watch Bill Moyers, that documentary.
SM (01:58:11):
I have got to. I saw part of it on YouTube, but I have not been able to see the whole document.
(End of Interview)
Description
2 Microcassettes
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Interview with Shawn Wong
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Wong, Shawn, 1949- ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
Subject
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Chinese American authors; Scholars; College teachers; Wong, Shawn, 1949--Interviews
Description
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Shawn Wong is a Chinese American author and scholar. He received his undergraduate degree in English at the University of California at Berkeley and his Master's degree in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. Wong was a Professor of English, Director of the University Honors Program, Chair of the Department of English, and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Washington.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2010-08-23
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In copyright
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.210a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.210b
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2018-03-29
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McKiernan Interviews
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228:32
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/1a6b3a1fc4fb3e45eeee0a1ea4f14205.m4a
a5d10e9b168478abf7d6e2d2d51e5f0d
Dublin Core
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Title
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Broome County Oral History Project
Subject
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Broome County -- History
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
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The Broome County Oral History Project was conceived and administered by the Senior Services Unit of the <a href="http://www.gobroomecounty.com/senior">Office for the Aging</a>. Funding for this project was provided by the Broome County Office of Employment and Training (C.E.T.A.), with additional funding from the Senior Service Unit of the National Council on Aging and Broome County government. The aim of this project was two-fold – to obtain historical information about life in Broome County, which would be useful for researchers and teachers, and to provide employment for older persons of a limited income. The oral history interviews were obtained between November 1977 and September 1978 and were conducted by five interviewers under the supervision of the Action for Older Persons Program. The collection contains 75 interviews and transcriptions, 77 cassette tapes, and a subject index containing names of individuals associated with specific subject terms. One transcribed interview does not have an accompanying audio recording. <br /><br />In 2005 Binghamton University Libraries’ Special Collections Department participated in the New York State Audiotape Project which undertook preservation reformatting of the audiotapes, and the creation of compact discs for patron use. Several interviews do not have release forms and cannot be reviewed.<br /><br />See the <a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">finding aid </a>for additional information.<br /><br /><strong>Acknowledgment of sensitive content</strong><br />Binghamton University Libraries provide digital access to select materials held within the Special Collections department. <span>Oral histories provide a vibrant window into life in the community.</span> However, they also expose insensitive, and at times offensive, racial and gender terminology that, though once commonplace, are now acknowledged to cause harm. The Libraries have chosen to make these oral histories available as part of the historical record but the Libraries do not support or agree with the harmful narratives that can be found in these volumes. <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/digital/">Digital Collections</a> are created for educational and historical purposes only. It is our intention to present the content as it originally appeared.
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2
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In copyright
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Ben Coury, Digital Web Designer
Yvonne Deligato, Former University Archivist
Shandi Ezraseneh, Student Employee
Laura Evans, Former Metadata Librarian
Caitlin Holton, Digital Initiatives Assistant
Jamey McDermott, Student Employee
Erin Rushton, Head of Digital Initiatives
David Schuster, Senior Director for Library Technology and Digital Strategies
Coverage
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1977-1978
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<a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections, Broome County Oral History project</a>
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Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Woodward, Shirley
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Wood, Wanda
Date of Interview
1978-08-16
Collection
Broome County Oral History Project
Date of Digitization
2016-03-27
Duration
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48:32 Minutes
Streaming Audio
Streaming URL
<a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE56055">Interview with Shirley Woodward</a>
Subject LCSH
Woodward, Shirley -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Historians -- Interviews; American Revolution Bicentennial, 1976; Town of Maine (N.Y.) Historian; Nanticoke Valley Historical Society; Broome County Historian
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Broome County Oral History Project</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interview with: Shirley Woodward</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interviewed by: Wanda Wood</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Date of interview: 16 August 1978</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: This is Wanda Wood interviewing Mrs. Shirley Woodward, Town of Maine Historian, in her home at Union Center and the date is the 16th of August, 1978. Shirley, why don't we start at the beginning and find out where you were born and how long you have lived in this town here, etc.?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Well you may wonder about that because I was born in </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Florida</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">, Gainesville, Florida. My father was a teacher, university teacher, and for three years he taught in the Univesity of Florida and I happened to be born in Florida. But he actually is from upstate New York, went to Syracuse University and taught there and then came back—after I was born—they came back and taught there for a while—and now lives in Auburn. Runs a museum there, he’s a historian, he was historian for Cayuga County for 25 years. He's retired. So—a I met my husband at Cornell and that's how I came down here, after we were married I came to </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">this</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> area. His family is old pioneer settlers. They came in 1800s to settle—one of them 1794 to this area.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: In the Town of Maine?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Umhmm. Town of Maine in Union Center. This half of Union Center is in the Town of Maine. So—that’s how I came </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">here</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: So you had a pretty good—a background for—a developing this interest in historical things.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: I guess so. I grew up in a museum, you might say. Our life revolved around a museum… historical…artistic and </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">facts</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in the museum. And—a well I'm trying to think when I got started in history down here. That's another story, too. When our first child was born I was given a little baby book and in the baby book here's a part in the middle of it says: Parents, Grandparents, Great-grandparents. So l started to fill his out and as I was talking with various relatives and they would tell me about </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">their</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> parents and </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">their</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> grandparents, it just, I guess you'd say the bug bit me. (laughter). From there on I couldn't stop. And so I got into his genealogy dealing and of course being history, </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">interested</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in history… The previous town historian here in Maine was a cousin of—a Gordon's mother and he was an elderly gentleman.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: And what was <span style="text-decoration: underline;">his</span> name?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Ollie Ketchum. Oliver, they called him Ollie. Oliver Ketchum. They lived right <span style="text-decoration: underline;">in</span> the village of Maine and he had all the information right in his <span style="text-decoration: underline;">head</span>. Anybody wanted to <span style="text-decoration: underline;">know</span> anything, they'd just go talk to him and he would </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">know</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> everything and he was in his 80s or 90s when he died, and they were looking around for a new historian and Dr. (Clement) Bowers, who lived up in Maine at that time, happened to be a great friend of my father’s and he knew that I came from a historical family, I guess, and he knew I was interested and, I, of course, was going to the historical society meetings in Binghamton and I knew him there, so he…suggested my name. That was way back in early sixties. It was either ‘60 or ‘61, I’ve been historian that long. But I had to start from scratch, because there were no records.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Oh, the man had kept it all in his head!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: They were kept…all in his head, uh huh. Yeah. Well—</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: —wasn't much of a <span style="text-decoration: underline;">help</span> to you, was it?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: No, but it's been fun collecting…and people give things to me and they will go either in the historian's office or in the </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">new </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">historical building. You know we have a historical society here in the Town of Maine called the Nanticoke Valley Historical Society and we've bought a house and fixing it up…should be open either this fall or surely by next spring…it will be open. And so a lot of the artifacts that have been given to me will probably go there. The—a documents and</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">historical things pertaining to the town and its development along with the town historian's office which will be in the new town building when they build it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Ohh, that won't be connected with the, historical…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: No. Actually they're two different things. That's where the town historian has to be very careful of things pertaining to the town and the development of the town that are given to them as town historians go into town records and the historical society usually collects artifacts. Now a town historian does not collect chairs and plows and spinning wheels and things like that. </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">That</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> is the historical society’s business.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: They're two separate entities.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Yes. And like the town historian does not collect genealogies of the town people because this, these are the people that lived in the town; this would go in the town historical society.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Then your main duties are collecting records, actually.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Town records, yes, and caring for the town records.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: But anything </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">you</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> might collect, that would go to…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: That would go to the historical society, like an artifact. Like if somebody gave me—a an old spinning wheel or something. This would go to the historical society because this has nothing to do with town </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">records</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">, but is something they want to keep in the </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">town</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">and, and they want to donate it. Now this is, you have to be very careful.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: It's good that you have…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh, there's a </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">line</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> there.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: …a cooperative feeling between the two of you.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Some town historians, everything they get goes right to the historical society </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">or</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> it goes right to the town and the first thing you know the town has got a, a museum in its town building and that's…unless they really want it that way. In a rural town they could do it, but in our town we don't </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">want</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that. We want it to be separated. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: But there's a lot of—a lot of history in the Town of Maine…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: You have to work together. Oh surely, surely. You work together.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: It's an old, old town for this section, isn't it?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sirley: Yeah. Umhmm, 1794...first settlers were in here. They came to Union Center here this—a right here…in Union Center in 1790 & ‘92. The first mill…right down there on the creek… right on the creek was built in ‘92.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Is that where the bar is now? The…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh, no, ahm—</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: …one by the bridge?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh, oh, the bar? (laughs) Where the bridge is.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: That must have been where the mill was then?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Yeah. And there was a sawmill there and a grist mill…rake factory and they were all very a well, Brazil Howard ran them and a </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">this is his table</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">… Gordon's grandfather. That chair there is his.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Brazil?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Brazilai. Good Bible name. They called him Brazil, or they call him Zilla </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">called him</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Zilla—Brazilai, that's an old, old Bible name. So, well, that's how I got started being town historian.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: What do you actually have to </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">do</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">—what—I <span style="text-decoration: underline;">know</span> you do a lot that isn't required— (laughter)—but what <span style="text-decoration: underline;">does</span> a town historian have to do, by law?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: It's just maintenance, or caring for the town records or any records or pictures, photographs and records—written records—pertaining to the town. And now with the newspapers and things, you collect articles from the newspaper and file them away in folders under their—a headings. Like churches would be in one folder and schools in another and highway development. If an old house is torn down you get a picture of the old house and there'll probably be a newspaper article. Things like this, but there's no rule that says that you have to write articles or write history, or—a in fact you don't even have to do genealogy or any of this type thing. You just do it because you </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">like</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> to.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: You get </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">hooked</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> into it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: But it's just really…you, you maintain the records and possibly gather new records pertaining to the town, that's…when there's a special event in the town…newspaper write-up, why then you cut it out and file it away.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Now this is separate from the records that the clerk keeps, like births and deaths?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh yes. Those are vital records, they have nothing to do with the historian’s office.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Then your main interest is in—a genealogy, I gather.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh yes, starting way back with the little chart in the baby book. Yes, we've traced o family, Gordon's family, the immigrants, Mayflower. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: And you've been doing wonderful things for the county historian's office, too.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh yes, we've been… I've been indexing records—a there. Making them available… I mean, if somebody has to come from California, they've got three hours to spend. And it takes three hours to read one census if it's…just to find a family. It's, well it's time consuming. But if it's indexed and they can look in the index and, say their family's in a certain town, all they have to do is go right to that town and look, look at it 'n then they can copy the original record and that's it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Then you get these records from what—cemeteries and clerks, town clerks and that sort of thing?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Well—a, now the county records would be the census records and the surrogate records and the deed records. These—a these are public property. In other words, I say public property, they're, people can go in and look at them and research 'em. The cemeteries—I have collected 'em because they are important, but they have nothing to do with being town historian or anything. It's—a the cemetery stones are there, you go to the cemetery associations and they have the records…hopefully. 'Course there's a lot of them that are no longer in existence and records are </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">gone</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and—a…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: But all this goes into that genealogical file…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: This, then is genealogical—umhmm, and—a church records—you go in and copy out the names of people, when they joined the church, baptized, married, deaths. You go into the old newspapers, which are on file in the Binghamton library on microfilm or in the Endicott papers, you've got them in the Endicott library and you read the obituary notices and the marriages in these papers, that’s genealogical. you can read the papers and the histories. The papers then were just like they are now, they had the local history and they used to have columns…who would come visiting. They don't do that anymore in the papers, you know, and it's, it's really sad, 'cause to me that's what a newspaper is—your local history and so somebody's aunt and uncle from out west is visiting and, I mean, you may not </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">see</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> them, but it's nice to know they came and visited…and hundred years from now it gives you a clue as to…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Where they were at what time.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Yes. Yeah. Oh they're so valuable. Of course they have vital records now which they didn't have a hundred years ago and I suppose it isn't necessary anymore to read the newspapers to find out who, who is having a baby and who got married and—(laughs)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: But think of all the leg work you save for people who are coming from far parts…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Well that's, that's the reason for doing it…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: …and trying to find these records.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: …that's part of my job, is helping people…find the material. And the best way to find it is by indexing.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: When did you start? Did </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">you</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> start this genealogical file at the county historian's office? Did you start that work when </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">you</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> were county historian? </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: No, no. I had these files started long before, because I started with the Town of Maine— 'course you can't just do one town—you start doing the surrounding towns—first thing you know you've got the whole county done. But when, I started just with the local records then I began to realize how important it was and then I indexed the county histories because I was always looking…trying to find a name and 'twas, about the third time you read an article and you say, “This is useless, to read the same thing over and over again just to find one name.” So, you index it…and I just got in the habit of getting a historical book and just, as I went along, indexing it on little cards, 3x5 cards, just the name and the page number, then, then I'd stamp each card with a reference, name of the book and file them alphabetical and then—a a year from now when I'm looking up a surname, why I can go back and here's all these cards…this book on page so and so has got information of that man and this census on a certain page there's family information. Ah—on another book there's a write-up about his farm. It's—a, it's all indexed.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: It's like a computer system, isn't it?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: It is. And the newer historians now, in fact the county historians’ meeting in, in September, one of our lectures is going to be on on should you put things on computer or not?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Well how do you feel about it?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: I think it's great. It's just that I've done it </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">this</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> way. So there's no need for it now…in Broome County. But—a for counties that have </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">not</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> done this and there's an awful lot of historians. I have gone around to several county historians and got them started. And I started them with the 3x5 cards and I got them started, set their office up so that they would do the same as I…I mean they come to my office and it's just so well organized…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: It </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">is</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: I mean I'm not boasting, but it's just, just the way I have it organized. I just impressed them so, and I've had...county historians from all over the state...come here, look at the thing and then I have helped them set up their office. And…because records are useless without an index.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: And using the same system with each historian is good.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: And it doesn't matter what system they use, whether they put all their cemeteries in one book and have a master index to cemeteries and census in another book, with a master index. It doesn't matter. I put everything together. And one county I started, they, they did everything separate until they got </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">quite</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> a large collection. One day one of the fellas, I was there visiting. And he was setting up and says, "You know, we finally did what you did—put everything together.” I said, "I told you in the beginning.” He says, "Yes, I know you told me, but,” he says, “'We wanted to keep everything separate 'n it got too big.” He said, "I was looking in fifteen places," he said. "That got to be a chore." So he put everything together, all surnames together, you got all fifteen references right there in one little pack. (Laughs). So—you know how it </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">is</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: And it won’t be </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">that</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> much more complicated for somebody in years to come, too.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Umhumm. That's right. But if you put everything together in one master index and have it…</span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">in</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> a file where you can keep adding to it without…taking pages out and putting more pages in, that would be a loose file.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Well you started this before...now how long ago?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh, I'd say around fifteen years.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: When did you become county historian?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: I was county historian for seven years, so, it would be, what? ‘71. I was appointed in January of ‘71. I'd been deputy for a long time. I—Robert Spencer was the county historian and—a he didn't care for genealogy. He knew I </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">did</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> so I, he would pass all the letters on to me— genealogy—and I helped him with other things, but genealogy mainly and then when he died I just, just appointed me, historian. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: And I hear you…did marvelous things for the historian's, historian's office while you were there—in reorganizing things.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Yes, well when I took over as county historian, it was, it all came to me in cardboard boxes and filing cabinets. And—(laughs) I said, “Now wait a minute, I can't have all this valuable stuff in my house." And—a between you and I…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: You mean you were expected to keep it in your </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">house</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Yes</span>. Bob Spencer kept it in his house…all those years. He had a study—a bedroom—a study and—a here was all these boxes and boxes of stuff and books and things and ‘course I had two children at home then. Each one of my bedrooms was <span style="text-decoration: underline;">full</span> with a child, you know, three bedrooms and so the spare bedroom of course I had—ended up with the </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">stuff</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in it. And I just said, "This can't be." And according </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">to</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> the rules and regulations from Albany it </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">should be</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in the county office </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">building</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">. The county historian should have his records in the county office building —same with a town. They should be in the town </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">building</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">. And a, so I—see Ed Crawford was the supervisor at that time and I talked to him. And they were in the process of building the new buildings. And then he promised me I'd have a room in the new building. Well they got that all made and everybo—a the floors were all used up—with other people wanting to move over there, so I got a room in the </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">old</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> building, which was just fine. That's where the historian should be </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">anyway</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">—in an old building. And I had a very small room, but it could be locked and I—it was files one side and the other. You just walked down through the middle—you couldn't open two drawers opposite. You just—had to walk in there—and my desk was outside.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Where was that now, what part of the building was that in?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh—it was the fourth floor of th—a, of the new, of the addition to the courthouse. It was—the </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">old</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> executive’s office, really if you know where </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">that</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> was.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Mmhum—yes.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: And—a the lawyer’s reference girl was there and she had her desk there and I had my desk there and then the records were all in the room that was locked. But I, I left the key with her because if anybody came and wanted to look in them she would…watch them, if I wasn't there. And it was, it was a nice arrangement. I could use her phone and so it made a very nice arrangement. And I got all the stuff out of my house. Oh, you should…they moved it, the county moved it. They sent a truck to Robert Spencer’s—a county truck. And they brought it up here and put it in the garage, gradually I got it in the house. And—a then they came and trucked it…back and so that was quite a job. I didn’t want it in the house.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: No. It was very—</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: If my house burned, why all those things would be </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">lost</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Yes.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: 'Course if the court house burns they will too, but I don't think that'll burn. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: So then you moved from there over to the old courthouse, right?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Yes. Ah—one of the judges wanted to have that floor because there was a hearing room there, a big room. Court hearing. And so we moved over to the </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">old</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> courthouse then on the third floor of the </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">old</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> courthouse into a </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">larger</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> room, which was very much better. I'd been asking for a larger room for a long time and here…so they fixed up this larger room for me. But the lawyer reference girl and I still shared the room. But they put the bookcases in, 'n we chose the colors 'n I mean they just put the—the rug in and everything for us. It was, they were fixing it up but the way </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">we</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> wanted it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: It has a nice atmosphere.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: And—a with the bookcases there, and, I asked for a small bookcase about half that size and when they come in and put all those big bookshelves there I thought, "Oh where will I </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">ever</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> find books?" But you know, you've been in there so…they're filling up…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: They’re nearly filled, aren't they?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: ...they're filling up fast. And—a all the cabinets there, there’s no room now for all the cabinets. They really need a bigger </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">room</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Well I understand they </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">are</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> going to move into a separate…place.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: I, I have heard that they're going to get, that he's trying to move into a bigger room. And that's </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">great</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> because he really needs a work table, for people to work on. Needs a—there’s some desks there, but only <span style="text-decoration: underline;">one</span> person can sit at a desk. Whereas if you had a table you could get three or four people in a room. Most historians’ offices I go into there'll be one desk, but there'll be one long table with chairs around it people can work on.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: You had volunteers that worked with you too, in the county.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: The C.E.T.A., the C.E.T.A. girls in the summertime. And I would teach them how to type…and I would…teach them how to file cards…file them alphabetically and there's a lot of things to learn. And it's just little things, but I’m sure that some of the girls went on to much better jobs and the typing skills I'm sure, were… They couldn't type when they came to me and they…by the end of the summer they were real good.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: And they had to be accurate, too.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Uh huh. Well, if they made mistakes they either throw the card away or start over again, or…erase it. But after a few weeks…you learn not to make mistakes, because that's a waste of time. And the—a volunt…the RSVP, and I never can remember what…Retired Volunteer Services—a whatever it is…RSVP [Retired Senior Volunteer Program]...and I've had several people helping me <span style="text-decoration: underline;">there</span>. They would come in in the wintertime and I would teach them how to type the cards an , so they could come in and just—a I would leave their little chart. They had to sign in and sign out the hours and—a this was returned to RSVP because they're, they're not monitored, but they're—a…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Credited.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Credited, or whatever it is…they do. And after I taught them, why then they would come </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">in</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">. I, I would always leave their box of cards there to be typed and they would come <span style="text-decoration: underline;">in</span>, do their hours and leave. Sometimes I’d see them, sometimes it’d be two or three weeks before I’d see them…again…where…but they knew the days I was coming in and some would be there on the days. Others… I’ve had one girl working there all last winter. I’ve only met her </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">once</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Is that a fact?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Yeah. She comes in on Monday for some reason and Monday's the day I stay home and do housework. It's the only day, I save that for the house. The rest of the time I spend all my time on history 'n…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Well we know we have a new historian. You still will carry on this genealogical work?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: I'm doing just genealogical work now. I’ll show you the files later. We'll go upstairs and see my files.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Is there anything else you could—a tell about being a town historian, Town of Maine Historian? Ah—how, how did you make out during the bicentennial year? That must have been a busy, busy time.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh, that year was </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">a</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">blur</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">. I remember it, going </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">through it</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">, but that's all I remember, is going through it. It </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">was busy</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">, being a town historian, county historian. I don't think I did any housework all that year. I got meals and occasionally did a little ironing but that's about it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Those</span> things you can do anytime.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh, anytime, that's right. But it, of course, county historian we started about three or four years ahead of time </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">planning</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and we had… I was an ex officio, bicentennial commission ex officio, there were thirteen members to the committee and then two ex officio. The county historian was one and the—a curator at Roberson…the other…ex officio. And—a so there were fifteen people and we'd get just about everybody out…there were two or three…there was always some that couldn't come every time and we'd…plans and each one would do their own </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">thing</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">. I mean I had…certain things I was in charge of and then…we'd make all these plans and then we'd go to all these meetings and then come the bicentennial year, we just </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">went</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> to all these things and we had…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Sounds well-organized.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: It was organized. It was very well-organized and the two chairmen that we had—a, Michael Vanuga and Shirley Hess. You ought to—a interview them. While it's still fresh in their mind, the bicentennial. That's a…I hadn't thought about that. You know, we talked, the bicentennial, talked about interviewing people concerning the bicentennial, and right afterwards … and then of course the funding was cut off by the county when the new administration came in and—a so we…that's one project we didn't get finished, is the tape—interviewing people, specially on the committee and—a so maybe that's something that your committee could do.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: That was quite a historical event.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Yeah. And—a, let's see, oh we had the quilt. I had people here at the house quilting for six weeks. I moved all the furniture out of the dining room and had the quilt frame in there and they would come…when they could and work. I kept, I kept a record of all the names and, and </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">the hours and—a so we did that quilt and then we gathered fifty or sixty quilts from the </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">county</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that went to this show in August. And we also, one day was Broome County Day up there and of course you had to supply the people to guard the quilts that day. And boy do quilts have to be guarded! You have to have people standing right there.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: And that was where?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Up to Ithaca.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Ithaca.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: And—a that was an experience. That was one of the things I was in charge of.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: And the quilts were antique quilts, were they?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh and the antique quilts—and the new ones too. There was prizes for the </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">new</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> quilts.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: It's marvelous to see these old—a crafts being revived, isn't it?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh, it's great, great. And I worked… they had a quilt up there … everybody who submitted—a quilts, all the counties, had to send somebody up to work on a quilt up there, during the week. There was a whole week exhibit and so there's a Broome County square.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Ohh.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Up there. And I submitted a quilt square and then helped with the actual quilting we did. And I learned how to quilt—real fast. (laughter) Since then I've made one quilt and I've got material for two or three others but I made one for my granddaughter. I made a genealogy quilt. Her name is on the bottom, her parents, her grandparents, great-grandparents. Instead of a flower design I made the names the design. I think it's in California. I didn't tell my daughter I was doing it. I just told her I was…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: You mean the names are actually quilted into the…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Instead of having a flower or a line or a design, which you usually have on a quilt I… wrote the names and so that was the quilt, that was the design—writing, writing the name and the dates, and the place of birth. And I put a little heart on the bottom with the date of the marriage of my daughter and son-in-law.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: That's really one of a kind, that's going to be an heirloom, isn't it?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: And I promised my son that he'll have one for his progeny when he gets married. So let's see—quilts. Oh the other thing I was in charge of in the bicentennial year was the—a town historians writing their little pamphlets. You know, that we… Each town historian wrote a eight page pamphlet with pictures—a brief history of their town. And I had them all printed exactly alike. Different colors of the paper but you know, the same format. And then we had a cover made, we furnished a cover and it was sold as a book. People could buy it as a book or they could buy just the town, and this was quite a success.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: I should think so. Wonderful idea because it's so handy for…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: And the little booklets are in, in this cover separately.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: …school kids to use. Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: You could take… it wasn't all bound together as one book. In fact the idea was copied by several of the counties when they saw what we were doing they, they did the same thing. Their town historians wrote the little history and then it was printed by the same printer in the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">same format with the same headings for towns. Yeah. Ahm, what else did we do? Oh of course there were so many things going on in the bicentennial year. I can't even remember them (laughs) there were too many of them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: I can't.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Like the Freedom Train was here and, and the Barge. We had a </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">big</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> thing going at the Barge. Broome County was part of that. That was a three-county affair—four-county actually—it was four counties. And Broome, Broome County was a part of that. And I was, seemed to be the liaison for that. I was running up to Ithaca every month and meeting, planning </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">that</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> for a year. So I, I had a busy year.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Well the Town of Maine…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: And the Town of Maine, and I was busy there, too…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: …had a </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">tremendous</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> celebration, didn't they?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: We sure did, we did it in May. And we had a three-day… I guess it was Memorial weekend, so we had the three-day holiday. We had our tour of the houses and the booths and 'n everything one has at a centennial…celebration, and everything in costume, of course. And we had a ball earlier, in costume. Gordon and I won first </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">prize</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> with our costumes. I was so, you know (laughs) I just…I shouldn't boast.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Did you wear family clothes?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: No, I made them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Oh, you </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">made</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Yeah. I made him a colonial suit and had the little short pants and the knickers and the coat with the old braid on it, made out of that washable velvet and—a… kind of velvet that can be washed. And I got a little piece of old polyester, but it looked like brocade, and made a vest for him. And what a time I had finding stockings, white stockings? You know, like they used to wear in the old days?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: For men?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: For men. Oh, I tried several different things. I finally bought some polyester and </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">made</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> these stockings and then right after, you know, I </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">made</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> the first pair. They had a seam right up the back (laughs) 'cause I had to sew them. And—a then I found a pair of knee socks… from Sears… white knee socks. 'Course they were for girls, so I got a very large size and they stretched and… that… they turned out just fine…but they went up over the knees. And they had to…because the, the stocking goes over the knee and the knicker comes down. And then I had on a blue—we were both in blue—and that's probably because we were a </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">pair</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">. And I had…I got—a, well what I used was lining, acetate lining for coats. And that's washable, but it's, it's shiny and it looks like satin, so I made my dress outta </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">that</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">. And it really, I was just <span style="text-decoration: underline;">proud</span> of it. And I was very surprised when we, we got a prize for it. Didn't expect that. So that was then that I was on the—a when Tioga County had </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">their</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> ball. I was one of the judges. And Gordon and I went to the ball over there. We went to two balls. (laughs) Oh there was just so many things and…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: As you say, it's hard to remember, isn't it? The activities that were going on. Every weekend…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: There was something and all the different towns. I tried… and we had the… as the county committee, we had to—or </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">commission</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">, I should say. It wasn't a committee—as the county commission we had to, to really our job was synchronizing everything so that all the towns didn't have their event on the same weekend. And so we managed. I think they were all different weekends. Some of them, even with the rain, were postponed, but they still … were </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">scattered</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> throughout the summer, the spring and the summer and the fall. So we were able to attend… most of them, or some of them. Yeah, there were just so many things… going on.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Well, now is here anything more you want to say about the duties of a town historian, or what you, how you handled this at the same time?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Well the duties of the county historian and the town historian… are the same thing… It's just, it's main…it's keeping track of the records and keeping them so they're </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">available</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> for people to look at. And it's just constant collecting… from newspapers and… a town historian doesn't have that much because there's just a small entity. The county, I used to cut the papers every day because there would be something, somebody would have something going on every day.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: You'd have to be a very </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">interested</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> person and you have to be also organized, don't you?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley:Yes. I'm, I'm pretty well organized (laughs) I, I'm not too good a historian, really, but I'm </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">organized</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">. I do know how to organize and that's, that's very important.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Yes, I should think so.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: And these projects that I'm starting for the county should, for the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">future</span>, should be really, really great if they're carried through and finished up.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Do you hope to carry on with the town historian's job now?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Well I…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Is it appointive?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Yes it's appointed…every two years. And the county job—I think that had to be every year. I can't remember. You just go in and you sign your appointment for the year. And if he decides to appoint somebody else, why somebody else does it. (laughs) But that's—a…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Well I guess if, if you have nothing more to add. Do you? Have anything else?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: No. I think we've talked about everything on the list here that you—a… scrapbooks, you have on the list. These are very important because in the older days, see, we don't have the newspapers.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Yes.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: But people themselves would cut scrap, cut scraps! (laughs)... Cut articles from the newspapers, making a scrapbook. And—a people nowadays don't do that so much anymore.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: That's true.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: And—a so these old scrapbooks will have family information, or they'll cut out a wedding with—a you know, or an obituary, or something that's going on in the town and there'd be a nice write-up on something going on in the town and—it would be in that scrapbook. And these are valuable because they just aren't available, that information isn't available.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: How about photographs?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh they're very important.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Do you have them donated?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh sure, they donate them. People have them and—a sometimes they don't even know what they </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">are</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">, so they'll bring them in and get them identified and then maybe—a building is now </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">gone</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">. Roberson Center really has got a, a much better collection of pictures, but they've been doing it for years. Historical society. And a lot of the pictures and things like this go to Roberson and this is where they should be, I think. I think the county historian should take care of the county records and the current events for future reference. And the old pictures and the old collections and the artifacts and the…oil paintings and the rocking chairs and things like this, they should go to Roberson.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: You were telling me the other day about—a writing down some of these—a inscriptions on tombstones?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: (laughs) Yes.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Do you have any interesting things you want to put on tape about those?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Ahm—I have, I really haven't done much of that kind of work myself. You see the D.A.R. went through and copied all the inscriptions in the 1920s, but they didn't copy the new ones, just the old ones and in the 1960s the Mormon Church decided that the cemeteries were disappearing, the stones were going, you know, breaking and pollution from being moved and so they, knowing that these were very valuable, and they sent their people out and each…they just, there were teams went right out and did all the cemeteries. And they would take the D.A.R. records and then work from there. Or they would do the cemetery and then we would compare the two because a lot of stones would be gone. The D.A.R. just copied the very early ones. They figured after Civil War there were census records and vital records and things, so the cemeteries weren't, records weren't quite as vital. But the Mormon people have copied them right up to current times. So… I don't have too many stories to tell about cemeteries, but I, I get all my fun out of the census records, indexing the census records…because the sense of humor of some of these people. They—a there's two or three favorites I have where the census record would write down the family, the mother and the father and then start with the children and they'd get down to about eleven or twelve or thirteen and the last one's name was </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Enough</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">! Or… I found one that the last one's name was </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Last</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">. So here's a little kid goin' through life with the name Enough. (laughter) And there's one I found in Binghamton on—he must have been very proud of the fact that he was in the War of 1812. He was, I think it was in the '70 or '75 census. He was in his 90's. No, it was the ‘65 census, that's right, because hey were—a, there was a whole separate category in the ‘65 census on…the—a Civil War…records. So, for the last five years any man that had been in the Civil War, why he, he wrote down what his regiment was and when he served and if he was wounded or not he told about his wounds and if he was killed in the service there was a record of where he was buried. I mean, he family knew this because it was taken in ‘65 right at the end of the war. And here was this one man in his </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">nineties</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and he served in the Navy and I was reading along and I said, "Goodness, a 90-year old man serving in the Navy!”—because there were Navy people in the, that was in the Civil War. And I stopped in the very end there and his term of service was 1812 to 1813. (laughter) And then I had another man who served in the Mexican Wars and here it is that he told about his service in the Mexican Wars. And the Indian Wars, there was one man in the Indian Wars. Most of it they just got in the Civil War, but every once in awhile they'd strike somebody that was an older person and very proud of it and it was written right down—in the census.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Rank, name and serial number, eh?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Umhmm and then the one, the one man that—a I copied out of the '75 census… and the enumerator… had written, they put a star by his name or a asterisk, so I looked down at the bottom in the margin to see what he had written. The man was in his seventies and his wife</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">was about forty and there were about ten or twelve children living in the family. So it says, “This man was the father of eleven children by his first wife and nine by his second and with the prospect of more.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Oh no!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Right in the census records.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Twenty kids and the prospect of more.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: And the good prospect of more. So you never know what you're going to come across. One census-taker, the last family in the book, it had, it had an eighteen year old girl in it and her occupation, see he put down their name and where they were born and their occupation. Her occupation was “my intended,” so evidently this was the girl he was going to marry. That was her occupation, was “my intended.” But there are, when you're copying records like this… and the names, too. I have a whole list of them upstairs I—in fact in the 1830 census I copied a couple off. His name was Jack, last name was H-a-m-e-r Hamer, jackhammer. (laughs) So I kept a…list of those things.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: I should think so.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: You just, you just never know what you're going to come across. And they weren't afraid to put in anything, either. If they were just living together it was right there. If they weren't married, they were just living together.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Yes, I remember coming across a census record where the man was called a </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">thief</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">. That was his occupation.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: That's right, or a convict. That was his occupation. In all the copying I've been doing for the last fifteen or twenty years I have found one horse thief.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Admitted, eh?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Yeah. He was a convict and he was convicted for—a stealing a horse.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Did that happen right here in Broome County?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Umhmm. And you go through the Poor House records and the—a Asylum records. A—the—a…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Inebriate Asylum?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: The Inebriate Asylum and all of…the occupations, everybody in there was doctor, lawyer, insurance agents. You go through the jail and they were all Irish and they were in there for, for brawling…for alcoh—or drunkenness… 'cause when the census-taker we—on that <span style="text-decoration: underline;">day</span>, he had to do who was in the jail. ( laughs)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Monday morning was probably all drunkards.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Oh boy. And the hotels with the—a men and women—it's right there, you know, all…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: There were so many things I wanted to ask… Hotel records, ahm are those ever preserved? Do you ever have anything like that, come down to you?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Well they should be. Ah, I found one in the county—a not too long ago. I was going through some things from a… a hotel. It was a ledger of the people who were in the hotel. It was rather brief, some of it was after 1900, but it should be saved.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Oh yes. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Who knows, who knows where they are. I mean, maybe they are in Roberson, like the Arlington Hotel that’s gone. I have no idea where those… records are. Maybe the family has them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Well you'd see some very famous signatures on some of them, I'm sure.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: I'm sure there would be. But that… I mean it's nothing to do with the county historian's records, so that…this would be Roberson's job to… find out where they are, and get… kept… preserved. People are giving me, ah, old school books and the ledgers and the records of the old school places. And it's all right because—a they'll be </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">saved</span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">, but if they gave me a desk or something like that I would say "no.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Well, I hope you carry on with this wonderful job that you're doing. You're just exactly the right person for it, too.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Shirley: Well thank you very much.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wanda: Thanks for the interview and your time.</span></p>
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Interview with Shirley Woodward
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Woodward, Shirley -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Historians -- Interviews; American Revolution Bicentennial, 1976
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Shirley Woodward speaks about her father's influence on her interest in local history, work as the Town of Maine historian and with the Nanticoke Valley Historical Society. She details the responsibilities of her work as the town historian. She discusses her years as Broome County Historian and her efforts during the bicentennial, as well as the nature of her work and how it impacted the community.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information.
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audio/mp3
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English
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Recording 64
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Kurdish Oral History
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Aynur de Rouen, Ph.D.
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<p>In 2011, Binghamton University Libraries received the donation of the Vera Beaudin Saeedpour Kurdish Library and Museum Collection. The acquisition opened a dialog with the local Kurdish community in Binghamton, N.Y., which led to the creation of the Kurdish Oral History Project.</p>
<p>These interviews provide deeper insight into the history of the Kurdish culture through personal accounts, narratives, testimonies, and memories of their early lives in their adoptive country and back in Kurdistan. This growing collection holds interviews in English and/or Kurdish with informants of all ages and a variety of backgrounds from various parts of Kurdistan. The interviewees share remarkable stories of their migration, their persecution in Kurdistan, the resilience of their Kurdish identity in assimilating into the host culture, and the ties they maintain with their homeland in diaspora.<a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/sustain"></a></p>
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<a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/oral-histories/index.html#sustainablecommunities">Sustainable Communities Oral History Collection</a><br /><br /><a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/76">Vera Beaudin Saeedpour Kurdish Library & Museum Collection Finding Aid</a>
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Date of Interview
- 23 August 2016
- 22 November 2016
- 19 December 2016
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Marwan Tawfiq
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Snur Shukri
Language
Kurdish
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Binghamton University
Digital Format
Audio
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Interview with Snur Shukri
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Ukrainian Oral History
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Binghamton University
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In copyright
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<span>Aynur de Rouen, Ph.D.</span><br /><span>Heather DeHaan, Ph.D., Associate Professor in History</span>
Description
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The Ukrainian Oral History project consists of a collection of undergraduate student interviews with immigrants from East Central Europe, particularly the lands of what is now Ukraine. Four interviews took place in New York City and record the memories of Jewish immigrants. A few interviews testify to specifically Russian identity and experiences, while the rest of the collection is comprised of interviews with members of Binghamton’s Ukrainian immigrant community.
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<a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/oral-histories/index.html#sustainablecommunities">Sustainable Communities Oral History Collection</a>
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Interviewer
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Evan Cole
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Sol Braun
Biographical Text
Sol Braun is an immigrant who lived in Poland, Soviet Russia, and Germany during his childhood. He came to the United States shortly after the end of World War II. He worked as a shoemaker both overseas and in the United States. Sol is now retired and resides in Tappan, New York. He has four children.
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36:18 minutes
Date of Interview
2016-04-01
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Binghamton University
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audio/mp4
Language
English
Material Type
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Collection
Ukrainian Oral History Project
Subject LCSH
Interviews; Diaspora, Soviet Union—History; Russian; Poland; <span>Communism and culture--Soviet Union; </span>Germany; Second World War, 1939-1945; Refugee camps; Labor camps; Migrations; Jews; Ethnic identity; Rockland County (N.Y.)
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audio
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Keywords
Interviews; Polish people; Immigrants; Soviet Union; Refugee camps; Forced labor; World War, 1939-1945; Jews
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Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
Transcription
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ukrainian Oral History Project</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interview with: Sol Braun</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interviewed by: Evan Cole</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Transcriber: Evan Cole</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Date of interview: 1 April 2016 at 04:05 pm</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interview Setting: Sol's home, in Tappan, New York</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">(Start of Interview)</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Evan Cole: Hi, I'm Evan Cole and I'm with Sol Braun. It is April 1, 2016, just after 4 PM. We are at Sol's house. Sol is an immigrant from Russia and Poland during the time of the Soviet Union. Sol, start me off by saying when and where you were born.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sol Braun: I was born in Poland in a shtetl, a small town outside of Warsaw called Nowy Dwór (Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki).</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: In what year?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I was born in 1927.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You lived in Poland for a short time, right?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Until the age of twelve.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Up until you were twelve. What do you really remember the most about Poland?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: We all lived in the center of town. My father was a shoemaker and he worked very hard. We had enough to eat; I was never hungry. I had a lot of friends and family, and it was an easy life. Being that I was the first born, my mother really took care of me.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: How many siblings do you have?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I had two sisters in Poland. At first I went to Hebrew school, Tarbut, and I finished in third grade. My mother decided that's not for me, so they sent me to public school, which I went through 4th and 5th grade, and then World War II started.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Once World War II started, you went to Russia?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: After being with the Germans for a few months, we realized this is not going to be an easy life. So, my parents, me, my father's brother, and my two sisters, we all went to the Soviet Union's part of Poland, called Białystok. It was not an easy life because it was a lot of people. There was no room; we slept on the floor of a synagogue until they organized and we were able to go on some kind of farm, which was not bad. Eventually, in 1940, the Soviet Union rounded up all of those people and they sent us to a Gulag in the Soviet Union.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You said you slept on the floor of a synagogue; is that where you lived as well?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: That was only for two weeks or so.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Can you describe the living conditions of the Gulag in the Soviet Union?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: They brought us in there and then there was a nachalny, the head; he had a speech for us. He said, “This is your home now. You're going to live here and you're going to die here.” That was the first speech, and these were people who were the shoemakers, the tailors, or some other kind of job. The job that was available was to cut down trees, lumberjacks. So, they had to learn. The father worked there, and it was a hard life. The food was not enough food; most of the time we were hungry. Many times, when I ate one meal, I did not know when I'm going to have the second meal, or when I'm going to eat again. Some days, I could've gone a day or two before we had food again. We stayed like this for a year and a half.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When you were given food, how much was given to your family?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: If you worked, you would get 1,500 grams of bread. If we didn't work, we'd get only 400 grams. Also, you needed money to buy the bread. Sometimes, father would get sick and couldn't work. They didn't pay him, so we didn't have money to buy it. It was a very hard life, but after a while, we realized that in spite of all the hardship and all the things they were sending us through in gulags, they actually saved our lives.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: How did it do that?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Because, the Germans occupied Poland, Ukraine, and all of Europe. The Jews were sent into concentration camps, or death camps. We were hungry and cold, but our lives weren't threatened. Then, we realized that we're really lucky in a way, because we managed to be hungry and working. After a while, the Russians freed us. They let us go out; we could live wherever we wanted to, like the Russians, but not in big cities. We settled in a small place, not too far from the gulag, in a city called Kotlas, which was maybe two or three hundred miles from the Arctic Circle. Father finally got a job as a shoemaker, his own profession. After that, we were less hungry. That's how it worked out. That was 1941 into '42.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When you left the gulag?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When we stayed there.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So it was only for a year or two?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: About a year and a half.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What were the sleeping conditions like? Did you have a lot of beds for your family?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, when we were in the gulag, we only had one room. My mother and father had the bed. My two sisters and I, we slept on the floor. The room was maybe 8' x 10'. In the morning, we had to chop the wood in the cold and bring it in. It was a hard life, but we were safe.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Is there any way you can compare the life in the gulag to when you moved out to towards Arctic Circle?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It was entirely different, because Father was a shoemaker for one thing. The Soviet Union at that time was: if you wanted to have something done, if you know someone in the higher ups, then you get something done. Father was the only guy to do the shoes, and he had a leg up. If somebody would want it to be done faster, they would bring potatoes and bread. We had extra food because father worked extra hours, and I actually helped him. I became a shoemaker. It was easier; we weren't really hungry. Then, it was a hard life, but we were safe.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: With your time in the gulag, if you could name one thing that you remember the most, what would it be?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When we arrived in the Kotlas, and Father got the job and they decided to give us a place to live. Instead of Kotlas, which is a part of work, there was the river Sukhona. We were right on the river. They found a place on the other side of the river, and that was a walk for about 45 minutes. Father, at every morning and at night, he'd have to get up and go by the river. They had a boat that you had to row. Everybody rowed wherever you can. It came to the side and we went to the other side. It was organized by the people themselves. So, what I remember the most, the first time the whole family went from Kotlas to cross the river. It was already in November, and the river was almost frozen, so what people had was long sticks and there was lots of ice over it, so you push and the ice goes away to cross over. We crossed over and then had to wait a few days or so until the river froze and then we were able to go back and forth. I remember that going on the river and pushing the ice away to cross it.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: How many languages do you speak?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Well, not now so many, but there was a time, before I came to the United States, I could speak Polish, Russian, German, and Yiddish. Then, when I came to America I learned to speak English. I can speak a little Polish and German, but not very good. English is the main thing.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Did you learn Russian before you went to Russia?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, but it's a Slavic language, so it's similar to Polish. It's just a little adjustment. When you're young, you—at the time I was only 13, 14 years old—so at that time you pick it up fast.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When you were in Russia, did you experience any unfair treatment in comparison to America?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I had an instant that was in 1943. At the time we had left Kotlas. My whole family wound up outside of Gorki, which would be on the Walder River, and I forgot what they call it now. So, we wound up in the town called Bogorodsk. Once we got to that town, we were much, much better off. Father was a shoemaker and I helped him, so we had enough food; we weren't hungry anymore.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You weren't discriminated?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Oh yeah, I was going to say that. The only thing I remember was something funny. I don't know if I should say that or not. It's a very innocent thing to say, but there was many Russians who heard of Jews but never met one. So, when I worked there, there was young boys my age. Sometimes at lunchtime, we didn't know what to do. So all of a sudden we stop to pee and they say to me, “We want to see yours because we heard yours is different!” I said, “I'm not going to show,” you know, but at least they didn't look if I had horns. But no, I didn't find any—maybe there was, but I didn't feel it.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What is your overall opinion of Russia, now?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: My opinion now?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You, now, of the time in Russia that you had.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I found that the Russian people up north, where I was, are the nicest people you can find because they have to help each other. Just to give an example, if you have to go from one place to the other and you had to walk. If you get cold and you're hungry, you stop at any little house, and you go in there, they'll give you food; you can stay over. What you do is you help out: you chop some wood or do some other things for that. And there was actually no crime involved. The nicest people are up north; I was very impressed with that.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What was the main reason for you to come to America?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: We had family here, and being I was in Germany, a displaced person, so I wanted to come to America and become a citizen, have a job, and belong to someone. When I was a displaced person, I didn't belong to anyone.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: How did you get to Germany?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: In 1946, the war was over, so the Russians actually sent us back to Poland on the same trains as those that took us there. But it didn't wind up in my hometown; we wound up in the part that was Germany before the war was like Woldenberg [Dobiegniew in Poland] and Breslau [Wrocław in Poland]. So, we were in Woldenberg. They put us in that place and we stayed there a while. Then we had some information from my mother's sister in New York that we should try and come to America. The only way to come to America was to go to the American zone. So, illegally, we went over the border to Czechoslovakia and then we wound up in Vienna. Also as a displaced person, we wound up near the outside of Frankfurt in a displaced person camp, or DP. We stayed there until 1949.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Can you describe what it was like traveling illegally to get to the safe zone? How long did it take?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: We weren't far from the border. It was all organized. The only thing they told us was, “Don't talk and don't say anything. Throw away all of the documents. Then when you go there, tell them you were Greek.” We went through that and said we couldn't understand anything, and just went through. That was the whole trick; we were told to do that. Once I was in Czechoslovakia, we went in the train and wound up in Vienna. Once we were in Vienna, we actually were not in the Soviet Union anymore; we were free.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Do you still keep any traditions in America that you had while you were overseas?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Not really, I mean what is there? If you were a religious person, maybe you do the same thing. With me, I adjust. Now I'm an American; I do what Americans do. The American Dream for me is work.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What job did you get when you came to America?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Well, I tried to get a job and the government told me I make it.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When you were over in the Soviet Union, what was your opinion of America when you there?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: At that time, in my wildest dreams, I couldn't imagine that I'm going to be in America right now talking to you. I could never imagine that, so it was the usual thing that America's a rich country, gold in the streets, and all kind of things.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Did that change when you came over here?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When we came here, we found everything was good. We knew the golden street is not true, but it took me maybe less than a year for me to feel I'm American—took me a while. Once I felt that, it was great.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Do you miss anywhere you stayed in Europe?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Who were your role models growing up?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: My father.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: How did he influence you?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: His honesty, his hard work; he was likable by older people, and it seems like I got his trait, being the same. Plus, I used to read a lot of books in all the languages that I knew. I remember reading—in Germany, the last book I read was, in German, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Three Musketeers</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">. In Russia the last book was—I can't read it now. The Polish books, I used to read a lot.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Your father read a lot?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No. Father, he just knew how to read just to get by, because I don't think he went to school. He just learned a little bit.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What was the most satisfying moment that you've had in your life?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: There are so many.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: List however many you want.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I remember it was when we arrived on the ship to America in New York. We always knew the Statue of Liberty, and we arrived very early. It was still dark. I remember going on the ship, before they let us out, I look to the right, and I saw the Statue of Liberty shining with light. That stands out in my mind.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Which cultures do you identify with now?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I'm American.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: How important is religion to you?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: With religion, I evolved. When I grew up in Poland in the shtetl, when we went to shul, I was told that there is God and you have to be afraid of him and whatever it says in the Bible, I believed. Actually there was an instant when I must have been 5, maybe 6 years old on Yom Kippur. As I stayed in the synagogue with my parents—my mother was upstairs and separated from Father—so I decided I'll go and see my uncle who wasn't far away and I'll visit them because it's a whole day. I walked into the house and saw him; he was eating and smoking a cigarette, and I couldn't understand why he didn't die on the spot because he was doing this on Yom Kippur. This is one thing, but since then I evolved, and now I believe in God my own way.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So spiritual in your own way and not tied to one thing?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I believe in God, but not in organized religion, but traditionally I'm still Jewish, like I go to synagogue and pray—I do it only because of tradition.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What would you consider to be the most important inventions that happened during your life?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When I was younger or lately?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Any time.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I was impressed when I came to America, they had television. After a while I was able to buy a car, so that impressed me. I got married, had children, so just now the cell phone. This is such a fantastic thing, so you can go on and on. When I was a child, we didn't even have electricity; we didn't have a radio. The trucks and cars, the tires were solid rubber; we're going back a long way. So, this age now, going online and cell phones are really something to me.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When you were in Russia, there weren't many of these inventions?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: In Russia, you didn't own—if you owned a radio, it was only a speaker with one station. The only thing you needed was a speaker to hook up, and that's all. They played music, were talking about the news and everything. One station, so we worked and worked, there was a speaker and the radio was on. You could listen—I could hear, during the war, what was going on with the Americans.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Who was putting out these broadcasts?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: The government. It was one station for the whole Soviet Union.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Going back a bit, what do you think of today's Russia?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Actually, in some ways, I'm agreeing with Putin because in spite of everything that is going in Russia with the financial and other things, the Russians are with him about 80%, whatever he's doing. I understand that because for some reason, when I was there, Crimea was Russian, and all of the sudden, when the Soviet Union fell apart, they started giving away. Everything was breaking up, and all of the sudden, Crimea was given up to Ukraine. I had the resentment myself; I was like, “Why did they do this?” in my mind. So I can imagine, living in Russia, how they felt. So now that Putin took the Crimea away, which I agree that he should be. Also, the investor in nations like NATO, they’re pushing themselves with NATO to Poland and they're circling Russia, and especially in Ukraine, which is right in the heart of Russia. I knew this is wrong because they don't like that. So, I think the western countries overdid this. What they should do is go to Ukraine and say, “Look, you are the country. You stay wherever you want to be but you're going to have to be NATO.” It's threatened Ukraine, so the east and west of Ukraine should make peace.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You're obviously paying attention to Russian news. Do you pay attention to any of the news in Poland or Germany?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: A little bit, but for some reason, being I grew up in some ways in Russia, I can understand what's going on. If I were Russian, I would be against Ukraine being invaded, and I feel the same way right now.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You would say that your time in Russia was rare because you had a positive outlook on it, right?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, because in the end of 1943, we lived in the outside of Gorki, which is Central Russia actually, and we had, relatively speaking, a good life for Russians, so my father worked, and I helped him. We had food, and I had friends, so it was okay.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You said that the northern Russians were really nice.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: The people were different there. They were entirely different.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: How so?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I found that in the big cities, the population is more aggressive. I don't know exactly how to say that, but in the north, they tried to help each other in a friendly way. You're not going to find this outside of Moscow or all those places.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What do you think made it different?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It's a different life. It's amazing; the people that I met there, they actually were the children of the parents that Stalin—when he came to power, he took all those rich farmers and sent them there—so in the beginning, they were the same as we were, in the gulags. They were that type of people. I don't know how to explain it, but it's entirely different. It could've changed by now.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: What do you remember the most about your sisters?</span></p>
<p><b><br />SB</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: My two sisters that were born in Poland, they were doing okay. One was going to school; the other one didn't. But then, in 1943, another sister of mine was born, and we all lived; everything is good. Did I help?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EC</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You did. Thank you so much.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">(End of Interview)</span></p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Sol Braun
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Braun, Sol ; Cole, Evan
Format
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audio/mp3
Description
An account of the resource
Sol Braun is an immigrant who lived in Poland, Soviet Russia, and Germany during his childhood. He came to the United States shortly after the end of World War II. He worked as a shoemaker both overseas and in the United States. Sol is now retired and resides in Tappan, New York. He has four children.
Date
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2016-04-01
Rights
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In Copyright
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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Sol Braun.mp4
Date Modified
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2016-04-18
Is Part Of
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Ukrainian Oral History Project
Extent
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36:18
Subject
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Interviews; Diaspora, Soviet Union—History; Russian; Poland; <span>Communism and culture--Soviet Union; </span>Germany; Second World War, 1939-1945; Refugee camps; Labor camps; Migrations; Jews; Ethnic identity; Rockland County (N.Y.)
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/56a6102152e825a88f3ba0b05ff2d45f.m4a
8e1e70b1e761c14b39c9aed30bb2d620
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Ukrainian Oral History
Publisher
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Binghamton University
Rights
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In copyright
Contributor
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<span>Aynur de Rouen, Ph.D.</span><br /><span>Heather DeHaan, Ph.D., Associate Professor in History</span>
Description
An account of the resource
The Ukrainian Oral History project consists of a collection of undergraduate student interviews with immigrants from East Central Europe, particularly the lands of what is now Ukraine. Four interviews took place in New York City and record the memories of Jewish immigrants. A few interviews testify to specifically Russian identity and experiences, while the rest of the collection is comprised of interviews with members of Binghamton’s Ukrainian immigrant community.
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/oral-histories/index.html#sustainablecommunities">Sustainable Communities Oral History Collection</a>
Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription
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Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Zach Nasca and Emily Greenwell
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Stephan Wasylko
Biographical Text
Stephan Wasylko was born in a displaced persons camp in Austria in 1948. His parents migrated to the United States with him and his sister in 1949 and they lived on a tobacco plantation in North Carolina. They later moved north and found factory jobs first in New Jersey and then in New York. Stephan received a degree from Syracuse University in International Relations and received a Masters from the University of Toronto. Stephan went into the Foreign Service after receiving his master’s degree and traveled around the world. After retiring Stephan and his wife moved to Binghamton in 2010.
Duration
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60:37 minutes
Date of Interview
2016-04-10
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Language
English
Material Type
Sound
Collection
Ukrainian Oral History Project
Subject LCSH
Wasylko, Stephan.--Interviews; Ukrainians--United States; Diaspora, Ukraine—History; Ukrainian; Austria; Prisoner-of-war camps; Migrations; Church; Ethnic identity; Manors and customs; Labor camps; Broome County (N.Y.)
Interview Format
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audio
OHMS Object
URL
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=StephanWasylko.xml
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Keywords
Interviews; Ukrainians; Ukrainian diaspora; Immigrants; Refugee camps; Diplomatic and consular service; Auburn (N.Y.)
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Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ukrainian Oral History Project</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interview with: Stephan Wasylko</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interviewed by: Zach Nasca and Emily Greenwell</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Transcriber: Zach Nasca and Emily Greenwell</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Date of interview: 10 April 2016</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interview Setting: at St. John, Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Johnson City, NY</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">(Start of Interview)</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Zach Nasca: Hello, so we're here with Stephan Wasylko and we're going to do an interview. My name is Zack and I'm here with Emily. It's Sunday, May 10, 2016 and we're at St. John's Ukrainian Orthodox Church and we're going to ask you some questions. So first, I was just wondering if you could tell us a bit about yourself and your background.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Stephan Wasylko: Well, I am a son of Ukrainians, born in a displaced persons camp in Austria, Salzburg, Austria, in 1948, where my parents wound up after the war. In 1949, they immigrated to the United States, landed in Ellis Island and went off to Kingston, North Carolina, where their sponsors, it was a Christian organization, sponsored them. After a year there, a very difficult hard year as indentured servants, they made their way to Passaic, New Jersey where they lived for three years and then ultimately settled in Auburn, New York which is not far from here. That's where I grew up, went to high school there. I went onto Syracuse University where I got a degree in international relations. Right out of university, I was drafted into the US Army. Following my military service, I went to the University of Toronto where I got an MBA in International Trade and Finance. I worked my way to Washington, and I joined the Foreign Service and so I spent over 35 years in the US Foreign Service with postings in Washington, some short time duty in China, served with my family in tow in Prague and Budapest before the wall came down. I worked in Vancouver at the Consulate General there. From Vancouver, we went to Kyiv, Ukraine, which, this was after the Soviet Union imploded. I helped open the US embassy there. After that, I came back to Toronto where I served for five years at the US Consulate and my kids finally had a North American high school experience. They both graduated from high school there. From Toronto, I was assigned to a US embassy in Moscow. From Moscow, we went to London, UK and from London, UK we were assigned to Ottawa and I retired from Ottawa with personal rank of Minister Counselor.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Emily Greenwell: So you've been all over! How old were you when your family settled in Auburn?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Well I was about 4 years old, but I was 9 months old when my family came over. They had basically two babies. My sister is 2 years older, I was 9 months old, so we were a family of four that came to the United States in March of 1949.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>ZN</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: And how long have you been in Binghamton?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Since retiring, since 2010. My wife grew up in this parish, she's originally from Johnson City. We met in Washington, DC, and our two children are grown. They're both working in the city, so aside from having family and her roots here, this is a convenient place for us to retire— my close enough to our kids without actually being in their hair. It's an easy drive there. Our daughter is now a professional fashion photographer in the city, and our son, she graduated from Newhouse School, Syracuse and our son graduated from Ithaca College and he worked with AIG, he's now with Marsh, big insurance companies.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When your family came over, you said that they went with sponsors, but then did they have any reason they moved to New Jersey, then Auburn? Was it just for work?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, it's an interesting story. My mother and father were the only ones from their families that ultimately came to the United States. The rest all remained in, well, that's a whole different story because they didn't even remain where they grew up because of a lot of turmoil after the war in Europe. People resettled so they were forcibly moved. My father's family was moved to the east, and my mother's family was moved to the north of the Baltics. Both of them were taken as young people as slave laborers by the Germans who were on the farms in Austria. So, you know, around the turn of the century when this parish was founded, there were people coming to work in America in the coal mines, some graduated from the coal mines and into the shoe factories and the next generation was with IBM. My mother's father actually was in America several times, working in Pennsylvania, in Elmira, had a big textile industry there. He would come for a year at a time and then whatever he saved up he would go home. It was basically free movement of labor and the labor was needed here so it was quite open to immigration. A lot of the companies actually had recruiting offices in central Europe at that time. My mother had an uncle who actually came at the turn of the century, 1900s, and remained. He married and had a family there. My mother, just remember that she had an uncle living in Passaic. When they were in North Carolina, it was so difficult for them. They were working on a tobacco farm and from sunrise to sunset, my dad would often say the treatment was worse than what they had under the Nazis working during the war. So he managed to get a ticket, bus ticket, got on the bus, traveled to Passaic, NJ and started walking the streets looking for the copulas on the churches and he came across one church, went there and asked them if they knew Mr. Michael Pinchak. They didn't but they told him to try this other church, so three churches later he actually met people that knew him. He was of that parish. He went to talk to him, had to introduce himself because he had never met him, talked his way into the house, convinced these people he was who he said he was. The uncle had children that were my parents' peers, they were around the same age. My father said, "We need help," and the uncle said, "Well, I'll have vacation next year, I'll come down and see how you're doing." My father said, "By next year we might be dead." So one of the daughters took an interest, hired a small truck and driver, drove my father back to Kinston, NC, and essentially picked up my mother and my sister and me, and whatever major possessions they had, and they moved to New Jersey. They worked there for three years, they found jobs. My sister, I think, was just starting kindergarten, and I wasn't even in school yet. Then my father came up to Auburn, New York, with a friend who was living in Auburn. She was, again, one of the earlier immigrants and found that they had a Ukrainian community in Auburn and met people. While he was away, we were living up above a grocery store. It was a four story building and we were on the third floor. The weekend my father was away, the person living above us fell asleep smoking and the whole place was incinerated. I remember as a child, firemen coming and pounding on the doors. We were back standing out on the street watching this building burn. So when he came back from Auburn, whatever possessions they had at this point were water damaged and ruined, it was terrible. He said, "Forget this, we're going to go up to Auburn." For them, Auburn was much nicer. It was green, it was more, you know, sort of pastoral setting and more like what they were used to back home, whereas Passaic, New Jersey, was urban and quite alien to their experiences. So, a long way but nothing is simple.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So I guess they were kind of fortunate that they had those connections.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, if you didn't have family then the church would be a place where people would go just gravitate because if you're from the same faith and the same nationality, people reach out and support immigrants. Now, we've got a third wave of immigrants coming. Not too many here, but since Ukraine became independent there's been a huge influx of immigrants coming to United States, but they go where there are jobs and opportunities and unfortunately, this area doesn't offer too much.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>ZN</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Now, when you were in North Carolina, were you part of a church community there or not until you moved up?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, there was a protestant church and they were just doing good work. The ladies of the church were very helpful. They'd bring food and clothes, but we were pretty much sort of a welfare case. The farmer they worked for was basically just using them as labor, but the church was Christian and provided Christian help and care.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: How did you and your wife meet? She's also Ukrainian, you said, right?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: She is. I'm an immigrant, I had a green card until I took the naturalization exam and got my citizenship. She's third-generation Ukrainian, so her grandmother immigrated and settled here and she came in as a 12-13 year old girl when there was a lot of movement. She married here, my wife's mother was born here and all her aunts and uncles were born here. She said she grew up here, very much a part of this St. John's Baptist Ukrainian Orthodox Church community—which is a church, but it was also a social life for them where they did Easter Egg painting, they sang in the choir, did Ukrainian folk dancing, they had Ukrainian festivals. So kids would, after school, grade school or high school, would gravitate here. We had, at that time, a wonderful pastor. He was married, his wife was great. She was very artistic. They were very inspiring for these kids, and are really responsible for a lot of the people's advancement here in this parish that went onto bigger and better things.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Is your wife in the same line of work as you? You said you met in Washington, right?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: She went to the Fashion Institute of Technology and she was working in Washington as a graphic designer. She's an interior designer by trade and profession, but she was working as a graphic designer. I was in Washington looking for my first job, it was 1976, and there was a celebration in Shamokin, Pennsylvania. It was celebrating the first Ukrainian church in North America that established, and I was interested in going to that. I had a friend, I asked him if he was going. He said he was but he was going to go with this young lady that he had met, and I said, "Well great, if she has room for another person, I'll be happy to go with you all. If not, I'll drive up alone." Fortunately for her, she had room in the back seat, so that's how we met. Yeah, so it had a Ukrainian context in that regard. So we met and after that we started dating, and the rest is history.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When your parents came over, was there anything, any sort of family heirloom or artifact that they brought over with them? Anything that's been passed down to you?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: They brought a tremendous amount with them, but none of it was material. What they brought was, I think first and foremost, their faith, which they shared with us. It sustained them through really hard times because they were removed from their families. They also brought with them these great traditions, how we celebrate Christmas and Easter, which were on a different calendar. We're on the Julian calendar, so we celebrate Christmas on July 7 instead of December 25. In America, again in a good part thanks to Russian propaganda, people call it Russian Christmas. Well it's not, it's the Julian calendar and it's Orthodox Christmas. Then Easter was another tradition we observed. Our Easter this year for example is May 1, so we can be on the same Sunday or up to 5 weeks apart. Ours has a lot to do with Passover, because the last supper was Passover supper, and so that was sort of embedded in us as children and my parents really made it fun and special, so we always felt different. We didn't always have the neatest sneakers or the nicest tee shirts, but we had something no one else had. Plus, our parents were very nationalistic in terms of preserving their language and history, so at home, around the kitchen table when we were eating dinner, and we did a lot of family dinners that was very much a part especially on Sunday, my father wouldn't let us speak English. We had to speak Ukrainian, and for me and my profession it turned out to be a real gift to preserve it. That was very valuable. They taught us how to read in Ukrainian, we went to Ukrainian cultural programs. We participated in various holidays, Taras Shevchenko was the poet laureate of Ukraine, lived in 1860s, sort of the embodiment of what is Ukraine. We would learn his verse by heart, and anniversary of his birth we would have, you know, in our community, these plays. People would come out and recite poetry by heart. A lot of his poetry is put to music. So it was, you know, church and cultural and all these things that we had, and that was basically their legacy. We've tried to pass it on to our children. My son is getting married on the ninth of July to a Ukrainian girl, which I'm sure his grandparents would be very proud of him. My daughter married a wonderful young man from Atlanta, Georgia, but there again he was at the London School of Economics and he did a semester in Ukraine studying iconography. They met at a Halloween party, and I can't remember what he was dressed as but she was the only one that could recognize him, but it's also part of the Ukrainian Gogol Bordello connection. It's sort of that consciousness of being Ukrainian and he went to Ukraine so they immediately had a lot in common and it carried on from there. You know it's just very much a part of who we are. We call ourselves Ukrainian-Americans, and I'm still involved with Ukraine. I'm going to Washington this week. We have a delegation coming in from Washington and I'm working on a USED funded project to help Ukraine develop a national export strategy while they're going through their reforms and trying to get their economy back on a growth cycle after the Revolution of Dignity and all the things that have happened in Ukraine in the past couple years.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You said your son is marrying a Ukrainian girl. Is that something that for your parents was important to them that you marry someone Ukrainian, or do you feel that way about your kids? Or is it just coincidence?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It was very important to my parents. I have three sisters. They all married Ukrainians. I married a Ukrainian. I have one brother who was in the doghouse for a while. He married a non-Ukrainian but his wife really bought into all the Ukrainian traditions. They observe both Christmases, both Easters, their children go to Ukrainian dance camps, go to Ukrainian schools on Saturdays and all that, so it's very much a part of it. He's just basically expanded the gene pool a little bit, which can't be bad.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>ZN</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Now you said your wife is third generation. Did any of your traditions or celebrations differ from hers or were they pretty much the same?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: They were pretty much the same I think. The only difference we had was Christmas Eve, we had a conflict in our mushroom soups. But other than that, we shared. She brought some in and I brought some traditions in, and we kind of amalgamated and it now has our mark on it.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>ZN</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Does she speak Ukrainian too?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: She sings in Ukrainian. Her language skills are limited. She understands more than she speaks, but we lived in Ukraine for three years, so she picked up quite a bit there but she's not a linguist.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: How about you children? Do they speak?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: They understand. My daughter-in-law-to-be is fluent. Alexander, my son, he was in a Russian language immersion, so he has his Ukrainian from his grandparents and he had the Russian, so he speaks sort of a hybrid Slavic language. But all my nieces and nephews, my sister's kids, my three sisters, they all speak Ukrainian but they grew up very close to their grandparents and that's really where you can get most of it. We were overseas for most of their growing up so our kids went to, my son went to a Czech preschool, my daughter went to a Hungarian preschool, so at the age of 4 or 5 was my wife's interpreter at the markets.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: That's a cool story for them to tell of how they grew up.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>ZN</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I had a question. You said you identify as Ukrainian-American. Would you say you identify as either more? Or is it just a different identity than, you know, separately Ukrainian?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You know, I don't separate the two because that's the beauty of this country. Your composition of, you know, I think President Kennedy said something to the fact that immigrants really enrich this country. So I'm no less American than anyone else, and actually the fact that, you know, I served this country for, including my military, 37 years. For me it was important to give back to the country for opening its doors to my parents and for us.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Do you think either you personally or your parents, did they face any sort of discrimination for being immigrants?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Well I think, you know, you do. Some of it is sort of subliminal. That's why a lot of people change their names even, so they can, and I never felt the need to. I was not, in my own development, I was proud I was Ukrainian. In high school, I had a fight because they would call me, like, "You're a Polack," and at that point in time the kids were doing a lot of name calling and stuff. I said, “I'm not,” but at that point in time nobody knew Ukrainian, it was overshadowed by Russian. So I think maybe for some people it had an influence, and I can recount times when I thought there was some prejudice there, but it makes me all the more satisfied that we were able to overcome that and that my kids don't even think of it. My daughter, even though through marriage her name could have been Line, but she retained her name, Nadya Wasylko. Even her first name, Nadya I think has become more known, a little bit more popular, but she's very proud of her name. As is my son too. When my mother-in-law was growing up, I think they felt a lot more pressure to become Americanized. More of a melting pot mentality. But when we were growing up it was not that bad. In the army, they couldn't pronounce my simple seven letter name. When they yelled out "alphabet", I knew they were calling me. But again, it's pretty simple but we're pretty lazy in America when it comes to foreign languages. Canada is great. You know, we spent a lot of time in Canada. I did my graduate work in Canada, at the University of Toronto, we lived in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa. You know, Canadians define themselves as being not Americans. They won't tell you what Canadian is, but it's definitely not American. We are the melting pot, they promote multi-culturalism. The government really supports different ethnic groups. They put in for grants for various ethnic programs and language training in schools and what have you. That's how they differentiate themselves from us and I think that's really a great thing.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When your in-laws came over, did they change their names at all to be more part of the melting pot or did they keep their name?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, you know, they kept their name. And in this community, pretty much everybody kept their name. There's a few that actually change it. Her grandmother started out as a Czebiniak, married and became a Dobransky. Her first husband died and she became a Kaspryk. They just kept it. And these names became better in the community too. As the family expanded, they kind of just kept their identity.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>ZN</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Now you said with your family, some of them still live in Ukraine?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, my parents came from very, very humble, almost medieval kind of setting. They were born into families that were essentially in agrarian setting. They lived in thatched roofed huts, houses, dirt floors. Very primitive. This was, you know—my dad was born in 1918, my mother 1924. This was just after World War I. Just before they were born it was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. I know your focus is on the Russian Empire, but this was the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. After WWI, they basically drew borders and this Ukrainian enclave wound up in Poland, south-eastern Poland. Then comes World War II and you have the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and they redraw the borders again and it was after the war, there were a lot of partisans that were still fighting in that area and so they resettled everybody. My parents, I travelled there, I visited these areas. They were about, maybe ten miles away, their villages. In the 50s, they resettled all the population there, basically to undermine the base of operations of the partisans and for their own needs. The Russians came in and took all the people of my father's village and moved them east, forcibly moved them east. They had to abandon everything. My mother's family was moved north by the Poles to what was the Danzig Corridor. That ran along the Baltic in what is now Northern Poland. That was all occupied by Germans. After World War II, the Germans were basically moved out of there. Poland got the land going right up to the Baltic and they used the people from south-eastern Ukraine to fill that vacuum. So they were all forcibly moved up there. My father was moved to the east. My parents, after the war, were caught up in the displaced persons camps. They were considered stateless because they were Ukrainians, living in what was formerly Poland, and some areas now occupied by the Russians, so they spent from 45-49 in the camp before they resettled. You know, you see now the Syrian immigrants in the camps in Europe, you know, it's basically that kind of setting with these huge, you know compounds where these peoples lived and managed to survive. And so, your question was family there; yes, my mother’s family was in Poland, my father’s family is in what is near Lviv turn, Western Ukraine, and I’ve, you know, I’ve had contact with all of them in both countries.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Did they stay because they didn't have sponsors like your parents, or did they stay for other reasons?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: They stayed because they had no options, they were under communist control, the USSR at that time was a locked—you know they couldn't, you couldn't even go from one city to another without having a totalitarian government, so under Stalin at that time, it was extremely difficult, and Poland went Communist you know in '49, the communists took over. And restrictions on travel, on movement of people, you know it was the Iron Curtain. It had gone up, and so it was, what Ronald Reagan referred to as the “evil empire” had taken hold and so people were basically prisoners in their own countries. Prisoners.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So, sorry if this is going backwards, but how did your parents manage to come over then, if the rest of the family couldn't? Because of the sponsors?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Well, because they were separated by their families, during the war, '39 the Germans came in to the region they were in. And they took young people from different homes and took them as slave laborers to Austria and to Germany. So they—after the war was over, you had the, you know, literally millions of displaced people, you had prisoners of war, you had slave laborers, you had millions of people that were, had been uprooted by the war and had wound up in different locations at the end of the war. So they didn't know what had happened to their families. They were taken into these camps, then there were all these international NGOs, these nations that are trying to sort out. A lot of people repatriated; others like my parents were classified as stateless, there was nowhere to repatriate them, although the Russians came in and tried to take people back, and the people that they did repatriate directly, a lot of them, you know, suffered as a consequence. They were considered as collaborators with the Germans, many were imprisoned, some were killed; others were sent off to Siberia. And some you know, my parents managed to find a safe haven, and they were in an American zone, and eventually there was, it was a long process for them to get resettled. That’s why when you, when you have this big uproar about immigrants coming to America now, you know, it's a lot of rhetoric, but that clearance process is very very difficult and it takes time, and you got to, what is the name of accepting the displaced people until later you know, some kind of treatise to open up more quickly, my parents could have moved out of the camps more readily had they agreed to go to Australia, or to South America, but again, because they grew up hearing about stories about their grandparents going to America, they were more determined to wait it out until they had an opportunity to get on the manifest to go to America. So it wasn't a matter of choice—the winds of war swept people around and my father would always say that, as terrible as the war was, World War II, in many respects it opened up the world for these people who lived in these really beautiful pristine valleys and villages, and very idyllic nice place for tourists to visit, but they were a subsistence economy that, you just couldn't survive you know, had the situation like that continued. They'd have to find a way to find more opportunities.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: You said that your parents kind of held out for America. Do you think that America met their expectations? Did they have the sort of American dream mentality for it?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I think you know, eventually over time they realized the American dream. They came to this country penniless with no education to speak of, you know, they can read, they can write, but they really didn't have, you know, what they were able to give their children. So they raised five kids, we all went to University, they had their own home. My dad got his own car. You know it was just remarkable, and they worked. They worked. They were blue collar workers. They worked in factory. My mom worked the day shift, my father worked the night shift. But when they got to Auburn. When you know, they found the house, put a down payment on it. They managed to pay it off in like five years, paid off their mortgage. And again they just—it was amazing, you know, for them at the same time, you know their brothers and sisters and even their parents in the early years, were still alive, you know, who were living a terrible life behind the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union. You know, my parents, once things, after Stalin died and there was a little more communication, they sent letters, or they would send, you know, money. They would package, you know, clothing and send it, or there was even services where you could actually do gift packs of food and send it. I went to Ukraine in 1975 with my dad. He had not been back in forty years. And or seen his brothers in 40 years. He had five brothers and they were all young, virile men. When, as he remembered them, in '75 we went back and he was absolutely devastated to see his brothers. How you know, how abused they were. How downtrodden and you know, they, my father looked like a capitalist, and these guys looked like homeless people. And they worked as hard if not harder than my father, but they didn't have the opportunities, their kids didn't have the opportunity to go to education. And in our case, you know, for you know, if my parents didn't get out of that world, there's no way I would have been a diplomat for the Soviet Union or for Poland, you know, unless you were connected, unless you worked the system, unless you were a member of the Communist Party, you had nothing. And so they came here, and basically by their own sweat and toil, and they're, you know, very scrupulous habits, we didn't go out when we were going up, out to restaurants or anything. My parents had their own garden, you know, canned peaches and pears, and they basically took their own training and their way of life, transposed it into an American setting, managed to save money, managed to buy a house, managed to do all these things. And I never felt that, even though we didn't live on the East End of Auburn, where all the doctors and lawyers [lived], but we were not really poor in any way. We had food, we had clothing, we were washed and clean and we were presentable. But that was all basically their commitment and dedication to their family. And again, what they managed to do for them really was a realization of the American dream. I hear about the, all kinds of people use the [word] “American” and I think it means different things for different people. When I was in Moscow we had Secretary Evans, who was a friend of George W. Bush. They were real buddies, and actually Don Evans introduced George to Laura. So they were really good good friends, and he would come out and he would, Secretary Evans would talk about his own life, and how he and his friend George, young starry eyed guys, you know, went out there looking for oil in Texas, and looking to, living the American dream. Well, you know, to me that was great but it's like, just like Trump's thing is living the American dream because he's so successful, he only started with a few million.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Only?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Only. So that was great, great for him, but you know for my parents, it really was you know the American dream, to where they started and what they accomplished, and you know, where they'd gone. And just in a very short, one, two generations. You know it's been great. And they were inspiring, you know, they're inspiring to even my kids, who hadn't experienced, and so, you know I try to instill in my own kids, you know that, and they're familiar with their grandparents’ story. I've seen them go the distance, you know, see where your grandparents started and how far they went, and then how we've gone in the next generation, and for you, and again, it doesn't have to about money, it's just has to do about you know believing and trying to achieve something you know make your life meaningful. And so that's a great story right there.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>ZN</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Now you said neither of your parents got an education but all of your siblings did. Was education important to them—that you got it?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah, but they were, my mother got the report card. You know when a teacher told her, “Well, Stephan is, he's pretty smart but he's lazy.” Well, you know how they dealt with lazy kids back then, you know it was— But yeah, it was very, very important to them. When there were Ukrainians and there was Poland. They were a minority there too, so they suffered a lot of discrimination and abuse in Poland as ethnic Ukrainians, they didn't have their own schools. They didn't have their own language, newspaper or books or anything they were sort of looked down upon and you know they were in this, hills. The foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, and I think they were looked upon and treated as hillbillies. They didn't have a lot of opportunities. Now people that lived in larger cities, that was different. Maybe they had more success, but for my parents it was tough, and so when they came to America, you know the fact that you know they didn't have to do anything special, actually we were required to go to school, so immediately we are in Kindergarten and going to school, and in Auburn we had a parochial school, it was the Ukrainian St. Paul Ukrainian Catholic school, so that's where they sent us. Then we went to the public school system, and then. My parents, my dad in particular, he would ask me, “What, how much education do you really need?” You know, and I said, “Well, I don't know,” but, because after, you know, first of all I'm going away to University, that was something that they weren't really too excited about, because when you go away you go away, you know, and they had gone away, and so they were really very focused on keeping us close. But I went away from Auburn to Syracuse, that's 27 miles away but it was like it was away. And then when I went, after I got out of the military and I said I was going to go for my Masters, again they didn't really comprehend why: “When are you finally going to go to work?” But that was, again, their mindset. It was beyond what they felt one needed.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Did your siblings go away for school, as well, or did they stay close to your parents?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Well my oldest sister went to the local community college, it was Auburn Community College at that point in time. Now it's I think, it's like Broome County, BCC, so she did that, and then I went away, my other sisters went away, my brother went away so you know it was sort of weaning you know a weaning process.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So you were the first to leave?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Actually leave? Yeah, which was, you know, but they, you know they were very, you know, proud of the fact, but they'd always say, so what is it that you do? But that went on even here, you know my mother-in-law, when she had just made—at that point my first job was with the US Department of Commerce in Washington, and she'd introduce me as her son in law who works for the Junior Chamber of Commerce, which was not quite the same, but again, people have trouble grasping it if they had never been there and done that.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>ZN</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: So now I want to talk about—you said obviously you traveled a lot, so is there any place that you, specifically liked more than any others, or felt the most at home at, and do you have any interesting stories about your travels?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Well, we don't have the time. I'm sure, you know every place, when you, on a foreign assignment representing the US government and doing the kind of work I did, you know, it's absolutely fascinating, and every country has its plusses and minuses, but you know for me, I think probably the most meaningful assignment was to go to Kyiv and, you know, that was from 92 to 95, when we were establishing the US embassy in Ukraine and established diplomatic relations with Ukraine. I had a tremendous sense of actually working for two countries, you know, doing you know our bidding for the US, at the same time, sharing my US experience with Ukrainian government officials and trying to encourage them with their transformation from a central planned economy to a free market economy. And my capacity, I was working as a senior commercial officer so we were bringing the US companies in to basically trade with Ukraine, to invest in Ukraine, and you know to this very day I'm still trying to help that process, so it was very very difficult, it was frustrating. You always wanted things to move more quickly. 25 years later they're still facing some of the same issues. What was particularly striking and interesting was that in places like Kyiv—it's commonly called, it’s “Kiev” in Russian context but “Kyiv” in Ukrainian, you know that was so Russified that you know we were more Ukrainian than they were in many respects. The Ukrainian people living under communism, you know, weren't, it was an Atheist country so they didn't have the kind of religious; you know, faith organizations or engagement as we grew up with. A lot of the traditions were no longer even practiced in Ukraine. In Kyiv, in the big cities, out in the villages I think they were still preserved, but my wife actually, she's in the memorial center now running the Pysanka workshop doing the Ukrainian Easter eggs. She did the same thing in Ukraine for Ukrainians because they had no idea. And actually during the Stalinist years, they would look at children's hands. If you had dyes on your hands, then they knew your family may be doing this evil thing, and doing you know making these Easter eggs which related to a Christian holiday, which could set you back quite a bit or you could even be punished for doing that, so living and working in Ukraine was an amazing experience, and you know, going back now I can see how much has changed, and I can still see how much further it has to go, and you know it's a beautiful country and we actually got to see firsthand you know, some of the things that we read about and heard about. We went to the theatre and you can see, you know, the performing artists, performing well-known Ukrainian operas and plays, Ukrainian dancers, and it's just really all kinds of different traditions that you can actually witness. So that was a great bonus on top of— I never worked harder in any job than there. I always used to tell people, you know, in Ukraine you need to work four times as hard to go half the distance, but it was what it was and it was just a thrill.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: While you were working there, did you hear any or witness any views about what they think about America? Did they have negative views of America, or was it positive?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: While we were there, people had positive, sometimes unrealistic views; you know they, you know everything, you know, in America, you know, money grew on trees and, you know, sort of the land of milk and honey, and they didn't really grasp how hard people really had to work in order to achieve what they got and earned, so you know, growing up in this socialist environment, you know, they say, well if you have it, why can't I have half of what you have, you know? Which is, and even going back to when my father was alive, and I went with him for the first time, they said, well, his family would say, “Well, you have more than one car.” And they go, “Well yeah, you know, like I have a car, Stephan has a car, and has a car,” and so at that point in time, we had three cars and the family [says], “Well, why do you need three cars? Why don't you send us one?” you know, and you know they were always wanting. But not understanding that, you know, it doesn't come that easy. And so I think there's those kinds of misconceptions, there’s, you know, and a lot of that is going into, you know what the biggest issue in that part of the world is now is, the greed is one real problem, corruption is another major problem. A lack of, you know charity, altruistic society, you know, when I was there it was, everybody was just scrambling to get whatever they could get, and that sort of legacy of the Soviet system, of, you know, if you were in line in the supply chain, then you would steal whatever you could, while you had the opportunity to do it. That's changed considerably in the last few years, especially since this Revolution of Dignity, and a lot of people, they are really, these civil society pushing for change. People of your generation who, you know, were born after the collapse of communism. They don't, they really didn't experience what that is. But that hangover is still there, and it really is, you know, a real drag on the country’s development. Now they've signed the association agreement with the EU, people are you know, which is basically a roadmap for them on how they should govern, how they should work, what the world standards are for everything from food products to the legal systems, and so the younger generation says you know like, we need to adopt that, and once we do then we can be competitive with the rest of the world, but there is a lot of vested interest that really depends on the status quo. So, it's a real struggle, and so they're confronting, you know, an external evil with Putin taking Crimea, invading Eastern Ukraine, and then the internal evil forces that are basic corruption and greed, a lack of rule of law that undermines progress and keeps it from moving as quickly as it could.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: When you were sort of like, traveling for your work, I assume you weren't as involved in a Ukrainian community as you were here. Is that, would you say that's true or not?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No, no. You know, it varied—like in Ukraine, you were in Ukraine, so, like everything was Ukraine.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Yeah.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: In Hungary, there wasn't that much, in Prague, you know, I'd meet some people, actually I had Secret Service come at me, through this Ukrainian sort of contact, and befriended me, so you couldn't really trust who is what and what was going on, but in places like Vancouver, you know you had a Ukrainian community there, in Toronto as well. Ottawa, same thing. And so and kind of the community like that, you're on assignment working at the US embassy in Ottawa for example. After you get settled, well, you know, Sunday we'll go to church, and then you meet, you know, other Ukrainians and they'll put you on their mailing list and tell you things that are going on or—so yeah, it's always there, and again, come Christmas and Easter and the holidays, you know, we'd invite our, even though we were American, we celebrated 4th of July, and have a huge reception and parties for that, in my work you know we had trade shows and we'd do all kinds of different events, waving the American flag, but then we had our Ukrainian holidays, we would invite embassy friends, and we'd invite people from the community, friends that we made, and share with them some of our Ukrainian culture in an American setting, and so it was, we're really promoters of things Ukrainian, and I think that just comes from the fact that Ukraine had been so overshadowed for so long, you almost feel like it's an obligation, to do that, to educate people and let them share a little bit of the Ukrainian history and culture.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>ZN</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Now, here would you say that most of the Ukrainian community revolves around the church, or are there other Ukrainian organizations?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Here it's, it's pretty much church-affiliated, there's a small group of people that are involved in the political way, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America has a branch here, so, you know, we do flag-raising on Ukrainian independence day, to get a little press. You know the festivals that we do here, Sacred Heart does some festivals; we do, we try to promote a little bit of the Ukrainian thing, but it pretty much centers around the church. And a lot of it's apolitical—you know, actually, I'm probably more of an agitator than the rest because I want people to be aware of, you know, the plight of others and it's, you know, we're sort of in—sometimes we fade into la-la land, you know, we're just watching baseball and the NCAA tournament, which is great and all that, but we forget, we tend to forget about what's happening in the world around us. Just given my background experience and my work, my career, I think we have an obligation to at least know what's going on.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Would you, do you think the Ukrainian community in Binghamton in general is a close-knit community, do you have a lot of involvement with each other?</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I, you know, I think over time, we are just sort of dissolving into the broader community, and that's a natural thing, you know we have a lot of mixed marriages now. We don't have the language. Our deacon, you heard it in church, he's not even Ukrainian, he married a young lady from our parish and he went to the seminary, and for him to get ordained he has to have, to be able to do the liturgy in Ukrainian. So he's working on his language, but with that one exception, no one really pays attention to it. So yeah we're basically losing it and other communities who have been blessed or have been able to receive the third wave of immigrants. My wife's grandparents were considered the first wave. My family when I came in was the second wave. And now you have the third wave, post-independence. They're coming here and, you know, some places, some cities, they have basically taken over the churches, the organizations and sort of revitalized all of them, and sort of given them sort of life extension that we don't have here. We're having trouble with even supporting this campus that I may have mentioned earlier because we, this church had like 300 people at one point. We're down to 130, and a third of them don't live in the area. Another third are octogenarians, and so that doesn't leave a whole lot of people to sustain this.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>ZN</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Well, I think that's all the time we have for questions, so thank you very much.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Thank you!</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>SW</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: I hope I didn't overburden you.</span></p>
<br />
<p><b>EG</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: No! Not at all. It was very interesting.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">(End of Interview)</span></p>
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Interview with Stephan Wasylko
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Binghamton University Libraries
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Wasylko, Stephan ; Nasca, Zach ; Greenwell, Emily
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audio/mp3
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Stephan Wasylko was born in a displaced persons camp in Austria in 1948. His parents migrated to the United States with him and his sister in 1949 and they lived on a tobacco plantation in North Carolina. They later moved north and found factory jobs first in New Jersey and then in New York. Stephan received a degree from Syracuse University in International Relations and received a Masters from the University of Toronto. Stephan went into the Foreign Service after receiving his master’s degree and traveled around the world. After retiring Stephan and his wife moved to Binghamton in 2010.
Date
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2016-04-10
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In Copyright
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English
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Stephan Wasylko.m4a
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2016-04-10
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Ukrainian Oral History Project
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60:37
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Wasylko, Stephan.--Interviews; Ukrainians--United States; Diaspora, Ukraine—History; Ukrainian; Austria; Prisoner-of-war camps; Migrations; Church; Ethnic identity; Manors and customs; Labor camps; Broome County (N.Y.)
-
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Audio interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-05-13
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Stephen Gaskin
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Stephen Gaskin (1935 - 2014) was an American counterculture Hippie Icon. He was an author of over a dozen books and a political activist. He went to prison in 1974 for marijuana possession and his voting rights were rescinded. Gaskin was a recipient for the first Right Livelihood Award in 1980 and an inductee in the Counterculture Hall of Fame in 2004."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Stephen Gaskin (1935 - 2014) was an American Hippie counterculture icon. He was an author of over a dozen books and a political activist. He went to prison in 1974 for marijuana possession and his voting rights were rescinded. Gaskin was a recipient for the first Right Livelihood Award in 1980 and an inductee in the Counterculture Hall of Fame in 2004.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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MicroCassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
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138:44
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Sexual Relations; Free Speech Movement; Baby boom generation; Women's Rights Movement; Sex; Drugs; Rock n' Roll; Vietnam Memorial; Healing;Free Speech Movement; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Government Corruption; Woodstock; Hippies; Yippies; Students for a Democratic Society; Weatherman; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X; Eugene McCarthy; George McGovern; Lyndon B. Johnson; Black Panthers."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5009,"3":{"1":0},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":0,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"arial,sans,sans-serif"}"><span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Sexual Relations; Free Speech Movement; Baby boom generation; Women's Rights Movement; Sex; Drugs; Rock n' Roll; Vietnam Memorial; Healing;Free Speech Movement; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Government Corruption; Woodstock; Hippies; Yippies; Students for a Democratic Society; Weatherman; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X; Eugene McCarthy; George McGovern; Lyndon B. Johnson; Black Panthers."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5009,"3":{"1":0},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":0,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"arial,sans,sans-serif"}">Sexual Relations; Free Speech Movement; Baby boom generation; Women's Rights Movement; Sex; Drugs; Rock n' Roll; Vietnam Memorial; Healing; Free Speech Movement; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Government Corruption; Woodstock; Hippies; Yippies; Students for a Democratic Society; Weatherman; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X; Eugene McCarthy; George McGovern; Lyndon B. Johnson; Black Panthers; </span></span><span>Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa; </span>Sixties; The Farm; Stephen Gaskin; Ina May Gaskin; Tennessee; United Nations NGO; Community; Activism; H. Rap Brown; Ralph Featherstone; Mo Udall; Black Panthers; Oren Lyons; Jerry Garcia; Grateful Dead; Tim Leary; Pig Pen; St. Stephen; Bobby Seale; Stokely Carmichael; Russell Means; Beatnik; San Francisco State; Midwife.
Subject LCSH
Authors; Political activists--United States; Hippies; Gaskin, Stephen--Interviews
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Stephen Gaskin
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Carrie Blabac-Myers
Date of interview: 13 May 2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
0:15
SM: First question I want to ask is, before I even talk about your life and your experiences when the (19)60s begin, in your opinion, and what do you think and when did it end?
0:31
SG: Well, the beginning of the (19)60s for me, was a little late because I was finishing up my master's degree, in the real early sixties. And I got my master's, I think in (19)63, I taught (19)64 to (19)65. And the (19)60s began in (19)66 for me. And that was when I realized they were not going to fire me, but I had become too weird to rehire.
1:00
SM: Hmm. And that was when you were in San Francisco State?
1:04
SG: Right, I taught Shree years as San Francisco state, I got my bachelor's there, and my master's.
1:09
SM: Well, obviously, you went off in 1970 form the commune, but-
1:16
SG: We went off in 1970 because [inaudible] tour, we had no idea we were going to make the community. We always say "community", down south people who live in communes are called communists.
1:30
SM: Wow. When did the (19)60s end in your opinion?
1:35
SG: Well, see, people talk about, you know that the (19)70s was such a mess and came apart and stuff but for the (19)70s was the ten years we spent really working smart and loving each other for the work that we did. The (19)70s was make the farm happen so the (19)70 is fine for me. I am not I am not calling things off. I have not forgotten anything. And I am not going to I am not going to [inaudible]-
2:07
SM: When was there a watershed moment for it? Not only for you, but for a lot of members of the boomer generation. Was there a watershed moment when you knew this was a special time?
2:22
SG: Well, my students had to come and tell me when I was teaching at the San Francisco State, and they said, you were fun, and you were smart, you were funny, but you do not know what is happening. I said, oh! And so, they start telling me about it. You got to do a few things for us before we can continue the conversation. Okay, what do I have to do? They said, we will see the Beatles movie, go see the Grateful Dead.
2:48
SM: Oh wow.
2:52
SG: San Francisco State was trying to be kind of new. And they had what they call a mixed media event, which was three teachers reading three different poems and a couple of slides of vectors. I understood the concept but I did not do much. And when we went to see the Grateful Dead, we came in the door to the auditorium and there was a guy in the zebra suit, jumping on a trampoline underneath a strobe light. And you could not even tell what he was.
3:23
SM: Well, that that was a pretty watershed moment!
3:30
SG: And I just suddenly, well I realized that these are my people. And the thing is, I am thirteen years too old to be a boomer.
3:41
SM: Right?
3:42
SG: I am a beatnik. And like they say in the military, you can change from one branch to the other, time and grade, rank and like that. I was able to transfer from the Beatniks to the hippes like that.
3:55
SM: Well, Steven, you know, one thing I have noticed in my interview process is that so many people born in the ten years prior to the boomer period that they, they were kind of boomers, because they have this mentality of like the boomers.
4:11
SG: They kind of built them.
4:12
SM: And yeah, Richie Havens, when I interviewed him was born in 1940. Yeah, and Ritchie says, I am a boomer. I am a boomer. And it is- because it is an attitude. It is a way of thinking,
4:22
SG: I am born in (19)35.
4:26
SM: What you mentioned about your, I get a lot of questions here, but this these Monday night classes that we that you taught when you were at San Francisco State, it says in some of the literature you got up to 1500 students at one time in your class. What were what were some of these experiences over those two years when you taught these classes?
4:50
SG: Well, sometimes we would be in a scholarly way and everybody would be, like one guy came in on the Monday night class one night waving his book. Hey, look at this book, this 'ole monk in the thirteenth century had the same trip, I had last Saturday night!
5:02
SM: [laughs] Oh my gosh.
5:07
SG: We were quite scholarly we were reading a lot, reading all the religions and more we did that. We did not come to San Francisco to convert to religions. We were ransacking religions looking for goodies.
5:20
SM: So subject matter? These students were getting credit for this course correct?
5:25
SG: When it started off, but I had to leave the campus at a time. They got to where they did not peel the political posters off the glass anymore and the revolution taken over San Francisco State.
5:38
SM: Yeah, I know. Yeah. Because you were the president there. I guess he was one of your teachers at one time? Ichiye Hayakawa?
5:46
SG: Hayakawa? I was Hayakawa's student assistant. Hayakawa was one of the media-wise foremost semanticists, general semanticist in the country at that time, although there were about four or five guys smarter than him that did not have the good fortune for his PhD thesis to become a book cult collection.
6:08
SM: Well, he was president during that time when all the student rebellion was happening at the school.
6:13
SG: At the time had split to Ethiopia to get away. They had offered the presidency to all of the faculty and they all turned it down, they say, we are not going to scab and they offered it to Hayakawa and even though he was not full time and even though he did not teach but two courses they made him president anyway.
6:33
SM: What year was that?
6:35
SG: Well golly that would have to be (19)65 or (19)66 something in around there.
6:39
SM: Wow.
6:42
SG: And he came out he came outside wearing a tam o'shanter hat, a very colorful hat thinking he was going to come on like he was a hippie and the hippies snubbed him.
6:54
SM: Oh, wow.
6:57
SG: You know, this is very short time, when in the Free Speech Movement, Mario Savio and those guys pulled up they thought that Hayakawa would like them and he did not. I answered the phone. I told him who it was and he did not like them at all. I am going I am sorry. He does not like you. I do. But he does not.
7:16
SM: My gosh. Yeah, that was (19)64 or (19)65 and that was about the time he became president then.
7:21
SG: Yeah, because he took he took the job when nobody else would do it.
7:25
SM: Wow. Was there any connection with what was going on, on the San Francisco State campus? And what was going on over there at Berkeley?
7:32
SG: Well, we were a little bit different in the sense that they were more the political guys and we was more of the acid guys. But there was not a hard line. It was some of all the same. And I did a class at night that it happened to be in Hayakawa's office with a free speech movement. I was teaching a class that night, one of my an- Francisco State College classes, called a Monday Night Class and so I said, well, we were in solidarity with the guys in Berkeley, according to my understanding that I can say fuck anytime I want, as long as I have the right layers of parentheses and quotation marks around it. And I took a new piece of chalk was three inches long, and used it on its side, take the line about four inches wide. And I wrote FUCK and letters three feet on the blackboard in the front of the room and I went back to the old German origins, you know, and like that, and we thought about it for a while. And I must have said it a couple of hundred times during my class. They were right with me. We were exhibiting solidarity with Berkeley.
8:43
SM: Wow. Those are those were unbelievable times back then. You know, I have interviewed several people [inaudible] in the student protest movement. San Francisco State there was a famous picture of him with African American students look like they were really it was a front of a book cover. I do not know if you remember when the African American students really went after him?
9:08
SG: I do not remember.
9:08
SM: Yeah. So, there was a lot of rebellion. When you think of those years, not only as a student but as a teacher. What was it like being a student what was college life like in the (19)50s or the early (19)60s before this period started?
9:26
SG: Well, that was what I was most likely being more like a beatnik when I was still in school taking class. And I made good grades when I wanted to pay attention. I did not always do it but I did not always pay attention but I graduated cum laude which I used to think was a big deal. And the lady I am married to now was also cum laude. And what I found out was there was a thing that happened to be where I got tired of the papers they were giving. They were so stilted. It was like they were being written for their maiden aunt. I am going to have a heart attack, if they said anything heavy. Something like that. And I complained to them. This is crap you are writing and you are being so careful, you are not saying anything of who you really are and what is really happening. I want to make that assignment for you where I am not going to grade spelling or grammar or anything like that I am more grade [inaudible] and so they sent in a paper like that. And it was a heavy trip man, they like one girl wrote a paper about how her brothers trying to make or give away your half black baby.
10:38
SM: Huh?
10:39
SG: So, the real hard stuff started coming out. And I was knocked out by the, by the content and what I went through a change right there on account of that paper, which was I realized that I loved the students deeply. And I considered the institution to be in the way and not helping out the relationship.
11:02
SM: You said that you were a beatnik. The obviously the beats were very important influence in the (19)50s because they were against the status quo, you know, the Kerouacs, the Burroughs and Ginsburgs.
11:15
SG: The way I got introduced to the beatniks - a friend of mine came to me and says they are having a [inaudible] in the East Coast, where they were having coffee houses, they are drinking coffee, and it goes back in time or Shakespeare when coffee was the dope and folks were uptight about when you talked to much when you did it. There was one down in Laguna Beach, I was in San Bernadino, he says there is one down at Laguna Beach. He goes, do you want it? And we stole the cafe Franken sign, and the plaster cast of the Frankenstein tombstone with a centerpiece and the waitress was in love with the coffee cook and she was spilling over everybody and it was just stoned and sweet and I thought, I think these are my people.
12:12
SM: Did you did you have experiences meeting Ferlinghetti and Gary Snyder and the people out there?
12:18
SG: I met Gary Snyder and was my first Monday night class came out it filled up the bookstore, Ferlinghetti's bookstore, the entire window was my book, and the entire glass of the window was the picture of my paper.
12:36
SM: Wow.
12:37
SG: Because everybody - I had been doing the class for several years by then everybody knew was going to come out. No advertising. It got that way by word of mouth. And it just filled up a printing and we have got another printing and sold out a printing and we had another printing like that. And talking to Ferlinghetti about being in his bookstore and I had been. Some of the guys I liked, what is the name of that English guy?
13:08
SM: Neal Cassady or?
13:10
SG: No, I met Neal over in Amsterdam one time more recently. And Neal [inaudible] I knew Big Brother and the Holding Company, when they were an acoustic jug band with no amplifier.
13:32
SM: Now when did they start? That band?
13:36
SG: Well, they what happened to them, as you may recollect, is they were kidnapped by Janis Joplin. [laughs] And that was what happened to them. And so, I knew the guys in the bands and you know, the guy from a Big Brother and the Holding Company came up to me and reminding me of who he was, I said "hey I tell people I know you."
14:05
SM: Wow. So, you when you are talking about the counterculture in the Bay Area, in the (19)60s and the (19)50s, late (19)50s (19)60s and (19)70s, you think primarily in terms of the music and the way people lived their lives? The lifestyle?
14:27
SG: Well, it was it was modern amplification of the music and rock and roll was happening pretty heavy in Europe and then the first rock and roll I ever heard about was referred to as Rock and Roll Riot Detection and by the time I got into San Francisco the Dead you know, Garcia still had black hair.
14:54
SM: Um hmm.
14:55
SG: And the oh, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Cipolina I think one of the crazy real lead guitarists of our time.
15:11
SM: Who was that?
15:12
SG: Cipolina.
15:13
SM: Oh.
15:14
SG: From um, it is tough to remember that name. I had been an English major and then my mother wanted me to be a lawyer and then I ended up being an English major. And I realized I was a creative writing major. And so, I came out as a creative writing major. The thing about a creative writing major is that you get to make up your thesis.
15:43
SM: Hmm.
15:45
SG: It is a group of short stories.
15:46
SM: Right.
15:46
SG: No research, you get to make up your thesis!
15:50
SM: Huh.
15:53
SG: I did that and then on the other side, I was doing general semantics and linguistic study at least the analytical side of the language and the structure of the language. Nothing wrong with the study of a little semantics.
16:09
SM: We you say that when you are around some of these people in two different experiences one in that classroom and another at that club and you say in both instances, I found that people I am most comfortable with. I belong here. Did you feel up to that point, even in your growing up years, with your parents, the years leading up to go into college, even including your military career that you really had not found yourself?
16:39
SG: Yeah, I would say that. I was just doing, you know, after I got in the military, I was supposed to go to school and GI bill, which I did. And I am one of the last people who got out before Reagan screwed the California School System. When I went to San Francisco State to $79 a semester.
17:01
SM: Oh my gosh.
17:02
SG: Not a unit. A semester.
17:04
SM: And what years were those?
17:06
SG: Well, I guess (19)60 - (19)61 something like that I would say. I got it. I took an AA in San Bernadino. And if I uh, well the thing about having that AA is if I had an L I could spell Alabama.
17:36
SM: Yeah you were in the military from (19)52 to (19)55? Right. Now, did you learn anything about war? You were in action over in Korea. You had something, you must have had some feelings coming back from a war?
17:54
SG: Yeah, well, I could not get with the student revolution guys who wanted to send thousands of people up against the administration building and that kind of stuff. I thought that we were supposed to be so media hip and so attractive and neat that we took over that way.
18:17
SM: What was? You were around in during the period many people say is the Summer of Love. Haight Ashbury, that was (19)67. We see all these pictures of Golden Gate Park. It was quiet. He just what was the year 1967 like in San Francisco?
18:38
SG: So, I think that was when we had the we had the first human be- in.
18:47
SM: Please speak up too, thanks.
18:50
SG: So that was just after Woodstock. And we set up in the polo field in Golden Golden Gate Park. And thousands and thousands and thousands of people came.
19:05
SM: Wow.
19:06
SG: I was up on the hill watching it. The meeting was so profound and so powerful, I had to stop and sit down once in a while always walking up to it. A woman there and a mounted policeman: she came up and says, my son is down there! I want to get my son! Help me get my son! Ma'am, all of those people are smoking pot. I cannot go down there.
19:37
SM: Wow.
19:38
SG: And that was also when something happened at later karma which was somebody broke the lines to the stage! The power lines. So, the Hells Angels went out and walked the wires and found them and had a Hells Angel standing on each place the wire was plugged together and protected the jam that way.
19:57
SM: Hmm.
19:57
SG: That is why Garcia had the idea evident for security at Altamont.
20:03
SM: All right, well, that was a disaster.
20:06
SG: Yeah, yeah. Awful.
20:08
SM: Were you at Altamont?
20:10
SG: No, I was with Grateful.
20:12
SM: Wow, because that was the-
20:15
SG: That was one of the low points.
20:17
SM: Some people say that was when everything kind of turned around. But what was it like? The young people, when you look at the boomer generation, you have not only seen them in the classroom, seen them in the communes, seen them in the clubs just experienced them in many different ways, what are their strengths and what are some of their weaknesses in your opinion? Based on the people you knew?
20:46
SG: Well, the strengths and their weaknesses are pretty much the same thing. That was how much they trusted, and how much they were open and how much they were willing to experiment how much they were willing to take along. That stuff is great growth drives, and also can be dangerous. And I loved them and I love hippies still. And in fact, I claim it still. I claim mass affiliation really and say, oh yeah, I am a hippie. And I love the hippies very much and I loved going to rock and roll and I have never had any music that was my own until honor to rock and roll. When I grew up the big hassle was Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. And I thought Sinatra was a better singer but he was such a dick always slapping valet parking people and stuff like that. And Crosby was a nice family man, and not really very interesting or anything and that was what music was when I was a kid. And when suddenly it was rock and roll, man, oh my goodness! People were doing things with guitars that before Rock and Roll would have been considered a catastrophic equipment breakdown. [laughs] You know, when complete and total feedback takes over a whole amp.
22:17
SM: When, when you when you heard young people say, then and many even who are older today say that we were the most unique generation in American history because we were going to end the war, bring peace to the world, end racism, sexism, homophobia, you know, all those other things would not come to fruition all those things and a lot of progress. But what do you what do you say when you hear that this generation feels at times that they were the most unique in our history?
22:53
SG: Well, I think that they are never, there was never anything like that before you because you have never had the social amplifiers that we had. Loud, and using heavy dope. You know, we were we were amplified and, and it was not that we were hiding what we were doing, we were proud of it, we would be dressed different from other folks so that those with like minds, would recognize us. And I still wear my hair long, although it is a little ponytail like a rat tail and smooth on top. I am not going to cut it. They were very afraid. And when I left on the caravan, I left with twenty-five school buses, by the time I got to the farm I had fifty school busses and four hundred and some people who were committed to give it a go. To try to make something happen. And that was one of the things that used to happen is guys would come up to me it was very successful summer dealing. You ever decide you got to go to the land somewhere, let me know, I will help you buy it. Guys like that would come up to me. And I had no personal wealth. I was on the salary, the salary for a teacher. A first-year teacher is not much. And I love those people. And they came here with me. And we have changed since we came here in a bunch of ways because we were wild, wild and crazy both ways as you know. Some folks could not stand us or understand us but then - oh, I would have been with you guys already if I knew that was who you were.
24:56
SM: Here what happened between when the Summer of Love ended (19)67 because we hear stories about (19)68 was a pretty rough year in San Francisco because the many drugs many more drug people came into the Haight Ashbury area and people left like a, like bees.
25:17
SG: What happened when we were on a caravan, which was 1970, we were gone for seven months on the road. And we got back to San Francisco. It has been taken over by crack and cocaine and heroin and alcohol. We did not use to drink as a culture. Hippies did not used to drink the first time Janis Joplin showed up and put a bottle of Southern Comfort down on top of the piano, people were scandalized.
25:46
SM: Oh, wow.
25:47
SG: Yeah. That we were very innocent in our ways. And when we came back off the caravan, we saw that the scene had gone decadent. And we did not know where we were going to get land. But we thought we, we got a good thing going here. We had a very successful tour. Obviously, I was handed over at the state lines from the cop of one state to the next state, hey, they are okay, do not worry about them do not worry about them. When one thing is kind of fun was when we left the first day we left we got busted at the Oregon/California border and the cops had busted us but they had FBI and state police and troopers and a sheriff and whatnot. And they did not know what to do about us at all. But they came out and took my bus and the guy said, I have orders to arrest of the registered owner this bus, well, it was not my bus. This other guy who said What? Gee! What did I do? So, the guy takes out the papers and says I have orders to arrest Stephen Gaskin. But he arrested me and they took me in. I have to admit. The cops did look a little odd. They were counting the change in this great big [inaudible] full of change and small bills that they had bailed me out with. Hey hold on for a second. I got something on the other line I got to take.
27:18
SM: Okay. You were telling the story about the cop and the busses.
27:32
SG: So, they went into court and they want to know who we were. We are the people who are for peace and who are peaceful about being for peace. This is right in the middle of blowing up the Sterling building-
27:52
SM: In Wisconsin, and then the Weatherman.
27:53
SG: And so, we talked to the judge, and the judge says okay. I will tell you what I am going to do, I am going to let you go into speaking tour. At the end of your tour, you got to come back to this courtroom. And I will know where you were. So, I said, okay, and we took off like that. And we went to a lot of changes. We got back off the road and we came back in there. We went into that that office. And he must have got a clipping service or something because all of the walls of the office were covered with pieces of paper for every parcel and point [inaudible]. They had tracked us all the way.
28:34
SM: Unbelievable.
28:35
SG: And the judge, we went back into the courtroom and the judge said, he said, your presence in the courtroom is an embarrassment and you were free to go.
28:51
SM: Hmm.
28:54
SG: When I wrote the Caravan book, the first chapter is half that story in the last chapter is the other half of that story.
29:05
SM: Oh, wow. I got to get that book. Is that book still in print?
29:08
SG: Yeah.
29:09
SM: Oh, I got to order that book. I have a list of all your books here and they are all fascinating.
29:18
SG: I have got it myself and then you hit me up on my website.
29:22
SM: Yeah, because you got forty Miles of a Bad Road.
29:25
SG: That is my master's thesis.
29:28
SM: Yeah. And then you have Monday Night Class, which is one I love.
29:32
SG: Yeah.
29:33
SM: Then you got The Caravan from (19)72 and the one about Haight Ashbury Flashbacks. And An Outlaw in my Heart, a Political-
29:43
SG: Oh, By Heart was the one I put together when I was running against the Ralph Nader for the Green nomination.
29:50
SM: Wow.
29:52
SG: Best thing about that was I got to be friends with Ralph.
29:55
SM: Yeah, I saw Ralph last year when he was talking about his first now when he went around the country. Tell me a little bit about The Caravan. Obviously, you- where did you meet the people that went on the original in the original buses, or cars?
30:13
SG: They were the Monday night class.
30:15
SM: They were all students.
30:17
SG: They were all Monday night classes.
30:20
SM: Then they were off in the Bay Area, most of them?
30:24
SG: Hold on again a minute.
30:38
SM: So, they were mostly, they were students from your Monday night class?
30:41
SG: Yeah. And they were just, we had people there who had PhDs, people that are who were dropped out freshmen
30:48
SM: Oh my gosh!
30:49
SG: They came to the farm and when we get the farm up to a pretty big population and stuff at one time, the farm had more college degrees than the Tennessee State legislature did.
31:00
SM: Oh my gosh, the original when you finally got there. What was your number at the very beginning?
31:11
SG: When we went back, actually, just to land some people dropped off at that point. We came in with about 280 people.
31:19
SM: Wow.
31:20
SG: And we were we were in Nashville, trying to look for land. And we thought, well, as big as we are, we should have a band. A big creature like this needs a voice we should have a band. Philip says, oh, I got to go trade this guitar in. I cannot do rock and roll with a twelve string, I got to get a real rock and roll guitar. He went to get a rock and roll guitar and the lady at the music store says, nobody has lived on my mother's old home place down in Lewis county for about thirty-five years. You guys can go down there and park. They gave us place to land. I found out that they were kind of wealthy liberals.
32:03
SM: Uh huh.
32:04
SG: And the while we were there looking for a tractor, somebody went out came back to the port subtractor with a wide front wheels and low back wheels. And one guy who had ridden with the Hells Angels said, that was not a tractor. And he went out for a tractor and he found this big old John Deere with wheels about, about seven-foot-high and the guy who sold him the tractor said, you guys should buy my place, its 1000 acres and the road does not go through. We went to the bank down in [inaudible] and asked for a loan. And we got to the bank and they said, well it is not just because you are an out of town hippie, it is also because no one has ever asked for a loan as big as that from this bank before. We went back and told Carlos that. And he said, I trust you guys, I will carry it. And that was that was a very important thing because we did not know it but the FBI had every county clerk in the state primed up to let them know have you tried to buy land in their county because they were going to get us.
33:13
SM: [laughs] Oh jeez!
33:14
SG: And because the guy carried the note himself, we were a stranger [inaudible] before they ever heard about us.
33:20
SM: Oh my gosh.
33:26
SG: Some of what I did was I general. You had to have a to have a general because we were facing an organized thing.
33:40
SM: So, they have been being alerted people all over the area that do not lend money to your group.
33:47
SG: Who they had alerted were the county clerks if we came to do a title search or anything.
33:57
SM: They just did not want your type, around did they?
34:00
SG: Well now, we have all become very effusive. They love us.
34:04
SM: Now, what was the, the actual land that you bought finally?
34:09
SG: Well, first, we bought Carlos's 1000 acres. And it is where the highlands where the Nashville basin is, the rim and this land is off of that rim coming down to the lower land it has got a few pretty flat fields not a lot of hills and we are a deciduous oak forest. And anyway, it turned out that the only interest of the place was through about seven or eight other people's driveways. And we bought the land next door, which had an opening on the blacktop. We did that that that the first piece of land was $70 per acre $70,000 for 70 acres. The next piece of land was $100 an acre. 700 acres, same price but we only got 700 but then we had 1700 acres. And then later on, we have had things happen like Japanese land buying companies come in and buy land on our border and clear cut it and stuff like that. By this time, we were big enough that we just chartered a nonprofit corporation and we started buying everything still had trees on it. But now we are up to having six and a quarter square mile, or 6000 acres. I was talking to a guy in Europe about an acre and a hectare. And we finally decided that we had, we had 1000 hectares. And this guy who happened to be the director of the [inaudible] said, you should secede from the union.
35:59
SM: [laughs] Wow. Of the originals that came back in 1970 are there very many still there?
36:13
SG: Not a lot. But, but we were like with other places you were back to be close to their folks or whatnot, you know, we were a very large and well communicated entity and we talked to each other all over the place. Got people. At one time we had twenty-five other farms.
36:32
SM: Wow.
36:33
SG: We had one in Ireland and we had one in India. Like that.
36:39
SM: Wow. How many people live there now?
36:45
SG: I do not think we are up to 300 right now but it was 1500 people and it was also five hippies hitchhiking on every freeway ramp.
36:56
SM: For a while. Cannot hitchhike anymore, though, can you?
37:01
SG: Not much!
37:04
SM: Now, obviously, people think that hippies were very popular in the (19)60s and (19)70s but that there are not very many left. Hippies. You do not hear about them much anymore, except for places like The Farm and that have lived the life. But your thoughts on that? How many? Are there still hippies out there that are young?
37:32
SG: Well, they do not call themselves hippies but they but they are heavy into communication, and rock and roll and they are on the internet and they are a generation that talks to itself more freely than anybody ever has. And they do not call themselves hippies anymore but you hear it used every now and then. And whenever anybody asks me I always say a hippie of course.
38:03
SM: Do you have you have people that actually read about the farm and say, can I come and live there?
38:08
SG: Oh, yeah. We have, when we were big, we had 256-man hours a week in gate.
38:17
SM: Oh my gosh.
38:19
SG: We had we had 150,000 visitors in our first 10 years.
38:26
SM: And what was the process? See it see a person? Well say in 1972 you had been there two years, what was the process for someone to become a part of The Farm?
38:38
SG: We used to call it soaking. We would make you come and live here for a while and work. And we would advise that do not get involved romantically when you are first coming here. But as you get where you cannot tell the difference between falling in love with somebody and falling in love with the farm. And, and after you soak for a while for sure you want to do it, then we check you out and see if we want you. But the beginning you could be a full partner on a handshake and a smile.
39:09
SM: And you said that they were PhDs, master's degrees, bachelor's degrees, dropouts.
39:17
SG: Our giant book was backed up by a PhD in organic chemistry.
39:25
SM: Why do you think I know you your experience but why do you think so many people that were in that class or heard about that class said I am tired of this world. I want to get away from it. I want to go back to nature.
39:40
SG: Well, I ended up right on the spot where stuff was happening. I would usually you go check out a scene you go to hear about the scene and its already going decadent. But this one happened right around me. I saw it when it first grew and I love it and hippies love me, you know, because I never sold out. I am 75 years old now.
40:14
SM: Yeah, I was reading in the some of the things in the web, the wall street journal called The Farm the General Motors of American communes.
40:23
SG: [laughs]
40:25
SM: What did they mean by that?
40:28
SG: Well, that we had like a motor pool, and we had a school up through high school. And we had medical facilities. Our midwives are world famous, that is what my wife's doing right now she is off talking about midwifery in Europe. And she, lectures to doctors, doctors come to her lectures. And we were good at what we did. And nobody, nobody around our neighborhood, thinks hippies are dumb. In fact, this is just like, how stuff would happen. We were anti-nukers, of course. And at some point, we said, we were anti-nukers, we ought to be able to tell us something is hot. We ought to have a Geiger counter. So, we got a Geiger counter. And that year's Geiger counter was a pig, it weighed maybe 15 pounds had a big signal letter and battery in it is just a pig, it was before digital measurization, pretty much although our guys are into them somewhat. But we had we had that thing and it did not have a dial on it, it just had a light and it (noises) and people would write down a number or anything and at the same time, one of our people who is on the farm to have a baby the little farm issue, she was having twins. So, the midwives got the Doppler effect, fetal heart monitor, for sensitivity to separate the twin’s heartbeat and the guy on the crew who was working on the cluster, checked out that and he went back and he says, look, that little heart monitor our posture has a delay in averaging circuit eventually if we hook that delaying and averaging circuit up to the Geiger we could time it. It would have a dial and we would have a needle. So, we figured that out and put it together. And our Geiger counter was about the size of a pack 100-millimeter cigarette. And when 911 hit we had to hire more people to that company. And right now, in Lewis County our Geiger counter company is the only one of our companies that is big enough and strong enough to have health care for its employees.
43:06
SM: It is a fantastic story.
43:09
SG: And right now, the Geiger counter company is listed as the only high-tech business in Lewis County. That is one thing about the neighbors not thinking that hippies are dumb.
43:21
SM: Well, you got some pretty good people there and you are at the farm. Boy, some really good and, you know, reading your background, I was very impressed with your background and your wife's background, but to see the information you are given me about some of your fellow people, they are in The Farm over the years, it is pretty impressive, but I am going to change my tape. Okay. I am back. One of the interesting things about communes is that when the in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, a lot of people say the (19)60s ended in around 1973. So, you got to glue those first few years as part of the (19)60s in the (19)70s. But that was when so many people went back to communes and or they-
44:12
SG: Fake unity.
44:14
SM: Yeah. Or they went into a more spiritual feeling. So, they were not going to church as much. And what I have read here, and I like your comments on the critics of communes as a whole, maybe not The Farm, but communes overall, is that this it is about people who dropped out. People who went back to nature, lived off the land became much more spiritual, and they did not have to go to church or synagogues, but they became more inner, inner spiritual. I would like you to your comments on the critics of the communes and define what a commune is.
44:58
SG: First place like I keep saying. We are a commune and total commune is a- the political term and so we say we are an intentional community living together on purpose, because they want to. And the idea is that people have been trying to do that kind of stuff in this country for a long time, the Shakers and those kinds of people like that. And we are not like we used to be in the sense of like, totally collecting did not have to have any money in your pocket and these glasses, you would have a bank lady and like that. And now, we went through changes in 1983 like the world did and people have their own bank accounts and stuff now. And we have come to find out that in Israel, that is a metamorphosis that happens that it is well documented there and it when a kibbutz turns into a musha'a and it this really collective bit like a collective child raising very like. And the musha'a is, people got their own checkbook and their own job and their own money, but they are still collecting. So, we kind of like went like that thing in Israel, using the technicality of that language, I think we are more of a musha'a now but we like to do big projects together and so we still do big projects. Our Plenty organization that we put together. The first thing we did was help the people whose houses had been destroyed by tornados and stuff then we ended up doing a rather large, that diet health program in Guatemala, where we got into a deal with Faith International and pipelined millions of [inaudible] money into Guatemala and organized. We like big projects, but then we were very clear, that Plenty thing belongs to everybody on The Farm. We did not want to have an acronym, we call it Plenty, because there is actually enough if it was fairly strict. So, we explained what Plenty means and that is pretty revolutionary.
47:31
SM: So why, why did The Farm succeed when most of the other communes did not? There may be three or four major communes in the country, and the rest of them are gone?
47:44
SG: Well, I do not know exactly. The first 13 years, I was really deeply involved in everything. And I have not been since about (19)83. I have lived here, I have worked from here but I do not run it. And it was like it went from running Monday Night Class to running The Caravan and now, it would be superfluous for me to try to run things. But you have gone off and been doing things for years and it is really nice to have competent friends. In fact, somebody came to The Farm and do the story and they said they seem to have a religion of competence.
48:38
SM: For example, within The Farm itself, do you each have your own, like homes? And then you have you eat your meals separately? Or do you eat out common area?
48:49
SG: No, we had we, we have community dinners every now and then and also, we will have a community dinner for a cause like the school needs somebody or something who have a community dinner and charge for it. And we do a lot of music and one of the most successful things we have done is our musicians have passed down lots and lots to our kids.
49:17
SM: See, so if you go out on a lecture circuit or your wife for the band goes out and performs or somebody who has a skill goes out in the community and gets paid for it, does that money all come back to the to one big lump?
49:35
SG: No.
49:37
SM: So, you have your own private counts now?
49:40
SG: Oh, sure. Okay. The government you know wants you to have social security numbers and things.
49:49
SM: Right.
49:52
SG: We got to obey the law of the land everywhere we can and I probably am not going to do any more books based on pot. We have got a very good one out now and I do not need any more. I have one called Cannabis Spirituality.
50:16
SM: Well if pot was a very important part was very important part of The Farm.
50:21
SG: It is part of the whole hippie movement. Anything remarkable about our pot stuff is how well we kept away from crack, and cocaine and heroin. We were hash and acid and peyote.
50:42
SM: How do you deal with that it is illegal in most areas? Still.
50:48
SG: What I do in my own personal areas is be cool. And that is what other people have to do to.
50:53
SM: A one a couple other things here. I am looking at that. One of the when there was the period when and you know this and I know it is not true, but when Charles Manson happened, they thought that that was the kind of a cult and that he was part of a small community and then he had the Symbionese Liberation Army that ended up taking Patty Hearst, and they were supposedly some sort of a commune.
51:26
SG: A commune.
51:28
SM: Yeah, commune I guess. They were small groups, but did some bad things.
51:34
SG: Well the thing about Charlie Manson is, he is not by throwing him in the, the prison system of the United States had him when he was a young man and had him for 20 years before there was ever such a thing as the Haight and he was being educated in the penitentiary system and he is not ours. He was a hitchhiker on us, but we did not make him. And what was the other thing?
52:04
SM: The Symbionese Liberation Army.
52:06
SG: Well, Symbionese Liberation Army, they liked this fancy made up names but they were more of a publicity stunt. They were not going to take anything that was not a revolution or do anything like that would not make any permanent changes or anything. That is not who we are. We vote in our elections here. And when we were big, governors and senators came to our door to talk to us about it. I am a friend of Al Gore's.
52:44
SM: Oh, very good.
52:46
SG: He was by Congressman. And I think the supreme court stole that election completely
52:56
SM: I agree. Life would have been a little different. I think we still might have been attacked though at 911 but still.
53:08
SG: Well the thing about the thing about that stuff is we got to make peace with the Islamic world we cannot cut them off in little pieces and say this is a bad piece and we are going to blow it up and we act like that about a fifth of the world every time we blow up some a little village with a drone.
53:36
SM: A couple of other things regarding just the way the media in the culture of television and movies have portrayed communes. Is Easy Rider? Those scenes when Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper I think Jack Nicholson is in there too, but when they come into this one commune there is that scene and they are kind of talking to them, oh, this would be great because they were referring to all the top potential sex partners they could have within the within the commune that that was very well portrayed in that movie. And then another thing about in (19)98.
54:21
SG: They are rich movie actors.
54:25
SM: So that was really just Hollywood doing a Hollywood thing?
54:29
SG: Complete Hollywood bullshit.
54:31
SM: Yeah, because there was a you may have it. I have a major collection of magazines. There was a Life magazine on the cover with the commune. Do you remember it in the late (19)60s, where it showed a family and a commune and at the top of it says communes and it is very good article that talks about, you know, they, they were not having they had a white they did not have six wives? But there is, there is still that feeling out there that maybe men and women are having more partners than they should.
55:03
SG: They were in the (19)60s but that has consequences, children and stuff. And people want to have the best deal they can for their children and they did not want it to be a haphazard mess because they had to sort it out for the kids.
55:19
SM: Right?
55:22
SG: I do not mind challenging the mores of society I have never been afraid to but I am also not afraid to agree with them when they are useful and necessary for the safety and sanity of everybody else.
55:37
SM: How do you deal with that? I have asked this question, everybody. It is a general question. We have the in 1994, or Newt Gingrich came to power. He kind of he and he still does make commentary about the (19)60s and (19)70s that basically the problems we have in our society today are the problems of the breakdown of the American family, the drug culture, the you know, only one parent at home, lack of respect for authority and basically, culture going astray. And of course, George Will, when he gets chances he'll make commentaries. And Mike Huckabee even does it on his television show. And I remember when John McCain was running for president, he made commentary about Mrs. Clinton, that she was kind of like a hippie. Just general comments degrading the period and the time. How do you respond to those kinds of people when they make general statements?
56:41
SG: Well, there is a pretty good school of thought that being a hippie is an ethnicity.
56:50
SM: Mm hmm.
56:51
SG: And that people do it like they, they get racist about it. And that is the thing. I could cut my hair and get a necktie and if I kept my mouth shut, nobody would ever know.
57:05
SM: Right.
57:06
SG: But I will not and everybody knows I will not and you know, proud of my hippie forebearers and what we have done about it is we are not treated that way. We are not treated that way locally. The neighbors come here. We used to we had to ask the neighbors how to sharpen a chainsaw when we got here. And we had people come to be our electricians, our, our tech company is very strong and we are friends with our neighbors, we had a series of debates with the preachers. We had six or seven Church of Christ preachers come every Wednesday for weeks and then they had one up in Nashville in a big hall with about five or six preachers on stage and me. And the one old guy who said that he was the cult expert in Tennessee said that there are 309 nine cults in Tennessee but that The Farm was not one of them. And then had this you know, discussion in front of all these people and it got to the point where the preachers finally said, I cannot make them out to be Christians no matter how hard I try. But I really wish mine lived as well as they do.
58:38
SM: If someone was to ask you, why was The Farm started and then please define the purpose of The Farm. What would your answer be?
58:53
SG: Well, there was a giant worldwide revolution going on and much of it was being blown off on fireworks and wasted and we wanted to fix that very intelligent sweet good directed energy and make it last and give it a history. I have always said that one of the things that we are doing is to redeem the good name of the hippies.
59:18
SM: You obviously have lived a life of activism to not only obviously, when you when The Farm has experiences like I know you have helped with the improvements for the poor. There have been various causes as you were reading in some of your literature about saving the trees, even saving the whales, helping people down in Guatemala. I mean, where there is a tragedy around the country, a group of you will leave the area, your home, to help. That is activism. Could you define what an activist means to you, and any other activist experiences you have had in your life?
1:00:07
SG: Well, I really was not an activist before I was a hippie but me and my wife, we were both activists, and so is everybody else on the farm. If you see something wrong, you should fix it. And I believe that is in the Good Book too it says, what though your eyes need to do your hands should both do it and that is why Plenty started off, we helped a guy that had bad luck with tornadoes then we got word that Honduras at that time, it had a bad crop year, and they were starving. And so, we went to the Mennonite Central Committee and we said, if you guys would give us the money to buy the beans for them and get them shipped down there. And then we needed more muscle down there and we got hooked up with Canada and we were moving government level money. And it is because we are honest, and we have vision, same with the hippies. And so, it is our way, in the first place. Second place is really necessary to do it and we have been we have had people down in Haiti for a long time. I have a press card in Haiti myself. And we have places down in Belize, Honduras they used to call it. That is an interesting kind of Indians. There is Guatemalan Indians, Mayan's speaking Spanish, Belize Indians/Mayans speak English and another old tribe called [inaudible] who are escaped black slaves who are culturally a Mayan. [laughs] We have people just like that come through here now and then. In front of our bus [inaudible] lovely [inaudible] and it said "out to save the world."
1:02:36
SM: That is nice.
1:02:37
SG: Might as well be framed.
1:02:41
SM: If you are in a, I always do these little scenarios if you were in a college classroom today and you were a guest speaker just for that particular day, maybe you were introduced by the professor, the teacher could even be a large High School and a young person stood up and said, geez, you know, that must have been scary leaving San Francisco and going in those cars and vans, not knowing where you were going to end up. What gave you the courage to do it?
1:03:21
SG: That is like the people who say, where did you park 50 busses? Where did you park the caravan? I said red zones, loading zones- [laughs]
1:03:32
SM: Well, yeah, really what I am getting at here is what is the life lesson that others can learn from when they look at the caravan and the eventual development of The Farm but most importantly, it is like a young person leaving home for the first time it is that risk-taking. What does the caravan mean for life?
1:03:55
SG: For several hundred of us and we were well head-smart and pretty big. You know nobody is going to jump on us. Nobody is going to go up and attack a thousand hippies fine. And we would be good. And people got to like us and we made friends with people right along the road. We had a baby, at Northwestern, the first one my wife saw delivered before she was a midwife. And we had another baby in Ripley, New York and we were parked in front of a church and the cops asked what we were doing and she said we are a caravan but we were having a baby and now we need to stop. Oh. Okay, follow us and we will show you where to park and they parked us downtown on parking meters. [laughs]
1:04:44
SM: Wow.
1:04:45
SG: And we had the baby and when the baby was born, the church rang a bell.
1:04:52
SM: Was that the first baby from The Farm?
1:04:55
SG: The one at Northwestern was the first one.
1:04:58
SM: Okay.
1:05:01
SG: There was another one in Rhode Island and a doctor came to see us. His name was Louie LeFer, Louie the Father and he came in and showed them how to do heart message on a baby to help them get started and showed him a bunch of good little tricks and stuff, which they used in the next two birthing. And what I see is that doctors love our midwives. They just love them. And treat them good and take care of them.
1:05:36
SM: I would love to interview your wife when she gets some time. You know, maybe during the summertime, if that might be possible.
1:05:45
SG: Maybe so she does it quite a lot. We both do a lot of media.
1:05:53
SM: Well I know I sent you and I sent you the master email. I can send one to her or you can just share hers, whichever is okay. I noticed that you say your politics is beatnik?
1:06:06
SG: Yeah.
1:06:07
SM: And, that your religion is hippie.
1:06:11
SG: Right.
1:06:12
SM: So just define that a little bit better.
1:06:19
SG: Well, beatniks came out of an artistic thing. It was artists. In fact, before beatniks were bohemian, and it went like that all the way back to a couple of guys sitting with Socrates. And uh, I do not know I am not sure if I understand that question very well.
1:06:57
SM: Well, it basically I was reading that when someone asked you what your religion was you said hippie, and you did not say Methodist or Catholic or, and then your politics instead of saying Democrat or Republican you said beatnik.
1:07:13
SG: Right, right. Well, I we brought some of the first Jews anybody had seen down into Tennessee. And this one guy, someone was questioning him about his religion and being Jewish you know and he said hey, man, I like the red parts.
1:07:39
SM: [laughs] You mean something very important, because when you are talking about the (19)50s, and you think about the Red Scare that was everywhere, McCarthyism in the early (19)50s, even, even the late (19)40s and then to the-
1:07:52
SG: I was in the Marine Corps from (19)52-(19)55.
1:07:54
SM: Right. And then when you talk to you, you made some references I do not know what was jokingly or serious about the fact that when you say commune people think communism. Was there a fear? Was there a fear that was why people did not speak up that much in the (19)50s who may have had attitudes like the beats?
1:08:15
SG: Well there were people in the (19)50s like that but they were more in the arts. They were not you know, I loved Lena Horne when I was a little boy. She was an activist about it you know. She did not have to act like she was black. Nobody would have known if she decided not let them know. But she would do that. She stuck with it. I felt respect for that.
1:08:56
SM: What were the when you look at the counterculture. Counterculture is really defined as being challenging to the status quo in so many different ways. It is not- it is what people oftentimes look upon is not the normal it is then it is not the abnormal, it is just not normal. Theodore Roszak wrote the book The Making of a Counterculture where he talked about the different consciousness. How do you define counterculture?
1:09:29
SG: Well, in the first place, its spontaneous. It is not made by somebody. When I was running for the Green nomination, I was at one thing and this guy had done and said the socialist thing pretty well. You know, and I got my turn to talk and I started off the first thing was what he said and like that, and that caught on so good that the Green people all over the United States were using that to say they agreed with the previous speaker, you know, what he said and like that was a useful thing, you know that he did not have to be in a relationship of the opposite. You know? And one of my favorite things is the only thing that anybody else needs to know about your religion is how groovy it makes you. No need to tell them anything else. Show them how groovy you are.
1:10:45
SM: You talked about the books you have written. But were there any special books that had an influence on you in the (19)50s and the (19)60s in the (19)70s, that were written by other people?
1:10:56
SG: Well, in (19)49 or it was (19)45, my family was living in an army cold weather base in Colorado [inaudible] and my father was a civilian housing manager, and I went to school there. I stole and burned quite a lot of things. And that base was at the end of the war. They were cutting the barracks up and taking them away and stuff and they were going to burn the library. My mother was scandalized by that we had an old (19)39 Cadillac four door and she went over the library and picked out the stuff she thought would be good and picked out a carload of it that we kept. And what she got me was Fools Bet by Mark Twain, Melville, Robert Lewis Stevenson and those guys. And that was what I read growing up. And then when I was an English major, and I am taking a degree in English, I find it is my old friend! My friends from when I was a kid, these guys are American writers. All right. And that is some of the real philosophy of our thing. And I go back through that kind of writers like Thoreau and people like that, and I do not go on a classical religious paradigm as my father never would church, my mother never went to church. My children, say, man it is so cool that your dad got us out of the church.
1:13:05
SM: Was there any movies that when you look at the movies that have been produced and, on the screen, are there when you talk about the boomer generation in the (19)60s and the (19)70s? Or is there is there anything that is realistic to you?
1:13:25
SG: In movies? I think the main thing about movies is that they are not realistic. That is what they are for so, I do not know what you mean by realistic.
1:13:38
SM: Were there any movies that cause a lot of Vietnam vets say that when they see these movies, that is not the way it was.
1:13:46
SG: Yeah well, I is not a Vietnam vet I am a Korean War vet. In fact, I am the kind of a vet that when I see generals on the screen with [inaudible]- [laughs]
1:14:16
SM: A couple other questions here. This is a very important question I have asked everyone. And that is this business about healing. Boomers, of course, were born between (19)46 and (19)64. And the 1960s, the certainly the assassinations of a president, a senator and a civil rights leader. The riots in the cities, the burnings of the cities, certainly the 1968 convention, there was a lot of turmoil. There is a lot of division, as you well know and you live through it just like I did. The question I am asking is this. Do you who feel that the boomer generation is still having problems with healing, due to the extreme divisions that tore this nation apart in their youth? Divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and lesbian and straight. Divisions between those who supported authority and those who are against it, those who criticized the war and or supported it, as well as the troops? And what role has the wall in Washington DC done with helping to heal the nation beyond the veterans?
1:15:36
SG: The Wall?
1:15:36
SM: In other words, what I am asking is, do you feel the boomer generation will go to its grave like the Civil War generation not truly healing?
1:15:45
SG: I think that we are healing and we are healing other people, and that we are continuing bringing healing on down through history. It is the most loving, and healing and humanistic and best philosophy that I have seen. And I have read the other stuff you know but my wife and I, she is writing things now and one of the things that amuses her quite a lot is that guys who we consider to be heavy philosophers have ideas like that men have 32 teeth and women have 28 and to a midwife, that just an inexcusable level of stupidity. [laughs] Philosophers do not make philosophy they pick it out of the society and learn about it. Tim Leary said that he was a stand-up philosopher. Like a stand-up comic.
1:16:56
SM: Um Hmm.
1:16:58
SG: And I think my friend Paul Krasner who was a very good friend of mine who was like that too.
1:17:04
SM: Yes.
1:17:06
SG: And I think I am kind of like that. I am supposed, where I go, I am supposed to make them like me. When I went to penitentiary, I knew exactly what my job was. I was to show them a class act. And I did, and the result of that was that the news was coming to see James Earl Ray every week. And that was kind of a drag. And then I was there, they would see me for more fun and so got to where I was getting three televisions and two newspapers every week until they got so sick of that talking in Nashville that they sent me out to this place where I got put in the hole. And a counselor said I will tell you what, you can stay at my office until they find you. And there were always people helping me out like that. That was what I was about. And my folks went up to you know, get me out of the hole. And Mr. [inaudible] said let him rot, and they pushed me down and they had this guy Bass, Mr. Charles Bass. And Bass was a minister of corrections who had risen from a guard and when they saw him, he said, I am not worried about people who family come out for and he spun me out of the hole and put me in the trustee camp and gave me my mail that had been held back for several weeks and let The Farm bring me vegetarian food. I told him, I said I mentioned you in my book I was talking to him on the phone, I mentioned you in my book. He said when people came to my house, I show that to them.
1:19:03
SM: Wow. So, you believe then really that a generation like this does not have a problem with healing?
1:19:10
SG: I think we are healers.
1:19:11
SM: Okay.
1:19:12
SG: We are doing everything from a better diet. You know, we are talking about the hippie diet. Hippies are going to live a long time and not have, you know, not have high blood pressure diseases. I have been you know, watching my diet and eating vegetarian stuff for a long time and my last heart appointment the doctor says, I have the heart of a teenager and I should be congratulated. I had a prostate examination they say you get an A plus on this exam. [inaudible] I am a very healthy old dude.
1:19:46
SM: You have never had diabetes huh?
1:19:49
SG: No diabetes.
1:19:51
SM: Which is one of the most rampant disease in the country right now.
1:19:54
SG: Yeah. And it is the diet.
1:19:59
SM: When we asked Senator Muskie that question, I took a group of students and Senator Muskie basically, I he did not say anything about 1968 because he was at that convention. Basically, what he said is we have not healed since the Civil War and he was referring to the racism that was still in the country. So
1:20:18
SG: Yeah.
1:20:19
SM: That was what he was referring to because the Civil War in the south a lot of people have not healed according to him.
1:20:29
SG: Yeah, well, we live down here in the middle of all that kind of stuff.
1:20:37
SM: Did you have a generation gap with your kids?
1:20:44
SG: One of my kids decided that he would follow my military thing and became a martial artist that has a black belt in Jujitsu. The other is a computer guy and does that kind of stuff. My other son turned out to be the house holder yogi and I think I am also a house holding yogi.
1:21:10
SM: Because at that period when you were teaching that was when the generation gap between the boomers and their parents was really in its heyday.
1:21:22
SG: Well, my daughter's a boomer and she is quite proud of me.
1:21:30
SM: So, you obviously you were in the commune, but you did not have any like disagreements over politics or anything?
1:21:39
SG: [inaudible] We do not we do not use that word in that way here, we just do not do it.
1:21:50
SM: Why In your opinion, why did the Vietnam War end?
1:21:56
SG: Ran out of money?
1:22:01
SM: And uh-
1:22:01
SG: I think the people in the streets had a lot to do with it. I had a different experience. I came home Korea people said, where you been? You know? We already knew, in Korea we knew what was going to happen. One of the guys had written a little song. (Singing) Pardon me boy, is that an Indochina convoy? Uncle Sam has my fare it is just a trifle to spare. Come to Yokohama Harbor about a quarter to four. Sink a submarine and then you are looking for more. Dinner on the liner. Nothing could be finer than to have your ham and eggs in Indochina.
1:22:44
SM: Hmm.
1:22:45
SG: We knew that [inaudible] was next.
1:22:48
SM: You were a Korean War vet now Vietnam vets were not welcomed home were Korean War vets welcomed home?
1:22:55
SG: Nobody knew they came home. [laughs] And do not think, there were people who were supposed to be for peace who were dumb enough to be bad to soldiers. And I really hate that and regret that. But veterans, veterans, I am straight with veterans and they are straight with me. I am very grateful for my experience that allowed me to bridge that gap.
1:23:24
SM: Let me change I got this [inaudible] Alright, I am back. I guess I get a series of questions. I am going to ask them some of the personalities of the period. But the other thing I want to ask you was the button issue of trust the boomer generation is, as I see, it oftentimes is labeled as a generation that does not trust because so many lies were seen in their leaders, whether it be Watergate with Nixon and certainly the Gulf of Tonkin with President Johnson, you have the body counts that McNamara used to give on a weekly basis and we knew they were not truthful. So a lot of the boomers grew up with their leaders lying and they did not trust leaders and so obviously, this probably came up in some of your classes at San Francisco State where students just did not trust anybody in a position of responsibility or authority, whether it be university president, a corporate leader, or congressman or a senator and or even, you know, anyone your thoughts on the issue of trust, as you have seen him in your life, not only through your experiences in the (19)60s in San Francisco, but your life on The Farm?
1:28:54
SG: Well, the thing about Monday Night Class was, especially after it got bigger, was my role became much plainer and it was that I could not discriminate against questioners. And that if I did not know something I had to say, I do not know. And if I answered a question for somebody, they were the one who got to say was the question answered. I did not stand up in front of my class. I sat in a chair, talking to them. I did not use a microphone to talk to 1000 people. And it meant that it was like meditation with a conversation on top. And the way I treated people set the standard for how easy it would be for them to speak themselves so nobody was afraid to speak up in Monday Night Class. And I also had to be easy to call down. If I said something wrong or something I was supposed to roll right away for it, and do not argue about it. And none of that stuff bothered me, it was going to be obviously the right way to do it. But it developed a conversational style. And also, to talk to a bunch of people like that. There are things that happen, like sometimes you'll see the room catch a joke. And it is like watching the wind on a wheat field. Just really, really close to everybody's mind. And the day the students were shot at Kent State. It was a Monday. And I had Monday Night Class. And about 100 people showed up very noisy, about we got to get guns! They are trying to kill us you know, you cannot be all peaceful like this you got to get out there and do it. And so, I am having that argument with them. And somebody comes up and gives me, a little girl gives me a piece of candy and as I pop in my mouth, she looks so mischievous, I thought- oh! And sure enough, I been loaded a big chunk of acid.
1:31:11
SM: Oh, no.
1:31:12
SG: So, coming onto acid and having this argument about violence. And I finally got to a place where I said look here. All these nights I have been coming in here and saying love and peace. You guys have been saying yeah, yeah! Yeah, yeah. I repeat it and you say yeah, yeah. I say love and peace and the whole audience answered me: yeah, yeah. And that showed me that the violent guys were just a little thin fringe in the back. And they noticed it too. They were very well outnumbered by [inaudible] people.
1:31:47
SM: Well.
1:31:48
SG: So, we had that argument about it. And that was what we did. When heroin came, we talked about that. When crack came, we talked about that. We talked to all that kind of stuff. When Scientology came we talked about that.
1:32:06
SM: Hmm. Did you bring guests in? Or was it just you in the students?
1:32:13
SG: Well, no, I did not bring guests in.
1:32:19
SM: Yeah, Kent State. I just got back from the four days there. This is the 40th anniversary.
1:32:24
SG: Yeah.
1:32:25
And it was phew, it was an event that really shocked everyone. April 30th Nixon gave his speech and then on the fourth with the killings of May. So, was that room full that night when?
1:32:42
SG: Oh, yeah.
1:32:42
SM: How many were students were there that night?
1:32:44
SG: It was about [inaudible]
1:32:47
SM: Wow.
1:32:48
SG: The thing is I do not call people [inaudible] I do not call people [inaudible]
1:33:03
SM: Some said that they wanted to go and create violence, others did not. Did anybody talk about the police? What were the main issues on the student's minds?
1:33:13
SG: Well, the guys who had come to class for the purpose of disrupting and trying to turn it toward a violent thing were strong in what they were saying. The usual people who came to class felt that it was an attack on their consciousness and that they did not want to part of it.
1:33:32
SM: What happened at San Francisco State in the in the days after?
1:33:37
SG: Oh, we had we had we had one time where everybody was thrown off the campus by the police. There were hundreds of cops there. So, I was kind of assaulted. On the way out, I stopped in front of each cop, cops all lined up. I would go up and stop in front of each cop and looked him in the eyes until we had caught his eyes. And then I would stop at the next one and I did that to every cop on the line all the way up because I knew I was right and they were wrong.
1:34:06
SM: Yeah, that was a big issue back then is when do you bring in police from off campus and not just choose your own police and that had to be done by the administration was this where Hayakawa got in trouble?
1:34:21
SG: This goes back to the 1700s you know, town and gown. You know, that same thing. We were peaceful. Everybody knew we were peaceful. And there were people who were not but, that they were welcome to come to class and hear what we said.
1:34:41
SM: Did you ever talk about the Black Panther Party across the bay and what the Black Panther Party was doing?
1:34:50
SG: I did not know him but I would shake hands with him and say hi. And there was also one of them, this one guy point guy that was part of that bunch of guys who was an artist. And the best guy I saw in that bunch of guys, he was so good. And he used to, he knew how to do one of those old dances. Throws a little dime to a little black boy and goes dance for your trip. He knew how to do that. The problem with it was, he was really good at it. And he would do that and the other guys would say make it stop, make it stop augh! And he died because they asked him to start H. Rap Brown's car and it was bombed.
1:35:48
SM: Let us say that again? Uh.
1:35:51
SG: This is the guy Ralph Featherstone. Featherstone. And he was the guy who started H. Rap Brown's car but it had been bombed and they killed him.
1:36:02
SM: Somebody sent a bomb in Brown's car.
1:36:05
SG: Yeah.
1:36:06
SM: Unbelievable. And where was that car located?
1:36:09
SG: I do not know.
1:36:09
SM: Oh, Okay, right here in the Bay Area?
1:36:12
SG: I do not think so.
1:36:13
SM: Oh, okay.
1:36:14
SG: I met Ralph Featherstone when we went to San Francisco State college to do the Mississippi challenge for the Mississippi delegation because of the ride. So, I went, I got to meet a few guys, you know up at the, Mo Udall. Udall said, I agree with guys. And my name starts with a "U" and by the time it gets to me, I want to know whether it is going to make it or not. And if it looks like it is going to make it, I will go on with you.
1:36:46
SM: Right.
1:36:46
SG: If it looks like it is going to make it.
1:36:49
SM: Another issue that happened around the time you were at San Francisco State was People's Park over in Berkeley.
1:36:55
SG: Yeah, I got in a little trouble for that. I said that it was an unreasonable expectation, they could not take real estate away from somebody because they wanted to it was not going to wash and the establishment was not going to allow it to happen. And it was going to cause bad confrontations. And it got somebody killed!
1:37:14
SM: That is right, the guy on top of the building.
1:37:17
SG: And I did not like I did not like the general way. Bad tactic, bad strategy.
1:37:28
SM: Did the students ever talk about Governor Reagan? Because he was tough on students.
1:37:34
SG: Yep. Well, the thing about, about Ronald Reagan is that when I was a little boy in Santa Fe, about 12-13 years old, if I would go to the movies, walk about two and a half miles into Santa Fe to see my weekend movie, and if I came to the movie house, and it was a Ronald Reagan movie, I would turn around and go home without seeing the movie that weekend. I could not stand him. I still cannot stand him. If he is not doing a part he has no more expression in his face than a potato. He was not a smart man. What Reagan did! Reagan did not do shit except for he was an actor for some.
1:38:23
SM: I know I interviewed Ed Meese down in Washington, his attorney general.
1:38:27
SG: Yeah.
1:38:28
SM: And he had picked Ed Meese to be his top person when he was governor. He did not know him until that point. But Mr. Meese had been involved with the Free Speech Movement as the assistant district attorney of Alameda County. So, he had already been involved with the Free Speech Movement (19)64- (19)65 but under Reagan, he was in charge of coming down hard on students in (19)69 at People's Park.
1:38:55
SG: Yeah.
1:38:57
SM: So, before I get into some specific questions I am just got names before we end this. Are there any other, we have talked about, you talked about People's Park, you talked about Kent State, you talked about drugs. What were some of the other topics that you talked about with the students? What were what was on the boomer’s minds when they came into that class? Just general issues?
1:39:23
SG: Well, I did thumbnail sketches on all the world's major religions. And that was one of the things that we talked about it. I used to say take all the religions and put them on old fashioned IBM cards, and stack all the old religions up like that and some of the holes would go clear through the stack.
1:39:50
SM: Hmm.
1:39:51
SG: That was what we were interested in. What would have gone clear through the stack?
1:39:57
SM: Did you talk about any of the other movements like the Women's Movement or the Gay and Lesbian Movement or the Native American, American Indian Movement they were very big too.
1:40:08
SG: Yeah, I, when they did the Longest Walk from Oakland to Washington DC, plenty gave them an ambulance for the run. And I went on that run. And when I got the DC, I saw that the security guys- those guys who had red threads braided into their braids to identify that they were security was keeping the press away from the old guys.
1:40:36
SM: Hmm.
1:40:37
SG: I was friends with one of these Indian chiefs, Oren Lyons, he's one of the Mohawk traditional chiefs and I went to Oren, because I knew him and I said look Oren, the security guys are keeping the press away from the old people and the old people are prettiest thing you have got. They should not be doing that. They should be facilitating the press to get to the old people. So, they had a meeting with the [inaudible] that night, and he expressed my opinion to the meeting and they agreed. He came back out and it was like that. And he told me that I was the hippie elder.
1:41:14
SM: Hmm. When you look at you ever see had all these experiences of the musicians that were in the Bay Area, whether it be the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane. My golly, I remember learning that Boz Skaggs was from there along with the Huey Lewis and the News and Tower of Power, the list goes on and on in the Bay Area. What musicians and artists that you felt were the most important they had the greatest influence on the boomer generation, in your view?
1:41:51
SG: Musicians and artists?
1:41:54
SM: Yeah, what musicians? When you were at San Francisco State did you ever talk about the musicians in your classes?
1:42:03
SG: Oh, I know. I had musicians in my class. And- [laughs]
1:42:10
SM: I mean, did you talk about what was happening in the music scene?
1:42:13
SG: We had quite a hot discussion one night about who was St. Stephen.
1:42:17
SM: Who was who?
1:42:18
SG: St. Stephen.
1:42:20
SM: Okay.
1:42:21
SG: [singing] Was a rose in and out of the garden. He goes country garden wind in the rain, wherever he goes, people are complaining.
1:42:31
SM: And that created discussion for a couple hours?
1:42:35
SG: Yeah! Some people thought it was, some people thought it was not. I had to kind of go easy because I had been over visiting Garcia concerned about Pig Pen he was getting to be a real bad alcoholic. I want to talk to Jerry about it and I did not know it but one of the, one of the guys that wrote the lyrics was in the next room with the door open while I was there talking to Jerry. And we had all this discussion. And that guy is the guy that wrote the lyrics for St. Stephen.
1:43:09
SM: Oh my god.
1:43:10
SG: Stuff out of my mouth from that visit while I was at Jerry's that I recognized.
1:43:14
SM: What was his name?
1:43:16
SG: I think it was Hunter.
1:43:17
SM: Oh, wow.
1:43:17
SG: I think that was the one. I had a couple of them.
1:43:24
SM: So, you knew Jerry Garcia. Who were some of the other personalities in the Bay Area that you got to know?
1:43:31
SG: Well like I said like I said, I knew Big Brother and the Holding Company before they had amplifiers and that I was a family you know, I did not play anything. I was just unabashedly a fan. And I you know; the Airplane came up with Grace. Wow! The Airplane's got a girl! And then Chester brought Janis up from Texas, then Big Brother had a girl. All that stuff is interesting stuff going on at the time and I suppose people there were some people that just put me out there, nirvana. I love rock and roll.
1:44:22
SM: Did you get to meet Janis?
1:44:25
SG: What say?
1:44:26
SM: Did you get to meet Janis Joplin?
1:44:28
SG: Oh, yeah. She did not like me very much.
1:44:31
SM: What was she like?
1:44:32
SG: Well, the hippes were scandalized when one by two turned up and set a bottle of Southern Comfort on top of the piano because we did not drink hard liquor. The hippies were all surprised by that. But you know, her stuff was kind of blues, that is hard on you to sing. And I had to respect to her heavy weightiness in that class. I liked it most it was raising divine.
1:45:12
SM: She died of an overdose of drugs I believe did not she?
1:45:15
SG: Yeah. And not the kind, nothing that I would take either.
1:45:19
SM: What was? What did she die from?
1:45:22
SG: It was not reefer.
1:45:26
SM: Was she drinking and taking medicine at the same time or?
1:45:30
SG: I think I think that she was like, I cannot talk about other people's dope.
1:45:35
SM: Okay. Yeah. And you knew Grace Slick too then? And how about Stevie Nicks? Did you know her?
1:45:43
SG: Who was the second when you said Grace Slick? Grace. Yeah, I did not know Grace, but I admired her greatly.
1:45:51
SM: And Stevie Nicks is the other one that camp out of the came in the area.
1:45:55
SG: Stevie Nicks?
1:45:55
SM: Yup.
1:45:57
SG: No, that is after my time.
1:45:58
SM: Yeah okay. Any other any of the other political people that you get to meet in may be activists like Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis that group?
1:46:13
SG: I went up to Abbie Hoffman's place up on the St. Lawrence Seaway and let my boy Sam drive his boat. I was at Abbie's last gig and it was funny bus but Leary and Abbie and what was his name? One of the Black Panthers.
1:46:30
SM: Bobby Seale.
1:46:32
SG: Bobby Seale and when the guy introduced us, when he introduced Bobby Seale out in the suburbs it would have been a scary thing but now it is just Bobby Seale, but now it is just Bobby Seale's new outdoor cookbook.
1:46:46
SM: Yeah, did not I think Paul was the moderator was not he? Paul Krasner?
1:46:53
SG: No way, not with that one.
1:46:55
SM: I know he moderated one of those programs.
1:46:57
SG: Yeah. Yeah. And the thing about Tim was that he was a technician. And when it was his turn to talk, he leaned up and he put the first syllable right into that microphone and made the room rain. And he had the intention.
1:47:19
SM: Okay, I am going to, I am just going to list some names here that I do this, I finish each interview with this. And then I have a question on the legacy. But these are just personalities or terms from the era when boomers were young. And that is (19)50s, (19)60s, (19)70s and (19)80s so and you can just get quick responses, these are either personalities or terms or events. First one, first two are just your thoughts on Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda?
1:47:52
SG: Well, there was good leftists and stuff like that. That was fine. I did not mind Jane Fonda that they were not hardcore hippies or anything they were media people who were sympathetic.
1:48:09
SM: John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.
1:48:12
SG: I cried when John was killed.
1:48:15
SM: Where were you? Obviously, people remember where they were when that happened. Do you remember the exact moment that you heard it?
1:48:22
SG: Yes, I came down out of my apartment on Castro Street in San Francisco right at the entrance of the tunnel, I came out and everybody was weird. I could not tell what it was but people were weird. I just walked up to somebody says what happened? And he knew I did not have to explain, he said: They killed Kennedy.
1:48:40
SM: Oh, wow.
1:48:43
SG: I could tell, the street was just freezing.
1:48:46
SM: And then the next everybody remembers the next four days around the TV set. Were you around it to?
1:48:52
SG: Somewhat but I did not have television. I had to go to somebody else’s. I did happen to be around a television set when Martin Luther King gave the "I have a" I got to see that. It was very eerie that they shot him the next day.
1:49:08
SM: Yeah, Bobby Kennedy.
1:49:11
SG: I loved Bobby too. He did not have a chance to develop but he would have been a heavy weight with a chance to develop and in those days look how easily it passed by that it was a Muslim that killed him. These days that would cause a fire.
1:49:32
SM: How about Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern?
1:49:36
SG: They were good guys and they tried hard and I appreciate them but I thought they the Clean for Gene was a bad idea.
1:49:49
SM: Hmm.
1:49:49
SG: He did not want the hippies to look like him. He wanted. They believed in him for his philosophy but he was not visibly supported by them. So, they put out the word Clean for Gene.
1:50:02
SM: So that turned a lot of people off towards Senator McCarthy?
1:50:05
SG: I think so.
1:50:07
SM: I wish he knew that because he was advised to do that.
1:50:10
SG: Yeah.
1:50:12
SM: That was not his idea.
1:50:13
SG: Good!
1:50:14
SM: No, because I already interviewed the guy in my book project here, who gave him the idea.
1:50:21
SG: Ahh.
1:50:21
SM: So that that did not come from him originally. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
1:50:31
SG: Well, I was, in the beginning was a gringo enough that Martin Luther King embarrassed me because of his passion. And Malcolm X. You know, I got to like Malcolm X. I liked him pretty well. And it was one of the interesting things about him was when he went to go visit Islam and he came back. Islam is not a racist religion.
1:51:02
SM: Hmm mm.
1:51:03
SG: Of course, he had to do something to get him killed.
1:51:08
SM: Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew?
1:51:15
SG: Cheap ass politicians.
1:51:17
SM: How about Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford?
1:51:24
SG: Ronald Reagan. Like I said, I would not go to a movie that weekend. A Ronald Reagan movie. Gerald Ford got a bum rap. He was not as dumb as they made him out to be.
1:51:34
SM: How about Dwight Eisenhower?
1:51:36
SG: Now there is a general and a president, you know? And a guy that had the nerve to say the thing that they get people to say yet: It was clear and present danger to allow undo power of the United States military industrial complex.
1:51:55
SM: You are right.
1:51:56
SG: Best thing a president ever said.
1:52:01
SM: Hubert Humphrey.
1:52:04
SG: Called him Hugh the Jew but I kind of liked him.
1:52:06
SM: How about Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin?
1:52:10
SG: Well, I was at a gig with Jerry Rubin and I said something to him and he said: I did not mean you Stephen! People over thirty.
1:52:19
SM: Remember he was on the Phil Donahue show, and he really gave it to Phil Donahue.
1:52:23
SG: I was on the Donahue show.
1:52:29
SM: Who was on Donahue?
1:52:30
SG: Yeah.
1:52:31
SM: You were?
1:52:32
SG: Yeah.
1:52:33
SM: Really? What year was that?
1:52:35
SG: Well, it was kind of a spoof because Donahue was just about to Marlo Thomas and so he was running a bunch of shows, several a day to build up a little honeymoon time for him. And so, I got some kind of a crew, I never got to meet him. He did not come to the farm. He sent a crew down here. The lady from the crew was having an affair with one of the techs and stuff. Then I got to go talk to him and so I never got to - he did not have a clue who I was when we went on the air. And he said how many billionaires had I cashed out!
1:53:12
SM: How many what?
1:53:14
SG: Millionaires had I cashed out into our commune.
1:53:19
SM: Oh my gosh.
1:53:22
SG: This is Marlo fixed him up, she civilized him. But he did that to me and the result of that was we are coming down on Chicago in our Greyhound bus and the semis that are passing us say - hey look at that their bus man, hey, you guys got any wacky tabacky? Another time, though, we were in the Greyhound and a driver coming the other way said, to look at that old Greyhound, pretty as Dolly Parton in a wet t-shirt. [laughs]
1:53:53
SM: What are your thoughts on Chicago Eight because that was a very big trial.
1:53:58
SG: I knew somebody from then that [inaudible] those guys
1:54:03
SM: That was you know, that was both Rubin and Hoffman and Hayden and Huey Newton and Dave Dellinger and Lee Weiner.
1:54:16
SG: Well, I already told you about the guys I knew.
1:54:17
SM: Yeah. That was well, that was a big event in (19)68. What do you think about the women leaders? I have not been talking about them yet, but Gloria Steinem, Betty Freidan, Bella Abzug, the feminists.
1:54:33
SG: I like them fine they have a hard road to hoe and if they get shrill with it and like that but I am very impressed by their courage although I still think that, it was Johnson who called Bella Azberg was not it?
1:54:59
SM: I am not sure.
1:54:59
SG: [laughs]
1:55:03
SM: Yeah, when we talked one of the big issues within the movements itself, the civil rights, the antiwar, gay and lesbian, American Indian Movement, all the movements basically it was the sexism that took place within the movements in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. It is a lot of reasons why the women left the, the antiwar movement and joined, joined well, started the women's movement, the second wave, so to speak. How has when that happened with the movement, you obviously had men and women in the communes. How are women treated in the commune?
1:55:47
SG: Do not do not call it a commune. If you get in the habit of it you will put it on the page if you get in the habit of calling it that.
1:55:53
SM: The Farm.
1:55:54
SG: The Farm, exactly.
1:55:58
SM: I correct myself, sorry.
1:56:04
SG: [laughs] The way it was on the farm is that there was one pick-up on the farm that would start and it belonged to a midwife.
1:56:17
SM: I did not quite hear that. Say that again?
1:56:21
SG: I said that the way the farm was about that stuff, if there is only one pick-up on the farm that ran it would belong to a midwife.
1:56:28
SM: Okay.
1:56:29
SG: Our, we had guys who went to medical school from the farm and came back as doctors. And so, we had midwives and doctors instead of being the other way. It is one of the reasons that our midwives are so uppity. I love uppity women.
1:56:43
SM: Well that is that is a positive thing then. Your thoughts on the Black Panthers themselves the Huey Newton's, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Bobby Seales, H. Rap Brown.
1:56:53
SG: You know, I understood it and I loved them a lot but I was just sorry that they were so involved with the guns.
1:57:08
SM: Good point. Would you would say the same thing about the Weatherman?
1:57:11
SG: Yeah.
1:57:12
SM: Yeah and the American Indian Movement went that direction too.
1:57:17
SG: Being a combat veteran I had to carry dead and wounded back out of the rice paddies. It gets rid of making guns seem romantic pretty well. What was the last thing you just said there about?
1:57:29
SM: They were the names of the Black Panthers: Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown that you already mentioned.
1:57:37
SG: I met Stokely. I did not meet H. Rap Brown buy my friend got killed starting his car.
1:57:47
SM: He is in jail now. You want to want to talk about American Indians? Yeah, the American Indian Movement was between (19)69 and (19)73 very strong. They took over Alcatraz and then ended up at Wounded Knee where there was violence.
1:58:09
SG: I know the two guys who got busted.
1:58:20
SM: Dennis Banks.
1:58:21
SG: Dennis Banks and what is his name?
1:58:25
SM: The other one.
1:58:26
SG: Russell Means.
1:58:27
SM: Russel Means. Yeah.
1:58:28
SG: I have a funny relationship with Russell Means he knows I got juice. He does not know why. [laughs] I saw him at a thing with him one time and I said 'Hey, Russell, you are really doing good.' And the look he gave back to me said, who the fuck are you to tell me how I am doing?
1:58:48
SM: He has done pretty well. He has been in movies.
1:58:50
SG: Yeah, well, they called Hollywood before he had ever been in the movie.
1:58:53
SM: Right?
1:58:55
SG: But also, we were at a thing and in Taos and we were supposed to hold it down to ten minutes and Russell says well I expect brother Steve will try to hold it down but I do not know if I can or not.
1:59:09
SM: Wow. Well you know, Alcatraz was happening when you were teaching that class. I believe.
1:59:14
SG: Very likely.
1:59:15
SM: Yeah. Because that was (19)69. And it might have been an issue too. Couple more names here, Dr. Benjamin Spock.
1:59:25
SG: Well, he was considered the godfather of the movement and all that and he said one thing that was like, true, but I was kind of sorry he said it. He said that they did not really pay any attention to us and we knocked all the windows out of the Senate [inaudible] building.
1:59:43
SM: He was in the group that levitated the Pentagon.
1:59:47
SG: Yeah and [inaudible] was in that.
1:59:51
SM: And Norman Mailer was there too. He wrote a book on how about the Barrigan brothers Philip and Daniel Barrigan.
1:59:59
SG: Oh, that is what you call a good Christian!
2:00:03
SM: Walter Cronkite.
2:00:05
SG: I love the one right in the middle of the shit totally hitting the fan. The biggest, best circulation magazine cover was Cronkite and at the wheel of his yacht and it was obviously the ship of the day.
2:00:26
SM: Daniel Ellsberg.
2:00:29
SG: Great dude. Great dude.
2:00:33
SM: How about Walt Disney?
2:00:36
SG: You mean?
2:00:38
SM: The man who created the dynasty?
2:00:43
SG: Dynasty?
2:00:44
SM: Disney, Disneyland, Disney Studios.
2:00:49
SG: I kind of like the dope smokers that used to work for him before he started hiring people who smoked dope.
2:00:55
SM: He is more influential than people realize with the TV in the (19)50s.
2:01:02
SG: Yeah. Well I did not have TV in the (19)50s.
2:01:05
SM: You know, it is interesting Howdy Doody is another one because somebody wrote an article that Howdy Doody was the reason why the (19)60s began, can you believe that?
2:01:18
SG: No.
2:01:18
SM: [laughs] Just a few more here, Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali.
2:01:24
SG: Well, I feel that the thing about them is like when Joe Lewis went and knocked Max Schmelling down. And it was that is one of the ways that people can get out is athletics because they break out of their cultural shell that way that those guys showed to break things out that way. I have to admit that I had to smile when he was trying to talk about what kind of a boxer he was and he says just look at me. I am pretty. I am pretty!
2:02:07
SM: [laughs] Yeah. How about Robert McNamara and John Dean?
2:02:18
SG: John Dean was the one they called the young man with the dirty hands of the clean mind. And he has still got a good reputation on the tube, he used to talk all the time. McNamara, the guys were just what do you call them? Apparatchik?
2:02:35
SM: Yeah. How about Watergate and Tet?
2:02:40
SG: Tet? The Tet Offensive?
2:02:44
SM: Yeah.
2:02:46
SG: Well, Watergate was good because it got Nixon in deep personal shit. But the Tet Offensive that was just them finishing kicking us out of Vietnam was not it?
2:03:03
SM: Yeah, Tet was in (19)68, which many people believe is why LBJ decided to withdraw. Because even though we beat them back, they, they had the opportunity to attack us all over the countries of Vietnam that is.
2:03:22
SG: Well, Vietnam was when we took over a place that was being held in an evil political grip from the people who was holding, which was the French. And we just took over somebody else's old Colonial got there and we had to pay the bill for life was ours.
2:03:46
SM: How would you define the hippies? in comparing them to the hippie?
2:03:53
SG: Era? Okay, he was International.
2:03:59
SM: They were they were much more political than the hippies though, would not you say?
2:04:03
SG: Yeah, but politics is not bad when you need it.
2:04:07
SM: Right?
2:04:08
SG: The politics if you are comparing politics to inspiration and stuff.
2:04:14
SM: Yeah
2:04:14
SG: You want to give people guns and things, they got to know.
2:04:14
SM: I have three slogans here that that I have asked each person that I have interviewed, that define the boomer generation, and these are the three slogans: Malcolm X: "by any means necessary" which is symbolizing the more violent aspects, the guns, the radicalism. Then you have got the Bobby Kennedy who gave that those words: "Some men sees things as they are and ask why I see things that never were and ask why not." That was kind of the activist mentality and all the movements without violence. And then what I call the more hippie mentality which is the which was on the Peter Max posters that were so popular in college campuses in the early (19)70s which said, and I had one in my room: "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should get together, it'll be beautiful." And the only other quote that somebody said to me was "We shall overcome" which symbolic of the civil rights movement. Do you think those kinds of define the boomers?
2:05:18
SG: No, no, I do not think so.
2:05:35
SM: Do you have some that you feel would define them?
2:05:46
SG: I do not think of them as the boomers. I think that that is a that is a psychological and media kind of a thing. And it does not have a lot of magic to me.
2:06:06
SM: But the term may not but do the- do the way the people that were living at that time, the younger people, does that kind of cover them? Or are there some quotes that maybe are better?
2:06:21
SG: Well, the first one of that bunch of the ones that you gave me, well, I like this
2:06:32
SM: The Malcolm X?
2:06:34
SG: What was this?
2:06:36
SM: By any means necessary.
2:06:37
SG: Oh no, I do not like that one. By any means necessary is a threat. By any means necessary is trying to justify guns. I do not like that.
2:06:51
SM: Bobby Kennedy's is okay. The Bobby Kennedy ones, okay?
2:06:57
SG: Yeah, I like that. I like that.
2:06:58
SM: How about the Peter Max one?
2:07:03
SG: It is okay. But it gets kind of long and involved, it is not what I am picking out as the writer [inaudible]
2:07:13
SM: Are there any words that you think could better define?
2:07:25
SG: People who talk about how the (19)70s was a drag? When the (9)70s was happening, we were building the farm and we some of our great, finest years. It is like that. I, I sort of parted company [inaudible] when I came out on the road and we came here [inaudible]
2:07:56
SM: You know a lot of people do when they compare the (19)60s in the (19)70s they really put the (19)70s way below the (19)60s.
2:08:03
SG: Yeah.
2:08:04
SM: Particularly after (19)73.
2:08:07
SG: Yeah well, we built The Farm at that time. We were very strong. And you know, we had a United Nations grounds pass because we were an NGO united nation. We were powerful political [inaudible] categories and stuff.
2:08:28
SM: A lot of reasons why people attack the (19)70s as they think of disco music and-
2:08:35
SG: Yeah.
2:08:36
SM: And the lack, and the dying of activism. I think that is oftentimes-
2:08:40
SG: Our guys said they might start a band called the Cisco Ducks.
2:08:47
SM: Oh, that would be interesting.
2:08:50
SG: Which is "Disco sucks" Y.
2:08:52
SM: Yeah, I remember that. Ok, a couple more and then we are done. Vietnam veterans against the war. Your thoughts on them?
2:09:01
SG: Well, the Vietnam War was such a hard on the other people thing, that the guys were just used up like that. And I got big compassion for Vietnam vets and [inaudible]
2:09:15
SM: Have you visited the wall in Washington?
2:09:17
SG: No.
2:09:18
SM: Oh, okay. Have you seen it though? on TV or?
2:09:22
SG: Yeah, sure.
2:09:23
SM: Have you talked to any vets? What do you think that wall means to this nation?
2:09:29
SG: Well, it was supposed to make them notice that a lot of young men were sacrificed but I do not. Let us see Kurt Vonnegut has the place where this guy says we are not going to have any airplanes fly over and celebrate the war heroes. What we are going to do is what we ought to do all of the guys who were in power and had anything to do with it, are going to [inaudible] fluid rub mud on themselves and crawl around on the ground and oink like pigs.
2:10:09
SM: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
2:10:15
SG: Clinton was skillful but unreal. And Jimmy Carter was really real it could have been more skillful.
2:10:24
SM: How about George Bush, the first?
2:10:32
SG: Some rich guy that had no business in politics.
2:10:39
SM: How about the Catonsville nine. Are you aware that? That was the Barrigan brothers.
2:10:44
SG: Well, I thought that they were they were good priests, that is what priests are supposed to do, stand up for everybody.
2:10:52
SM: How about My Lai-
2:10:54
SG: Massacre?
2:10:56
SM: Yes.
2:10:58
SG: Well, there is so much illegal violence in the cleanest war that none of its clean and violence as a way to just threatening people and bullying.
2:11:22
SM: And people think that and a couple other instances is the reason why Vets were not treated well when they came home. Not so much by Americans as a whole but by organizations, veterans’ organizations. Angela Davis and Timothy Leary.
2:11:42
SG: Well, I like Angela Davis accept its a dumb thing to carry a pistol into a courtroom. It was a stupid thing to do and it ruined her reputation. And Tim Leary, I always thought of him as Uncle Tim. Because your uncle does not care what you do as much as your dad does.
2:12:02
SM: Right. And we already mentioned The Weathermen. The year 1968. Just the year.
2:12:15
SG: I met the love of my life who I am still with 40 some years later.
2:12:23
SM: John Lennon.
2:12:25
SG: I liked John Lennon. I was in Germany and when I talked it was being translator. And so, I talked about that when he says, "train car with (...?). He translated it and then I turned to my translator and said, you did not say [inaudible]
2:12:48
SM: Still there?
2:12:50
SG: Yeah.
2:12:50
SM: Okay. Yeah, Barry Goldwater and William Buckley.
2:13:01
SG: Goldwater is an honest whatever he is. And Buckley is not. Well, he was kind of a gross old fart but he had a hard row to hoe and he did pretty good.
2:13:34
SM: How about the Little Rock Nine and the Free Speech Movement?
2:13:39
SG: The Free Speech Movement like I said, I answered the phone when they called [inaudible] but I do not know about that nine? Which nine?
2:13:49
SM: The Little Rock Nine were the, they refused entrance to the school, Little Rock, Arkansas.
2:13:58
SG: I guess I missed those guys.
2:13:59
SM: When the Port Huron statement, which was the SDS manifesto, and the Peace Corps.
2:14:07
SG: Peace Corps was a good thing.
2:14:10
SM: When the best history books are written they are often written 50 years minimum after a period takes place. So, the (19)60s some of the best ones should be written in 10 years. But some say that the best books are written once the generation has passed on, which is one day all 74 million boomers will no longer be around. Your thoughts on what do you think historians and sociologists will be writing in saying about this period, and the young people and you know, they still got 20 more years of life, even though the oldest is 63, and the youngest is 47. So, they are, they are still going to do a lot of things yet. But-
2:15:02
SG: A revolution is that thing that those who can do and those who cannot teach. I did not like being in the penitentiary but it did not hurt me a bit as far as my immediate history.
2:15:23
SM: And you were in the penitentiary for selling drugs?
2:15:26
SG: No, I never sold dope. I was in the penitentiary because guys on the Farm were caught growing grass. I did a year.
2:15:34
SM: Okay.
2:15:38
SG: I had the best penitentiary stay outside of Martha Stewart. I mean the warden would come out and get with me in the yard. One time the guy says, well you are vegetarian, I am a vegetarian, what do I do? And basically, they said, go line up with the black Muslim which I not know what they were talking about. I got there. The black Muslim was not in the chow line, he was pre-arranged [inaudible]
2:16:06
SM: Wow.
2:16:07
SG: So, I said, [inaudible] somebody said I should ask you guys about vegetarian food and the guy says someone has been in the [inaudible] And then when they found out who we were and where we were at, I was in the chow line and that same leader that afternoon was behind me in the chow line. And he kind of shouldered me in the back a little bit and [inaudible] white means 'very clean brother'.
2:16:40
SM: I guess, is there any questions that you felt I was going to ask that I did not?
2:16:49
SG: Well, I do not know. The thing is, I do not depend too much on the on the aphorisms and the media, they use aphorisms like they are important but they are not really that important.
2:17:08
SM: So, you do not like that term? Boomer.
2:17:10
SG: No, not really.
2:17:11
SM: Yeah, because you know, the group that followed Boomers are Generation X.
2:17:16
SG: I can hardly hear you.
2:17:18
SM: Okay, can you hear me now?
2:17:20
SG: Better?
2:17:21
SM: Yeah. The group that found is Generation X, and today's young people are Millennials. So, it is something that educators put on and they call the Greatest Generation, the World War II generation and then the Silent Generation, which was only five years. So, it is the way people put labels on and I found by doing this project that most people do not like the labels.
2:17:49
SG: Yeah.
2:17:50
SM: My last question is this. If you do not like the Boomer Generation, what would what would the Vietnam generation? Woodstock generation? The Protest Generation, what? How would you label the generation?
2:18:06
SG: What generation?
2:18:08
SM: The generation born after World War II.
2:18:16
SG: I do not know that is not how I do my nomenclature. I do not sort names is to maybe complicate things.
2:18:29
SM: He just more really and not-
2:18:32
SG: I cannot get you over your phone anymore.
2:18:34
SM: Are you there? Can you hear me?
2:18:37
SG: Barely.
2:18:38
SM: Well, I am done.
2:18:40
SG: Year what?
(End of Interview)
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2 Microcassettes
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Stephen Gaskin
Contributor
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Gaskin, Stephen ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
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Authors; Political activists--United States; Hippies; Gaskin, Stephen--Interviews
Description
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Stephen Gaskin (1935 - 2014) was an American Hippie counterculture icon. He was an author of over a dozen books and a political activist. He went to prison in 1974 for marijuana possession and his voting rights were rescinded. Gaskin was a recipient for the first Right Livelihood Award in 1980 and an inductee in the Counterculture Hall of Fame in 2004.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2010-05-13
Rights
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In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.103a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.103b
Date Modified
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2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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138:44