Heart in the soil.

Interviews

Thu, 15 May 2008 03:39:44 GMT

These are two interviews I conducted for my Feminist Theories and Methodologies class. The idea was to share the story of women in our lives whom we admire. We only had to interview one person, but I couldn't help but do two. Naturally, I chose my Mom-who has provided consistent inspiration and support in my life, whom I thank for my feminist perspective in life. Also, I chose my instructor for the class, Dr. Ekua Omosupe, who has been a guiding light for me while at Cabrillo. Both interviews are pretty lengthy, but SO worth taking the time to read. These stories are important to hear and I spent SO much time typing them out. (please note that this is the first, and my second post is the second)

Interview with Carol Fagen
By: Sarah Jane Smith

I conducted this interview with my Mom because I feel that her story deserves to be told. She has been a consistent inspiration and guiding light for me, and I continue to learn so many lessons from her. Through my whole life she has provided me with unconditional support, love, and a warm home. Through good times and bad she has been by my side and we have made it through with what we had. I feel that it is through her, that I have gained a feminist perspective and understanding of the world. I’m grateful for having her as my s/hero and will carry her on-going legacy with me as I continue to live my life.

SJ: Maybe we can start with some background information on your history. How old you are now? Where did you grow up? From there, perhaps you can elaborate?

Carol: I’m 54, I’ll be 55 this May, I was born May 7th, 1953. I was born in Germany. My father was in the military and stationed in Bombholder, Germany and we were stationed in Land stool, Germany. I came back to the United States as a baby and my parents relatives didn’t know my mom was pregnant-so when she came back, they were all surprised because, here she came back with a baby.

SJ: When you all came back, where did you live after that?

Carol: I believe we came back to Oklahoma, and then when I was 3 or 4, we went through the military and moved to Okinawa, Japan. We lived there for three and a half years. Both of my parents worked, and for the most part it was a really neat experience because we were living in another country and it was good for us to be exposed to another culture, it was a very safe and wonderful place for us to grow up. Through the military we (our family) were assigned two maids and a Gardner, which, as you could imagine-were paid very little. For example, our full-time maid was paid $20 a month, and the other one who was part-time was paid $18 a month, and our Gardner, Papason, he was given four dollars a month and a carton of cigarettes-and that was his salary, that was all.

SJ: When you all came back to the United States, did you reestablish life back in Okalahoma?

Carol: When we came back to the U.S. we went to Nebraska, but when we went to Okinawa and we came back, we went on a ship called “The Sulton.” Come to find out, Chuck, my husband now, was actually on that same ship-and, that was ironic. He went to Japan as a dependent, and I went to Okinawa as a dependent, of course different times, he was a lot earlier-but it was on the same ship. When I went to Okinawa, life was very different-we didn’t know we were on a ship, and I think that was probably one of my first memories-when we got there. I remember my Dad holding me up, because we were all anxious to see what Okinawa was going to look like and we could see it from the ship, this island, it was a very small island. There were a lot of little grass houses, everyone rode bicycles, and I asked my dad, “Where are we going to live?” He said, “well, I don’t know” and I thought we were going to live in a grass house. Of course, when we came back to the United States it was so overwhelming, so “modern” and big-I had no recollection of what the United States was, so coming back was really something. There were large grocery stores, cars on highways-it was so different then what I knew, I thought we were flying so fast-because the longest and fastest speed you could go in Okinawa was only about a one-mile stretch and the fastest you could go was only about 30 MPH. So, when we were on a highway going about 50-55 MPH we just thought we were going to go air born! So, yes, we visited Okalahoma when we returned because that was where my parent’s families were, but then we moved to Omaha, Nebraska and lived there for about a year while my Dad worked at an Air force base. Living in Omaha was really neat, very different, we lived on Dodge Street, one of the busiest streets in Omaha, and we had what felt like a very large house. Of course, I look back on it now and realize I probably felt very small, and that’s why it felt so big, so different than when we lived in Japan. There was snow-which I couldn’t believe. After that, we moved to Oklahoma because my father got orders to go to Turkey-so, he went to Turkey, he was a Warrant Officer. He couldn’t tell us what he did, he wasn’t allowed-but I think they spied on the Russians. They were on a base-they couldn’t go off his base, it was very confining. So, my mom wanted to be closer to her family in Oklahoma-so we rented my aunt’s house in Midwest City for a year, and we went to school there, so we could be by my parents family and see them while my father was overseas.

SJ: How long did you live in Oklahoma during that time?

Carol: During that time, for a year.

SJ: So, what was your family life like while growing up?

Carol: Boy, that’s loaded…(laughter). Well, in a lot of ways we were a typical military family-you know, we were stationed different places, always moving, having to make new friends every place you went. It was hard to have attachments with friends because you were always moving around-you know, you really valued those friendships, because it really hurt, you know, growing up and having to leave. We had a lot of fun as kids. I was the youngest of four children, probably the spoiled brat, but I didn’t think so. I had an older brother and two older sisters.

SJ: What big events have happened that you feel have altered your life? I know that’s a big question!

Carol: Yeah, it’s a very broad question because there have been so many big events in my life that have changed it. I think, moving as a child, around, were always big events. Because, you I just learned so much-it was always expanding my knowledge and what I knew. I was always learning about new places, new ideas, new people, new cultures-those have always been real big events. It’s hard to say what’s been the biggest event…

SJ: Well, maybe we’ll get to those later. Would you like to talk about some of the struggles you’ve gone through in your life? Some of the hardships you’ve had to overcome that have gotten you where you are now. Or, when you think back on your history, as a woman specifically, what were some of the hardships you faced?

Carol: I think that women, myself included, weren’t encouraged to challenge what your place was. It was handed to you like, ‘Your place is what it is.’ In many ways, I didn’t have the opportunities that are available today-where, you know, you’re valued differently and given more options. Then, you always thought-well, ‘Someday I’ll fall in love, get married, and meet prince charming’-and that’s the way life’s going to be, and well, it isn’t that way. That’s hard to learn, because we’re told that’s the norm, and it really isn’t. I think that was always kind of a struggle and I think that because things don’t happen in the ways you think they’re supposed to lay out-so, then I think you start feeling inadequate, I went through a lot of that. I was always “overweight”-I always struggled with accepting myself. I never felt very bright-maybe it was because I was the youngest or something, I felt like I always had to compete to keep up, I was always very self-conscious and never felt very confident-how I talked, how I looked, and that was really hard for me because so much value is placed on these things. I also took criticism very hard, I was very sensitive to people’s comments. These things were really hard. Also, we were never a really “touchy-feely” family, so you never really were able to talk about how you felt, you know, it was just the way it was. So, growing up and going through that. There were a lot of struggles, I wasn’t very happy at home. My sisters were married at 18, and gone, and my brother was married young, so I was the last one home and it was very different. I felt like I should be out of the house by the time I was 18 and that’s the way it’s supposed to be-I either had to get married, or have my way set-and I was really unhappy at home. So, I went through a lot of turmoil going back and forth home. I made a lot of really bad mistakes in my life, bad decisions-but; a lot of those decisions were based on the things that happened to me.

SJ: So, kind of like the decisions or choices we make to get out of bad situations that don’t work for us?

Carol: Exactly.

SJ: So, what age did you end up leaving home and what was that experience like for you?

Carol: That is a very, very had thing for me to talk about. I couldn’t talk about it for many, many years. When I was 16 I had, had a boyfriend that had left the area, he was a lot older than me. And, when I was 16 I went with some friends and a girlfriend of mine that I had trusted. We used to “drag” main street in Salinas and she ran into a friend that was with another man-and-back when we were kids, you know, we’d run around and raise cain-cause trouble, but no one would ever get hurt or anything. Well, they asked us to go for a ride. She had to leave, so they dropped her off, and I subsequently was raped-and I felt very bad about it. It was a really horrible experience. My father was very protective of me, and I knew if I told him he would probably go find that guy and kill him. So, I saw that guy again and I told him, ‘I’m going to have you arrested and charged with this and that…’, well, you know trying to prove it, I didn’t have any witnesses or evidence. He accused me of wanting it, which of course, I didn’t want, and he had known some other friends of mine. Well, I had felt like I wanted to go home and tell my parents, but I didn’t-because I was afraid of disappointing them. This man, he knew that I was thinking about pressing charges on him-but I never thought the police would believe me, you know how they would say, ‘Well, you went out and you were drinking and this and that.’ So, what happened was he called my house a few times and talked to my father and he said things like, ‘Where’s this dirty girl, does she live there’ blah, blah, like he was looking for a woman to solicit. My father had come to me and said, ‘What’s going on here? Who is this guy?’ I just didn’t have the heart to tell him this man had raped me. I didn’t have/want anything to do with him, but he just knew-I think he was afraid, he wanted to discredit me, so that’s what he was trying to do with a lot of my friends, and he was trying to do that even with my family. Well, an opportunity came, with this man I used to date-he had come back into town, and he offered to take off with me, elope and get married and I said, ‘Okay’ just to escape my situation. Which, was a really big mistake-but, well, I didn’t know at the time. I left for about a year, and then returned home, back into an environment that was pretty hard and go back to school. I had left High School before that, so I returned back to get my G.E.D. and go to Beauty School to get my Cosmetology license and worked as a cosmetologist and then found out they didn’t make very much money and had no benefits. So, I decided at that time I was going to try and go and work for the government, so I started taking Civil Service tests over and over, trying to up my score. I didn’t have hardly any education, just my High School Diploma, well actually just my GED, high school equivalency. I used to always work two jobs; I worked at two beauty shops at the time-one in the day, one in the night. Then, I went to work for Ward’s in the part’s department, in Salinas, because I wasn’t making much money in the shop-there weren’t many customers that came in where I could get clients. I went to work at Ward’s and then I met another man, got married, and went back to Okinawa right around when I turned 21.

SJ: Was that because he was in the military?

Carol: yeah, he was in the military. His name was Steve; he was a very nice, very handsome man-really, a lot of fun. He was stationed at Fort Ord, and then he was going back into the military, he had been in the military before, he had orders to go to Okinawa. I was put in a position to make a decision, because I didn’t know him for very long and he said, ‘I’m on my way to Okinawa-do you wanna go? Do you wanna get married? I want to spend the rest of my life with you’ and of course, I believed it all and thought it all was very exciting, very romantic, and then later realized we really didn’t have that much in common. He had other interests, and so, you know, we were together just a year, and I came back-but I was very much in love with him, and I think he was in love with me too, but we knew it just wasn’t going to work. So, we always had mutual respect, we parted friends, gosh-he even gave me half his paycheck for six months to help me get established again because I said, when I came back, I did not want to live with my parents, I would get an apartment. So, he would help me do that. I would not put any claims on his finances, you know, we weren’t married that long. And, legally, we didn’t file for a divorce for a while, we both didn’t, we got a ‘do your own divorce’ kind of book, and I did my own divorce-filed the papers, typed up the form, and did it. He would tell me, ‘Are you sure you don’t want this, don’t want that,’ because he had come from a very wealthy family, and I said, ‘Nope, I don’t want a thing.’ I was single for a long time after that.

SJ: Did you end up moving back to California at this point?

Carol: Yeah, I moved back to Salinas. I ended up doing hair again, and then I went to work at Fort Ord-I had started doing Civil Service work in Okinawa. I had worked for the property disposal office there and I typed sales contracts for all the equipment that came back form Vietnam. After the Vietnam war, they had taken a lot of the armament, and vehicles and just loaded it on the beaches and so country’s would come in, companies from all country’s to buy this equipment and were calling it “The Defense Supply Agency,” and I used to type all the sale contracts. They would sell this equipment, because it was “demilitarized” so it was supposed to be made so you couldn’t use it again in war, or as a weapon. I worked for a Chinese man named Mr. Young, who treated me very well, though I wasn’t making very much and was struggling. Then, when I came back and was working at Fort Ord, I was working as a typist-I typed documents. They were doing a big manpower survey for how many civilians. Fort Ord was a huge military base and they had a lot of civilians that worked there, well, they were going to have a big cut-back, so they would have man-power survey’s to see how many positions were really justified. Well, I was a temp, so, sure enough I knew my position was going to be one of the first to go, and it was. So, when I lost that position, I sold my car (which I shipped to Okinawa and brought back) and I was either going to go in the Army because I knew that I would have a place to live-“three hot's and a cot,” you know? Or, I would go civil service, and well, I was trying to get a permanent position working for the government so I sold my car and got $500 dollars for it, it was a 65 Chevy. I used that money to buy a plane ticket, xeroxed my application and went to all different agencies in Washington DC. I stayed with a couple that I had met in Okinawa, they were a young couple who had just had a baby, they called me and the wife, she wanted a friend and wanted me to come to DC. I told her that I had to go work for the government and she assured me that there was all kinds of government jobs there-well, she told me I could say with them, and you know, I didn’t have any money, all I had was my car, which I sold to get out to DC. Then I worked in Washington for the Personnel Department at USDA, right on the lawn near the Washington Monument, near the Air and Space Museum. It was really neat to be in Washington, it was so huge-so grand, and very intimidating to be in Washington-you know, I was barely a clerk typist and I walked to all of these agencies and it was tough. I went to the pentagon, all over there, every federal office I could try to drop off my applications-finally I went to the USDA, and they had several personal offices. I went to the counter, had my application, they said, ‘Well, what position are you applying for?’ and I said, ‘Anything I can get, I’m a clerk typist right now,’ which is the lowest they had. There was a man there, at the counter, I thought he was applying for a job too-and he said, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ and I said, ‘Well, I’ll take anything, but I need to get a career conditional appointment,’ and asked what he was applying for. Turns out he worked there, and he was the director, so he turned around to the lady behind the counter and said, ‘Hire her,’ and I got the job there. I didn’t like DC; it was too big, way too expensive. I rented a room with this couple, and they told me, ‘Oh, you won’t need a car,’ when I sold my car, so that was the first thing I had to do to get to the bus station to go to work. So, I had to call my parents-which I didn’t like to do-for help. Well, they couldn’t give me any money for a car, but they finally agreed to co-sign so my car would be taken right out of my paycheck, my car payment. So, I cleared $36 every two weeks, after my car payment.

SJ: Wow, that’s nothing.

Carol: Which, this of course was not enough to live on. So, I had to get another job. I was living in Virginia-Willbrigs, Virginia. So, I went to places like Target, Kmart, those types of stores-to be a cashier, but, by the time I got back from DC at my first job, it was too late-those shifts had already started. So, there was an add in the paper for a waitress, I inquired about it and it turned out it was a restaurant and bar, and it was really kind of a honky-tonk place. Country music, they served beer and wine, and I though-oh, my father would die if he knew I worked there, but I took that job and I worked there at night and I worked my other job in DC during the day. I worked, oh, five days a week at the bar, five days a week in DC. I had to be there, at the bar, at 7 at night-which, was good, because I didn’t get home from DC until 5:30, so I’d run home, take a shower, get to the bar and wouldn’t get home until about one in the morning. Then, I had to get up at 5:30 in the morning to go to my other job; I did that for about a year and had to go through a lot of different living situations there. The couple I was living with, the husband, he was a very devout Southern Baptist-didn’t believe in drinking and stuff. Well, I would come in late from work, and I was working at a bar, which his wife had told him that I had gotten a second job working at this bar-they subsequently called me at work that same day and asked me to move out. Working there, in his mind, was not appropriate. So, I said, ‘When do you want me to move out,’ and they said-that day. So, I came home, put everything I had in the car I had bought, and I lived in a park for a little while. One day, I met a lady, while on the bus-she was from San Diego, she worked for the Department of Interior, she was a secretary for these different agents-they would investigate and apprehend people that were smuggling animals that were near extinction. The one’s that were really endangered species, and they would catch these people-who were taking them, selling them, or killing them and selling their fur/skins. So, anyway, she said she had a basement with a couch down there and that I was welcome to stay down there. So, I did-and she kept some of those animals down there, so I stayed right down there with them! There was some kind of flying squirrel, there were some sort of snakes, spiders, some pretty weird animals down there-but as long as they didn’t get on me- I didn’t care. I stayed with her, and then I moved into a condemned trailer house, lived in that and I didn’t have any heat-because it had been red-tagged, and I made it through that in the winter, and that wasn’t very good. I got sick, had to have surgery, the engine in my car had blown up-turns out it was a lemon, I didn’t know. So, I called my parents to try and come home, they said no, they didn’t think that was a good idea and my Dad, I talked to him. They had another man staying there, that my Mom worked with and they were trying to help him out, they were very fond of him. So, I asked if I could come home and they said no, there wasn’t any place for me to stay, and it probably wouldn’t be a very good idea. So, I called my sister, and she said, ‘Well, come on,’ so I left and went to San Diego. I took my leave without pay; I had my year-in so I could finally transfer. So, I transferred to North Island, San Diego-a clerk typist again. Sis, my sister, knew this lady who worked for Safeway, because I didn’t make hardly any money to even get an apartment or anything, and she said there were jobs available at Safeway as meat wrappers-and they were making twice the amount of money I made. I thought god, after all the work I did to get into Civil Service, but if I could get twice the money, that would be a really good job, plus they had benefits. So, I quit my job with the government-which I thought I would never do, and I went to Safeway and I was a meat wrapper just for two or three months. What happened was, they had a cutback and because I was just hired, I was the first to go. So, I got laid off. My Uncle Kenneth offered me a job back in Oklahoma, some sort of manager position-which sounded real important to me. So, I drove across the desert in the summer, which no air conditioning with my cousin Mark-who, was helping me drive, I think he may have had his learners permit. I rented a place, and managed this plumbing and appliance store, my Uncle used to be a plumber. He was in financial straights, so I helped him out, for about a year. He was operating in the red, quite a bit. So, finally I recommended that he sell it all, this was in a small town and he wasn’t able to compete with the larger stores in Oklahoma City. So, we sold it all and closed the store. He wanted me to stay and work in town, because he was going to start building houses-he said, ‘If you stay, I’ll build you a new house.’ It was a very attractive offer, but I wanted to go back to working for the government because I knew that, that was steady and I knew I would have my benefits. So, I went to Tinker Air force Base, still in Oklahoma-to see my Aunt Jerry, who lived in the same house we lived in as kids. I went to see her and we talked about me working at Tinker, so I went, applied for a job and I was hired. I had to take a temporary again, so I took a temporary position, which later turned into a permanent position in housing. So, I stayed with my Aunt Betty from Kingfisher, Oklahoma-I moved to El Reno, to live with her there, for almost a year, or 9 months. Then, I went to work at housing, when I was there I found a house for sale by owner, called my parents and told them they should consider buying it. They said they would have it inspected, I told them I would renovate it for them and would rent it from them if they bought it. So, they got a really good deal on it-she wanted $23,000 and we worked it down to $20,000. I lived there for about a year, and did all the renovations on the house myself.

SJ: When you lived near Tinker Air Force Base, is that around the time you were considering becoming a firefighter?

Carol: I was working in housing as a housing clerk, but I used to fill in for the housing counselors all the time there. They were teaching me about Real Estate, and I started going to school. I was going to Rose College and took classes in Real Estate and I learned a lot about rental laws and I knew about the maintenance from my sister and my dad and all that they had been through. So, I did that for a while and then my boss always told me he was really impressed by my work-I always researching everything right by the regulations, I didn’t ask a lot of questions unless I looked it up and tried to find it first, and if I couldn’t find it, then I would go ask him. He had promised a promotion, and I really did need the money-and I was under the impression that a promotion was going to be given to me and that they were working on it. Of course, the government takes months, so we went on along time like that for months, and then I found out that he did submit the paperwork, but they never accepted it, for my promotion. They said, it just wasn’t possible to upgrade to that position, which should have been upgraded, but he never told me that, so basically I was working in a dead-end position. So, my father had later retired from the military, he retired in 1965 and he went into the Fire Department at Fort Ord and became the Chief of Fire Prevention. So, he was like a Deputy Chief, but he was over fire safety, fire prevention, they did all of the fire inspections for construction and buildings, to make sure everything was fire safe. So, I was always impressed with that because he had come out of the Army and officer, then he had started as a GS-3, not far from the grade I was, and worked up into this position very quickly. He had always told me he enjoyed what he did because he was specialized-he went into a specialty because people really didn’t know your business, you didn’t have a lot of the hassle that came with day-to-day work, it was kind of nice sometimes, in a lot of ways you were left alone to do your job. So, I thought that sounded pretty good. One of the Fire Inspectors that they used to come to our building to talk to us-actually, they used to come by the flirt with all of the girls that worked in housing-they used to come by our office all the time. They said they had an opening for a fire fighter and I said, ‘Well, I can’t do that,’ and they said, ‘Oh yeah you could,’ and I said, ‘No, I couldn’t.’ They said, ‘You’d make almost 50% more in your salary, because of the hours you work.’ You work a 72-hour workweek, not like city fire fighters, they work 56. Because I was already in Civil Service, I could probably transfer into that. They asked if I had ever worn air-tanks before, I told them I had, when I had learned to scuba dive with my Uncle Kenneth. They said that was good and so they encouraged me to go talk to the deputy Chief, his name was Duncan-a very nice man, so I went over there and talked to him. Apparently, they had, had one woman there before me, who had kind of washed out, they told me ‘She just didn’t work out.’ I think, they thought, she just wanted to meet men or something, that was their impression. I had only met her once, and they ended up terminating her. So, what happened was I went over and talked to Chief Duncan, and they weren’t too wild about me working there, at first. He asks me if I can wear air tanks and stuff, and I told him I could, so they went and got some and they said, ‘Well, put them on,’ and I did. He said, ‘Well, I guess you can,’ so I accepted a position as a fire fighter. So, I got a job as a firefighter and I went to what they call a “rookie school,” which was two weeks, and I had a great trainer-his name was Bob Zein, Carl Bob Zein and he was in charge of training for the fire department. There were three fire departments on Tinker Air Force Base and I always worked at the main one. They did structural fire fighting, they did rescue, and aircraft rescue. The job was very challenging, of the jobs I’ve done-that’s the one I’m most proud of.

SJ: Weren’t you the first successful female fire fighter in the whole state of Oklahoma?

Carol: Well, yes, though two women had come before me, who weren’t able to make it all the way through. So, I was the first woman fire fighter to successfully make it all the way through.

SJ: While you were there, I can imagine you faced a lot of hardships in terms of the ways you were treated, or weather or not you were taken seriously?

Carol: Oh, definitely. They really didn’t want another woman working there. There was a lot of resentment; men didn’t think women ought to be there. Some of them would call me horrible names. There were seven grievances filed when I was hired-they did not want me, from the other employees. So, they all went to personnel and wrote letters that said that, ‘They shouldn’t have to deal with a woman,’ and blah blah blah, there was just so much resentment about my being hired. I never really formed any friendships with any of them, for a long time, I just always stuck to myself. Every time there was a run I was there, I was always on Engine 1, which always goes-I’d always have to stand on the tailboard and hang on. Depending on what we were responding to, we’d have to put on our fire fighting equipment. You’d have to be able to run down there, jump in your boots, throw your coat on, put your air tank on, put your helmet on and jump on the tail board and take off. So, it was a lot of fun as far as helping people, I always liked helping people, they appreciated that, and in that way it was very rewarding. Typing something wasn’t rewarding, you know? When you’re out there, helping people one-on-one, that was very rewarding to me. I really liked that aspect of it. I even got to go to some classrooms with some little kids and teach them with a fire inspector. That’s when I realized I really wanted to do that-become a fire inspector. I wanted to pursue that, but it was really hard, those positions were kinda coveted because you could go back on 8 hours a day, and most of these men were married and they wanted them so they could be with their family. So, to be the lowest on the totem poll and a woman I knew the chance of getting that would probably be slim to none, and to have a vacancy someone had to about die or retire and there were a lot of people in line, so it could be several years to have a chance at something like that. I enjoyed being a fire fighter, I learned an awful lot and it really helped me with my self esteem because I had to stand up for myself, and I had to be one of the guys. I was pretty feminine before, you know, you couldn’t be messing with your makeup on your hair and you had to be there. When those guys gave you a hard time, you had to be able to come right back at them with the same thing they did.

SJ: So, you really hard to learn how to defend yourself in that situation. Did you feel like there were different expectations placed on you as a woman in that field?

Carol: Oh, definitely. Well, I always had to prove myself. I was constantly being tested to train, all the time. How I was being tested is, if there was a run, I was the first one on it-they wanted to see how I responded. They would put me in positions and I would notice, a lot, that men wouldn’t be in-well, sometimes men would be in it, but I constantly had to repeat it. I would be expected to do it over, and over, and over again instead of other employees. For example, we got a ladder truck, a new truck in, because our department had never had one before. It was the same one that Oklahoma City had, had about 3 months and one fire fighter had gone up on the ladder and thing that collapsed; he was almost killed and badly injured. So, none of the fire fighters wanted to go on this one because they thought there was a chance that it would malfunction and someone would get hurt. So, they got this ladder truck and the very next day there was a drill-well, a lot of times we wouldn’t know there was a drill. They would do the alarm and then you run out there and they would say, ‘Okay, you’re on this engine today.’ Well, they had me be the first person to go up on that ladder, which was odd because I was always on engine one, you know? When I was on that truck and I came down I was told that the chief ordered me to go up it first because if these men saw a woman go up there, they would have to do it, because their ego wouldn’t let them not. So, there were a lot of things like that. We did air crash Egress on plane’s-like F4’s, where I would have to go up a ladder on the aircraft. You’d have to pop the cockpit, get in there, shut down the aircraft and pull the pilot out and carry them down, and they can weigh up to 230 pounds. So, usually, on an air crash Egress-like that, you have a ladder on both sides of the plane, well, I just had a ladder on one side of the plane-it was just me and it’s supposed to be two people removing them, and it was just me removing them by myself. Some of those pilots didn’t like it, they were cocky and they thought it was stupid having a woman in there, trying to get them out. A couple of times I would just have to tell them, ‘Hey, you’re coming out of there or I’m going to yank areas you DON’T want to be pulled by to get you out!” So, I scared the hell out them, and they thought I was-I probably would have, if I had to-to get them out of there. The first time I was instructed to do it, I couldn’t do it and I thought I was going to loose my job. I called my Dad and told him that I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t lift these guys. You know, they weighed around 230 pounds, and I probably weighed around 135. I was standing up, straddling this cockpit and I had to shut it down and reach way below me and lift this guy and he would fit me-oh man, they would work against me to get them out of there. So, when I called my Dad, he said, ‘Well, first of all, there’s supposed to be two people getting them out,’ and the second thing he said, was to go to the gym and start lifting weights. So, I would start going to the gym every day, as soon as I would get off in the morning I would go to the gym and work out for three of four hours. I got to the point where I could life a lot. I would make the other firemen sit on the floor and I would practice picking them up, whatever I had to do to build my strength. We had to do an Egress on a B-52, well there are 9 crewmembers on a B-52, and it’s a big plane. So, if it crashed there could be crewmembers anywhere, and you have to search the plane out. So, I pulled 9 men out, by myself, and put them on the plane wing. And then I went to the firefighting academy at OSU, and there were 50 of us and they would get two top diplomas, and I ended up being the top of my class, the only woman. There were 49 men, and I. I didn’t know it-and, of course, these men continued to act like and treat me…saying, ‘What did you do to get that?’ But, I knew I earned it, and that experience really helped my self-confidence, to be able to pull through and do that. One of my friends, his name was Martin, he was the only black man out of the crew, and I was the only woman, you know. Well, everyday him and I would be put on the back of the truck, riding the tail gate-and everyday, and we always talked about how they had two of us to pick on. We used to bet each other everyday, ‘Which one of us is going to get fired first, you or me?’ We’d laugh about it a lot, but in the end he ended up resigning, because he was getting so harassed, there was so much harassment he faced, he said he couldn’t take it anymore. They were so cruel, they would put snakes and bugs in my bed, call me horrible names, and it was really hard. It was hard always having to be tough, you weren’t allowed to be sensitive; you always had to build a shield to protect yourself. You were expected to rise to the occasion, in some ways, it was good-I learned from my hardships, and I would never trade it because I went through so much self-growth and that was important. I was also in a couple of situations where I had to perform CPR to save people. I remember the first one, it was a young girl who had overdosed on drugs, I gave her CPR and she went into full arrest on me, and again-full arrest on me, I kept giving her CPR, and she finally pulled through. It scared the hell out of me after. In an emergency situation you do what you have to do, and later you fall apart. That day, I realized how serious and important my job was, because at any moment someone’s life could be in your hands. So, I really enjoyed helping people, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to go into fire inspection. At that point, too, I started gaining more respect from the firefighters-I could tell. The day I could tell that, there was a new crew chief who came in, it was in the evening, and I was standing outside of the fire department and he walked up and I said, ‘Hi, how are you,’ and he was not very nice and said to me, ‘I wanna tell you something, I don’t want you here, I don’t like women on this department, and I’m going to do everything I can to fire you.’ Basically saying, ‘Your ass is mine, you’re outta here.’ I thought, what the hell-here I had gone through the Firefighting Academy, I had gone through all this stuff, and I get someone like this? So, I was pissed off, I said, ‘The hell with you,’ and I walked through the door. I thought, well, I’m probably going to get canned anyway. So, I walked in the door and one of the firefighters had seen him out there talking to me, he was one of the EMT’s who had been there a long time, he asked me what was wrong. I said, ‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ and he asked me again, and I told him about that conversation-turns out, the next day that crew chief was removed. I thought they didn’t care about me, and I knew then, that they did. I knew that they knew I was really trying. They got to a point where, when a crew chief came in that didn’t like women we’d all give him hell. Many of them turned out to be like brothers, it was like having 15 brothers, which was kinda neat. I never went out with them, a couple of them asked me out and stuff, but I always tried to keep my private life private. I got where I was cutting their hair, because you know, previously I was a hairdresser. So, they were getting cheap haircuts-I would charge $1 a haircut. So, I got to know them more. That’s when I met Harold, well, he was coming back to get haircuts all the time! One day he called me at home, and said, he needed a haircut and asked to come over to my house. I said, well, okay-and to be honest, I felt sorry for him. It seemed like he didn’t have many friends, or anything. So, I was living in the house my parents bought, paying them rent, and I tried to fix him up with my room mate, and well, they didn’t hit it off. Anyway, he started showing up places I would go-I would usually go out at night, on my days off. We were friends for a long time, and eventually ended up getting married, and that’s how my daughter was born, which-is the best accomplishment of my life!

SJ: So, what was that experience like, this time around. Getting married and having a child?

Carol: That’s hard. Well, when I was on the fire department I was working my way up and trying to become a driver. That’s a pretty big job, especially being a woman. Anyway, I remember we were at this thing-and I had to move these huge cufflinks-and it was so heavy. I remember hitting my shin, and hurting my body, and I remember thinking, ‘I’m in pretty good shape, I can do this now, but what about when I’m 40 or 50?’ You can do a lot with leverage, but I started thinking, is this worth beating up my body? So, I started thinking about that and soon after I had met Harold and we decided to get married. Well, when we decided to get married, one of us couldn’t be on the fire department, one of us had to leave because we worked 72 hours on and 24 hours off, because of conflict of interest they wouldn’t put us on the same shift, so we would only see each other one day out of every two weeks, bottom line. So, we figured, that was no way to be in a marriage. So, at that time, there was an opening in housing again, which would have been a promotion for me. So, I went to work as a housing inspector. That transition was nice, it was nice to go back to working days. I was in my 20’s and I could tell there was something kind of missing, everything was okay, but I had felt like something was missing. I wanted a family, and I wasn’t very near my immediate family, and I wasn’t very close to them. They were all in California, and we were in Oklahoma, so it was mainly just me. So, I was feeling pretty lonely, it always felt the hardest on Sunday’s for me, I always felt like Sunday’s were a family day, where families get together, enjoy dinner, and I didn’t have that. So, I was starting feel lonely, and that’s when I made the decision to get married, and alongside that my clock was ticking and was thinking about making a family of my own. I really felt like I wanted a child, and I was seriously thinking about it and considering it. At the time, Harold had already had a son, and we tried our best to blend families, but that’s always hard on everyone involved. So, we started trying to get pregnant, and finally-I was working one day, and I didn’t know I was pregnant, and ended up having a miscarriage. I was very, very sad about it-thinking about what could have been. It really affected me, and I realized how deeply I had felt like I lost someone. I went to my doctor and they told me that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for me to try getting pregnant again for another six months. Sure enough, it was about six months later, and I knew I was pregnant at the moment of conception, to some people that sound’s stupid-but I knew I was. Growing up, I was always told I was pretty intuitive, and I knew I was pregnant this time. I always wanted a little girl, I had a picture in my mind of a little girl with long curly strawberry-blonde hair, hazel eyes, a good personality and great smile, and low and behold I was pregnant! What had happened was-I went to the doctor and I wasn’t even late, and I said, ‘Hey, I think I’m pregnant.’ He asked me when my period was due, and I told him it wasn’t due for another 4 or 5 days, and he told me he didn’t think I was pregnant. He said he would examine me, but he really didn’t think I was pregnant. Everyone knew I wanted to have a baby. Sure enough, he examined me and told me I wasn’t pregnant, well, I cried the whole way home. The next day I decided that I wasn’t going to accept his answer, so I went to this other doctor and got a blood test, I told him I just knew I was pregnant, and turns out I was! I took that result and waved it under the nose of the first doctor. He said, ‘Well, by golly you are!’ He had a bet with his wife, who was a nurse-he always said it was going to be a boy, and she always said it was going to be a girl. Well, when I went to the ultrasound they asked me if I wanted to know the sex, and I said no. They made a joke saying, ‘God, don’t tell her the sex, because if it’s not a girl, she’ll die!’ So, everyone said, don’t tell her. Everyone had known how the miscarriage before had affected me. So, finally, I went through the whole pregnancy and labor, and had my daughter and the whole office was there at the hospital. They followed me from room to room, my boss was my labor coach, and everyone was there. I brought my daughter to work; I made a little lined laundry basket and would bring her with me, and put her by my desk. It was really nice, but she was sick a lot, she was having ear infections a lot. So, I couldn’t leave her with a babysitter, and when she turned 9 months old I quit work to be home with her. I stayed home with her for a year.

SJ: How do you feel like you’ve raised your child differently than the ways that you were raised?

Carol: Well, I really tried to raise my daughter to believe that she could do anything that she wanted to do. When I grew up it was like, okay, well, you’ll move out at 18 and get married and that will be your life. That’s not what life’s all about. I’ve always tried to teach my daughter that she can do whatever she wants to do, and to not be afraid to explore stuff. Also, you may not always do it right the first time, but you’ll get there if you want to. It’s not always about making it, it’s about the journey, being happy with the journey and being happy with yourself, whatever you want to do or be. I’ve always tried to tell my daughter how proud I am of her, I don’t think parents do that enough, they used to not. I think, maybe, that people now show a lot more feelings and express more feelings than they ever did before. I was 16 before my mom had ever told me she loved me, and I always tell my daughter I love her. I think that’s important, that you always tell people how much they mean to you and let them know how you feel, because I never thought people cared about me, so much of it was unspoken growing up. Then, when I was 16, the first time my mother told me that-I didn’t know how to react, I was embarrassed, I thought…’Do you really love me?’ It felt very odd, it was a really uncomfortable feeling because I wasn’t used to that. As she’s gotten older and as I’ve gotten older, I guess I’ve come to understand it better. It feels like a generational thing. It took me a lot of years to figure that out-my mother had come from a family where there were 8 children, and the women, when you were 12 or 13-you were sent to live with other families to help women take care of their kids who needed help. My mom was from a German family, where, the man was praised-you were congratulated on having a son, and apologized to for having a daughter. It was like the son was going to be the breadwinner to take care of the family, and the daughter was only there to assist, maybe you could marry her off, but she was, in many ways, just considered another mouth to feed. So, I think my Mom really did have a hard time as a child, and I think that her self-esteem really suffered. The only toy she ever had was one doll, that had buttons for eyes-they just didn’t have much of anything, and it was really hard being a woman. She worked very hard, and really tried to be with the times when she became a mother, I think the stress of it got to her sometimes and I think it reflected in how she treated her children. Also, the stress of my father being in the military, when went through a lot of hard times in our family. I think, though, that a lot of the hardships she faced came from the belief that she didn’t have any self worth as a child and I think that I picked up on that too, as well as her other daughters, all struggled with those same feelings. You know, the male of the family, my brother, was ‘the one,’ and she would always refer to his judgments, over those of her daughters, so you just never felt validated as a person.

SJ: And, you weren’t encouraged at a young age, to go to school?

Carol: No, no. I wanted to go to college, but I was told I wasn’t college material-I was told I could get married. I was told I didn’t need to go to school, why should they spend that money on me getting an education, that’s what I was told. Becoming a hairdresser was considered a really big deal-that, for my family, was considered going to college, for women. It was as if I was going to make a lot of money, well, let me tell you, you don’t. 60% commission of nothing is still nothing, with no benefits. A lot of people make a living, but it was the living I wanted-I wanted to aspire to do more. So, after quitting work for a year, I went back into housing, as a housing inspector and moved my family to California. I was a housing inspector for the Army at Fort Ord, had to take a downgrade, and then got promoted to Chief of the Housing facilities and from there I had the opportunity, because I always took on every project and class I could. I was always very eager to learn, I always wanted to educate myself, the more I knew, the more specialized I could become-going back to my father’s advice, the more desirable I would be for a job. While I was in Oklahoma I took classes at OU and OSU, and took more classes in California. I had an opportunity to be a Project Manager for the Army and implement legislation, by, at that time, Congressmen Pineta, who later became president Clinton’s Chief of Staff. I ended up implementing a project that was very successful, as a project manager-I implemented it first at Fort Ord, and then I implemented it Army-wide, across the United States, then I helped implement it DOD-wide, through the United States and then I was sought out for a job, I had several job offers: Italy, London, Sacramento-Air force, Army, Navy. I took a job as director of housing in London, that was, at the same time that I was divorcing my husband, I took that opportunity to take my daughter out of a bad situation and I advanced myself in a position and became the director there. We had a nice home, and lived in London for almost three years, we traveled Europe. It was a good time, but a very hard time I worked very long hours and felt like I neglected my daughter a lot, you know, as an after thought-I wish I had been there more, emotionally. But, my mind was on so many different things, it was very hard for me to switch from all these things at work that were going on, to what my daughter needed from me at night, sometimes, and that really bothered me. I managed and directed a lot of high-cost leases, and many different housing offices in the United Kingdom. I finally got to the point where I was making pretty good money, had benefits, and could support my daughter. I had become ill with a hernia, and had to come back to the United States to have surgery. I didn’t have anyone there to care for my daughter, so I came back to where my family was, in Monterey, to have surgery. My daughter stayed with my mother while I was having surgery, and I recuperated at my Mother’s house. At the time I had no intention of every getting married again, I had been divorced for a while, all I wanted to do was raise my daughter and give her a good life. When we came back to the U.S., I had met my now-husband, Chuck, and we’ve been married for 17 years, very happily. I met the love of my life, finally, who treats me with a lot of respect, which I finally learned I deserve, and I treat him with a lot of mutual respect and have learned a lot about relationships through a lot of mistakes I’ve made in others. He had been through several relationships that didn’t work, so when we met we both thought, ‘Enough of this, if we get together, this is it.’ It was really good, there have been several times we didn’t want to kiss each other goodnight and say, ‘I love you,’ but we’ve always insisted that’s the way everyday ended. It was a process of blending families again, with two adopted special needs kids. I have to say, that I’m one of the people that the government has been very good to. It took me from a person who had virtually no education, a High School equivalency, and provided a good living. Also, my husband is retired from the government as well as the Fort Ord Re-Use Authority, as a Civil Engineer.

SJ: What do you feel like some of your dreams and plans are now?

Carol: To enjoy my life, I’ve come close to not living a few times. My goal right now is to enjoy living everyday to the fullest, to enjoy the people around me, to be happy and make my family happy. To travel maybe, I have the opportunity to enjoy my daughter, and now my husband that we’re not working all the time-we’re retired and living in Lake Tahoe now. It feels good to know that you feel safe, that people love and care about you, and to continue to nurture those relationships; I’ve never had that before this.

Interviews

Thu, 15 May 2008 03:39:09 GMT

Interview with Dr. Ekua Omosupe
By: Sarah Jane Smith

I had the great pleasure of taking English 2: Critical Thinking with Dr. Ekua Omosupe nearly four years ago through Cabrillo College. When I started Community College I felt demystified with education as an institution. As a teenager in High School I was introduced to activism and Social Justice movements and had a very hard time finding fulfillment in those areas through the Institution of Education. Taking Dr. Omosupe’s class opened up a whole new world of opportunities for me. It was the first time I was able to take a class that was actively discussing the issues of Race, Class, Gender and the realities and impacts of oppression and domination. Dr. Omosupe’s words and passion have provided me with consistent inspiration on an educational and an individual level. Nearly four years later, in my last semester at Cabrillo, I am now enrolled in her Feminist Theories and Methodologies class and continue to see the gift that she is to her students, Cabrillo College, and the world as a whole. I will forever be grateful to the work that she does and the path she has opened up for me in my education. In the Fall of this year I will be transferring to UC Santa Cruz to double major in Community Studies and Feminist Studies with an emphasis on Women’s Health. I’m grateful to Dr. Omosupe for getting me started on this path and to help me see what possibility exists in my education. Additionally, Dr. Omosupe’s story is a beautiful one, and deserves to be heard.

SJ: What do you feel are/were your life dreams and plans?

Dr. O: I want to tell you that, when I started out a young girl I was very involved in the church-the church of God and Christ, it’s a Pentecostal church. They have very rigid rules about social decorum and women’s behavior. Real dogmatic-I can say that as I look back, but when I was in the middle of it I didn’t recognize a lot of things. I was the only one in my family that went to church. My mother, god bless her, took me to the church once when I was a little girl, to the Baptist church because my whole family will declare that they’re Baptist because I guess that’s the “family religion.” However, my mother was never a religious person. She had issues with the church because of the exploitation that she knew of, because of the robbing of the poor, because of the lack of help the church would bring to you if you needed it-things like that, and just her history at church. So, my mother was not interested. However, I used to go to church because at church I felt more accepted in that the people there could see me, and they didn’t criticize me or fuss with me, you know? I was just there. And so, as a child, about 10 years old, I started going to church and I kept going to church up until I was a young adult. And I went away from my hometown of Mississippi to Massachusetts to school, so I didn’t go to the church in the way that I had prior to that time of turning 18. So, when I was at church I was very encouraged to use my voice because we also had Youth Church there, but I also spoke to adults. So when I was 12 years old I became a Child Minister, and I’m a girl so I wasn’t allowed to sit in the pulpit, I’d always have to make my speeches from the floor, but, I would still make speeches. These were based on things that I felt that The Spirit was leading me to share, which I did, and I did that for many years. By the age of 15 I was preaching on the radio, and by the time I turned 16 I had many times been the guest speaker at a lot of different programs and whatnot. However, it was still said, “Women don’t preach,” “Women teach, and men preach,” so you can see the difference that patriarchy attached to us doing the same work. But yet, the work that the women did was minimized because the male preacher had more opportunity, more prestige, more respect. Women didn’t generally bring the sermon on Sunday morning, it was usually a man and we were not “in charge” of the church, like, being a pastor but women really did have charge because of all of the things that women had to do. You know, to keep the church going, because if it weren’t for the women the church would have never been able to go on. So, having the experience of preaching from the time I was 12 years old, up until I was ordained at the age of 21 up to the age of 29 when I finally just up and left the Christian Church. I’m not a member anymore, but it was in the church that I got my start as a minister and as a teacher. So, when I was in seventh grade, that meant I was about 13 years old, and I had already been into this preaching and this church thing for three of four years already. Our seventh grade teacher, Mrs. Fairer, she had all of us stand up as she came to each row, each student had to stand to respond to her question, which was, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” See, I was in all-black Junior High School, I’m talking before desegregation, so when I was 13 it was probably like 1964, something like that. Okay, so, when it was my turn, I stood up and I say, “I want to be a preacher when I grow up.” Mrs. Fairer said, she said, “Maybe you want to be a lecturer, maybe you want to go through school, all the way through college and get a doctorate degree and then you can go and you can preach, or lecture on a subject that you know more than anyone about, and,” she says, “maybe that’s what you want to do.” At the time I thought Mrs. Fairer was trying to diswaid me, but then I learned that Mrs. Fairer knew that women in the clergy was almost unheard of and she was orienting us to think about career and possibilities. She believed that it was through the path of education that I would be able to be the preacher that I wanted to be, as opposed to, maybe just having a very small vision of what it was that I wanted. She threw higher education into the mix as something that was necessary to be “the lecturer.” So, that stuck with me. When I was 17 years old I got a scholarship through the ABC program, A Better Chance, which was a government program, which was one of the new programs that was created out of the Civil Rights Law. When the Civil Rights Laws were signed, opportunity seemed to open up, at least I noticed it, and never had before. I was one of the people from my High School that was scouted, and how was I scouted? Well, I believe that institutions from all over the United States would send literature, program information, to the various High Schools and Junior High’s in depressed areas of the United States, so I would imagine that they targeted all of the colored sections of everywhere to recruit students, to get students an opportunity. So, I was recruited in that way. I remember the day that I was called to the counseling office, I was told that, since I had good grades, I was a good student, here’s an opportunity for you to go and study in Massachusetts. I don’t know what that means-oh my god-but it’s very exciting. They told me that mother had to fill out all of this paperwork, to see if I qualify, and there began my journey. So, mother filled out all of the paper work, and at the end of that junior year of High School is when that scouting happened for me. I must have been like 17 years old. So, my mother filled out the paper work, I got letters from the organization, which was Mount Holyoke College, I was going to go there for the summer program, which is very much like a summer bridge program. It was a program to help the student to get up to whatever level of proficiency was necessary to get through the summer program and many students got scholarships after the summer program to go to prestigious High Schools and private institutions. I didn’t get a scholarship to a private school because I was already a Junior and going to be a Senior the following year, but I did get a scholarship to a college prepetory high school, which was in Massachusetts-Williamstown, Massachusetts. I went to live with a white family, a prestigious family, Mr. Labore was actually Dr. Labore who taught History at Williams College. His wife was a stay home mother, but she, Linda Labore had, for sure, a Bachelors Degree of Fine Art. They had three children of their own at the time; they were probably like ten, seven, and four years old. And really, it was the experience that I was an exchange student in my own country. I came from Mississippi, Yazoo County, very poor county and I was brought to, it felt like, the land of milk and honey, because, for the first time in my life I had my own bedroom. For the first time in my life, I had $5 a week allowance-for nothing! They didn’t expect me to wash the dishes, or clean the bathroom, or anything-I was like, wow, I was an exchange student in my own country. So, there began my track towards higher education. I was 17, I went to Williamstown, Massachusetts and I lived with a family, did well that summer. At the end of the summer is when they sent me to the Labore’s, my mother let me, she said “yes,” and so I went home at the end of summer and then came back a couple weeks before school started in the fall, went back to Massachusetts, met my host family for the first time and started to live with them. And, I must say that they were really wonderful people, they treated me really, really well and they also reached out to my mother and may family, which was really good and I will always remember them. And there began my experience. So, I finished High School, I went to Mount Holyoke College on early decision. When I was there I felt very alienated, and very alone. I was a very poor person, I was very aware of my poor self, my black self among all of the people who were there. White people, and then also, there were other black women there, but very, very few that I had met during the summer. It was a very challenging and scary experience, to tell you the truth. I did not graduate from Mount Holyoke, I went there for a year then I went back home and I got married to a man and I had three children. So, at the age of 20 I got married and I lived with my husband at the time for nine years, but I was married to him for over 20 years because I could never afford a divorce and he would never buy one. So, I was in a situation as a single parent with three children, I left that marriage at the age of 29 and began my journey again through higher education and started out at a Community College.

SJ: Do you want to talk a little bit about that, and maybe, what came after that for you?

Dr. O: Yeah, I started at the Community College. It was a business-orientated school and I started Fashion Merchandisizing, because my dream, after the dream of being a preacher, was to be a fashion merchandiser. I thought that it was just glamorous and exciting and I wanted to work at a fine store and I wanted to buy for Macy’s or some place like that. The business college sold me the delusion and the dream, they said, “Oh, you can have that!” Okay, great, so I start out at the business college, I go through like two months and then I’m hit with the news that I don’t qualify for financial aid because I had defaulted on a loan when I was 19. I don’t have any money, I feel very hopeless, but I know that I have three children, that I have to make a life for us and I know that I’m not going to be able to make a life for us working at McDonald’s or sweeping floors. So, I’m very distressed. What am I going to do now? Well, one of the women in the Fashion Merchandizing program said, first it was a teacher, the teacher said, “she’s not going to quit school, we’re in the middle of the semester, she can quit at the end of the semester, but not now.” That’s what she told financial aid. I said, well, no one had ever spoken up like that for me before, and the women in the class, one of them, said, “Let’s do a fundraiser to get money so that Ekua can stay in school.” So, they started a fundraiser and we went door to door selling gold C coupon books. Like now, you can buy a book full of coupons to go to dinner to a lot of different places; it’s that same sort of thing. They had different products, different things like that. So, they were $5.00 each, our teacher helped to put together this fundraiser and this sell-a-thon, and so we all participated and went door to door. They put a big banner in the quad area, asking students to donate, to help me stay in school. It was incredible.

SJ: That sounds so amazing!

Dr.O: It was amazing, that’s what the women did for me. So, because of all of this, I think it changed Financial Aid, I think it changed them terribly. Because-what do you know: here they come saying, “Oh, we made a mistake, you do qualify for Financial Aid.” Yes, they did. So, the students had raised four hundred dollars for me, and so when the Financial Aid office gave me Financial Aid to finish the semester, of course I was in the process of doing that, and a couple of women from the class said, “At lunch time we’re going to the University of Colorado and we’re going to apply for school and for Financial Aid, do you want to come with us?” Yeah so, we went on our lunch hour and we did all of the paper work and I got accepted, they did too, so I got into college. Oh, I was very excited and I got Financial Aid and so I began a new journey through higher education. So, at the end of that semester I got the four hundred dollars as a scholarship and I went off to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. It took me, that was in 1980, so from 1980 to 1985 to get my B.A. Degree and while I was in my under graduate school I did very well. I graduated with Honorable Mention and I was on President’s Honor-roll and Dean’s List very often when I was there. I applied to three graduate schools, and the way this happened for me is that, okay, my imagination had not developed very much as to what my possibilities could be in my life. So, I was thinking-If I get a job at Safeway and I’m part of the Union, I get on there fulltime, I’ll be able to buy a house for my children, you know? I’m thinking that. Well, it turns out that there’s a world much bigger than Safeway and it’s bigger than being a part of that particular union and what happened for me is that the Financial Aid officer, Lee Engles who had been my Financial Aid advisor throughout my college time. One day she saw me in the quad and she called to me and she said, “You should go to Graduate School.” And I said, “What is that?” “She said, you come to my office and I’ll tell you.” So, I went to her office at my earliest convenience and she told me that I could go to Graduate School and she told me what Graduate School meant, and she told me that I needed money to go and that she was there to help me. She said, “Now, the first thing you have to do is take your Graduate Record Exam.” I said, “What is that?” She said, “Well, it’s your subject exam that is in your subject, but your G.R.E., the Graduate Record Exam, is cumulative.” So, she told me everything that I needed to do. “Fill out this paper here, so that you can get a waver so that you don’t have to pay for the exam because I know that you can’t afford it.” I was a welfare mom. She told me all of the boxes to check, which I did. So, I went and took the exam and I also applied for Graduate School. See, the other thing, since I had taken the G.R.E. and had colored in the bubbles that said that I am a minority, and would I like to be in the minority lottery pool, so I said-yeah, whatever that meant. What that meant is that my name was given to every participating college in the country, so that they would invite me to apply to their school and to apply for Financial Aid, because you know it wasn’t for free-they got stipends or something. Okay, so, I applied to UC Santa Cruz because I saw a beautiful brochure, I saw an African-American Man, whom I learned was Nate Mackey whom I learned was a professor and it looked beautiful, and the things that were said about the area were just beautiful, and so, that’s my first choice, I applied there. Then I applied to Dartmouth and I applied to Loyola University in Chicago. I was not accepted at Dartmouth and I was not accepted at Loyola, but I was accepted from UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Cruz was the first college I heard from, I didn’t care about the others anyway. So, I got in and I started in 1985, up at UC Santa Cruz, Graduate program. I did not know, when I was accepted, that they only accept twelve people a year, so there was steep competition to get in. I also heard a story on the side from Claire Brass Valentine who used to be the coordinator for the Graduate students at Kresge College who were in the Lit. Board. Claire Brass Valentine told me, some years later; she said that she was on the acceptance committee. I don’t know how much of a vote she had, but she was definitely a person who was reading applications and helping to do the assessments of the candidates. She told me, she said, “Your paper came up, your application, and I read it and I said, ‘This is the woman that we want to come here.’” I had a good G.P.A., I was a single mother with three children, I was working-I was doing everything to make life better, more promising, for all of us. Claire Brass Valentine told me that my application many times was taken and stuffed to the back, to the bottom of the stack. Well, I’m black, I’m a woman-you know? I had a 3.89 average from my undergraduate studies, but I was very poor, perhaps that meant something to them, I don’t know. She told me, she said, “I kept pulling the application out, every time we met. I’d look through the papers, yours wasn’t there, and I would pull it out. I’d say-come on, look at this one! She’s a single mother-she obviously knows how to navigate in the world” and blah, blah, blah. And over and over again, she told, that this is what she did. When it came down final selections, that she was so happy that I was one of those twelve people that had been selected. Okay, so, what I want to tell you is that on the side, while that’s happening, Claire Brass Valentine tells that. Well, my story is that I was working in the Women’s Center at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs and there are three of us, there in the office. My friend Anna, another woman, and myself and we worked there all the time and we would sit around together and imagine what was happening on the review committee. And we would say things like, “they’re looking at your application right now and they can’t believe that they have such a good, promising student and YOU have been accepted.” We would do little scenarios like that, we did everyday, for…I don’t know how long, and then one day I got the mail and there it was-I was in. So, there was, we were doing magic. Claire Brass Valentine had never seen me, only saw a paper; there was no picture and we, who were, just imagining the possibilities. So, that’s how I ended up coming to UC Santa Cruz and entering in as a Graduate student and majoring in American Literature. As I moved through, I had some extreme experiences, some good experiences, some not so good, but I stuck it out and I did finish my work, I got my Masters and I got my PhD up at UC Santa Cruz.

SJ: So, what was your Master’s in? And what was your PhD in?

Dr. O: Okay, my Master’s is in American Literature as well. I did my emphasis on African-American Women writers, and so I moved into finishing up my PhD my focus was on American Literature, African-American Women Writers and my dissertation is also on African-American Women and Women Writers. It’s called, “Transgressions; African-American Women’s Autobiography and Literacy.” So, that’s the work I did. I had the good fortune of having Angela Davis as my dissertation chair and I had a horrible nightmare with my qualifying examination. The first time I went through, everyone except the black woman Dr. Akasha Hull, everyone except her was happy with what I did. She stood in the way. So, I had a lot of pain, distress, oh my god-agony. So, I went and I reported my experience in my examination to the chair and I wasn’t happy and the chair was going to have to do something. I said, “I don’t even understand what their critique is against me, what the one person’s critique is.” So, I ended up having to go and do it again and the second time that I went through my orals there wasn’t a problem. The first time, I went through the orals they did not pass me, they gave me an incomplete-but I got through the writing part, which was like a six hour exam-no problem with that. They thought, ‘oh, great, great, great, great.’ You know, Sarah Jane, I am a very good orator, that’s what I do.

SJ: Yes, you really are.

Dr.O: I know that I was clear in whatever I said, however, the person that stood in the way was coming from a place of personal issues that she had regarding me. So, she could not be professional that got in the way. After I went to report it, and obviously, the chair had a conversation with that committee-the committee had to meet with me, once a week, every week, until I took the exams again. I was very strongly objectionable to the way I had been treated and they couldn’t tolerate that happening again. Let me tell you that everybody, even other professors, when they heard that I had not finished the oral exams, none of them, who knew me-could believe it, none of them. They would come up to me and they would say, “What happened? I can’t believe.” Even, my fellow students said that. Anyway, there was a problem, but we got it all worked out. The next time I went through the orals-all I know Sarah Jane is that I went into the room, I sat down, we exchanged our pleasantries, they asked me a question and I talked for three hours and I don’t remember anything that I said. All I know is that when I came out of the trance, they were looking at me, and nodding, saying “yes, yes,” apparently I said all the right things.
SJ: Wow, that’s incredible.
Dr.O: It was really incredible, it’s like I woke up from someplace. It was amazing, so I got through it, and it’s so hard Sarah Jane. Okay, the hardest things that I have done so far in my life-
SJ: Yeah, I would love to hear.
Dr.O: Is, being successful going through the different levels of education. It’s very, very hard Sarah Jane, to come through the community and then go into a four-year college or university. Many things that I learned were just foreign to me, I had never heard of many of things that I had learned-about women, about literature, the history of our country, so many things. So, that was a very hard thing and I’m very happy and very proud of the fact that I came from people who did not have opportunity to go to school. My mother had only a sixth grade education, and my grandparents-they could read and write but they did not get beyond elementary grades in their education experience. And then I have many uncles, aunts, cousins-some have them have, through the years been able to go to school, but not most of us. So, going through education was one of the hardest things that I have ever done, and I’m very happy to say that I made it out to the other side. The other thing is being a parent-very, very difficult job, and there are no guarantees how your children are going to turn out. You hope that your children take your advice, you hope that they will grow up and will be strong, be contributing citizens, that they will be conscious-that they will have a consciousness that is political, that is social-you want that, you hope that for your kids. But, you know, there are no guarantees-how your kids turn out, but certainly, that’s another hard thing I ever did. Another hard thing that I have done is to sit with my mother when she was so sick- a year ago, before she died. Just dealing with the reality that my mom is a real human being and one day she’s not going to be with me. That was very, very difficult and then having to, finally a year later; bury her-Ohhh, that’s the greatest pain that I have had, I think. I also think that it will be the pain that will take me longest to transcend. When I say transcend, I mean that I will get to a place that just mentioning her leaving will not cause me to feel so teary and so baric-Cause it’s a big thing to loose your mother, especially if you love your mother. But, you know, if you don’t have a relationship with her like that, then maybe for some it’s not as traumatic. So, those are the three hardest things that I have done so far in my life. I think that three of the most delightful things that I have done in my life is getting through the raising of children, they’re all adults now-thank god, you know? They’re so adult now that they’re in their middle years, so I’m very happy about that. I’m also very, very happy over coming out-over twenty years ago I came out as a lesbian and I met my partner and we have been together now for seventeen years now and that is one of my greatest joys-is having her in my life and having the shared love, commitment, and adoration, and all of that just feels so good. It feels so good because I haven’t really had that before that’s so beautiful. I think one of the third things is-being here, working here, and the beautiful experience of teaching and meeting so many wonderful people who will continue to grow and be the change that they imagine, that they want to be, that they see in the world. That’s very, very exciting. The fourth thing too-is that I am so, so happy that I am a poet-and that I write poems. I only have one book published, I have other writings out there in the world and I have three books that are waiting to be published, they’re waiting, they’re organized, they’re ready.
SJ: What kind of books are these going to be?

Dr.O: I have two more books of poetry. One is Love Notes, it’s a whole book of poems I wrote over the years to my partner and I gave it to her on her 60th birthday and I want to publish it in the world. I put it together, as a book for her, its beautiful-she loved it. What it is is wonderful because it’s all of these love notes and poems that I’ve put together through the years. The other one is a book that’s called Snapshots of War wherein it explores the wars that our nation perpetrates in its citizens everyday. We always think of war as an event that is located on a stage in another country among different people, when in fact the wars we fight are right here everyday, as well. So, the way I present the book is to, in the introduction, I talk about my father who was a military man; he was a U.S. army man, who was in the army for over twenty years, and was poor. He never even bought our family a home, my mother, through her divorce and after her second marriage, she was able to get a home, call it the “family home.” The third book is a book of essays and speeches that I’ve made, and things I’ve written, it’s a great book-it’s just a matter of getting it out there. So, I’ve got three books, it’s just a matter of getting them out there, it’s very, very difficult to get your work published, especially if you’re a woman of color-it’s really, really hard. I mean it’s hard for women anyway-but white women have a better opportunity because the printing houses that usually print and distribute their work is usually owned and run by white women. Because, you know, here I am-I think that people in the community know me. They know me as a poet, and as a professor here at Cabrillo, plus I used to teach at UC Santa Cruz-People know me. And yet, “In Celebration of the Muse” has only invited me two times and I say it’s because, really-it’s sad, it just hurts me to realize that they’re such a white women’s organization, that they only select white women-that they select a few women of color who are tokens every now and then, but mostly it’s a white celebration. It’s a celebration of “the muse” as if she is blonde, she is white. And, you know, I’ve had my experiences with The Muse since I’ve been in town in the late 80’s, early 90’s I wrote poetry-at that time you would have to send the poems to them and they would have to decide or not. They never accepted any of my poetry, they would say, “Oh this is not the subject we’re on right now,” things like that. So, the few times that I did go, I didn’t figure that they didn’t appreciate the work that I read because, I read-in my new book I have a poem called “The Execution of Betty Lou Beets” who was a white woman who was executed in the state of Texas by Governor Bush, you know, for example, poems like that. Maybe people don’t want to read, or hear, those kinds of poems.

SJ: That’s really unfortunate.

Dr.O: Yes, that’s very unfortunate, but certainly, that doesn’t stop me from writing, though it does make me feel sad because I know where the exclusion is coming from, so, that’s the part that makes me sad. It’s okay though; I continue to do my work.

SJ: This ties into the other two questions I wanted to ask you. One is, I’m wondering if you could talk about why you decided to come to Cabrillo, why it’s important to you to work in a community college? Also, alongside that, knowing your education was focused on American Literature-which authors, books, or pieces of work have most inspired you?

Dr.O: Teaching at Cabrillo College comes about because of a former Graduate Students, Colleagues friend of mine, Rinny Christopher used to teach here. Rinny Christopher and I were close friends when we were both Graduate students at the UC, she has, since then moved on. So, yes, I believe she called me up one day, she said, “Ekua, there’s an opening at Cabrillo College looking for an English teacher, you should apply. Cabrillo College would love to have you, you should apply.” I said, okay, that I would. Prior to Rinny calling me there was, Victoria Lugo, and she was the Diversity Officer, I think that’s what it was, I forgot the real name. She was the one who was part of taking of care of when people reported any information about biases or an experience that they had, she was the one who had to take care of that. Okay, I saw her in the cleaners one day in downtown Santa Cruz and she says, “Oh, there’s an opening at Cabrillo College, and you should apply” and she knew me from UC Santa Cruz because we had been on panels together. So, I did, I applied and I got an interview. Okay, there were 165 applicants when I applied to the job, and they only had three openings. It was a great fortunate that I had that I was one of the people that selected for the job and Stan Rushworth was hired at the same time that I was hired. So, the reason that I applied to Cabrillo College is because I had this, at the time, it was a vision that the Community College is the place where there is Grassroots organization, that there is activism, and that people are really, really interested in collations, in building political foundation and strength in order to agitate, if need be, for whatever we needed-our rights, whatever that meant. I just felt that the community college was the place for that, I mean; we’re all of the community, right? So, that was another thing that drew me and really excited me because I had that vision. But, it’s not like that here, at all. I thought, too, that there wouldn’t be that much difference between Community College faculty and University faculty because I had the vision that all of us were committed to liberation, for some reason, I thought that, but then I found that much of the facility here, does not seem to be politicized, or they don’t act out in a political way, at least that’s what I see. I was really surprised to see, how students, as a group at the Community College take it all for granted. $25 a unit, that’s not too much, the books cost more than the course units. That was very disappointing and I couldn’t believe it, especially coming from a place where our strongest desire is Higher Education because it supposedly opens doors to opportunity-which we, Black People and Native Indigenous People have the least opportunity in this country, so, you know, I was excited about that. Then I found out that, that is not the way the faculty here think, or organize. My greatest disappointment was, and when I really, really got it was Proposition 187*, when that was being circulated and trying to pass I went to marches downtown, I went to marches on Highway 17, I was participating. I was shocked when I didn’t see any of my co-faculty there, at of those protests, at any of those speeches, even places where I made speeches-they weren’t there.

SJ: Right, I’m sure you were wondering, ‘where’s that support?’

Dr.O: Yeah, I was like, ‘Wow,’ that was very strange to me. Because, you know, here’s Angela Davis, from UC Santa Cruz-she was out there making speeches, marching, all of that. So, you know, I felt very disappointed in that. It didn’t make me not want to work here, I continued to embrace the institution and embrace all of the students because, the students, I recognized are the leaders, right now and into our near future. So, I said, what the faculty are not modeling for students, students can model for themselves and they can see other students and other universities and they can partake and start to politicize. People seem to want to shy away and say; ‘Oh, you should not be political’ but the truth of the matter is that everything is political. You teach a curriculum that is flat and passive, isn’t that a political statement? Certainly it is! You teach a curriculum that motivates people to take charge of their lives and the politics that govern their lives, that is a political statement and it’s all-political. So, I am not denial about the politics of education that we’re still very much a part of a worldview that education is used for domination. I should say, actually, part of a world practice-and I do not want to be part of that, because I’ve learned that if people can think-people will act. If you want a bunch of sheep, all you have to do is continue to socialize them to believe that what the teacher told them is true and is all that matters and then you give that back to the teacher, the way the teacher gave it to you and then you’re smart. That’s what Paulo Frier calls ‘Education For Domination’ and I prefer Bell Hooks, ‘Teaching To Transgress.’ Transgress what? To Transgress all of those systems that are set up to cancel me out, to erase me and my story, and your story-because by default everyone else’s story is going to get erased too and that’s the part that I want student’s to pick up on-that we are connected at the ankle and today if they destroy me, you’re going to pull me dead weight around and you’re going to eventually die too. You know what I mean? I just want that to be so visual and have us get it. So, another reason I love working here is the students I meet all of the time. I have much more contact with the students than I do with any of my fellow faculty people; I see them only in meetings. I don’t get invited to their homes, or anything like that-in that way I feel alienated. I do, I feel very much like a black person working in a white institution.

SJ: Yeah, this is a very white institution.

Dr.O: That’s really how I feel. I don’t mean any harm to anyone when I say that, but it is my reality and I see it all the time. I have been mistreated on this campus before, I’ve had different things happen to me, I’m just grateful to the Great Spirit that I remain strong and I continue to be here and I continue to keep my job-because the last thing I want is for someone to have power over me and make me so unhappy that I would want to leave what I believe in. So, I work real hard to make sure that I can continue to do what I see as my work in the world.

SJ: Yes, definitely. Maybe we could end on the note of, as someone who is very appreciative of literature, and is an English teacher as well as Feminist Studies teacher is there any specific works that you would want to mention that have inspired you? Or, authors who have inspired you?

Dr.O: People that inspire me are Bell Hooks, Adrienne Rich, James Baldwin, Audrey Lourde-because you know, I found my voice through Audrey Lorde and Antia Cornwell, wonderful women. Let’s see, Angela Davis, Lucelle Clifton, she’s a poet-very, very inspiring to me. Lucielle Clifton used to teach at UC Santa Cruz and she was my mentor and I also was her assistant teacher for a time or two and because of the work I did with her I also taught creative writing and poetry at UC Santa Cruz for a couple of years. Alice Walker, Mab Segrest, So many people…and of course I can’t think of it right now…Toni Morrison, Marge Piercy, Tillie Olsen. I remember, in the years I used Tillie Olsen’s book: Silences, I taught that. Also, not English writers, not American writers, but Luce Irigaray and also Helen ____ (?). Let’s see, French Feminist writers-whom I love, because they just put stuff in your face and say, ‘Hey! Look at this!’ People that inspire me the most are definitely the students, they really do, and they’re the ones that keep me coming back. They’re the one’s who keep me working, doing my activism, and they are also the one’s I feel-are an army beside and behind me because of all of the work that we’ve done together-and there are some in front, who are going in front of me-that’s how I see it.

SJ: That’s really beautiful.

Dr.O: Yeah, that’s how I see it-because if it wasn’t for the students this would be a very boring place. Very boring.

SJ: Well, before we rap it up is there anything you would like to say? Or, have included in your interview?

Dr.O: One thing is I recognize the importance of using my voice and I want to inspire others to do the same. Because, if we don’t speak, other people will try to speak for us and they will distort and misinterpret and use our words to harm us. But, nevertheless, I want to always speak-to not hold silence as something that is sacred, because it is not. Perhaps, in a particular context it could be, but not in the context of living life-I don’t think. So, the thing I want to leave with everybody is that love is our strongest medicine, that if we can love ourselves we will be able to love others and that in the loving of ourselves we will find the true liberation and the true embracing of our fellow human beings; Men, Women, Girls, and Boys. That’s what I think.

SJ: That’s beautiful. Thank you so much Dr. O.

Dr.O: You’re welcome, You’re welcome.

* Was a 1994-ballot initiative designed to deny undocumented people social services, health care, and public education. It was introduced by assemblyman Dick Mountjoy (Republican from Monrovia, California) as the Save Our State initiative. A number of other organizations were involved in bringing it to the voters. It passed with 58.8% of the vote, but was overturned by a federal court.