5 10 182 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/1a4cb10af909f7e8e036bfff8b99ea18.pdf 1257c47452e8b4197dc47150c62d1be9 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 Transcripts Description An account of the resource Written oral histories and transcripts are available for researchers that prefer the written word, or to see the whole interview in a document. Transcripts of <a href="https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/collections/show/5">audio and video files</a> are also available as part of those video files. 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 Williams, Elmer Royce. Interview transcript, November 8, 2024. Description An account of the resource Elmer Royce Williams is a retired United States naval aviator, nationally lauded for his solo dogfight against seven Soviet pilots during the Korean War. Since his time in service, he has been increasingly recognized for his achievements. He was awarded the Navy Cross in 2023 and has been nominated for the Medal of Honor. In his 2024 interview, Williams described that transformative moment in his life and how it affected the Korean War. He also discussed his childhood, military enlistment, and military training. Approaching 100 years old at the time, Williams reflected on how religion, family, community, civilian work, and veterans' organizations shaped his life after service. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elmer Royce Williams Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jason Beyer Adel Bautista Marilyn Huerta Justin Gans Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2024-11-08 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Wilmot (S.D) Korea Vietnam San Marcos (Calif.) Africa, North Little Falls (Minn.) Ortonville (Minn.) Panama Soviet Union Escondido (Calif.) Hawaii San Diego (Calif.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Elmer Royce Williams Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context WilliamsElmerRoyce_BeyerJason_2024-11-08_transcript Subject The topic of the resource Korean War, 1950-1953 United States--Armed Forces--Veterans Air pilots, Military -- United States. Navy United States. Navy Air combat Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In copyright</a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. San Diego Veterans History Initiative Community history San Diego Veterans History Initiative Veteran experience 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 Oral Histories Description An account of the resource Video and audio oral histories can be viewed here. Histories are listed alphabetically by last name. Individual histories are indexed and transcribed and can be searched. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <p>Rights to oral histories vary depending on the history. The library owns the copyright to some histories, and has license to reproduce for nonprofit purposes for others. Please contact CSUSM University Library Special Collections at <a href="mailto:%20archives@csusm.edu">archives@csusm.edu</a> with any questions about use.</p> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Jennifer Fabbi Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Joel Rafael OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=RafaelJoel_FabbiJennifer_2025-08-20.xml Interview Keyword This filed adds keywords to the Omeka Oral History item type. Keywords are included in the OHMS XML, this field in Omeka will allow for full data migration between OHMS XML and the Omeka Record. This field does not impact the OHMS / Omeka integration and is optional if you do not need to map the "keywords" field in the OHMS XML to the corresponding Omeka record. Folk music;songwriter;counterculture;Woody Guthrie OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 6.0 Rafael, Joel. Interview August 20th, 2025. SC027-086 02:06:00 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library oral history collection CSUSM csusm Folk music ; songwriter ; counterculture ; Woody Guthrie Joel Rafael Jennifer Fabbi moving image RafaelJoel_FabbiJennifer_2025-08-20.mp4 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/1f874004b7ad7b916e612b2588ed3fb1.mp4 Other video English 0 Introduction 0 56 Early childhood and musical beginnings Rafael talks about how he become involved with playing music through public school music programs. He started as a drummer and began playing in a cover band at an early age. music education ; drummer ; Everly Brothers ; The Beatles 0 397 Adolescence and folk music influence Rafael discusses how folk music began to become popular in 1960 and how it began to influence his musical tastes. He acquires his first guitar, learns to play and performs in hootanannies. Kingston Trio ; guitar ; solo artist ; Hawaii ; Joan Baez ; Bob Dylan ; hootananny ; Woodie Guthrie 0 1421 Influence of political assassinations and discrimination on development of political leanings Rafael reflects on turbulent times during high school including several political assassinations and how they affected him. His Jewish family experienced discrimination through redlining. political assassination ; Martin Luther King, Jr. ; Malcom X ; John Fitzgerald Kennedy ; Robert F. Kennedy ; Covina ; West Covina ; Jewish ; redlining ; John Birch Society 0 2236 The Vietnam War The Vietnam War begins, and Rafael discusses having to register for the draft. He attended college for one year and re-connects with his future wife, Lauren, at this time. draft ; anti-war ; college ; California State University Fullerton ; conscientious objector 0 3098 Move to Oregon Rafael talks about moving to Oregon, joining the counterculture movement, and getting arrested for drugs after an undercover operation. counterculture movement ; Oregon ; drugs ; arrest 0 4886 Move to Escondido and birth of first child After the loss of Rafael's father, he and he wife move to Escondido to help tend his family's avocado orchard. Soon after, their first child, Jamaica, was born. Escondido ; avocado orchard ; first child ; Jamaica ; natural childbirth ; grove service 0 5483 Making headway with music career Rafael discusses the development of his music career in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Songwriters Showcase is a key highlight of this development. During this time he forms a duo with Rosie Flores. Los Angeles Songwriters Showcase ; Colin Young Band ; Goldmine ; Rosie Flores 0 6807 Opening act for Rick Danko and subsequent connections and successes Having moved back to North San Diego County, Joel recounts his big break in opening for Rick Danko and the subsequent pattern of becoming an opening act for many successful bands. Rick Danko ; promoter 0 7180 Becoming knowledgeable about Woody Guthrie Rafael begins to research Woody Guthrie and the people he had influenced. He learned a number of Woody Guthrie songs. Woody Guthrie ; Bob Dylan ; Harold Leventhal 0 Oral history Joel Rafael is an American singer-songwriter and folk musician from San Diego County, California. Joel has been making music with his band and solo for over fifty years. He is well known for his writing and performance in the style of Woody Guthrie. In this part one interview, Rafael discusses his early musical influences, his participation in the 1960s counterculture movement, and the beginnings of his success in the music industry. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION BEGIN 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:27.000 Hello, this is Jen Fabbi, and today I'm interviewing Joel Rafael for the California State University San Marcos University Library Oral History program. Today is August 20th, 2025. This interview is taking place at Joel Rafael's studio at his home in Escondido, California, which is on the unceded territory of Luiseño/Payómkawichum people. Joel, thank you for interviewing with me today. 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:29.094 You're welcome. 00:00:29.094 --> 00:00:33.725 Alright, so let's start off with the early years. When and where were you born? 00:00:33.725 --> 00:00:39.234 I was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1949, May 11th. 00:00:39.234 --> 00:00:56.274 Okay. So you've been writing and performing for over fifty years beginning in the sixth grade. So how did it come to be that you were performing at such a young age, and how did you learn to play music and-- 00:00:56.274 --> 00:06:26.115 Well, I grew up in California 'cause my parents moved us out here to the Los Angeles County area in, when I was about three years old. So I guess probably 1952. And the California school districts had a really great music programs in those days. And so I was fortunate for the whole time that I was in school up through high school there was an excellent music program in every school that I was in. So it was probably about the fourth grade a music director came around to our classroom and basically, you know, Who wants to be in the band? And handed out, I guess some kind of a permission slip. And I jumped on that right away. I already was a music lover just from playing phonograph records at home. I think I mentioned this to you before, but I was a latchkey kid before the term was invented. So, in my early elementary school days when I would get home from school, I literally had a key on a shoe string to open my door because my parents were both at work. And I would fill my time with--a lot of my time with--going through my parents' records and just exploring the music they had. So that's how my love for music first started. And then, and of course, I had a little phonograph myself with a lot of children's records and children's music and that kind of thing. But I started playing music in the fourth grade, beginning band. I started out as a drummer. I had already taken some accordion lessons because my brother, who's two years older than me was taking accordion lessons. And that was kind of the mode, you know, everything my brother did then my parents would have me do that later. And so he was playing accordion so then I was playing accordion. But I started out on this small little twelve bass accordion and progressed pretty quickly. But unfortunately, I was pretty small in stature. And so when it was time for me to move on to the bigger accordion, it was really just, it was too much to handle. So that was the end of my accordion lessons. And then it was shortly after that, that this band thing happened at school, and I decided I would play the drums, which in beginning band meant the snare drum. So that was kind of how I started out, just playing the beats on the snare drum. And at a certain point, I really wanted a drum kit. And at some point, I guess it was probably around the fifth or sixth grade--probably around the fifth grade--I was able to coerce my dad into going to a music store. I think it was in Pomona, California. And we bought a used, really put together drum set and moved that into my bedroom. And then I started to bring some of my school friends over on the weekends. My mom would take me over, we would pick up a couple of friends and bring 'em to my house. And one of 'em played the trumpet and one of 'em played the clarinet, also beginning band members. And we worked out some very simple tunes. That was kind of my first combo. And by the time I got into junior high school, a better drum kit was required. And somehow I managed to get my dad to buy that for me. And I guess my second band was a surf band in a friend's garage in the town I lived in. I would ride my bike over there. My drums were parked in the garage at his house. Robbie Brandon was his name. And he had a friend named Lynn Lewis. And they--one of them played--Robbie played guitar, electric guitar, and Lynn played bass. So it was a three-piece band. And we basically played surf band covers--a few Everly Brothers songs that required singing, and neither of them sang. So we bought a boom microphone, and I was a singing drummer. As a drummer going into high school, I started playing a, well, I guess you'd call it a cover band. We were playing the, basically the songs that were on the radio at that time. And that was about the time that The Beatles became prevalent in the years of the U.S. And we were playing some Beatles songs and Rolling Stones songs and stuff like that. School dances, sock hops. Back in those days, they didn't have DJs. We always had live bands. And so I was one of those lucky kids that was in one of those bands. And that was a great experience as a kid. It was--really felt unique to be in a musical group. So let's see, should I continue on the musical path? Am I jumping the gun here? 00:06:26.115 --> 00:06:31.110 Well, no, I think we're gonna' get into it more. 00:06:31.110 --> 00:06:33.435 Okay. I was just kind of tracing my musical-- 00:06:33.435 --> 00:06:35.245 Yeah, absolutely. 00:06:35.245 --> 00:16:42.325 --progress. From there, folk music became, started to become popular probably around 1959, 1960. And, they call it the Folk Scare of the Sixties. And I think that's because no one ever thought that folk music would be played on the radio, and some of the stuff that was played on the radio was the more commercial kind of folk stuff, like the Kingston Trio. And John Denver, I guess, was probably around that time. Chad Mitchell Trio. I think John Denver was in the Chad Mitchell Trio before he was a solo artist. So those were the songs I was listening to. I remember Joan Baez had a hit with a Phil Ochs song called, There but for Fortune, that really intrigued me. And I just felt the necessity to, at that point, to kind of step away from the drum kit and learn how to play the guitar so that I could be up front singing the songs. And so I talked my parents into going to, down to Tijuana during the summer, probably the summer of '61, maybe. And we bought a very inexpensive guitar in Tijuana. I think it was about 30, 35 dollars. And that's what I learned to play the guitar on. I had a couple of friends that were--they had, there were about four of 'em, school friends, that had put together a little group, and they were doing mostly Kingston Trio songs. And I went up to play with them when they had their rehearsals, a couple of times. Just enough to learn a few chords and a couple songs. And then I was on my own. I was a solo artist from then on. I'm not sure why, but I just decided I was gonna' do my own thing. And so I started learning songs and getting better on the guitar. Around 1960--probably the summer of 1963--might have been--it was either '63 or '64. Might have been '64. Anyways, one of those two years. My dad decided to take my family on a family vacation for the summer to Hawaii. Hawaii had just become a state like a few years earlier. And he was curious about it, and we were curious about it. So we took a trip there, and we went to a few different islands, I think three different islands. And the third island we went to was, was the island of Kauai, which was very undeveloped at the time. And so we landed in Kauai, and we stayed at a place called the Hanalei Plantation, which is still there. It's a resort hotel that was originally a sugar plantation. And at the time, I think it was the only like sort of resort or hotel to stay at on the island of Kauai. It was just, there just wasn't much there. So we checked into our rooms, and right after we got into our rooms, my parents got a phone call from a guy who had just checked in and had noticed that my parents were from the same town, Covina, California. And he invited my parents and me and my brother to come down to the little restaurant bar area at the hotel and have a drink. So we went down there to meet this guy. And this is kind of an anecdotal story, but I think it's an important one. So when we met him, he was very much like a John Wayne kind of character, big cowboy kind of dude. He'd already had a few drinks, so he was obviously a drinker. He started telling us his story. And he had told us that he was one of the original models for the Marlboro Man posters with the cowboy and the horse that you'd see along the highways at that time. And he was a stunt man, had been in the Marine Corps. He told us that he had--that they had filmed Mister Roberts there at Kauai. And they had done a lot of filming at Hanalei. And that was one of the reasons he came back there 'cause he was familiar with it. But when they did that movie, he was the guy that drove the motorcycle off the pier in the scene where the sailors get liberty and they get off the ship. And then they're celebrating, this one guy drives a motorcycle off the pier into the ocean. And it was this guy, Jack Lewis. And he told us that he was there, that he was partners with a guy in Covina that owned a magazine called Gun World, which, you know, back in the early sixties, it was a just a, an NRA type magazine, but not the NRA as the NRA is today. It was more about hunting and gun safety and the newest rifles and firearms that were on the market or whatever. And so he said, yeah, he was there to take a helicopter flight the next day into some uncharted areas of Kauai to take some photographs of this rifle that he had. And it was like a .38 caliber rifle with a telescopic sight on--like big hunting gun. And he looked at my brother and said, Do you wanna' go with me, kid? And my brother said, No. And so he looked at me and said, Do you wanna' go with me, kid? And I said, Yeah. And my dad said, no, no, no, no, he can't go. He's too young. You know, I think I was fifteen and--just had turned fifteen. And this guy goes, oh, please sir, let your son go. This will be the adventure of a lifetime. I'm not gonna' be flying the helicopter. I've chartered a pilot and a photographer, and there's four seats, so there's an extra seat in the helicopter, and you should really let your son go. This will be like a once in a lifetime experience. And my dad relented and said, okay. So next morning we go down, and there was a place where a helicopter could land at Hanalei. We walked down there and met him, and then the helicopter came in and landed, and we got in the helicopter, and we flew out over these just amazingly scenic places on the island of Kauai. And landed about three different times where this guy Jack got out and walked a hundred yards away from the helicopter and fired a couple shots and walked back towards the helicopter with the gun. And we did that about three or four times. And I think due to his alcoholic nature, he was pretty exhausted by the time we got back in the helicopter to fly back to the resort. And on the way back, he said you know, he complimented me. He said, boy, we really worked our, you know, off today. Um, you know, kid, thank you. You really helped me out. You know, he's just giving me all this hot air. And so on the way back, he says to me, How do you like this gun kid? And I, you know, I'm fifteen years old, you know, 19-early sixties, and I said, oh, you know, I love the gun. It's awesome. I don't even know what I said, but that was my, what I implied to him is that I really thought it was great. So he says, It's yours. So, you know, I'm fifteen, right? So we get off the plane and I'm carrying this rifle in a leather case, walking toward my dad, who really did not like guns at all. He was a World War II Veteran. He had been in the invasion of North Africa, and he'd seen plenty of violence that he never talked about it, but it was obvious from the way he felt about guns, even at that time in my life. And so he goes, what are you doing with that? And I go, Jack gave it to me, You know, I'm all excited. And he goes, no, no, no, no, no, you don't. Well, this guy, Jack, you know, right away started again on my dad. Oh, sir, you gotta' let him keep it. He told me that you, you have a guy that works for you that goes hunting sometimes, you know, let him keep, let him keep the rifle. He was so great today. He helped me out so much. Just all this BS. And my dad relented. This was like '64. And so after we finished our trip, we flew back to Maui, I think it was, and then back to Oahu with the gun. Checked the gun and the ammunition, flew home with it, you know, it was a different time. Security was not what it is today. Flew home with a gun. The gun went in the closet, the ammo got locked away somewhere. And a month or so later, school started. And I was talking to a friend at school who lived with his dad, single parent, and they went hunting quite a bit. I told him about this gun. He really wanted to see it. And so I brought him home one day after school, and we got it out of the closet, and he looked at it. A couple days later, he called my house and said that he would really like to buy the gun from me. And he offered me $125 for the gun. So I had my eye on this guitar, down with a Covina music store. It was a G-10 Goya Swedish-made classical guitar that was real nice little guitar. And so he paid me the $125. And I went down to that store, and I bought that guitar. And I've never owned a gun since then. So I like to say my gun--my guitar is my gun, and my songs are my bullets. 00:16:42.325 --> 00:16:48.436 Mm. That's profound. So-- 00:16:48.436 --> 00:16:53.529 --that was my start playing guitar. 00:16:53.529 --> 00:17:07.025 Yeah. So can you tell me about the people or music--and you mentioned this a little bit--that influenced you at this young age, and as you moved into performing? 00:17:07.025 --> 00:21:23.755 Pretty much anything that I ran across that was like considered folk music at that time. The schools, it was all of a sudden folk music was sort of happening. It was the sixties folk movement. And the high schools were having what they called hootenannies, sort of like what you called open stages today. But they called it hootenannies, which was a term that was coined by Pete Seeger, when people would get together and share songs. And so we'd have these hootenannies, and they would be like talent contests at the various high schools. There were three high schools in our area. And so I started entering those contests after I'd learned a few songs. And wasn't really writing much at that time. I was just mostly just playing songs. So I was playing songs that were by Joan Baez, the Kingston Trio. There was a guy named Tim Morgan that was a local artist that had influenced me and another guy that I saw in Glendale. There was a lot of small clubs around at that time. Like, there was a club in Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach area called The Prison of Socrates. And it's still there, but it's like a pizza parlor now. But it was a coffee house that had folk music, like three, four nights a week there. And there was another one in Seal Beach called the Cosmos. And, of course, there was the Troubadour in Los Angeles and the Ice House in Pasadena. There was a second Ice House in Glendale. So they all had open stages. So after I kind of perfected my beginning act with a guitar, I was hitting those open stages and the hootenanny contest at the high school, and I did really well. I was, I would win the first or second place at the hootenannies. And I was able to get on those open stages. And that's kind of where I cut my teeth as a performer, as a young person. So my influences were basically just the songs I was playing, like Richie Havens was an influence. I had a record of his that had a couple of folks songs on it. One was called, Hey, Nelly. Nelly, that I liked to sing. I think that was written by Shel Silverstein. I started to pay attention to writers a little bit. I knew that the song that Joan was doing, Joan Baez was doing, There but for Fortune, was a Phil Ochs song. I heard about Bob Dylan, but I didn't know too much about him. My next door neighbor, who was a couple years older than me, had a Bob Dylan album that she had bought, and she didn't really care for it that much, so she gave it to me 'cause I was curious, And it was, I think it was Bob Dylan's probably his third album. You know, it took me like three albums to actually hear Bob Dylan. It was Another Side of Bob Dylan was the album. And at the first listening, it just like, really took me back. Whoa, that's just so different. You know? It was just I won't say it was repelling or bad, like some people have said. It was just different, you know, it was just so different the way he was using his voice and the barrage of words in the songs. So I picked a couple of songs off of that record that I learned how to play. So he was an influence. Woody Guthrie was an influence, but I didn't really realize it because Woody died the year I graduated from high school, and he was hospitalized for, I think for maybe close to fourteen years before he died. He was institutionalized with Huntington's Disease. And so his songs were around, you know, This Land Is Your Land and This Train (is Bound for Glory), and John Henry, and a few others that were kind of in the popular repertoire that these other groups were doing. So I was hearing groups do some Woody Guthrie songs. So they were, in that sense, some of the first songs I learned how to play, ironically. So that was kind of my high school experience, you know? And so I guess we could pick it up from there. I'm not-- 00:21:23.755 --> 00:21:26.924 Yeah. When did you start writing music? 00:21:26.924 --> 00:21:29.394 I actually wrote probably my first couple of songs-- 00:21:29.394 --> 00:21:32.781 Well, and I guess, how did you learn, that's-- 00:21:32.781 --> 00:29:30.000 Yeah. Well, I don't know. I just, it was just something that I felt I could do. I was listening to songs and deciding which songs I liked. You know, there were songs that stood out and caught me up that I wanted to learn. Some of 'em were too complex for me to learn. I wasn't, skilled enough to just to discern that they were a simple song. But they, by virtue of being in a different key, it was like I could only play in a couple of keys. I had a capo, but I didn't really understand key transitions. I didn't understand that if you put a capo on the second fret of your guitar and play a G, it's actually an A, you know? So you got the whole circle of keys working up the neck of the guitar. And I understood that if I needed the song to be higher, I would move the capo up. If I needed it to be lower, I would move it down or take it off the guitar. But I didn't really know what key I was playing in or understand the relationships between the chord, the chords that were in a certain key. That all kind of came later just from experience, I think. And you meet people along the way. Like I've always--David Amram is the one that said this best. And I've always tried to emulate what he said. He said, I always hang around--try to hang around with people that are smarter than me and more skilled than me because that's how you learn to get better. You know, you don't want to be hanging around with people that--you don't wanna always be the best person there because then you don't ever learn anything. So I try to surround myself with people that know more than I know and are better players than I am, better songwriters than I am, because that's how you improve and develop. And I think that's good advice for anything that, any endeavor. So, let's see, where was I? So in high school, that was a very turbulent time for me. I don't know if that's our next category or not, but as I moved into high school, there was a lot going on. My freshman year in high school, John Kennedy was assassinated, A few years later, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated, and Malcolm X was assassinated. So this all happened in my youth. And, but these things, these killings of political figures, it was something that was, in my consciousness, was a historical thing. Like Lincoln had been assassinated, and that seemed like to me, as a teenager, seemed like a really long time ago. So, I guess I should mention. So, when I went into high school, I experienced every new school in my area. Okay. So, like in elementary school, I started off in a school called Barranca School. I went there for a year. And then they transferred me over to a new school in West Covina called the Vine School. After two years or three years at the Vine School, they split the districts into West Covina and Covina districts. And I was in the Covina District. So then I went to the new elementary school in the sixth grade, which was a brand new school. So like, no trees, no landscaping, just concrete and pavement and dirt. And so then when I went to junior high school, I went to the established junior high school for one year, my seventh grade year. But in eighth grade, they had built a new junior high school, and they fed that with the two established junior high schools from--depending on where you lived, were fed into that third junior high school. So that was my third new school--no trees, no landscaping, dirt, concrete and pavement. And that was the Sierra Vista Junior High School. And then I went back over to Covina High School, which was the established high school for my freshman year, but they had incorporated--that year they took away one of the junior highs, which was the first junior I'd gone to in seventh grade. That became the campus for most of the freshman classes. But there were some classes, depending on what your curriculum was that you would cross the street over to the high school, to Covina High School. So I was on my way, probably about ten in the morning--I don't, maybe it was eleven in the morning on my way from the junior high school campus--the freshman campus--to the high school campus to go to my French class, first year French. And somebody ran by me and said, President Kennedy's been shot. And I was just like, What? You know, I just made my way to my class and my teacher was crying, and everybody, we found out about it, and it was just like, it was so devastating. It's hard to explain how devastating that was. Because these kind of events we take for granted now. They happen so frequently. We hear about people being killed, or mass shootings, or we hear about even political leaders being killed, heads of corporations being targeted. And it's just like the news of the day. But like when I was, I guess I was thirteen, to have somebody run by and say, the President's been shot. That was shocking, you know? And, and I remember they ended school day that day--within about an hour they ended the school day. And by the time I got home, he was pronounced dead. And I just remember that the silence. There was this silence everywhere. We went up to get something to eat at a restaurant, and there were some other people there, but it was just completely silent and somber. So that was a very emotional experience, and I think it, in some ways, it set a tone for the rest of my experience as a kid. A lot of questions. So then, after my freshman year in high school, there was a new high school near my house. So I went to the new high school as a sophomore. And that was the year that--the summer before my sophomore year was the year that I received that rifle and swapped it for the guitar. So, as a sophomore in high school, I was starting to play the guitar quite a bit and be known kind of as a folk singer. Let's see. (Tear in my eye, sorry.) So, let's see. Moving on through high school. I was politically oriented by the time I got into high school when we had moved to the town of Covina. I guess I should back up. When we first moved to California, we lived with one of my aunts and uncles, my dad's sister, for a few months before we got our own place in La Canada, which is near Pasadena. 00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:31.000 Beautiful. 00:29:31.000 --> 00:37:00.704 Yeah. And it was pretty rural at that time outside of Pasadena. My dad had a business in Pasadena--a screen door company. We lived there for about three years. And then we moved to Covina. I didn't know until just a couple years ago--we actually lived in West Covina--even though we were right on the edge of Covina, my dad's business was in Covina, I was in the Covina School District. Even though we were in West Covina, technically. And the reason we were in West Covina--I found out later--was because there was a red line in Covina, and if you were Jewish, you couldn't buy a home in Covina. And some--my dad, we were Jewish and not religious, but just happened to be Jewish. And Covina was an area where there just, there wasn't really any any sign of other Jews around. It was pretty much, you were really in the minority. I mean, you were already in the minority, but I mean, when you moved, when we moved to Covina, there weren't any synagogues or temples, not really a path to continue being religious in any way. We weren't really that religious anyways, I don't think. My dad's family was, I guess what you'd call reformed Jews, pretty liberal Jews. And so there was that sense of isolation a little bit. And I know that my dad he wanted to join the golf club and was turned down. Many years later when my dad had established himself as a community leader, they invited him to join, and he didn't. He turned them down. So, let's see. I had a political orientation because my dad ran for school board. There was a couple of propositions on the ballot when I was--you know, I wasn't voting or anything, but I was just in my parents' household. And I was exposed to the politics that they were experiencing. And at the time that that red line was not just for Jews, but it was also for Black people. And I think probably for Latinos. And there was a law that came up for repeal. It was called the Rumford Act (Rumford Fair Housing Act). And it was the repeal of the Rumford Act--I guess it allowed people to discriminate when selling their house. So if somebody came to buy your house and they were of a minority that you didn't approve of, then you could legally just say that it wasn't for sale anymore or whatever. So there was a repeal of that law that came up, and my dad got really got behind it--a repeal of the Rumford Act. So you couldn't, you could not discriminate anymore. And that passed. And as a kid, we drove around town in a van putting up stickers on telephone poles and anywhere we could put stickers for the No on whatever the proposition was. Fourteen. I can't remember. (It was Proposition 14.) So that was kind of my early political experience, standing up for something that was important to my dad turned out to be important to me, too, in the long run. Although I probably, as any kid, I was probably pretty much unaware of what the real issues were. But I remember the '60 presidential convention. It was on my television, like for the whole time it was on, and I--and that's when I first saw John Kennedy and was just completely taken up with his charisma as a kid. We see films now and stuff, but it's hard to, I think, to really grasp the experience of that time--how it affected the Baby Boomer youth. Anyways, so my dad ran for school board and because there were two seats open on the school board, and there was already two members of the school board that were members of the John Birch Society, which is--I like to describe as the embryo of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement. They were headquartered in a town called San Marino, and I dunno, they were ultraconservative, extremist organization--right-wing extremist organization. And my dad--there were also two people running for the two seats on the board that were also in the John Birch Society. So there would've been four members of the school board if they won, that were in the John Birch Society. And there were about maybe fifteen people running for those two seats. And it's a nonpartisan election. It's not a Democrat or Republican election. It's completely nonpartisan. But these John Birch Society members had made it into a partisan thing because they wanted to (reject) federal funding for schools and wanted to write their own local curriculum, a lot like what Oklahoma's doing right now and Florida and some other states. So he got together with a friend of his that was, just happened to be my pediatrician, and my dad was what you would call in those days moderate Democrat. And my pediatrician was a moderate Republican and explained the situation, and they decided that they would form a ticket. And then they invited all of the people that were running for the two seats except for the two members of the John Birch Society over to our house and had a meeting. And basically the end of the meeting was that everyone would drop out of the election and get behind my dad and and my doctor as a ticket to defeat extremists that were trying to take over the school board. And they won. And then my dad later became the president of the school board. So that had a very strong impact on me. Just the strategy of doing that and the way that they managed to win in that situation. That was probably when I was like a freshman or sophomore. So, let's see. Going on from there, what's the next thing on the list? 00:37:00.704 --> 00:37:05.215 Right. So obviously during that time of turmoil of the Vietnam War-- 00:37:05.215 --> 00:37:06.684 --okay. I was thinking that might be right. 00:37:06.684 --> 00:37:11.224 And so the question was how did the Vietnam War affect to your life path and music? 00:37:11.224 --> 00:37:16.625 Majorly. Majorly. 00:37:16.625 --> 01:00:48.764 I guess we started hearing about it when I was a sophomore, just hardly anything. And by the time I was a junior, we're hearing more about it. We didn't know where Vietnam was. Never had heard of Vietnam. I mean at that time, the world was a lot smaller place. It's like sixty years ago. By the time I was a senior, the reality that I was gonna' have to register for the draft on my eighteenth birthday just became more real to me. It wasn't something I really thought about that much, but approaching the age of eighteen, I knew that as soon as I was eighteen, I was required to register for the draft. And there wasn't a lottery or anything then. It was just, you just had to register for the draft. And then it was really more about your pre-induction physical and whether you were going to college, depending on whether you would get a deferment or what category you would be placed into. And I gotta' say, I didn't know anything about the war. I think maybe the bodies were just starting to come home, but we weren't seeing that much of that yet. But I knew it was a war, and I knew that some people that were drafted were being sent over there. And it was scary. It was scary to me 'cause I was already basically, I think, probably by influence of the songs and stuff that I had been learning, I was already pretty much decidedly anti-war. And I was never like a physically, like a fighter, you know? It just wasn't in my nature. And so the whole idea of it really scared me. And there was one teacher that I had that was a Navy veteran. And I don't know if I just went and talked to him or somehow, he ended up kind of counseling me about it. And he was just sort of really downplaying it, like most people don't get hurt when they're in the military. The percentage of people that are actually wounded and hurt is really low compared to the percentage of people that are in the military. And you have as much chance of being killed in an auto accident as you do of being wounded or killed in a war. I wasn't buying any of it, you know, I just wasn't buying it. And it didn't help me one bit, that conversation. So my birthday came around, I registered for the draft. I was planning to go to college, which I did. I think that was a tough road for me right then because my brother, who was two years older, had gone through this whole thing before me and was in college. He was like, I think he was a junior when I was gonna' be a freshman. And he picked a school to go do that was very expensive. And somehow my parents managed to come up with the money to put him through school at USC (University of Southern California). And then when it was my turn to go, I think they were just kind of--they had kind of done that and kind of burned up the budget, burned up the program, burned up the energy on it. It's a lot to get your kid into college. A lot of support system that's needed and hooking you up with the right information and the right kind of counseling. I didn't have good counseling at school.and my parents were just, I think they were just busy. And so I didn't get a lot of guidance about school. My grades were, they were good enough to get into college, but they were marginally good enough to get into college. I had a couple of subject areas that, I was like a C student and mostly Bs and a couple As maybe. So I applied to Cal State Fullerton. It was a new school, and it was close by. And it was convenient. It wasn't necessarily a school that I wanted to go to or that I--it was just, it was sort of the most convenient four-year school. And I applied there, and I got in. So I went to Cal State Fullerton for my freshman year. My first semester I did okay. But by the time my second semester rolled around, I was pretty deeply immersed in--well, I guess you'd call it counterculture transition. Really started probably in my senior year. There just started to be--I don't even know how it all started, the whole counterculture thing. Maybe it was because there was experimentation being done and articles being written and featured in papers and magazines about LSD and about increased cannabis use and the younger generation and the Sunset Strip and the hippies on the Sunset Strip. That would just, was all just happening right in front of me as I was about to leave high school, my senior year in high school. So probably towards the end of my senior year in high school, I started smoking pot with some friends. There weren't very many people that were doing it. Like in my school, there were probably, I could probably count on my hand the people in my high school that I knew that had also smoked pot. And the interesting thing about it was that the demographic of those seven to ten people crossed all social lines. And that hadn't happened to me before. When I was in high school, the social scene was a caste system. There were the poor kids, there were the Mexican kids that were like--the element of the Latino population that were more like the sort of the, I dunno' if they were in gangs, but just had that energy. They dressed differently. They were kind of like the greasers, you know? And then they were the soces (socials or socialites) that had a little bit more money, mostly college prep kids, that dressed a little nicer, you know? And I was kind of on the edge of that group, you know? And, but all of a sudden, people that I would never have talked to or never have known or interacted with were people that I had smoked pot with on the weekend. So at school, all of a sudden you're crossing those lines. You're walking to class and you encounter somebody that's not in your social group at all, and it's like, Hey, Tony! Hey Joel! And other people are going like, Well, how do you know him? It was, but it was very open. There was a--something about it that felt really good in that kind of opening of societal boundaries. And so the last, probably last semester of high school, was very much that kind of a atmosphere, where I was interacting with kids that I hadn't normally interacted with. (We're doing okay there.) And so that kind of set the tone for my college experience. So by my second semester of college, I had--through a guy who was one of my best friends in college and his brother--kind of found my way down to Laguna Beach, which was like, you know, Fullerton was, from where I lived, halfway to Laguna Beach already, And my best friend's brother was the same age as my brother. He was two years older. But they had immigrated here from Canada, like maybe around eighth grade, freshman year high school. So they were basically Canadians, but they were living here. And this Canadian kid, Don, he became my best friend. And his brother was not a soc. He was more, you know, they didn't have a lot of money, my friends. So him being a little older, was kind of in that poor kid, not gonna' be going to college.. perceived as tough and dangerous. They weren't, they were just kids like us, but that was the perception. So anyways, he ended up initially turning us on to marijuana. And it became kind of a regular thing for us, but it moved us away from alcohol. So--'cause a lot of us were drinking at parties and stuff like that, stuff that kids do sometimes in high school. I was definitely open to experimentation as a teenager. So that through him and some people he knew from Claremont that moved to Laguna Beach, I ended up spending the summer--a lot of my second semester and the summer after--in Laguna Beach. And by the time that the school year was rolling around again, I was also spending a lot of time in Los Angeles because there, that's where the open stages were and I was playing music on the Troubadour and the Ice House and the Ash Grove on their open stage nights. And then any other places I could play little coffee houses, that was all still kind of happening. And so I didn't go back to Cal State Fullerton. I decided I was going to enroll at LA City College, the community college in Los Angeles, which would satisfy my 2-S status with the draft. That was basically the reason I was gonna' continue school. I didn't have any academic goals at that point. My goal was to stay out the Army, stay out of the military. And continue hanging out with my counterculture friends. And playing music. And so I rented an apartment in Los Angeles. I got a job working at a liquor store on Sunset Boulevard called Turner Liquors, right on the Sunset Strip. And I was a delivery boy to the stars. So all these movie stars that lived up in the Hollywood Hills and Beverly Hills and everywhere would order their liquor from this place called Turner Liquor Store. And I was the delivery boy. So I met a lot of really interesting people during that time that I delivered liquor to from that store. I worked there for probably, I don't know, probably six months. I went to register at LA Community College. I was late. I went like the last day to register. The way I tell the story is I paid my, whatever it was, $65 or $70 registration fees, went around to pick my classes, which were pretty much--everything I wanted to take was filled. And, pretty much all that was left was like second year basket weaving, prerequisite required. So before the night was over, I went back to the office and just gave them everything back, and they gave me my money back. And I was out of school. Within a few months, I was 1-A with a draft. And that was in 1968. The end of 1968. So my parents were very concerned, like, You need to be in school. Why did you drop out of school? Now you're gonna', now you're a 1-A. You're gonna' get drafted. I said, I'm not gonna' go. My dad encouraged me to apply for a conscientious objector status. So I went through that process, and at the same time, my friends in Laguna--I just, I was hanging out there a lot. There were a lot of acid trips, other psychedelics--no hard drugs but just basically marijuana and mescalin and LSD, mind-expanding experiences with other people, like-minded people. And they had determined--because the police were starting to be very, more proactively enforcing against the counterculture. You know, anybody that looked like a hippie or had long hair or wore bell bottoms or a tie-dyed shirt, you were a target to the police. And in Southern California, it was particularly hostile in certain towns, more so than others. And a few of our friends that were like maybe a little older in the counterculture had moved up to Oregon, up to the Northwest. They were gonna'--in groups, communal groups, we were gonna buy property, find jobs up there and try to make a new life, a different value system. And the people that I was kind of hanging out with decided they were gonna' go to Oregon, and they really wanted me to go with them. And it was big decision time. I was in sort of in the middle of my conscientious objector application process. I had to apply, and then they set up a meeting or an interview with the draft board. Between the time that I applied, which was probably a few months until I got my interview, I was counseled by a guy, who was like a Quaker. He was the father of a friend of mine who, father of a person--who actually later became the guitar player in my, in the Joel Rafael Band--that we'd gone to school together and played a little bit of music together. But he, his, they were Quaker background, and he was counseling kids on the draft because they were pacifists and were encouraging kids that wanted to be conscientious objectors, trying to help them succeed at getting a conscientious objector status. It became known to me at that time that if you were Jewish, your chances of getting a CO were very slim just because you were Jewish, by reputation, I guess, I don't know--Jewish people were thought of as fighters. I don't know why, but it was just a fact that if you were a Jew, you could get a CO, but it wasn't likely. So I did everything I could with, through the counseling, to learn what I could to have a proper interview. And I went for my interview and within a month or two after my interview, they sent me a 1-A. Sorry, you're a 1-A. And so that was about the time that we moved up to Oregon, about twelve or thirteen of us, caravanned up there in a few different vehicles. We didn't have a place. We were just going to the home of some other people that we knew that had moved up there who said, Yeah, you can come and stay with us until you could find a place and get jobs and this kind of thing. And so we headed up there--I just kind of just put it behind me. I didn't care. I was 1-A, I didn't care. I, it was like, Screw the draft board, screw the military, screw the Vietnam War. I'm not going, I don't believe in any of that stuff. And other things are important to me. So I'm going with my friends to the Northwest, and we're gonna' somehow buy a piece of property, and we're all gonna' build our own houses on the property, and we're gonna' have our own community. This is kind of the dream. I see the counterculture people at that time in a couple of different categories. So there were the antiwar protestors. There were the, just the flat out druggies that just, you know, went down. And then the back-to-the-landers. And that was kind of my group. New value system, back to the Earth, all that stuff. And so that formed my value system. I think that, and I've freely admitted that I think that psychedelics had something to do with that. I have friends and for myself as well, you know, when people ask me, How did you become an artist? You know, how did you remain an artist? Sometimes it surprisingly it will start with, Well, when I was a young adult, I took some LSD. That sounds funny, but I mean, there's a truth to that. And now people are microdosing on some of these things, like people that you would never imagine would even try something like that. Or using it for like, mental health therapy and stuff. I think that the counterculture--us counterculture kids--actually pioneered some stuff that stuck. We didn't change the world like we thought we were going to, but we did help perpetrate some changes. So we got up there, and I was contacted--forwarded a letter from my parents saying you're 1-A. You need to be at your draft--at this address on this date for a pre-induction physical to determine if you're physically fit to be in the military. So I'm in Oregon, and I'm supposed to come down to California to go for a physical, and I'm just thinking like, I'm not gonna' get down there for that. And so somebody, I don't know if, how I thought of it, somebody must have said like, Well, why don't you write to your draft board and tell 'em you live in Oregon now? So I did that, and it took them a minimum of three months--it might have been longer, it might have been four months or five months--before they wrote me back and said, Okay, your draft board has now changed to Eugene, Oregon. And this is your pre-induction physical notice. So you're to go to the induction center in Eugene,--or maybe it was in Portland, I don't know where it was--for your pre-induction physical on such-and-such date. So I thought, well, I guess I'll just write them a letter and tell 'em I moved back to California, which I did, and they followed suit several months later, changed my draft board back to Pasadena and sent me another pre-induction physical notice. So then I wrote them another letter, and I told them that I've moved up to Washington state. And so a couple months later I got a letter that said, We've determined that you are avoiding your pre-induction physical. And so on such-and-such date, you are to go to any draft board anywhere and report for an induction physical. And if you're found to be physically fit, you'll be immediately inducted into the armed services. Well, we were living, at that point, we had separated from the group that we had moved up there with. And we were just like a couple and we had-- 01:00:48.764 --> 01:00:50.018 --so this is you-- 01:00:50.018 --> 01:00:51.157 me and Lauren. Yeah. 01:00:51.157 --> 01:00:52.525 And where did you meet? 01:00:52.525 --> 01:00:53.000 We met in high school. 01:00:53.000 --> 01:00:55.317 Okay. 01:00:55.317 --> 01:21:17.420 Yeah, Lauren and I met in high school. Just to backtrack a little bit. I guess it was my junior year. We were both in a play together. And my mother had been--who knew Lauren's mother through the PTA or something--had asked me a few different times, Do you know so-and-so's daughter? She's a year younger than you. Do you know her? I don't think so, but I was kind of wondering who she was. And then I realized that she was in the play. And so she was in the--we had like a multi-purpose room that was where we did our high school plays. And one day, we were there for a rehearsal right near the beginning of the play. And I walked up and introduced myself to her, and she knew who I was, and I offered her a ride home. I had a license at that point, I was a junior. And gave her a ride home, and we started dating, and we had a very up-and-down relationship for my junior and senior year. You know, we were boyfriend and girlfriend and then we broke up, and then we got back together, and then we broke up, and then we got back together. And then when I was gonna' be leaving for high school (college), I was already on my counterculture journey, and she wasn't. And it just, it wasn't gonna' work out. And so I just broke it off. 'Cause I'm going to college. I'm not gonna' be in town anymore. In fact, I moved out of my house maybe two weeks before I graduated from high school. And she wasn't having it, so she followed me, and she finally caught up with me in Laguna Beach at my friend's place. And so she ended up, she was a freshman at Cal State Fullerton also, which she had applied to go to 'cause she thought that I was going there. But then found out that I dropped out. But now she's at Cal State Fullerton. So she then dropped out of school and took the journey north with the whole group. When we got up there, we were kind of estranged at that point. We were like, What is she doing here? You know? We were so young, you know? So we got up there and within, probably within a month, we figured out that the two of us had a whole lot more in common than the people we'd moved up there with--that come from a different background, different value system even than ours, and not one that we could abide. And so it seemed like an eternity, but it really didn't take that long before we split off and--to make our own way. Got into some trouble in Portland, Oregon. I've got a song about it called Old Portland Town. And there was a pretty vibrant counterculture scene in Portland at that time. And Portland was not the city it is today. In fact, I don't know if you know the history of Portland, but it was one of the--it was very racist at one time. And so nothing like it is today. It's one of the more liberal cities in the country now. But at that time, I think that the general population, like what you would call the typical society, this, I don't know how to really describe it, but just the society in general was very intolerant of the counterculture. And so there was a lot of police. There was a very big counterculture scene in Portland, and it was different than down here. Maybe it was just different than what I'd experienced, but in Portland, it was like the whole counterculture, the whole underground, was like one scene. Whereas down here, the people I was hanging with, we were all sort of like-minded. We weren't druggies. We were smoking pot, and we were experimenting with psychedelics, but we weren't doing hard drugs. But in Portland, the hard druggies, the thieves, the hippies, I mean, it was all just mixed up, you know? And there was--they infiltrated the scene with an undercover cop, who infiltrated the scene for about six months. And that was when Nixon was President. And they had, he had the Department of Justice had instigated the no-knock law. So they didn't need warrants to, if they wanted to raid somebody or search their premises, they could just do it with, I guess with probable cause. But they didn't need a warrant. And they had, so they had the no-knock law, and they had another thing called secret indictments, which instead of, once the grand jury had published an indictment for someone, instead of a warrant being issued, they would just stick that over in a file and just like accumulate indictments on a particular scene, which was the counterculture scene in Portland, basically. And so, while we were in Portland--we had actually, we had been down here. We had just come back up to Portland, and we were visiting at a friend's house, and the door got kicked in. And it was raided by a bunch of cops and plain clothes cops, all their guns drawn. It's pretty scary. And there was probably about twelve of us just hanging around at somebody, at this friend's house getting high. And they kicked in the door and then they basically took each one of us into the bathroom and searched us. And they--I think they called a matron for the girls that were there. And they had two secret indictments on me for sales of hashish. And what I had done is I had given a piece of hashish to this undercover guy, who we didn't trust. When we saw him--the first time we saw him--we were sure he was a undercover guy, sure he was a narc. This was what we called, undercover cops back then were narcs, narcotics officers. Well we were sure he was an undercover narc, and we would have nothing to do with him. People were telling us like, Oh no, he's cool. I got high with him the other day. This kind of stuff. And so after several months went by on a very rainy day, we encountered this guy at a park, where a lot of people used to hang out at Laurelhurst Park in Portland. And there was hardly anybody there. Just us, and he walked up to us and started talking with us. And we were standoffish at first, talking and talking. And then finally he said, Well, I'm gonna' go over to the donut shop down at the corner over there and get some coffee. If you guys wanna' come along, I'll treat. And it was rainy, and it was cold, and we went with him. And we sat there and visited with him for quite a while. And I ended up giving him a piece of hashish--break it off--a piece of hashish that I had, giving him a piece of it. And that ended up being two indictments for sales. And so I had to go through that whole court process up there. It really tied up the whole judicial system because they busted about, I think about 280 people over a period of like three days. So they literally had to empty the drunk tank at the jail. They had to empty the juvenile tank at the county jail to move us all into the jail. And so they moved us from the city jail. I guess we went for an indictment and then they moved us into the county jail, issued us uniforms. It was pretty intense. For some reason, Lauren's charges got dropped. So they arrested her, too, but then they dropped her charges--'cause they didn't really have anything on her--the next day. But they had these two indictments on me. There was a bail bondsman that was interested in bailing me out, but my parents decided that they would leave me in jail for a week or two to teach me a lesson. I'm not sure it was a really good lesson. But it affected me pretty heavily. I felt pretty abandoned in there. And finally got out, went to trial, and got two five-year probations concurrent. So it was ten years worth of probation, but they were run concurrently. So it was like, I'd be on probation for five years. And that was in 1969. So other thing--I had to leave the state of Oregon. So we came back down here under the, theoretically under the jurisdiction of my parents. But I moved in with a friend in Los Angeles, and Lauren moved in back with her parents. But we were still a couple. Eventually we found a place in Laurel Canyon, a little house. And this was 1970, so it was right when the Laurel Canyon music scene was just like in full swing. Crosby, Stills & Nash were making their second record. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, I guess would've been. And I got a job. I had learned to do leather, to sew leather clothes from a friend that I had met in my travels--that stayed with us for a while in Oregon, and he had moved on. But he had taught me how to make leather, how to stitch with an awl and stitch leather stuff. And so I got a job at North Beach Leather in Los Angeles. And one of the people that worked there was David Crosby's girlfriend. So in the afternoons, a couple times a week, David would come into the shop, and I dunno' if you remember any of the early pictures of David Crosby, but he always had the leather jacket with the fringe. Well, it came from North Beach Leather. So he would come in to see his girlfriend towards the end of the day, and he was a very down-to-earth, kind of just easygoing person. So that's when I first met David Crosby. Turned out--and this was after, I don't know if you know his history at all--but he had a girlfriend that was killed in a car crash around that time, previous to when I met him. So this girl that I knew, her name was Shelly, that worked at North Beach Leather also, she was his current girlfriend. And she was living in a little house up in Laurel Canyon. But he, David wanted her to move on to his yacht. He had a yacht called the Mayan, you know, famously known yacht, sailboat of David Crosby's. And so she moved on his sailboat and gave us her little house in Laurel Canyon. So we lived there for maybe, I don't know, the rest of the year, maybe six or seven months, while I worked at the leather shop. And then I got a letter from my friend, who had taught me how to do leather. And he was in Seattle, and he was--he had rented a grocery store, like a little grocery store, corner market type thing, a very old neighborhood market. And there was an apartment upstairs. And he had rented that place--it was no longer a market--so he was turning that into a leather shop and was living in the apartment. It was a two bedroom apartment upstairs. And he invited me and Lauren to come up there and help him start this leather shop. So we moved to Seattle, and that was in 1970. I'm still on probation, so they had to change my probation officer to Seattle. I had like monthly visits to a probation officer. They didn't have drug tests back then, so I was never drug tested, but I would have to go visit my probation officer once a month, just check in. I guess he just sort of looked me over and decided if I was okay or not, I'm not sure. But I had, I think, three different probation officers during that time. So we lived in Seattle for not a year. He ended up finding a girlfriend, and she moved in with us. We had had a perfect trio, you know, a perfect triad. But then when she moved in, it just completely messed up the dynamic. And all of a sudden it just, everything was like a lot of friction, and we realized that we needed to leave. So we started looking for another place, and we found, we drove north to where the town of Everett is, north of Seattle. And we went up into the mountains just looking for a place. Like we were literally looking for some old shack or some old house that we could move into, maybe even squat into, but we were just looking for some other place to live. I was twenty, I guess I was twenty years old, and Lauren was like nineteen or something like that. So we, I'm trying to think. Sometimes my chronology's not perfect. Anyway, we moved up there, we moved out of the place in Seattle, and we found a place on the Mountain Loop Highway that runs from a town called Granite Falls. Like we would take the road towards Snohomish, and then you'd hit this town called Granite Falls. And then from there, there was a Mountain Loop Road that went through the mountains through the Cascades--western side of the Cascades--and then came back down in Arlington, Washington, which is like further north. And we got up on that road outta' Granite Falls, and we found a place for rent up there. It was called the Olympic Motel. And it were these little cabins about the size of this room. The whole cabin was about the size of this room. And then there was like a house that the manager lived in, and we rented one of those cabins, I think it was like 60 dollars a month. And we put a wood stove in it, and we lived there for about a month. And one day I was driving up a little further up the road, and there was this old house, like a really old barnwood-looking house. And there were two guys working on a car in the driveway in front of the house. It was like a driveway and a creek and a little bridge over the creek and then this house. And then they were working on this car, and they were both like a counterculture, like hippie types, you know, long hair and--and I thought, Wow, it's some of my people. So I pulled over, and I went over and introduced myself. And they took me across the street and through the woods, there was another little cabin there that a couple other, another couple lived in. So I met them. They were all from Illinois, had migrated to the west and were on their way to Canada to avoid the draft. And turned out that the one couple in the small cabin had been in a fender banger accident and didn't have any insurance and were being kind of chased down by the people who they'd had the accident with. Nobody had been hurt but just for insurance. And so they were kind of on the run. They didn't know what to do, so they were gonna' go back to Illinois. So they left, and they said, You can have our house. I said, Well, what's the arrangement? They said, Well somebody in Marysville owns it, and they only use it during the summertime 'cause they have a Girl Scout group. And it was about the size of this room also, but it was a cedar shake covered cabin--very rustic looking cabin--right on the Stillaguamish River, maybe fifty, sixty yards from the Stillaguamish River. And so they moved out, and we moved in. A few months later, the landlord came up one day and knocked on the door. And it wasn't the same people that he told could live in the house, right? So, he told us we could stay there until April. And then that they used the place from April until, I guess, August. And so we'd have to be gone for the summer. So when the summer was over, looking for a place again, we couldn't find one. And we just decided to look up those people in Marysville. So what I did is we went down to a friend of ours' house, and she cut my hair, and my hair was like, down to about here (elbow length). She cut my hair probably about like it is now. And then we went as a couple to this house in Marysville, where the landlord lived and pleaded our case. And, you know, We'd really like to move back in there for the winter. And he said, Well, the outhouse that you've been using--'Cause there was no bathroom. It was an outhouse. Everything was no utilities. We would get our water from a spring in a bucket, like gas cans that were for water. And then we'd pour that in a barrel that has spigot on it over our sink. So we'd have to fill that up about every four days or something like that. It was definitely a back-to-the-land thing. We had kerosene lamps for light, cook stove to cook stuff on. And they said, Well, you can move back in there and pay us 5 dollars a month and build an outhouse, because the outhouse we were using was on the next property over. So we agreed, built the outhouse, and lived there for the next winter. During that winter, we realized that Lauren was pregnant with Jamaica. And we were-- 01:21:17.420 --> 01:21:44.861 That was in 1970? 01:21:44.861 --> 01:21:45.916 That was in 1971. 01:21:45.916 --> 01:21:46.334 Okay. 01:21:46.334 --> 01:24:02.540 And my dad had died in 1970. We had come down to get some leather for the leather shop. Lauren and I had borrowed a friend's panel truck, and we drove down to her parents' house, and we were staying there, and my dad was having some health issues, and he went into the hospital for some tests. And then that morning, about three in the morning, Lauren's mom came in and woke us up and said, Your dad passed away. So we stuck around for about another week and then headed back up north to the leather shop. I was twenty-one, so I lost my dad early. He was sixty-one years old. So we were in this cabin and now we're gonna' have a baby, and one of the guys--the guy who was the manager at the Olympic Hotel and I had become friends, and he was kind of mechanically inclined. And so we found this old Chevy truck. It was a '53 Chevy pickup truck that was parked in an old field. It was like a dead truck out in the field. And bought it for 50 dollars and then he helped me basically rebuild the engine and do like a valve job and a few different things on it. He knew how to do all that stuff. So together we worked on that and got that truck running. And my mom told me, she said, Well look, my dad and my mom had bought some property three miles from here on the same road, just on the other side of 395. Like if you go across 395, the first driveway you hit goes up the hill to the top of the hill over there, three miles from here. And they had bought ten acres there to retire on in 1962, and they had developed it into an avocado orchard. And once my dad passed away whenever my mom would get anything from that property, she would just take it and stick it in a drawer 'cause she couldn't deal with it. And so a few years went by. So '71 rolls around, three years after my dad died, and we were gonna' have a baby. And she says, Well, I will put a mobile home or a trailer on the property if you'll come down and take care of it and help me get out debt with the property, you know, with the grove service. And so that sounded pretty good to us. So that's when we moved back to California. And I was still on probation. And now we're getting to how did I support myself, right? Is that coming up? 01:24:02.540 --> 01:24:19.404 So the move to North County and how, what you did for work during that time. 01:24:19.404 --> 01:28:44.479 So we actually had had Jamaica. We moved onto that property, and we built a shed that looks kind of like the shed I have out in back here. And we moved into that shed. She was like seven or eight months pregnant. And we had a friend that was maybe five years older than us that had her last baby that was natural childbirth--Lamaze method. And she'd had a midwife and a doctor that did home deliveries. And we decided that we wanted to do that. It was unheard of at the time. So we got a lot of criticism from people about that. But we hired this doctor. My brother actually helped me with the money for the doctor, and he agreed to deliver our baby. But he wouldn't come and deliver it in the shed we were living in 'cause we didn't have the trailer yet. And the baby was due in August. We'd been there for the summer. And so my brother was out of town. He lived in San Dimas. So he told us we could stay at his house and have the baby there. So we had the baby at my brother's house in San Dimas, but we were living on this property. And then within a month or so after that, the trailer was moved on--it was like a mobile home, and it was moved onto the property. And we set up household there. I got--my first job was with the grove service that had been taking care of my mom's property. Not to take care of my mom's property, though, but to just to work for them. And I got sent out with a crew of migrant workers to clear some weeds on a hill near Fallbrook. They dropped me off. We loaded in the back of a truck, and they drove us out to different places and dropped us here and there and everywhere. And they dropped me out on Reche Road next to this bank that had to have the weeds cleared with one of those weed sticks. So I did that for about a week and got a real appreciation for how hard the work is that migrant workers have to do. But then, luckily, I was looking for another job the whole time, and I got a job at an irrigation supply at Fallbrook called Southwest Irrigation. And I was like a counter boy, like basically when people come in to buy couplings and elbows and tees and pipe, I would wait on them at the counter. And then I also was, would deliver pipe out to the big jobs they were developing into orchards and kiwis and avocados and all that kind of stuff. At the same time, around that same time, we took a class from the agricultural extension on avocado farming 'cause we had ten acres of avocados that were just coming into production on my mom's property. My mom and my brother were pretty much in charge of all of that 'cause he had taken over my dad's business, and was just considered more legitimate than us. We were like counterculture, like not to be trusted or whatever. So I mean, not that they didn't trust us, but I think that they just--I don't think they thought they could depend on us, you know? So they kind of ran the show, and we needed resources, and I had friends I'd met around here that, we'd learned about avocado farming. And I had other friends that were farmers, and we were trying to do as right as we could by that orchard because it was just coming into production. And there were some things that needed to be done. They needed some equipment they didn't have. We just had our little car that we were driving around in. But we needed a truck, and we needed a tractor. But these are things that my mom and my brother were not interested in financing. And so after about three-and-a-half years there and after the birth of my second daughter, who was born on the property in a teepee, same doctor-- 01:28:44.479 --> 01:28:56.796 And what is her name? 01:28:56.796 --> 01:31:31.194 Corrina. 01:31:31.194 --> 01:31:44.247 Corrina. 01:31:44.247 --> 01:33:43.333 Yeah. And so she was born on the property. And sometime shortly after that, I kind of made the plea again, like, look, we need--I think I had a tractor at that point. They'd got me a used tractor. But I said, We need a salary. I mean we have free rent, but we need, we're taking care of a ten acre orchard. We're selling the fruit for you, we're making sure that it's taken care of. And basically the people around here that I knew had told me, They should be paying you like a couple hundred bucks a month besides just giving you a place to live there. So I kind of--what's the word I'm trying to think of?--lobbied for a salary, and they weren't having it, you know? And so I was pretty frustrated with my mom and my brother at that point, and I kind of called their bluff. I said, Well look, if you guys are not willing to put into the property what it needs, then you should probably sell it because it's coming into production, and there's gonna' be a lot of stuff needed. And if you don't do what you need to do, it's just gonna' be a big loss. And so they decided to sell it. So that meant we had to find another place to live. So we had developed some friendships with some folks that we still are very close to. Well actually he's passed away, but, his wife, Lizzie, David and Lizzie, our friends, had a place up in the Sierras near Twain Harte, which is in the gold country off of Highway 49 on the Sonora Pass. And they had a thirty-acre apple orchard. They were also back-to-the-landers, right? They're a little older than us. And actually, they had been able to get the land up there where they went. And so we'd become friends with them, and so we decided, well, let's move up there near them, you know? 'Cause land is a lot cheaper than it is here. So we found a place up there to rent, to try to explore the area. And I was gonna' try to--I was really just trying to make, just starting to make some headway with my music here in California. There was a group in California called The Alternative Chorus. It was in Hollywood. It was called the Los Angeles Alternative Chorus (Los Angeles Songwriters Showcase).And it was run by a guy named Len Chandler and a guy named John Braheny. And they were both songwriters, working songwriters. And if you read Bob Dylan's book, Chronicles, which I didn't read 'til many years later, after I was no longer in touch with Len Chandler, I found out that Len Chandler was a mentor of Bob Dylan's when Bob Dylan moved to New York in the Greenwich Village scene. And he was this Black guy, who was a songwriter who rode a motorcycle and didn't take anything from anybody. He was a real outspoken progressive person. And Bob Dylan had the utmost respect for him, and he outlines it in his book, Chronicles. But anyways, Len Chandler was one of these two guys that ran this Alternative Chorus. And what they did is they, you could make an appointment with them as a songwriter and then you'd show up at this little place in Hollywood that they had behind a house, another little house behind a house, where they would do this Alternative Chorus thing. And they had a cassette recorder. And they would have you play like five or six songs just right there for them into their cassette recorder. And they'd probably do like, do this once or twice a month and have like four or five songwriters come in over a day or over two days. And then they would go through everything and pick out the top songs and contact those songwriters and say, Okay, we picked out two of your songs, and we want you to come and showcase at our showcase night at the Ash Grove on such and such a night. Well, every time I went there, they picked out two of my songs, and they were real champions for me. I'm emotional to talk about-- 01:33:43.333 --> 01:33:44.000 That's okay. Take your time. Yeah. 01:33:44.000 --> 01:58:25.524 Yeah. Because as an artist, you run up against the wall so many times. But these guys, they heard what I was doing, and they acknowledged it, and they showcased my music. It didn't get me that far., but the acknowledgement from two people that were in the business that would let you come in and showcase and make some connections. So I worked with those guys for probably three or four years. Over three or four years, they probably showcased me four or five times at different venues. And some of it led to somebody being interested in a song, a publisher being interested in a song, or something. So we had just--so right when that was happening, we moved up to Calaveras County, which was the county north of where our friends lived. And we were completely isolated up there. It was like, we didn't know anybody, and they were, our friends were fifty miles away. So it was kind of a trip to get there, and we weren't seeing them that often. I didn't have a job, so I found a place in Sonora, a bar that would hire me to play three nights a week at like 50 bucks a night. But that was like a thirty mile drive on windy roads, Highway 49. And the place was called the County Jail. I think I was actually off probation by then. I'd managed to get off probation by then. But it was kind of funny 'cause the place was called the County Jail. And so I would drive there three nights a week and play for two or three hours for 50 bucks. And that's what we were living on. The place we were renting was like a labor house, like a lumberjack labor house up in the woods. And we stayed there about six months, and it was just like nothing happening up there. And I'd just started to make some connections down here, and I just felt like, boy, what a mistake to come up here. Right around that time I wrote a song called Goldmine. And we had met--through a friend in Seattle when we lived there--we had met--Well, let's see how I explain this. We'd met these two older folks, I mean, four or five years older than us, a couple in Seattle that were kind of our grounding people there. And they had been friends with Jesse Colin Young from the Youngbloods, which was a--I don't know if you know who that was, but they were a big group in the sixties. He had that hit song, Get Together, was that big hit song for Jesse. And his brother-in-law, his wife's brother, was a really great piano player. The Youngbloods just broke up, or they were just about to break up, and he was starting another band called the Jesse Colin Young Band. And Scott Lawrence, his brother-in-law, was gonna' be the piano player. So they sent him up there 'cause he was also trying to deal with the draft. And he came up to Seattle to stay with these two older friends that we knew that were friends of Jesse's and Susie Young, to deal with the draft board in Seattle, because he had a letter from Jesse that basically said that Jesse was homosexual and that Scott was homosexual, and they had a relationship and that was gonna' get him outta' the draft. But they couldn't do it in San Francisco 'cause too many people knew who Jesse was. And they wouldn't fly in San Francisco, but in Seattle, nobody knew anybody. So they sent him up there to deal with it, to get out of the draft. And that's how we met him, 'cause he stayed there for about two or three weeks. And so when we came back down to Southern California, then the band, his band, was going. Jesse's band was going, and Scott was in the band. And they were playing in LA after we came back down here. And we kind of finagled our way backstage somehow. You know, we kept saying we knew Scott, and we were trying to get backstage. And all of a sudden, Scott walked by, we go, Hey, Scott. You know? So he brought us backstage, and we met Jesse and Susie, his sister, and so we had cultivated a relationship with them. So now we're in Wilseyville, up in Calaveras County, and I've just written this song, Goldmine. And Lauren writes a letter to Jesse Colin Young and asks him if I can come over to the Bay Area and record this song, Goldmine, in his studio, which, I was--cold feet to do that. But she said, I'm just gonna' write him. All they could say is no. Well, he said yes. So we went over there and recorded the song and then Alternative Showcase showcased that song. A couple different publishers held that song, but nobody ultimately picked it up. So we moved back down here to a little place in Oceanside. A rental place in Oceanside. And we were probably there for under a year. So I, we had a baby and a 3-year-old. Lauren decided to get her Montessori credential 'cause she'd been like a helper at the Montessori school. We still had a baby that was gonna' go to the Montessori school. So she started to get her Montessori training. And I started, was able to procure a lawnmower and an edger, a rake, and a shovel and a hoe. And I started to accumulate some gardening customers up in the LA area. The first one was my brother. And then he had, he knew somebody that needed a gardener. So that was the second client. And then Lauren's aunt lived up in that area. And so she hired me. So I had three gardening clients. So I would drive up on like a Tuesday, stay at my brother's house, next morning, do his gardening, go over to another place in town and do the gardening there. And then it would be about one. I would drive into Hollywood with a stack of reel-to-reel tapes of my songs and hit all the high rises, which are filled with publishers. I'd just go in and look at the directories and find out where all the publishers were. And then I would go to every publisher and drop off a tape. Like every week. And my tapes were like piling up at publishers 'cause nobody was listening to them. They were just getting dropped off there. So that didn't really--one guy actually decided that to hold the song, Goldmine. And they gave me like a letter of intent that they wanted to hold it and so not to show it to anybody else. And that was about three months or four months, and then they decided they weren't gonna' do it. So I have lots of those stories. You have to, it's like shots on goal, you know, you have to take shots on goal to score. So, let's see, from there--we hated that place at Oceanside. And we had our kids back in the school in Fallbrook, where they had been when we lived on my mom's property. And we found a place in Fallbrook to rent. It was an eight-acre avocado orchard with a house on it. And so we were able to parlay our way into being the managers of the orchard for the guy who owned the property in exchange for the rent of the house. So another similar kind of setup. So we lived there for four years. And during that time I started gigging. I actually, I had a job--okay, get back to my jobs again. So I had that job with the grove service. So when, after about two weeks of that, I got the job at the irrigation place. I worked there for about a year. And I left there because one of the guys that was a manager at the irrigation place heard about an opportunity and told me about it. He knew two carpenters, two local carpenters from Fallbrook, that were building a big house, just maybe six miles from here, up in the Olive Hill area between here and Fallbrook. It was a custom home they were building for the guy that owned El Molino Mills that used to make all the health food flour and all that stuff. And I can't think of his name right now. But anyways I got hired on as a carpenter's apprentice with those two guys. And they basically taught me basic carpentry and framing. It was really cool job. They were two older guys, like almost my grandfather's age, that had been carpenters around here for years and old school, you know. And I had to do all the really dirt work. But I learned a lot, that I could put into my personal toolkit. About building and construction and wood and hammers and saws and all that stuff. When that house was done, they didn't have another project, but they got me a job with a construction crew in Oceanside that was building a, it was like a, I think it was an office building. And I went to work with them as a framer for about a month. And I hated it. It was just like, 'cause it was nothing like working with these two old carpenters. These, they were all guys about my age or maybe a little older and just very construction worker kind of energy, and it just wasn't my cup of tea. And so I left there and I looked around for another job, and I got a job at the Fallbrook Enterprise, the newspaper. And I had a part-time job there as a pasting--pasting up the real estate and what do they call 'em? Like the want ads. I forget, there's another name for it. So I was doing like, maybe four pages in the newspaper every week. But it was before computers. So everything was like tape on a light board with an exacto knife. And then you would get, the letters would be generated by one computer that would just generate your copy. You'd put it through a waxer and cut it up and stick it to the grid board on a light table. You've probably seen that stuff, paste-up work like that. So I did that and that was really a, I'd done some of that stuff on my own as a kid. I was always into making posters, and I'd go to the stationary store and get the transfer type. And so I kind of had that already. And then working there, they had all the tools, all the different kind of tapes, and the exacto knife and the waxer. So I really enjoyed that job there, and while I was working there, a guy I had met in LA in auditioning to be in a band that I ended up not being in, had moved to Oceanside. And he had been at the same audition, and we'd all exchanged phone numbers. And he knew that I lived nearby. He was a bass player. So he contacted me. And we ended up forming a duo--me playing my songs and him playing bass and singing harmony. And we worked our way down to an open stage in Encinitas at a club called The Stingaree, which, which was owned by Jack Tempchin. I don't know if you know who he is, but he's the, he goes by Jack Tempchin, Eagles songwriter--Jack Tempchin. He wrote Peaceful Easy Feeling, and Already Gone. He wrote Slow Dancing for Johnny Rivers. He's written multiple hit songs. And he lives in Encinitas, just a regular guy, great songwriter. And I had gotten onto him when we first moved to this area, and we'd become friends. 'Cause he had an open stage that he ran at like a music store over there. It was called The Blue Ridge Music Store in Encinitas. It's not there anymore. So I would go play the open mic there that he ran one day a week, or maybe it was a couple times a month. And then he had some success 'cause the Eagles became really big and his songs were like, their hits. And so he was able to buy a nice house in Encinitas. And he bought a bar, and he thought, Well, I'm gonna' buy a bar and make it into a music club. So he made this club called The Stingaree. It was named after a song he'd written called The Stingaree and which was a song about a big party in San Diego that he'd gone to. And so they had an open stage there one night a week. Before the band would play, they would have an open stage. And so we went down there one night and played the open stage. And the band that was playing that night after us was Rosie Flores and the Screamers, Rosie and the Screamers. And I don't know, you probably know who Rosie Flores is, but she's actually being inducted into the San Diego Music Hall of Fame in September. She's my age, but, and she doesn't live here anymore. But she was, at that time, she was like really well known in the San Diego scene here. And she'd had an all-girl band. And now she had this band called The Screamers. And they were packing the place every time they played there. And so we came in one of the nights and played on the open stage, and she heard me play that song, Goldmine. And she came up to me after that. And she wanted to, she wanted that song, you know, she wanted to play it. So I gave her the song, taught her the song, and then we kind of hit it off. And we started playing together. And we ended up--my friend ended up going to Saudi Arabia to work for some oil company or something, the bass player guy. And so Rosie and I ended up being a duo 'cause her band had broken up. And so it was Rosie Flores and at that time, I was using a different name. I've had like three last names. My born last name, and then a name I took on sort of through the whole draft thing, and then my name now, which has been my name for many, many years, which is a Spanish translation of my middle name. So anyways, the two of us had this duo, and we were playing five nights a week, plus I had the job at the newspaper. So I was making okay money, enough to keep us in groceries and pay our rent. Well, we didn't really have any rent, but pay our expenses, our utilities, and all that kind of stuff. And it was all going along pretty good. And then Rosie decided she was gonna' move to LA because San Diego--there was just like, it's like being a big fish in a small bowl. You couldn't really do anything past what we were doing. We were very popular. We were playing in two different clubs four or five nights a week. But she was the draw. I was the songwriter guy, and she was the singer, so she was singing some of my songs. I was singing some of my songs. And then we were doing a bunch of covers that she was singing, and I was singing harmony. So she decided she was gonna' move to LA, and that kind of left me on my own again. So I didn't have a sound system. We were using her sound system. So at that point, a friend of mine from school named Tad Williams had come into some money. His dad had died and had left him and his brother some money, and he told me that he wanted to be my sponsor. So he was like my first patron, and he bought me a sound system. And he basically--I still had the part-time job at the newspaper--but he made sure that our bills were paid for the next couple years. He'd come out and check on us and see how we were doing. And if we were a little short, he'd give me a thousand dollars, to last me in the next couple months. And that got us through, so I could continue to play music. So I was hauling my sound system to a club over in Cardiff three or four nights a week. And it was just basically playing in a bar for four hours a night. Pretty rough gig. So I did that. Then he got killed in a plane crash. And so that was over. That was about the time that--there was a paper in Oceanside called the Blade Tribune at that time. And it was--I forget--it was owned by a company that owned a bunch of newspapers. And the guy who owned the newspapers was the father of this guy, who became a fan of Rosie and myself. He would come to a lot of our shows. So when she left town, he continued to support me, coming to the shows and stuff like that. And he was the music editor at the Blade Tribune. This is a little bit outta' chronology, but this is about 1976-77 is when, she probably left town in '77. And so I was doing these solo gigs at a few different clubs here and there. And just trying to kinda' keep my head above water. And Rick Danko, the band, you know the band? They had just done that movie, The Last Waltz, and the band had broken up, that was like the end of the band. And then Rick Danko, the bass player from the band, started a band of his own, just called the Rick Danko Band. And this guy, who was the Blade Tribune editor, called me up one day and said, Hey, Rick Danko is gonna' be playing at the La Paloma Theater. He is doing two shows on this one night in like an early show and a late show, and they don't have an opening act. Here's the promoter's name. You should go over there and talk to 'em. So I went over there, and I got the gig. So that was my first opening for a national touring act. I opened two shows for Rick Danko at the La Poloma Theater. And Rick Danko and his brother, Terry, came out during my set for both shows, up in the balcony and listened to my set and really liked my songs. And so Rick and I became friends. And he had me open a couple more shows for him when he was in California. 'Cause he would travel all over the place, and he lived in Malibu at the time. So I kind of became a sometime opening act for Rick Danko, who would be traveling with all kinds of people. One of the times in his band was Paul Butterfield--was in his band, or different really high-visibility players that he would pick up along the way and they--so I got to meet a lot of people through Rick. Like I met Paul Butterfield. I actually went to Rick Danko's birthday party, his 40th birthday party, in Malibu. And I met Richard Manuel and his wife from the band and Garth Hudson from the band. They were both at his party. And then I met Joe Cocker through him. I met Bobby Norwood through him. I mean, just a number of people that he would be interacting with me, would just introduce me as his friend and songwriter friend of his. And because I opened that show for him, I got the idea like, Wow, there's all these national shows coming into town. There's like three different promoters promoting in different venues. And so those became my targets. Instead of playing in bars for four hours with cigarette smoke and nobody listening, I started--every time I'd hear about a concert, I'd just keep my eyes on the ads and as soon as someone would be announced, I'd go hit up the promoter. I had a review from the Rick Danko show that was written by my friend, where I had a really good mention, and I parlayed that to a show with Jesse Colin Young when he came to town, because I knew him already. And then that--I ended up getting a show with John Lee Hooker from that, Country Joe and the Fish from that, Emmylou Harris. I mean, the list is like really long, you know? And I did that for the next maybe few years. At one point I did have another job after the Jazzercise job (Joel worked as the audio person on video tapes of original Jazzercise classes created by Judi Missett.), with Community Ed (education). A friend of ours, was working in the Community Ed system, and she said, I think that you could teach on a limited credential--it's like a lifetime limited credential based on experience--in the Community Ed department for senior citizens that are in like rest homes and convalescent hospitals. And so for about a year, I sang songs and played movies that I would rent at the library for senior citizens in rest homes. I would interface with the activities directors at these various homes. And through the Community Ed system, I would go and do a two-hour class for their activities of these homes. It was one of the hardest jobs I ever had. But it served me really well because it was a really good hourly rate. And I could do it like two days, three days a week without having to spend all my time at work while I was trying to do music and art. 01:58:25.524 --> 01:58:28.534 So the classes were music you were teaching? 01:58:28.534 --> 02:05:50.564 Well, they wanted--initially she wanted me to do like an exercise class, just a stretching class with these older folks that are like my age now. But I didn't have any experience in that. So I said, what I could do is I could--I found out that there were a lot of films available, 16-millimeter films back then, through the library system that I could check out. And most of the centers had projectors. So I would go in, I would show them a half-an-hour film on just an interesting subject. I mean, it might be Will Rogers' California Ranch or it might be a documentary about an old guy that lives in Oregon that builds log cabins. I mean, just anything interesting I could find. And then the rest of the class would be sing-alongs. I'd performed some songs and do some sing-alongs. And some of those songs were Woody Guthrie songs. So I was pulling that back into my repertoire, Also, a good place to end, too, is that at one point, because I knew a lot of Woody Guthrie songs, at one point in my career when my kids were young, I decided to look into Woody Guthrie with more depth, because I realized how many people he had influenced and particularly Bob Dylan. And I thought, Well, rather than just listen to Bob Dylan, I want to go back a step and see what it was he found when he was influenced by Woody Guthrie. And so I kind of took a journey to learn more about Woody Guthrie. Even though I had played some of his songs from the time I was a teenager, I just decided to dig in deeper. And the first thing I found out was that there wasn't much Woody Guthrie around. Like, his records were all out of print. You know, you'd be, if you could find a copy of a Bound for Glory, his bestselling novel, you were lucky 'cause those were out of print. But I did manage to find a copy, and I found a store up in Santa Monica that sold a lot of children's records that had the Songs to Grow On that were written by Woody and his wife for their kids. And so my kids were brought up on those songs in the cassette player in the car. And those were some of the first songs I learned. I also found a copy of a tape with Woody and Cisco Houston singing cowboy songs. So I started to incorporate some of the songs into my own set. And when I got this job with Community Ed, I developed that up further. So I made lyric sheets so I could really learn these songs, and the Woody Guthrie songs were the ones that really stuck out as the best songs to me. And so at one point, I thought, Well, I could actually put together a one-man show about Woody Guthrie, and maybe I could even get an endorsement or be sanctioned by the Woody Guthrie, Woody Guthrie's management, which he still had a manager even though he was dead--this guy, Harold Leventhal, I knew from the books that I had found--a couple of books--that he was the guy, who was kind of in charge of Woody Guthrie's estate at that point. And so I looked up his office. I found a number for his office in New York City, and I called his office, and Harold Leventhal answered the phone, And I explained to him that I was a songwriter in California and that I had learned a number of these Woody Guthrie songs and that I had been listening to the Library of Congress tapes, which were recorded by Alan Lomax. It's about four hours of Woody, similar to what we're doing here. Only Woody would tell his story and then play a song that he'd written that kind of went with it. And those tapes are in the Library of Congress, and I--that you can get them on cassette tapes. So I've been listening to those, the interviews and the songs, and I thought, Well, I could put together a real show. So I called Harold Leventhal and kind of broached the idea with him, and he completely just shut me down. He said, No, you can't do that. You can't even play any Woody Guthrie songs, he says, because, all those songs are protected, and they're being held for a production that we're doing about Woody Guthrie, and you cannot use them under any circumstances. Goodbye. Bang, you know. So I was like, Wow, you know, I was really like, taken aback. So I thought, Well, screw that, I'm gonna' play these songs anyways. So I played them in, for my classes, I didn't develop up the show. I didn't go there. But I played these songs in my classes and I honed up these Woody Guthrie songs, so they were sounding really good. Ironically--and this would be a good stop point--many years later, when I was playing at the Woody Guthrie Festivals on a regular basis, when Nora Guthrie gave me the first Woody Guthrie song to write music to, it was a song called Dance a Little Longer. And we recorded it, and I was on my way home from the Woody Guthrie Festival in Oklahoma. I don't know which year it was, but it was the year after I had, it was probably around 2000 (2003). Yeah, 'cause that's when that first record came out that had that on it. So I was on my way home, and my cell phone rings, and it's a New York City number. But I decided to answer, and I answered it, and it was Harold Leventhal calling me up. Now he doesn't know I was the guy, who called him many years earlier, but now I'm the guy who finished this Woody Guthrie song, and he really liked it, So he called me up to tell me how much he liked it and to thank me profusely for helping to carry on Woody Guthrie's legacy. So the irony of that really hit me. And, of course, I never told him about the earlier connection. But that sort of closed the endorsement, finished the endorsement from Woody Guthrie Archives and Woody Guthrie Publications and that kind of thing. So where we're leaving off is I've just worked at, with the Community Ed, and I tried to do the Woody Guthrie thing. Harold shut me down. And now I'm about to get a job at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. 02:05:50.564 --> 02:05:56.157 Okay. Thank you so much. As you have alluded to, this is session one-- 02:05:56.157 --> 02:05:57.052 Yes. 02:05:57.052 --> 02:06:01.814 --of Joel's oral history, and we'll be back together for the next interview. 02:06:01.814 --> 02:06:04.314 I look forward to it. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END ]]> https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en video Property rights reside with the university. 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Persons wishing to quote, publish, perform, reproduce, or otherwise make use of an item in the library’s collections must assume all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any claimants of the copyright holder.&#13 ; The researcher assumes full responsibility for use of the material and agrees to hold harmless the University Library, and California State University, against all claims, demands, costs, and expenses incurred by copyright infringement or any other legal or regulatory cause of action arising from the use of the library's materials.&#13 ; In assuming full responsibility for use of the material, the researcher also understands that the materials they examine may contain Social Security numbers, other personal identifiers, and/or sensitive material on potentially living and identifiable individuals (e.g., medical, evaluative, or personally invasive&#13 ; 30&#13 ; information). The researcher agrees not to record, reproduce, or disclose any Social Security number or other information of a highly personal nature that may be found. 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=RafaelJoel_FabbiJennifer_2025-08-20.xml RafaelJoel_FabbiJennifer_2025-08-20.xml https://archivesearch.csusm.edu/repositories/3/resources/19 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 Rafael, Joel. Interview August 20th, 2025. Description An account of the resource Joel Rafael is an American singer-songwriter and folk musician from San Diego County, California. Joel has been making music with his band and solo for over fifty years. He is well known for his writing and performance in the style of Woody Guthrie. In this part one interview, Rafael discusses his early musical influences, his participation in the 1960s counterculture movement, and the beginnings of his success in the music industry. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC027-086 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-08-20 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Joel Rafael Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jennifer Fabbi Subject The topic of the resource Songwriters -- United States Folk music Counterculture -- United States Guthrie, Woody, 1912-1967 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Escondido (Calif.) Chicago (Ill.) Covina (Calif.) West Covina (Calif.) Portland (Oregon) Seattle (Wash.) Fallbrook (Calif.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Joel Rafael License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. community history Art and artists Community history 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 Oral Histories Description An account of the resource Video and audio oral histories can be viewed here. Histories are listed alphabetically by last name. Individual histories are indexed and transcribed and can be searched. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <p>Rights to oral histories vary depending on the history. The library owns the copyright to some histories, and has license to reproduce for nonprofit purposes for others. Please contact CSUSM University Library Special Collections at <a href="mailto:%20archives@csusm.edu">archives@csusm.edu</a> with any questions about use.</p> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Sean Visintainer Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Anthony L. Jackson OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=JacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 6.0 Jackson, Anthony. Interview March 7, 2023. SC027-32 2:18:08 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library Special Collections oral history collection CSUSM csusm California State University San Marcos ; Civil rights demonstrations ; Iraq War, 2003-2011 ; Military families ; Mormon Church ; Piracy -- Indian Ocean ; Racism ; United States. Marine Corps ; Camp Pendleton (Calif.) ; Houston (Tex.) ; Indian Ocean ; Oakland (Calif.) ; San Marcos (Calif.) ; Stuttgart (Germany) ; United States. Africa Command. Anthony L. Jackson Sean Visintainer JacksonAnthony_VisintainerSean_2023-03-07_access.mp4 2.0:|72(14)|107(6)|150(11)|238(14)|318(10)|378(6)|429(9)|478(5)|513(6)|550(15)|599(3)|636(6)|675(8)|701(7)|744(6)|778(3)|837(7)|886(11)|920(15)|983(7)|1022(16)|1047(11)|1097(18)|1155(12)|1211(5)|1239(4)|1286(11)|1308(15)|1359(3)|1403(14)|1438(17)|1491(2)|1534(15)|1577(4)|1628(9)|1666(10)|1714(2)|1746(10)|1766(5)|1841(2)|1872(10)|1906(14)|1950(3)|1999(3)|2022(6)|2061(11)|2091(3)|2124(4)|2167(3)|2194(9)|2275(11)|2301(14)|2328(13)|2395(13)|2425(8)|2461(11)|2492(10)|2558(16)|2602(17)|2647(2)|2687(9)|2745(9)|2776(12)|2807(8)|2872(15)|2921(18)|2971(2)|3025(4)|3119(3)|3140(9) 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/8e01398f12b5d84483867231d0d018cf.mp4 Other video English 0 Introduction Oral history interview of Major General Anthony L. Jackson, March 7th, 2023, by Sean Visintainer, Head of Special Collections, University Library, California State University San Marcos. 0 43 Childhood and formative years Jackson describes his childhood, growing up in a military family that moved around the world, as well as his schooling, meals, and football recruitment. He also describes what life is like on military bases, and how he was fortunate to grow up at the time that he did, with opportunity provided by the sacrifices people made during the civil rights movement. civil rights movement ; Germany ; Hawaii ; Houston, Texas ; military base life ; military family ; Oakland, California 0 937 Father's military experience / Growing up in Houston and Fort Hood during the civil rights era Jackson speaks to his father's military experience and the challenges his father faced as a Black enlisted soldier, as well as his father's feelings on Jackson joining the Marine Corps. Jackson recalls the part of his childhood spent in Houston and nearby Fort Hood. He describes the segregated nature of the area, and participating in a sit-in at a local drug store. Jackson also recalls his sister's refusal to move to the back of the bus, fighting in high school and being picked on because of his accent, and speaks to his idea of equality vs. equity, using a metaphor for starting life with a backpack. enlisted Black soldier experience ; General Frank E. Petersen ; Houston, Texas ; racism 0 2290 Family deployments Jackson discusses his father's and brother's deployments, including why his brother was drafted to fight in Vietnam and his brother's medical evacuation to San Francisco. Butte College ; California State University Chico ; drafts and deferments ; Korean War ; Matt Jackson ; medical evacuations ; Vietnam War ; World War II 0 2515 Support systems for deployed soldiers Jackson discusses how support systems evolved in the armed services for deployed soldiers from his father experience to his own. Jackson discusses informal and formal structures and how military spouses play a role in supporting each other. Jackson also discusses the necessity of taking care of military families and how that impacts combat ability. Army ; Key Volunteer Program ; Marine Corps ; military spouses ; Navy ; Ombudsman Program 0 2987 Jackson's dating, marriage, and enlistment Jackson recounts meeting his wife, Sue, at San Jose State University and their courtship. Jackson describes interracial dating at the time and their family's reactions, and recall his ring-buying expedition which ended with a job. Jackson speaks to his work in the insurance industry, and decision to quit that job and enlist in the Marine Corps, and later to re-enlist. courtship ; enlistment ; interracial relationships ; Mike Anderson Agency ; Paul Barriger ; re-enlistment ; Sue Jackson ; U.S.S. Mayaguez ; Vietnam War 0 4116 Qualities of a successful Marine and a successful marriage Jackson describes the value of judgement and moral courage in making one a successful Marine. He discusses the value his older enlistment age gave him, and recruit training. Jackson also describes why he and Sue have a strong marriage. courage ; judgement ; marriage 0 4424 Working as the Deputy Commanding General for MARCENT [Marine Corps Forces Central Command] Jackson describes his work towards the end of his career, including as Deputy Commanding General for MARCENT [Marine Corps Forces Central Command], where Jackson and his staff - especially civilian scientist Susan Alderson - were instrumental in getting MRAPs [mine resistant, ambush protected vehicles] to forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. MARCENT ; MRAPs ; Susan Alderson 0 5040 Working as Director of Military Operations and Logistics, Africa Command [AFRICOM] Jackson recalls his work as the first Director of Military Operations and Logistics for the newly created United States Africa Command, and recalls in detail piracy around the Horn of Africa, and operations resulting from Somali pirates capturing of the U.S. cargo ship Maersk Alabama in 2009. AFRICOM ; Maersk Alabama ; piracy ; Somalia 0 5520 Returning to Camp Pendleton Jackson recounts a career fork where he could have gone back to Iraq to be a chief of staff, but instead ended up as Commanding General for Marine Corps Installation West (MCI West). Jackson recounts his previous times at Camp Pendleton as a colonel and his family's decision to build a house in Fallbrook while Jackson was deployed to various places including Japan and Iraq. Jackson also recalls getting shelled while eating in a mess hall in Al Anbar Governate in Iraq. Camp Pendleton ; Fallbrook, California ; Marine Corps Installation West 0 6078 Jackson's relationship with CSUSM and work with California State Parks Jackson recalls returning to the area and getting acquainted with former university President Karen Haynes and joining the CSUSM Foundation's board. Jackson describes not desiring to work after his retirement from the military, and why he decided to go to work for California State Parks as their director. Jackson also discusses the similarity and differences between working in the military and parks, and discusses his decision to leave California State Parks. California State Parks ; CSUSM ; Jim Mickelson ; Karen Haynes 0 7203 Camp Pendleton and military bases Jackson discusses how Camp Pendleton specifically and military bases in general integrate with their surrounding communities. Jackson also discusses how federal aid and military projects have an effect on the surrounding community. Jackson recounts a negative experience with an invitation to speak at his high school alma mater where he was asked not to wear his uniform. base-community relationships ; Camp Pendleton ; Economic Recovery Act ; federal aid ; prejudice towards servicemen 0 7757 Family history Jackson shows a family history album that his wife, Sue, created, and discusses his family tree, his father's prize fighting career, his grandparents, siblings and extended family. Jackson recounts his mother's side of the family history and their ancestor Green Flake, who was an enslaved man who drove Brigham Young's wagon on the Mormon exodus to Salt Lake City. Jackson speaks to the presence Green Flake has left in history. boxing ; Brigham Young ; enslaved peoples ; family history ; Green Flake ; Jackson family ; monuments ; Mormonism ; Salt Lake City 0 Moving image Major General Anthony L. Jackson retired from the United States Marine Corps on January 1st, 2011, after more than thirty-six years of service. After retiring form the Marine Corps, he served as the Director, California State Parks and Recreation from November 2012 through June, 2014. Major General Jackson has also served as the Chairman of the California State University, San Marcos, Foundation Board of Directors.&#13 ; &#13 ; In his interview, Jackson discusses his upbringing in a military family, including participating in a sit-in in a local drug store, and offers a comparison between his military service and that of his father, who served in the United States Army. Jackson discusses life on military bases and support systems for deployed soldiers. Jackson recounts the courtship of his future wife, Sue, their early relationship, and the experience of being in an interracial relationship in the 1970s. Jackson discusses his later career with the Marines, including serving as Deputy Commanding General for MARCENT, where he helped make the case for the military to purchase Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs) during the second Iraq war, and working as Director of Military Operations and Logistics, AFRICOM. Jackson also discusses finishing his military career by returning to Camp Pendleton and other western U.S. bases as Commanding General for Marine Corps Installation West (MCI West).&#13 ; &#13 ; Jackson also discusses his time working for California State Parks, his relationship with Cal State San Marcos, and his family lineage, which includes the enslaved wagon driver Green Flash, who drove Brigham Young's wagon on the Mormon exodus to Salt Lake City. Sean Visintainer: Hello, this is Sean Visintainer, and I'm interviewing Major General Anthony Jackson for the California State University San Marcos University Library Special Collections Oral History initiative. Today is March 7th, 2023, and this interview is taking place at the University Library. Major General Jackson, thank you for interviewing with us today. Anthony Jackson: Yeah, you're welcome. It's a, it's a privilege, kind of a, an honor, I guess I should say. Visintainer: These are, uh, the favorite part of my job that I get to do. So it's a real pleasure to have you. I forgot to mention that I will take some notes as we're interviewing, just so you know. Jackson: Sure. Visintainer: So I can circle back to questions if I have them. Jackson: All right. Visintainer: Uh, things like that. And I wanted to just start off by asking you about your childhood and your formative years. Jackson: Yeah. Visintainer: Um, where were you born? Jackson: I was born at Madigan General Hospital in Fort Lewis, Washington. My father was a career soldier. So I was the fourth of his children. Uh, let's see. And being a military brat, you grow up in a lot of different places. But, uh, yeah, my dad, uh, he lied about his age and lied about his parentage to join the army shortly after Pearl Harbor. He met his, my mother in, May of [19]42, and married her in June of the same year. And then he went overseas to Europe for, for three years. In those days they went for the duration and came home to see my, uh, oldest sister was three years old when he got home. Visintainer: Wow. Jackson: And then, my older brother was born in [19]46, and then Matt, and then Don was born in [19]48, and then I was born in [19]49, and the Korean War broke out so my mother got a break. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And dad came home in [19]52, and Clay was born in [19]53. And then Dana was born in, uh, [19]56, and Tawnya was born in [19]57. I guess they're Irish twins. And that was the last of the kids. But if you notice, I was seven. The girls, Betty is the oldest, and Tanya the youngest. And then there's five boys, and I'm the top dead-center. Visintainer: Wow. Jackson: Uh, and, uh, highly competitive sports-oriented family with the boys. And, uh, I guess I should say that the main thing in that growing up was, I was kind of taking notes and reviewing my own life a couple weeks ago ; that I started school in Germany, did kindergarten and first grade in Germany, and then my dad got stationed in Los Angeles. So I, uh, spent the second grade in Los Angeles. Then I spent the third grade-- He got sent someplace else, spent the third grade in Houston, Texas, his hometown. And then I spent four through the seventh grade in Colorado at two different schools. And then back to Texas for the eighth. And then in the middle of the ninth grade, a couple months into the ninth grade, we moved to California in 1963 as uh, and all my teachers in Texas were excited. I was going to such a great state for academics. And so I got here in October [19]63 as a ninth grader, as the brand new kid talking funny, dressing, funny and-- Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: Fighting my way through the ninth grade. But, so I was fortunate to go to high school in Oakland. You know that they have three-year high school. So all my high school years, I was the first of my brothers and sisters. If you'll see those days, you'll see that they got ripped off and didn't go to one single high school, my older one. So I was the first one that kind of got planted at one place. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And then, um, and that was really good because counselors and everybody started prepping me for college. Uh, Mrs. [Phyllis] Collier wouldn't let me go. She constantly -- she was my counselor -- constantly tried to get me into college prep classes, which she did, and make me take the SATs. You're not going to the state wrestling finals unless you take the SATs. And, uh, and that was a good experience. Yeah. Football became my, uh, my great love of sports, although played a lot of baseball, basketball, and all those kinds of things, wrestled in high school. But I got a football scholarship, offered several scholarships. I was lucky to be... I was born at exactly the right time. You know, the high, the civil rights movement, the, all the sacrifices of so many people during the Civil Rights Movement. When I graduated from high school in 1967, universities were looking for me in terms of race, in terms of athleticism, in terms of grades and SATs. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And I just happened to be born at that exact right juncture of the civil rights movement and who could get that young African American into the university. But I took a football scholarship, because I knew that was just based on pure athleticism or whatever. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: But it was still important. That was, the doors were opening wide, and I just happened to be the right age, born at right time as well. So that was my kind of through high school, uh, living in a lot of different places. Three years in Germany, four years in Colorado, off and on in Texas. And so, um, with mom and dad always providing a good solid family basis, and my mother was incredibly, like, I still look back and, you know here I was a high-ranking officer, [inaudible] and having two kids was expensive. Here my dad was a sergeant in the army, not an officer. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And he, and somehow she managed to put together great meals that we were all healthy and athletic and all that. And I still wonder how she did it. It was pretty-- she was pretty fantastic. She sewed our clothes and did all kinds of things that, you know sometimes I see the kids walking around here with patches and torn jeans and all that. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: That would've been so embarrassing for my family. &lt ; laughter&gt ; We were, we were poor, you know, and here these kids, I guess middle class kids that, that wanted to look like that. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: We would've been totally embarrassed. And mom would sew up those torn spots. Visintainer: You said she was, uh, she managed to make great meals for everybody in your family. Jackson: Yeah. Visintainer: I was curious, is there a, is there a, a particular meal or food that really evokes memories of your childhood? Jackson: I would say that we ate a lot of cooked cereal. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: You know, things like cornmeal and oatmeal and grits and yeah. And, um, it was because it was inexpensive and filled with nutrition. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: I presume and it filled you up, you know? And so, uh, yeah. And you never turned your back on your plate. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Spaghetti and meatballs, you turn your back. One of those meatballs was gonna be missing you know. I mean, you never missed dinner. You never missed a meal. You were always home. You didn't wear a watch. You didn't have a watch, but you knew what dinnertime was. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And you knew, you knew that, uh, you know, to be home for dinner. Um, so my mother was a, just a great cook. And, uh, and I just remember that there was always a meal, uh, sometimes they were pretty creative. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: Like, she would make syrup out of, uh, out of sugar and water, and she'd just melt it down. And that would be the syrup for your pancakes. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: You know, she didn't, orange juice, you know, if the can said "mix three cans of water with this," she'd probably mix four, four or five you know, stretching things out. She could do that. But, uh... Man, she-- Yeah, you would never turn down one of her meals. I would just say that, uh, everything she cooked was worthy of eating. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: Except turnips. Visintainer: So that was the, that was the vegetable. That was-- Jackson: Yeah, that was the one. I mean I liked all the other green vegetables and stuff like that. But I never really, I was kind of amazed when I was being recruited. I was being recruited to play football at UC [University of California] Berkeley. And, um, they brought me into the Bear's Lair, Bear's Lair, their kind of campus restaurant. And they put a salad in front of me, a green salad with just lettuce-- Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And I said, what &lt ; laughs&gt ; , what am I supposed to do with this? Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Because I'd never had a lettuce salad that I could ever have recalled. So I had to watch, uh what the coaches who were recruiting me were doing with that 'cause our meals were substantial. And [inaudible] they were designed to fill you up, you know? Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: As a kid more than anything. Yeah. Visintainer: Did, uh, did you live on bases? Jackson: Yeah. We s-- you know, um... We, we, we lived on and off base. The military, it wasn't until my time in the military, the military used to be when you got stationed overseas, families had to move off the base housing. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And it was in my times in, I think in the, uh, I want to say in the 1980s, that even though your, uh, spouse was overseas, you could stay on base, uh, at least in the Marine Corps. But we lived, um, sometimes we'd stay a while with relatives. But my mother was from Salt Lake City, Utah. And so we would sometimes stage there for a couple months before we went overseas or before we went to California or something like that. And, but, let's see, on-- in Germany, yeah, all that time was on military base. Colorado was four years on military base. Oakland, the first couple of years we lived on a military base, but my dad also kept a little home in Houston, Texas. And a couple of times we would move into that house. And uh, but when he retired from the Army when I was a senior in high school, he bought a home in Oakland. Visintainer: Okay. Jackson: And that was my senior year so that was the first year I had moved up in the pecking order to get a bedroom by myself. 'Cause we usually lived in a three-bedroom house, one [bedroom] for mom and dad, one for the two girls and then the last one, was either for my older brother, if it was small. And we, like in Colorado the older brother had a room, and then the four younger ones slept in the basement. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: In bunk beds, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And then finally when I was a senior, I got a room to myself for a few months when, you know, so, um--But we settled, the family settled in Oakland. And that's where my mother and father lived until they passed away. And, uh, they-- so it was, uh, the military bases are sort of protected in some ways from-- Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: A little bit different than society, you know. And then even as I went through my career, we stayed on bases sometimes. Not always. Visintainer: Uh, you said that the military bases are protected and different from society. Jackson: Yeah. Its-- They're, they're a little bit different-- Visintainer: Could you explain-- Jackson: Because first of all, I'll never forget, like when we were stationed in Hawaii, and my kids were like six months old when we got there, and two years old. So they were pretty young. But by the time they were there, we were there for a year or two. The military police knew where your kids belong. They knew what house. If they saw your kid running amuck someplace, "Yeah, maybe you had to go back to your yard," you know, because-- And so from that standpoint, and military police are a different sort of presence. They're more like the old neighborhood police officers. They're Marines essentially. And now they have some civilians that do that on military bases. The other thing is: all your neighbors, you're all in the same boat. You know, you're gonna say, although, you know, you have sometimes segregated housing based on rank. Um, um, and they [military bases] have their elementary school, they have their grocery stores. They have their equivalent of a Walmart or 7-Eleven. They have their gas stations, their fire department, the hospital. So you have a city, literally, or maybe even several towns, like as big as Camp Pendleton is, there are several schools in like the northern part. Once you get to high school, uh, and junior high, you go to San Clemente Public Schools. Visintainer: Okay. Jackson: On the, on the eastern side, where I lived on the base, or southeastern side, you go to Fallbrook schools and on the south side of the base, you go to Ocean-- your kids go to Oceanside schools. So, uh, but, um, everybody's employed, you know? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: There is a hierarchy, you know. If you're-- That is respected. Kids stop when they're hearing the national anthem is being played every morning at eight o'clock. If they're at the playground in the morning at eight o'clock, or when the flag's coming down in the evening at sunset, they'll stop. And you'll see kindergarteners stand in position of attention, while getting off the swings and the teeter-totter or whatever they call them now. And uh, it's kind of unique. Even my Great Dane used to know to stop and sit when the national anthem was being played, you know, just-- So it's a, and race is erased. Mostly. I mean we're all a product of American society. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Um, um, and it's more, I would say it's more of a meritocracy in terms of what you experience and how you experience, and your rank and your uniform automatically entitles you to X amount of respect. And everybody rec-- and that includes the general has to respect the most junior person, you know. And so uh, you're somewhat protected and there's rules that are, that are pretty strict, you know? And even the, even the nurses in the emergency room got to know my sons. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: "Hey, Brian, what are you in here for this time?" You know. He's a skateboarder. Bashed his skull, skinned his face, you know, all of that stuff. And they know him. "Uh, okay. You're a Jackson kid. All right. Okay." Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Do you, do you think that that experience was similar for your father? Jackson: No my dad, he lived a whole different world. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: He's one of the stage setters. When he, when he was 17 years old, trying to get into the military in 1942, Marines didn't accept Blacks into the military. It wasn't until a year later, you know. And he lived in Texas, you know, grew up in Texas. And in his youth and for a long time, even through a portion of my youth, Texas was one of the most violent places to be African American. I mean I had a, I had one of my Marines, a master gunnery sergeant, a very senior enlisted Marine, who was my senior enlisted advisor. And he's a Texan, African American. And his father was lynched in Texas. And so what's your, um-- You know, so there's, there's, there's only a generation or two that separates you from that kind of conduct. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And when my dad joined the Army, it was segregated. Matter of fact, he was stationed at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, 'cause that's where one of the last of the Buffalo Soldiers were stationed at, at, at, um, even at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, the Buffalo Soldiers had been stationed at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City. And so when they started bringing in African Americans into the US Army for World War II, that became a place where they trained. And so they didn't have a USO [United Service Organization], they had a USO for white soldiers, but they didn't even have a USO for Black soldiers. So in creating a USO for Black soldiers, now they recruited my mother, you know, to be one of the hostesses. And that's how they met. And within two weeks they were married. Geez. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And they stayed married, you know. Um, so. And dad, I am sure when I see, you know, I think he was extraordinarily smart, extraordinarily clever. And you had to be more clever to survive, I think, in those days, because there were a lot of racial booby traps that you could walk into. And I think that, um, I don't know all of the history of that, but he should have been, with the number of years he spent in, 24 years, he should have been a higher rank in most circumstances. And I won't recall what the family's story is as to why, but I have pictures of him at a higher rank. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And then he retired at another rank, lowered, 10 years later, you know. So he was, so there was an incident that occurred, I think, with my older brother, Matt. And he was, an officer had bumped him on his bicycle and knocked him to the ground and knocked a tooth out, and when my dad was called to the scene, this is more family lore, the officer used the N-word in referring to my, my brother. And the officer was white, and my dad reflexively hit him. And he was a master sergeant at the time. And, uh, this was when we lived in Germany. And my dad was a prize fighter too. He was really good. At one time he was, uh, rated in the world and he was an alternate on the 1948 Olympic team as a light heavyweight. And, um, and so, uh... But the army liked him enough to keep him, but they had to do something. And so he became reduced in rank by one and then permanently put in that rank. Jackson: And he stayed in that rank for another, I want to say twelve years, which is not normal. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Even today or yesteryear, that wouldn't have been normal. So they liked him, but they [inaudible]. So he paid a price that I could-- I didn't pay. And when I joined the Marine Corps, I'll never forget what him saying, "Why did you want to join that redneck outfit?" Because remember, in [19]42, they wouldn't take, they took a lot of, and it was [19]43, they had their first [Black] officer, they had their first [Black] pilot in about 1950, first general African American in 1981, Frank Petersen. So it's uh, it was kind of a, you know, my, my my answer to him was, if not me, who? Somebody has to be. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: I was not the first but I was one of the few at the time that came in. And General Petersen leading the way, of course. But yeah, dad had a different life. Mom had a different life. She, I mean education, that was the key difference. You know, is that I was fortunate my mother and father were both high school grads and both of them believed in the power of education. So that was, I think it was really vital to the development of all of us. And then coming to California, which when I came here, it was the number one best school system, public school system in the nation. And I don't know-- If I understand, it doesn't rank very high now, but when I came here, the, you know, from the high school to the community colleges, to the state colleges and state universities, uh, it couldn't be better. So another lucky break for Tony Jackson. Visintainer: Yeah. Um, you mentioned your dad grew up in Texas. Jackson: Yeah. Visintainer: And he had kept a house there for quite a while. Jackson: Right. Visintainer: Was he particularly, uh, happy when he got stationed in Houston? Jackson: You know, that's something that I would've been too young. He was, he wasn't stationed in Houston. He was stationed in another-- at, uh, Fort Hood, which is outside [Houston]. I don't think that-- he never expressed that. And I was too young if he, if he emoted it to my mother, you know? That was, that would've been grown-up talk back in those days. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: But Houston was segregated. It was, the schools were segregated. It was kind of ironic because I'd lived on army bases. I'd done most of my-- Up until the time we moved to Texas, when I was in the third grade, I did kindergarten, first grade in Germany at integrated school, at the military school on base. And then we came out to California. But that was a short stay. But I did second grade in integrated schools. Then all of a sudden, in third grade, I'm in this town and the part of town where dad had a house, everybody's Black, the policeman's Black, the pharm is Black, the teachers and principals, they're all Black. And that was the first, you know, uh, 1958. And, uh, it was, uh, it was very interesting. Corporal punishment. That's the first time I met that one too. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Where the teachers could paddle you? Yeah. You, they, they, they still did that. I remember getting my hand paddled because my writing was so poor. Um, but, um... So we moved there [Houston] because he did not want us probably to live in the part of Texas where that base was, and close to relatives. He had a, uh, his, his half-sister lived there, the aunt that helped raise him lived in Houston. And so, and his father lived in Houston. And so, uh, we lived there just a half mile or so from his sister and my aunt, Juanita. And so, uh... And he never gave any indication that he wanted, um, wanted to live there permanently in Houston. You know, I mean, the movie theaters, in those days, you had to sit in the balcony, even the beaches were s-- you know, they had a rope. This was for white people. This was for Black people. Don't cross the rope. The drinking. I remember as a 13 year-old doing a sit-in, in the eighth grade, when we moved back there the second time, the civil rights movement was pretty churned up. And young people, high school, college were doing sit-ins at, uh, at the drug stores that didn't allow you to sit at the soda fountains. You might be able to buy something there, but don't sit down at the counter. And I remember myself from a couple of my eighth and ninth grade buddies, we decided, we were waiting for a bus, and we wanted a RC Cola and a moon pie. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And we walked into the local drugstore to buy 'em, and we decided we were gonna sit at the lunch counter, like all these kids were doing around the nation. So we did our little sit-in, and they, this big old guy comes out from somewhere in the warehouse, and he's pounding on a billy club, like, "Hmm, what are you kids doing?" But he didn't say anything to us, just the, the waitress behind the counter. She was very nervous trying to get us to get up. And we looked over and saw him and just waved. And then our bus came and we walked out. But it was our little, that was our little act of defiance. And every now and then, you'd have to say if not me who? And so we sat at a lunch counter for a while, you know. Visintainer: So I had seen it in another interview. You'd referenced this, uh, lunch counter sit-in. Uh, didn't go into detail. And so I wanted to ask you a few questions about it. So it was, uh, it was totally spontaneous? You were-- Jackson: Yeah. It was spontaneous. We, it was, it was in the news. People were doing it in Virginia, in Memphis, and, you know, and it was a, you knew there was a kind of a hazard you could end up, you know, uh... in jail or something, you know. But we just, I think there's been a couple of times where I've been involved in civil rights protests, but where you just have to do something, you know. I mean, I mean, you just-- I watched my older sister, probably one of the greatest acts of defiance that I've ever seen: my older sister, Betty, she's 80 years old yesterday, and she's just as tough as she was when she was. But I was riding a bus with her in Houston, and this was in the fifties too, so it had to be about [19]58. And we were riding across town, heading home, and we, we sat right in front of the bus. Whether she was thinking, you know... You got to, she's, she's a pretty feisty little-- and then she would've only been about 13 or 14, and I would've been third grade. And, so we sat in the front of the bus, and the bus driver stopped, and the bus was crowded, and he wanted-- bus driver stopped and came out, told her she had to get up, go back of the bus and let these white people sit down. And I'm like, "Hmm." I'm only nine years old. So I'm like, hmm, this big old guy is. And then she refused to move. And, um... And then he balled up his fist and he threatened her, and she refused to move. And, uh, and she just sat there, and then he had to go drive that bus, and he left her alone the rest of the ride. She never budged. Visintainer: That's very courageous. Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the way she is. And so you, you know, I've seen, and, you know you grew up with those pictures on tv, the Birmingham and all that stuff, and Little Rock and, bombings and kids with-- and so you knew that there was this tension. But like I tell people, and I gave a speech the other day for Black History. I was always a person that took literally the words of the, the, the preamble to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address. And I remember I had to memorize the preamble in the Gettysburg Address and the first couple of paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence when I was in segregated schools in Houston, Texas, in the ninth grade. And I took those words literally. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And I looked at my dad's service, and he had obviously paid a, you know, paid for his citizenship, wearing that uniform for 24 years. And so I always have had the feeling and, uh, that, "Hey, if you're, if you're better than me, that means you can whip me in the football field or wrestling, or you can beat me on the spelling bee or the math bee or something like that. But you don't automatically get that. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: That's not an automatic. I walk through the door like you walk through the door, and then we'll see how it goes. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And, uh, and I guess that's, I even, uh, even in my own career, I kept that same kind of attitude. And you know, and I've got deep roots that in terms of where my family comes from, especially on my mother's side. My wife does these great genealogies. And, I actually book brought the book that she has kind of put together. Rather than just a photo album, she puts together genealogical albums, and they're kind of cool. Visintainer: Nice. Jackson: I'll show you at some point if you want to see it. Visintainer: Yeah, I'd love to. Jackson: Yeah. But, so, but, you know. One of the things I do tell people, sometimes younger people is that, we like to say that we're all born equal. And that's a kind of an idealistic sort of thing. But if your mother was a drug addict and you were born addicted, you're not the same as the guy who's like, my kids, you know, their dad was already an officer, and already was financially stable, their mother was healthy, a registered dietician, and what she did during her pregnancy is very different than what this-- And so the kids start out equal in terms of under whatever your religion is, under your god's eye, maybe they're equal, but in terms of what the world's offering 'em right now, real different. Okay. And so things like race-- and so I say, "Everybody's born with a backpack, and in that backpack is X amount of rocks." And it's a little bit different, what the weight is at birth. Now, as you go through life, you can take out a rock or you can add a rock. Some of 'em are based on choices of, of your own choice. And some of 'em are based on family choices or just accidents. And race is one of those things that can either be, um, a rock, a heavy rock in your pack. Or it can lighten your load. And that's one of the ironic things about it is for my dad, it was probably a heavier rock, but for me, it lightened the load. It might have actually lightened the load, you know? And so as we-- As you-- And so as a result of that, his carrying a heavy rock and me having much lighter load, I owe him something. But more than that, I owe the next generation something too for that. And, you know, does that make sense? Visintainer: Yeah, that's a wonderful analogy. And something I've never heard phrased that way. Jackson: Yeah. Visintainer: And I think it's, it's uh, befitting somebody who was in the military to talk about weight and backpacks. Jackson: Yeah, right, yeah. I guess, so. Visintainer: Did you come up with the analogy when you were in the military,?Jackson: Yeah. Yeah, probably. I did. Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. I was in you know, it is, uh, it's -- life is like that. Now, and you, and a lot of times, and once you get to be a certain age, and I was telling this young man that I met, he was very bold. He was in the high school, junior ROTC [Reserve Officers Training Corps] at an event a month or so ago, and he walks right up to me having, I was introduced as a general. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And here's this, you know, maybe 14 year-old kid. He was in the ninth grade. And I said, "You know what?" I said, uh, I asked him about his grades and all that. I said kind of, "You're lightening your load. You're an honor student. You wear that uniform well. You're doing athletics, keep doing that. Everything you do, it counts from the ninth grade on. I mean, that's when you're getting your GPA counts, you getting your PSATs, you're doing all these kinds of things that people are gonna judge your next opportunity on -- post high school." And says, "So, you young man are lightening your load, you know, so keep it going." Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Yeah. So it is kind of a, yeah. I guess it's military speak. Can't help it. Visintainer: Yeah. Um, I just had one follow up question about, uh, about your drugstore sit-in. Well, actually, I guess I had a couple. What was the drugstore? Jackson: You know, I'm trying to remember the, because I don't want to-- we had a lot of Walgreens in that part of the country. So I think it was Walgreens at the time, that, uh, it was right at our bus stop. And, uh, yeah. Then they, they became quite a target for students, you know? Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: It's a, nowadays they don't even have the soda fountains in the drugstore like they did in those days, you know? But yeah, I'm pretty, I'm about 90% sure it was Walgreens. Because number one, because I don't remember any other of the drug stores that were there. And it was, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But-- Visintainer: Did, uh, did you ever tell your parents? Jackson: Yeah. Well, at that time, dad was someplace else. I think dad was stationed in close to the North Pole in Greenland. Visintainer: Wow. Jackson: Yeah. And so we were in Houston for that stay. And, um... And I probably told my mother. When I was that [inaudible] age... I really, it was hard for me to imagine living beyond eighteen. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: We lived in Houston. You know, we lived-- we were bused to school past the white high school and junior high into what you might call the ghetto. Fifth Ward in Houston. And it was nicknamed "Bloody Fifth" for good reason, because somebody was getting killed kind of routinely. It was a very violent part of Houston, Texas. And, uh, my junior high and eighth and ninth grade was in Fifth Ward. And my older brothers and sister, they went to Phyllis Wheatley [High School]. I went to E.O. Smith [Junior High] which was named after a African American poet. And, I was probably in a fight, like... I mean, here I was this guy that didn't have an accent. And I was marked, even my teacher, I remember my English teacher mocking my, uh, "trying to talk like a Kennedy," she told me. She told the whole class, 'cause I was reading something and she stopped me. And she, "What are you trying to talk like a Kennedy?" I said, "This is the way we talk in my family." I didn't know this was any different, but yeah, coming to the south, you're talking different and you don't have their accent. And, uh, and so I was kind of a prime target for a while. And yeah. And fortunately I played football and you know, and I had two big bad older brothers. And so, but it was like-- you know, you had to fight. And then right in the middle of ninth grade, I moved to Oakland. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: Which hardly is just that much better. But that was only two fights. So that was quick and easy. And fortunately we were all trained to box and stuff like that, so it turned out all right. But really when I was fourteen, fifteen, I thought eighteen would be, "Yeah. Eighteen's about right." You know? Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: You know, so you, you, you were already, you know, so when I say I'm seventy-three, you know, I'm a happy camper. Visintainer: Yeah. Yeah. Jackson: Exceeded expectations. Yeah. Visintainer: Um, I was curious about when your, when your father was deployed, you said he was deployed to Korea and was he deployed in World War II? Jackson: He was in World War II, but I was not even born, and so the war, he wasn't deployed. He had seven kids by the time Vietnam, so the Army wouldn't send him. You know, that would've been quite a burden. So he did not, well, he served during the Vietnam War in the early stages, he never deployed to Vietnam. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: The family member that got deployed to Vietnam was my older brother, Matt. Visintainer: Okay. Jackson: He was, he was drafted. Uh, and yeah, the way it worked out was that my older sister had graduated from high school. I ended up being the first one to graduate from college, just 'cause my older sister, it wasn't the norm or the expectation. And she had gotten married and had a kid, so, and she's probably as smart or smarter than every one of us. And then Matt, my older brother, there wasn't the financials in the family and he had gone to four. Different. High schools. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Every year. And so, although he's a better athlete than I ever was, he was never recognized in one spot, scouted out by universities or anything. So he ended up going to Chico State [California State University, Chico] a year later on an English literature scholarship. Um, and because he was a year behind his peers, he didn't have the college credits necessary to avoid the draft. And so he got drafted. Visintainer: Wow. Jackson: And then he goes in the army, goes to Vietnam and gets really some disease and maybe even Agent Orange. Uh, he-- affected him very badly over there. And so he was medically evacuated from Vietnam to San Francisco. There was a big army hospital in San Francisco and eventually discharged, got his GI bill, went back to college, got his B.A., Got his master's degree, and became a dean of students up at Butte [California] Community College. So he lived a really good life. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Great kids, two outstanding kids. And then a terrific wife, Billie. Billie passed away a couple years ago, but she's just been selected, gonna have a big induction ceremony through the Chico State Hall of Fame. And so she, and here's his daughter is the CEO, Joy is the CEO. It's not the GRE but there's another graduate record thing, you know, and so Matt did well, so. Don, my older brother, short time in the Air Force, booted him out for whatever he did wrong, you know, but I'm the only one that made it a career [inaudible]. So, uh, um, yeah. But, but mom was always that glue. Just like my wife Sue is the glue for my boys and who did most of the child raising. I had this big strong boxer-soldier dad that I really looked up to and was my lifetime hero. But mom was actually doing the hard work. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And probably the same thing in my family in terms of, you know, dad's a Marine and a officer and doing his thing and going away and, and, but the military spouses who get left behind, they do a lot of the child raising, set the standards. And so when people say thank you for your service, they really ought to be talking to the spouses. Visintainer: Well, and that's something I was kind of curious about in that, when, when somebody's deployed, and if there's, I guess this is kind of a complicated question that I'm formulating as I go along, so I apologize if it gets a little jumbled, but when somebody's deployed, like in your father's time, um, were there support services involved with the Army to help out, to help out the parents that were staying and raising children? Or were they more informal in nature? Jackson: They were very, very, very informal. Not, and I, quite frankly, I can't-- I can't say I have memories of during my father and mother's time that they had the support services which are ingrained in the services now. And even when I came in, to be honest, in [19]75, the military's attitude, the Marine Corps' attitude was probably, well if the, if the Marine Corps wanted you to have a, wanted you to have a spouse they'd have put her in your, in your sea bag when they issued you the gear. Was that in there? Okay. And that was probably the attitude. It wasn't until the eighties that the Navy and the Marine Corps, and I'm not quite sure when the Army, but I'm sure about the same time with them, we started putting together really substantial programs. And first it, it revolved around volunteers and-- but organized in what they call the Key Volunteer Program. And in the Navy it was the Ombudsman Program. And, and, and that, and that was in the eighties. And in, in the, in the, um, 2000s, as we were getting more involved in the Middle East, they actually started hiring family counselors, Members that take, they literally took the place, for each battalion, they would have professional kind of family counselors. And so, and they still had the Key Volunteers, but then they paid people and they had, uh, it was presumed prior to that, that the wives, an officer's wife, the senior officer's wife, would take the lead whether she was-- wanted to or not. It was, it was presumed that that would happen or the senior enlisted wife would team up with her and they would take care of all the younger ones and all that. And there were just some women who were not, you know, not that social or did not want to do that, or were-- wasn't in their personality. So there was a lot. When I was a young commanding officer, a company, I knew if I was over in the Far East in Japan or something and with my whole company and Corporal Ramos' wife was about ready to have a baby here at Camp Pendleton I'd call my wife, buy some flowers for Corporal Ramos' wife, put his name on 'em and take 'em over to the base hospital and make sure she knows that he's thinking about her. And my wife was willing to do that, you know? Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And so, and I would willingly pay for it out of my pocket too. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Uh, but it, it, it's, it is now much more formal and it's expected and it's expected in the military, and now you have a lot of, we probably have more daycare centers per capita than the, than regular society, you know? There's, I forget, there's a half a dozen or more daycare centers on Camp Pendleton. Miramar has theirs all the bases and have the childcare centers. And so I think that there's much more, the military has taken a, uh, realize happy wife, happy spouse. You're more likely to have a career, [inaudible] soldier, sailor, marine. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: You're taking care of the family too. Visintainer: It makes sense in terms of retention and morale and all of that, yeah. Jackson: All of that. You know, one of the things I found is it translates in many ways to combat power. You know that no matter what happens to you, that your family's gonna be taken care of and you're gonna be taken care of. And so that's, that gives you strength, that gives every marine, every soldier, every sailor, that kind of strength. You know that I saw in other foreign armies that you got wounded and you're not killed you, you [shakes head]. So their soldiers weren't as aggressive. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Uh, they didn't have the same initiative to, you know, and it is not because they were less, you know, a man or less brave. It's just that they had that, well, there's no VA [Veteran's Administration], there's no, there's no widow's pension. There's no, you know. And so he's gotta be a little bit more careful, you know? So-- Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: It does equate to the combat power. Visintainer: I's a, it's a rock in your pack perhaps. Jackson: Yeah. In terms of success for the mission that you're about ready to accomplish. Visintainer: Yeah. Okay. Um, excuse me, you mentioned the Key Volunteer Program and so I, so I understand like the, you know, the purpose of a counselor or the purpose of a daycare-- Jackson: Mm-hmm. Visintainer: But I was curious as to what the Key Volunteer Program, like what their purpose was, what types of activities they undertook, and as a support-- Jackson: I, I think the main focus was to make sure if the families had a need, that it was taken care of while the service member was overseas. And a lot of times the wives would organize parties and picnics for the kids and, uh, things like that. Or they would exchange phone numbers so that you knew who to call in case of, you know, there's a rattlesnake in the garage the day after your husband left, you know, the car broke down the day after your husband left. Um, uh, so, but the whole idea of the Key Volunteer Program was to make sure that the families knew where to go when they needed support, when the spouse was deployed overseas. Uh, and, uh, and they were literally volunteer in the most part. In the early days, you didn't get guys, it was mostly the wives, but now we have more you know, the, the... The military member may be the, the, the, the, the woman and the man is now the spouse that needs help when-- Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And you. And so that was the whole point of the, um, the Key Volunteer Program: to bring them together, they knew there was a tight-knit family that would help take care of-- It was kind of like, uh, East Battalion had its own village, you know? And the village was designed to take care of, of all of the people that were left behind. Yeah. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: So yeah, Visintainer: That's, that's pretty interesting. I'd never, never heard of this, uh, program before. Jackson: Yeah. It's a, it's a really good program. They professionalized the lead person at the battalion in about two thousand and three. A battalion's about a thousand Marines. Like on Camp Pendleton you have battalions and squadrons. Squadrons is the aviation equivalent of a battalion. And they would all have a senior lady, and they put, they actually had paid people do that. I think they're maybe toning that down a little bit with no war, but they still have the program. Uh, um, and, uh, yeah. Visintainer: Excuse me. Um, let's talk about how you decided to enlist. So I understand you were, you were graduated with a master's [degree] at this point. Jackson: Yeah. Visintainer: You were working and-- Jackson: Well, let's see. I got married. Sue and I got married. We met at San Jose State [University]. Um, I had always aspired to be an officer. I thought I'd join the Army when I-- I was in ROTC just for a short while, at San Jose State in Army ROTC. And, it didn't sit well with all the other things that I was doing. But I still aspired to be an officer. Okay. I met my wife in an anatomy and physiology class in Spring of 1969. And, um, and it was a night class, so I would just walk her back to her sorority and I'd go down the street to my dorm. It was just a matter of safety and coming out of class after nine o'clock in an urban environment. And, and that was it. We didn't date or anything. I would just escort her. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: You know, football player escorting pretty sorority girl home. And she's only two blocks from, or three blocks from where I was staying in the dorm. But the next fall, we were on campus and I met her on campus, just kind of bumped into each other again, not thinking much of that previous spring. And she said she had moved outta the sorority house, "come on over." So, mm-- you know, I was a little reluctant, you know, uh, blonde blue-eyed. And those days I wasn't dating blonde, blue-eyed gals. So I recruited a couple more football players, Black, to come over and visit her and her friends, just so it would be-- And uh, son of a gun if the three football players and her three roommates all left and went to a party! So there we were, you know, and, uh, we studied together and then we got to start getting together on Thursday nights just to study. My grades shot up which was really good. And she was a home ec[onomics] major, and so she'd experiment with foods with me and being a football player, I could take all the calories she could pump out, you know. So I'd get an extra meal every day, &lt ; laughs&gt ; kind of, every Thursday, when we'd get together. And then finally by the end of that semester, or close to it, I said, "Are we an item?" You know? And we decided that we were an item. So 1970 rolls around, and we, we decide to get permission from her side of the family. My side of the family reluctantly accepted the interracial dating, my dad being a Texan, that, that, you know, he had bad memories of that stuff. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And, uh, my mother was, she loved everybody no matter what. But her [Sue's] parents weren't real happy. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: So the explosion went off and which actually drove us tighter together. We just wanted to date openly. Um, I often say that we had gone to see the movie, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner with Sidney Poitier... And, uh. And when her parents found out about it, and I suddenly realized I was not Sidney Poitier. It wasn't gonna work out. But that sort of drove us together. And within, uh, four or five months, I just asked her to marry me. And, uh, because her family disowned her for the very fact that we'd gotten-- we were wanting to date. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And they didn't want her to date. And I had never told her I loved her. Visintainer: Yeah. Wow. Jackson: We just wanted to date openly. And so... We uh, as the, as the, her world crowded in on her to try to break us up, it forced us together and me to be more defensive of her. And her-- she stood her ground. And uh, I once told my mother, "Well I don't know what love is, but I know what sacrifice is, and she has opted to date me," as opposed to a family that-- I mean, she's 21 years-old, you don't just give up your family. Her family gave up her, you know, and so, and that was just her mother and father by the way, not cousins or grandparents. Um, uh, and so. Uh, we got married. I asked her at Thanksgiving in 1970, "Hon, will you marry me?" You know, and she said, "When?" I had no idea when. I said, "semester break!" Jackson: It was my senior year. She was in grad school. And, uh, so I didn't have a job, but I'd just played my last football game the previous Saturday. And so the scholarship was gonna run out at the end of, uh, at graduation. So I was on time, Four years you know, because four years scholarship, you know, and, uh, so, uh... I s--, but I didn't have any rings or anything. So I go, um, but there was one alum, and this is another reason why I will have to reach back. There was one alum, Paul Barracker, little Jewish guy. He owned, I thought he only owned one jewelry store. He ended up owning four. But this little guy. And I told her [Sue], I asked her on Thanksgiving to marry me. And I said -- when we get back, we were visiting her sister in Sacramento -- "When we get back to San Jose, we'll go to Paul's Jewelers, downtown San Jose, and we'll get rings." Now, I didn't have a nickel. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: That's the ironic self-confident naive, uh, kid I was, I guess. And so Monday rolls around and we go down to Paul's, which is just, you could walk off campus, to Paul's-- Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And Paul's in the store. It's one of these stores that, you know, straight in downtown, it's jewelry on this side, jewelry on that side, just walk back to the counter. Very narrow store. Paul's in the back and he sees me come and I, you know, he was an alum who would come to football practice, sometimes fly to the games on the same plane as the team. So that's how I knew him. Visintainer: Okay. Jackson: As this alum who supported football, not as a friend. I mean, he was old enough to be obviously my dad or, or, or maybe even older than that. And Paul comes running out, I mean, little bitty arms. I could wrap my hand around his bicep, close my fingers. Right. And he's in a football stance. "Tony so good to see you!" "Paul, hold it!" He's really enthusiastic. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Old European kind of an accent. And, uh, he-- I said, "Paul, hold it. I want you to meet my fiancé, Sue." And he said, "Oh, so pleased to meet you, Sue!" Does this double handshake. I'll never forget this. And then he goes, I said, "Well, what are you doing?" I said, "Paul, I came to buy, uh, our wedding rings and engagement ring." He says, "Oh, good! Good, good, good!" I said, "But Paul, I don't have any money, so if you hire me, I'll start to work." He says, "Okay! Okay, okay. You stop bothering me. Go back, talk to my secretary, fill out the application. You can come to work. Sue, you can buy anything in the store." So I got, I got a job selling jewelry through, through grad school, paid for those rings. I come to find out just a few years ago that Sue gave him a $25 down payment or something, but she just told me that. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: But I worked for Paul. He taught me all about sapphires and all the diamonds and his jeweler, the guy who made some of the jewelry, he would teach me. He was from France. And he would, we had, I'd give him some English lessons, and now he liked my accent because it was flat. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: You know, it didn't come with a New York or a twang or anything like that, accent. And so we exchanged a little bit of, he would teach me about clarity and diamonds, and I would clarify some words he didn't understand. Okay. But I did that for about a year and a half. And I also, uh, coached at a junior college -- football -- and realized that I didn't want to be a football coach. But I had finished my master's degree, started my PhD at UC [University of California] Santa Cruz in history. And just, and I was teaching a class -- History of Third World Peoples -- as a grad student. And I just said, "Stop. I gotta, I gotta get on with life." Sue was a high school teacher. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And so I actually went to work for an insurance company. So time is marching on. In the back of my mind, I still want to be a military officer. I still, war is going on in Vietnam, and I'm sitting here now, I'm in the insurance business. I'm making a lot of money. We bought a house in what became Silicon Valley. I can't even afford that house now. But bought a house. She got tenured. I was making a lot of money in the insurance business. My boss was really glad that I decided, you know, again, I was offered several jobs. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: You know, when I finally decided to work, he tried to recruit me right outta college. And my, before I-- Right when Sue and I got married, he tried to get me to go to work for him at his insurance company, and I'd turned it down, but now here I was a year or two later and I was working for him and he was really good. It was like having somebody, being in a master's degree class, the Michael Anderson Agency with Penn Mutual Life. And this guy, Mike Anderson, was just a terrific teacher and mentor. And, and so I got off to fast start under his wing in insurance, and I was the consummate kind of, you know, I'd just been the captain of the football team, and all that [inaudible]. I'd been in San Jose for five years and all that stuff. So I knew a lot of people. And so I could contact them. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: But one day I was with a bunch of clients in, uh, in, uh, Candlestick Park, the old Giants, San Francisco Giants watching the Giants and Dodgers play in May of 1975. And across the screen, the-- from days on end, you saw pictures in the news of Marines and soldiers evacuating people from Saigon [now Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam] and helicopter, dramatic, people holding onto the rails of helicopters trying to get out as the North Vietnamese took over the country. And the same thing was happening in Camb-- Cambodia, and Phnom Penh. And so, uh, I... And an American ship, the U.S.S Mayaguez had been captured by the Khmer Rouge, a communist group, and we didn't know where the sailors were from that ship. And across the screen at the ballgame, kind of the old ticker tape kind of thing. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: "US Marines, recapture the Mayaguez." Said the thing. And I'm sitting here with hotdogs and beer and entertaining clients at a game. So the next day I put on my suit and I went to a recruiter. Didn't tell my wife. He goes, "Hey, you go to college?" And I said, yeah. And he said, "Well, you need to go see the officer selection offer in Alameda." So I took all my tests, signed up all in one day, came home and told her. I remember the guy, he goes, "Do, you wanna, you want me to come home? I got a great movie we can show your wife. About what you're about ready to experience." I said, "You don't want me in my house tonight," &lt ; laughter&gt ; , "When I tell her what I just did." So I became private Anthony Jackson for a while before I went off OCS [Officer Candidate School]. But I was twenty-six, I was running out of time, and these guys were serving overseas, risking their lives. And here I had done nothing to really validate what I thought. And my idealistic view was to validate my citizenship and ensure that you could never deny me. As my father did, as my little brother did. So-- Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And I still promised my wife it would only be for three years. Said, "Three honey. That's it." I actually got out and went into the reserves for about a year in keeping that three-year promise, which really, I was kind of sliding. I didn't realize I was gonna, eh long-- I found that the Marine Corps was my calling. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And even I got out, went to work, another high-paying job. Got, they gave me a brand new car with Kaiser Aluminum &amp ; Chemical, and sent me to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But I just couldn't believe I'd be working. Uh, and I, so I joined a reserves unit to stay in touch, and then I realized that I started living for that reserve weekend. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And not what I was doing with Kaiser and, uh, and money wasn't important to me. And so I asked the Marine Corps to take me back, and the rest is kind of history at [inaudible] point. Visintainer: Had you ever expressed to Sue before you, uh, before you enlisted, that you had this idea? Jackson: Yeah, she knew that. She knew that that was kind of in my bones, but I really wanted-- I, in the first couple years with that flare-up in her family over our marriage, I wanted to make sure we had a solid marriage. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Before I all of the sudden ran off and left her, you know. I really did. I think that was why I delayed for so long, uh, was, you know, that was a pretty big sacrifice on her part. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And it was never healed back up. I never, I had never met my-- I met my mother-in-law, but I never did meet my father-in-law. Although we did have a civil conversation on the phone one time. But that was the only time I even talked to him. And that was in like 1978. So, um, and then he passed away. As if-- it was ironic because he and I should have been really good friends. We're, you know, he's a naval officer. He was a World War II destroyer escort. And he had, he'd graduated from UC Berkeley, their ROTC program. He was down here in San Diego when Pearl Harbor was attacked, on his reserve duty and mobilized right away. And they sailed into Pearl Harbor just the week after. You know, he was still smoldering. Things were still, they were still trying to find guys that were in capsized ships that were still alive. And, um, and he kept a diary. And, a part of that time, he had great distinguished service during World War II, became the CO [Commanding Officer] of a ship. He was a junior ensign when Pearl Harbor happened, but he had his own ship by the time the war ended. And, uh, and then he retired as a Navy-- captain in the Navy, in the reserves, started his own business in, uh, he became a plumbing contractor, not a-- the guy that supplies all the contractors with all their gear. And during the boom years of growth in the Bay Area and made millions. And of course my wife probably didn't know how many millions he made, but she was disinherited. And that was, that was, uh, her sister got it all when he passed away. And that's probably how we found out. But, um, and so, yeah. She's, she's tough. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: You know, and, and held her ground and, uh, and it has been a source of strength and you don't really recognize all those things. She is motivating. She won't take credit, but she has been a prime motivating factor in my life. Um, uh, I mean she has her own, she has her own opinions, her own thoughts, et cetera. But, you know, you want to, you want to do well for those who believe in you kind of a deal. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: So you know, I've always wanted, I mean, I've taken great risk at times without thinking about that, but I think one of the things that's always in the back of my mind is that, you know, I do owe this woman something. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: You know, so don't screw it up, buddy. But that means certainly you have to be a person of strength, especially if you're in an organization like the Marine Corps. You know, you're not a yes person. I mean, you can't be a yes person. I mean, you, you, you, you have to gauge when you should engage and you have to engage when you should just, maybe just shut up, but be willing to take on the right fights, you know? And sometimes you win 'em, sometimes you lose 'em, but don't back down until it's time to back down and then have the judgment to know when it's time to back down, you know. So it's kind of a give and take thing, because sometimes you're the boss and sometimes you're the junior guy that has to execute the plan. Visintainer: And having that judgment, I think is really difficult when you're, uh, so invested in something. Jackson: Yeah. Visintainer: And I imagine if you're in the Marine Corps and you're in a situation where you need to have that judgment, you're very invested in it. Jackson: Yeah. And, uh, and I've been on those sides of that, you know. I've lost an argument and then had to be the presenter, you know? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: You know, you're the guy that, uh, "Wait a minute! I was the only one in the room that objected." "Yeah. But you're, you're the communicator. You're gonna communicate it up the chain, right?" "Wait a minute, I'm-- there were twelve guys that agreed with you, sir." "Yeah, Tony, but you were the most articulate, you're presenting it! Just make sure you win!" Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: "When you present it up the chain, you know?" So I've been on that side of the coin. And, you know, you-- And the other thing is, I did appreciate the Marine Corps. That the Marine Corps appreciates strength and not weakness, not, you know, it appreciates the fact that you will pick the right time and place. You know, you don't want to embarrass the boss, but will you challenge him? And so you have to have that combination of moral courage and judgment and communication skills to win over when it's not, it may not be a smooth subject. Okay? I think that is both been an asset and may have cost me a little bit of something at some point, but not nothing that-- I mean, my career exceeded my expectations. I'm not a Naval Academy guy. I'm not an ROTC guy. I didn't come out as a 21 year-old. I came in as second oldest guy in my OCS platoon. There was one other army guy that was a former soldier that was older than me, but I was, I was already as a-- the same age as my first bosses, my first commanding officers when I was a second lieutenant. And so I was always kind of -- agewise -- I think that was an edge, actually, that lightened my load because I had a sense of humor and I wasn't afraid of the process. I wasn't afraid of the process. Yeah. Because you had to. Yeah. When you go to OCS or recruit training, like down here in San Diego, you just have to drop who you are. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: For that twelve weeks. You gotta just drop who you are and accept that you're gonna be a mold. You get to be who you are once you get out of that process, you know, of them breaking you down and building you back up. So I think my age was actually a benefit. Because of my body was still, uh, easily willed into Marine Corps shape. So, yeah. And having a dad who was a sergeant in the army probably helped me a lot too. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: I already knew how to make a military bed, you know, to inspection standards. We did that before we went to Sunday school. We got inspected. You know, it's really funny about not remembering this as a kid. You're standing in front of your bunk just like I did at OCS, and your dad's inspecting the shine on your shoes and the crease in your trousers and stuff like that, you know. And here you are, you're ten, you're ten years old, and dad's throwing a quarter on the bed to see if it bounces. The bed's that tight. The bed has to be tight enough of that coin to bounce up, you know? So Yeah. We got those inspections on Sundays. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Boys lined up. Uh, yeah. But, uh, yeah. So, yeah. So it's been what? Sue and I have been married, yeah, we just celebrated our 52nd [wedding anniversary], you know-- Visintainer: Congratulations. Jackson: Whew. Yeah. That's, uh, it's been, it's been a road. It's been a good road. 'Cause we, you know, we, we, we have a lot of things. I tell her that the reason why we're a successful marriage is because we have absolutely nothing in common. You know? I'm a hunter and she's a doggone near herbivore. You know, not quite, but you know, uh, yeah. And we, we, we have a lot of, a lot of differences, which make it kind of good because she has her leans, and I have my leans, you know? Visintainer: Yeah. It gives you space to be your own person and you can come together around commonalities. Jackson: Right, right. And so, and then we'll come together for like a trip to the Sierras [Sierra Nevada mountain range]. Well I'll do fishing, and she'll do her native plant art, her botanical art. She likes to do that. And, uh, and so it's really kind of interesting. They'll come back at the end of the day, she'll show me her drawings and I'll show her my one little fish. So, yeah. But, uh, Visintainer: Excuse me. So, um, so you've had a really long and distinguished career and I don't think we have time to go through it in like, phase, you know, and, and every phase of it. So I'd like to skip forward just a bit towards the end of your military career. Jackson: Okay. Visintainer: And talking about the work that you did, as I understand it, as the commander of, marine camps, Marine Corps, Installations West. Jackson: Right. Visintainer: Um, and so this is a, this is a big deal, right? Jackson: This is the culmination of, uh, um, all of my general officer assignments were big deals, I thought. I mean, they were shocking the amount of responsibility a nation was willing to give a person and this special trust and confidence that you build up over, you know, twenty-eight, twenty-nine years and they finally make you a general. Um, so, uh, if you don't mind, I'll talk about the first assignment. I was, uh-- here, I was selected for my first star as Brigadier General. And I was given the assignment to be the Deputy Commanding General for Marine [Corps] Forces Central Command. MARCENT in shorthand. So, which meant that I was gonna be the deputy for first General [Wallace "Chip"] Gregson, then General [John F.] Sattler, and then general, I had three generals who became my bosses, general [James N.] Mattis. Um, so in that capacity, my headquarters, I had two headquarters, one in Tampa, Florida, where Central Command is, and one in, Bahrain, which is on the Arabian Gulf near Saudi Arabia. And, my main job was to ensure that commanders and marines in contact on the battlefield had what they need. You're, you're the link for, the commander needs this, and industry makes it, and your headquarters. You were the judge on whether: did they really need it? And if they really needed it -- which I always agreed with the commander on the battlefield, because he knew his needs -- does the industry have it? And if headquarters is fighting it, tell them to get it, we're buying it. And I had that budget too, and so I would visit the battlefields and visit the commanders, uh, both Afghanistan and Iraq during that two year assignment. And they, and, and the-- so being in and out of the battlefield, it was different than being deployed. I had been deployed to Iraq as a colonel, but as a general, I was in and out. And I would also do diplomatic stuff in Egypt for the United States military. In Egypt, in Pakistan, and Bahrain and Oman. And I would go around and visit the military commanders and my peers. And, um, but the most critical thing I did was teaming up with a scientist named Susie Alderson, who is from right here in Fallbrook. And we, the battlefield, the commanders were wanting a vehicle that was more durable and could sustain the improvised explosive device explosions [IEDs]. And we just did not have that. Uh, we had the vehicle that our, our, our explosive ordinance disposal teams, they had a vehicle called a mine resistant, ambush protected vehicle, an MRAP. And if they got hit by a mine, it, because these guys went out into mine fields all the time and diffused them, or blew 'em up or whatever. They had this one special vehicle that the South Africans had developed that MRAP, but the [US armed] services weren't, they were sold on the Humvee for some reason. We were taking horrific casualties from these improvised explosion devices. Taking off arms, legs, killing people. And so when I was in Afghanistan, I had a United, I visited this United Nations mine clearing team, and they invited me to ride in one of these South African-built MRAPs as they were gonna clear mines. And here this general, my aide was a young captain. He did not want to get in that vehicle, but they had kind of like, "come on for the ride," okay sort of challenge you. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And I'm in a helmet, flack jacket. I've even got ballistic protection where it really counts, you know, and, uh, so, and these guys were dressed much like you. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And so I took-- accepted their ride, and we hit probably seven mines, more? Visintainer: Wow. Jackson: But they were all -- fortunately -- anti-personnel mines. And so we got rattled and we could hear the shrapnel hitting the sides of the vehicle, but we were okay. But-- Visintainer: What did that feel like when you hit a mine that first time? Jackson: Well, this vehicle was pretty solid, right? Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: I mean, what it, what it just, it kind of set off alarms and gives you a little adrenaline rush. And it was kind of like if you'd had, you ever had a rock hit the windshield in front of your car? The way it smacks that hard. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: Yeah. It's like a bunch of those at once. Except they're hitting metal, so you-- And I could see our chase! They gave us a chase vehicle just in case we got stranded out there, you know, vehicle breakdown. And I could see he was hitting them too. So it wasn't doing any, anybody, any good. The Soviets had laid a lot of mines and they were just, they were just horrible in Afghanistan, 'cause they put 'em in these farmers' fields so they wouldn't grow, couldn't grow crops. And that's what the UN was doing there, clearing them as we were fighting Taliban or whoever else. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And so I came home. I had this passion to get this vehicle, and I had, but I wasn't gonna be able to do it. Generals, the Army had refused, the Marine Corps had refused to get this vehicle. There was a whole, I didn't realize this fight was going on. I just knew my experience. And I had seen them before. General Gregson had showed me one. And here comes Susie Alderson. She had been in Iraq for a number of months, and she on her own initiative, she was a scientist assigned to me. And so she had been over there. Um, mine was a new command, so they had just set up MARCENT to handle the Middle East. And so I was the first permanent. So here I had this scientist assigned to me, and I hadn't tasked her with anything mm-hmm. But she had been over there and she did a study on survivability in various vehicles. So she had all the data laid out, if you're in this kind of, um Humvee you're gonna get killed. If you're in this kind, ehhh, there's a 80% chance you're gonna get killed. You're gonna get your legs blown off. If you're in this truck, this-- but if you're in this MRAP that the improvised explosive of the [inaudible] explosive warning disposal teams, you're most likely only gonna feel concussion. Not a death. Visintainer: Wow. Jackson: So I said, "Susie, great! That fits my passion." I called my staff together, put Susie and them together. Said, "You got ten PowerPoint slides, and we're gonna present this to the three-star [general]. So you [inaudible] no more than ten, they w-- general officers will fall asleep if you got more than ten PowerPoint slides. Do not do that." So I left the room and left her to my staff to power-- come up. They came in a couple hours later, "Sir, this is the brief." And I said, "Perfect." I didn't make a change to it. Susie and my chief of staff put this, it was beautiful. I called up on a secure VTC [video teleconference] because my boss was out here at Camp Pendleton, and here I was in Tampa. Got him on a little secure video of the day and told Susie, "Susie, you're the briefer. The generals have never won this argument, but you got the right voice." And, so she briefed it and they, General Sattler stopped it, or slide number seven. Next thing you know, we called up the commandant, okay, he got it in three slides. And I started buying these vehicles. I mean, and I won't bore you with the technical part of it, but Susie's data got those vehicles in within six or seven months. I mean, I sent her around to all the big vehicle manufacturers in the US said, it's gotta have this transmission, it's gotta have this drivetrain, it's gotta have this engine. And these are the three different prototypes that you can build. You know, the John Deeres of the world that build heavy equipment, they changed assembly lines. They were happy to pitch in. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And, uh, the first 300 [IED] hits in 2006, no Marine Corps deaths. Visintainer: Wow. Jackson: So Susie becomes the mother of the MRAP and gets the highest decoration that a civilian can get in peace time in the, in the Department of Navy. So that was a big deal. And then as a two, that was as a one-star, that was one of the best effects as a one. As a two-star. I get assigned as the, uh, we have these four star commands, combatant commands is what they're called. One for the Pacific, one for Europe, one for South America, um, Pacific, European Command, Southern Command... And, we're gonna develop another one. And it's US Africa Command. And I'm chosen to be the first Director of Military Operations and Logistics, the J3 and the J4 for that command, headquartered outta Stuttgart, Germany and our focus would be the continent of Africa and all the associated islands. Minus Egypt. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: We kept Egypt in Central command. And, uh, so, uh, it's brand new! There's nothing there. I mean, we're in rehabbed Army World War II buildings that belonged to the Wehrmacht in 1930. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Its [inaudible] journey. And so we gotta build this new command. And there were two two-stars there that were, we had a four-star boss, uh, General Walls [William E. Ward] and uh, and the Air Force, his [Wards's] chief of staff was an Air Force two-star. But I was the Director of Military Operations, which, you know, is-- I mean, you're just, you're thinking about it for every military event that goes on in the, in the continent of Africa that the US is involved in, you're gonna be the director and the advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the president, the National Security Council, and the President of the United States. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: You're gonna be the direct guy. And my boss was the kind of guy that, uh, general Ward, when I said Walls-- General Ward was the kind of guy, he liked to do all the diplomatic high stuff, flying around, meeting with heads of state and senior military. And he left the operational kind of running of things to me. Which I liked, but it kind of was, uh, it was interesting. Sometimes I would just wonder, okay, if we do this one, so probably the most prominent one would be in, um the, the pirates off the coast of Africa, off of Somalia. And, uh, and we had, and they generally speaking stayed away from US ships. But they would take these ships. These guys were once fishermen whose fishing industry... I mean the guys who actually were the pirates, not the businessmen in London and Somalia, the kingpins in Somalia, the warlords, but the ones who executed, the actual pirates, you know, they would get word from London who's flagship, what cargo was on it, what the crew was, all that would come out of London. And they'd filter it into Somalia. Visintainer: So there's somebody in London doing research to let them know what's headed their way? Wow. Jackson: Yeah. And so, and they know what insurance company and all this, and these guys had been fishermen, but the industrial fishing of China or Korea or Japan had just about depleted their waters. So they could not-- and so you had an understanding from an intelligence standpoint of why there was this piracy, these guys who could execute it. And they were just the lower end of the whole international cabal. But-- Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: So, um, but when they captured the Maersk Alabama, uh, which was a U.S. Flagship. No way. 'Cause we weren't gonna negotiate with those guys. So-- Visintainer: When was this? Jackson: This was 2008. Visintainer: Okay. Jackson: They captured the Maersk Alabama, probably the spring. With a U.S. crew on it. And, uh, so, um... let me think. Yeah, I think that was under President Bush. Let me think for a second. 2009? Yeah, it was 2009. I think that was, I think it was actually one of the first decisions that I had to get out of President Obama. So that had to be 2009. And so it was very early in his term. So it was either late winter or early spring of 2009. And there was one guy, uh, the crew overpowered most of the pirates themselves. Without a gun fight. But, a shot was fired. One of the pirates was injured. And, uh, three of 'em captured the captain, of the ship, Captain [Richard] Phillips, and lowered a life boat and got off the ship. They made a movie outta this. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And, um, and, uh... So now we had, they had a hostage. We had the ship back, but they had an American hostage. And so myself, um, Admiral [William H.] McRaven was the head of our Joint Special Operations Command out of Fort Bragg [now Fort Liberty] here. So he had the Navy Seals and all the special ops guys. But they're, it was Africa's, AFRICOM's territory. My boss's out galivanting. So McRaven and I, we had the [Navy] Seals put on standby and they started rehearsing. And we had -- it's amazing -- we do several rehearsals on paper and drills. We had done a rehearsal of this on paper the year before. And so we kind of knew what the plan would be, you know? We didn't know how it [would] end, the very end of it, but we knew how we would get the right forces to the point that they could execute a mission. And then once they were at that point, it was up to them exactly how, but getting them from the States to-- so McRaven and I reviewed the plan, called up the, the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], and briefed the plan. And we both agreed that we had a good plan to get the Navy Seals to be able to get the, the captain back. And we got pretty fast approval from the president. I think that's what we were all surprised 'cause he's a young senator we were all grizzly old admirals and generals older than the president, you know? And so we didn't have a lot of confidence 'cause these things are time sensitive, you know? Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And, uh, we, you know. You know it ended sadly in one way, because we killed all three of the pirates. Killed three of 'em. The one guy that survived was wounded when the crew took over. And so he, he was medevacked to one of our ships prior to... And we, Captain Phillips, we brought him home and it was it. So that was one, um, of a significant event. But I guess the thing is, is that you're making these life and death decisions. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: That, you know, I would often tell myself that, "Hey, you have to look yourself in the mirror. And then when you get to the pearly gates, he's the only one that can pass judgment on your, on your judgment." You know, because there's been a couple of circumstances where, you know, you've directly impacted whether or not people have lost their lives or you've taken life. And so, uh, it's-- it's just one of those things and there's certain people that have to make those hardcore decisions and to think that you're in that position. And so after two years of doing that, which was a real from the bottom up, creating a command and all of the, I mean, bringing tech, I mean we're, we're talking about copper wires that were put in by the Germans in the 1930s under Hitler that we're pulling out and pulling fiber optic cable on. So we're literally building buildings and running this command and making those kinds of decisions and other decisions which have national significance, you know. And then I was the first ordered to, or to go to Baghdad [Iraq] to be the chief of staff for our forces in Iraq for General [Raymond T.] Ordierno. And, but my boss, General Ward, he'd have had to let me go early, but he had, he had become so, uh, reliant on me -- and it was a new command -- and the Marine Corps promised him a full two years that he would have me, because they had to convince him to take a Marine. He's an Army four-star, and they had to convince him to put a Marine in that very position. And he, and he took me, you know, he probably had some young Army two-star that he would've liked to put in there, but he took me in on his command. And so when the Marine Corps said, "Hey, if you leave six months early, you can go back to war." And which from a, from a Marines standpoint, it would've been best for me to go back to Baghdad. Visintainer: Okay. Jackson: And be the chief of staff for General Ordierno, that would open up more opportunities as a flag officer, more senior rolls. But to get stationed at Camp Pendleton, my wife's a Californian. It was the alternative. So when General Ward objected to me leaving six months early, it became, uh, the fallback was the Marine Corps assigned me to be the Commanding General for Marine Corps Installations, West. MCI West, which included seven Marine Corps bases out west, to be the senior guy and be stationed in my wife's hometown in a place where we had owned homes in the past. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: Great place for my kids to go to school. And, and so, and my kids had already, I had in 2004... In 2002, my oldest son graduated from Fallbrook High. He got, we came here in [19]98 and he-- my wife said, "I don't know where you're gonna be for the next four years, but we're going to be here as the kids go to one school." Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And so Brian was on his 10th or 11th school then going into the ninth grade. And so I deployed to Japan in 2002 as a colonel. And then my other son, Blaine was gonna graduate in 2004. And so I went overseas and the family stayed on base at Camp Pendleton. And then I came back and from the Far East, 'cause I didn't do the initial march to Baghdad. And I joined the unit at Camp Pendleton and we're ordered back to Iraq. And the theme went on, "I don't know where you're gonna be, but we're gonna be here." So Blaine graduated in 2004 from Fallbrook High. He got all his four years at one school. And so they were already locked in. And the wife, when I went over to Japan, I left her to, uh... She was, had chosen some land five acres in Fallbrook in 2000. Yeah. 2000. She chose five acres of this. "There's nothing here, honey." She says, "Well, I'm designing a house with an architect." I said, "Great! Then I got ordered overseas and left her to build a house. And so I departed. I came home to help her move in to a house from the base to this house that she designed with an architect. And she interviewed five or six general contractors and hired one and stayed on the work site. I was in, doing things for the nation in Japan, Korea, and Philippines. And I came back home and helped her move in and then came back from a year without family and was here for four or five months. And we got redeployed the whole, all the, most of the combat Marines at Camp Pendleton went back to Iraq in the Al Anbar Province. And I was the Plans Officer, kind of responsible for getting all the beans, band aids, bullets, people over there and married up with their equipment on a timeline, and then be the last man to, to arrive. And I remember getting there and sitting in the, getting down, getting ready to eat a meal as my host was showing me where I was gonna sleep that night and all that. And we get a bunch of incoming rounds and the whole chow hall emptied out, two of us are sitting there. And I said, "Well, there's no point in running. You might run into one, you might run into incoming." So we went ahead and finished our meal while the stuff was coming down. You know, it's random. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: You know? Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: It's random. And so, when I got stationed back here, the wife had come to live with me when I, we finally got to live together. That was, there was that time period from 2002 to 2007 that we never really lived together. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: Because I was in Tampa. She stayed here with the boys, and then they both started college. And, and I got orders to go overseas to Africa command in Stuttgart. And I said, "Hey, it's your home country. Would you like to come with me?" So she came over there for the year and a half or so. And the boys were going to college and doing what college-aged guys do without parents. Visintainer: Yep. Jackson: To provide any guidance. Jeez. And then, so when I got stationed, uh, the fallback position from not going over again to Baghdad was here. It was beautiful for family. And I knew that that would be my twilight, my last tour in the Marine Corps. So from 2009 to late 2011, I got to be the commanding general for, we have our mountain warfare training center up in Bridgeport, California. We have our Marine Corps... The real main Marine Corps ground combat center out of 29 Palms [California]. Yuma has our air station, Yuma Arizona. Miramar [Marine Corps Air Station, in San Diego], Camp Pendleton, and the Air Station on Camp Pendleton. And Barstow [Marine Corps Logistics Base, Barstow California] was the seventh one. So you're kind of the, you're kind of the governor is the way I equate it. And each one of those is a city, or in case of Camp Pendleton, several cities in a county. And so they're, they have their commanding officer, a colonel. And, so I'm basically the overseer for those to make sure they have the resources to do their job. And fortunately for me, it was the beginning of the Obama era where the Economic Recovery Act was, uh, they were looking for projects and the money was there. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: To fund a lot of things. And so new hospital at Camp Pendleton, well, I got that new chow hall, new barracks, new childcare centers, all that kind of stuff. I was getting billions of dollars during my watch to build that stuff. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And so it was, uh, it was a good time. I've told these young Marines now that, well, it's not gonna be like that for a while. That was during a war. And the funding was there. We had a happy Congress and they weren't squabbling over money for the military, but as soon as the wars die down, money to the military becomes scarce. Um, so, but, uh, so that was a good assignment. I would, I would say that it was, it was a little bit different than my operational time as a general officer, but we had a lot of impact. Visintainer: So this is really interesting. And I think it's, it's kind of interesting how, maybe if I'm, if I'm understanding you correctly, maybe it wouldn't have been your first choice. Jackson: Yeah. It wouldn't have been my first choice as a, yeah-- Visintainer: But in some ways it works out really nicely. Jackson: Yeah! Visintainer: To be around family-- Jackson: Because I get to be around family. I get to be-- I meet this university again. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: You know, I never, when I, when I left, when I left here in 1986, I mean, there was nothing here. This was a stinky old chicken farm. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: Uh, you know, and, uh, when I come back, your [university] president is Karen Haynes, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And her husband, gentleman Jim Mickelson is on the staff and doing what he's doing with ACE program, ACE Scholars [Services, a program for foster youth at CSUSM]. And I'm the commanding general over there. And I'm a guy with war credentials and all that kind of stuff. And, uh, and they invite me over here. And, uh, and I'm just shocked that, you know, I'd driven by a couple times on 78 and seen the building there. And, but she [Haynes] invited me to lunch and then her husband drove me around his little golf cart, you know, to campus, and I'm in uniform. And, you know, California's weird. Southern California, this uni-- our uniforms are really welcome. But Northern California is not the same place, you know. Um, and, uh, and I, and so I, she took me over and showed me the nascent Veteran Center that it was then, not what this is now. And it was kind of really a good experience and to meet Karen and see her leadership, which I would compare with any general that I'd ever served with or-- Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And I've served with some of the best this nation has to offer. And, uh, so, so, um... It's kind of interesting that I could not develop the relationship at San Jose State. I tried to, I mean of course distance was an enemy. Yeah. You know, but they kept changing leadership. Even now, I think they're in search of another president. And that's five or six presidents in, in-- I visited the campus when I was on active duty, a one-star. And giving presentations, this one doctor there, Dr. Jonathan Ross, he was really interested. I funded a little books and furniture for their library. He had a military history library set up in the history department. And so, and I was funding a scholarship and I wasn't get-- there was no feedback. There was no feedback. Except for Jonathan. He would try, and he still sends me emails every now and then, but the university was really like... But anyway, I wasn't gonna work when I retired at first, you know? Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Okay. I certainly wasn't gonna be a commuter to San Diego and the freeways just like trying to get here today. I said, ah, I forgot there's construction. I should have went this way and that way and, uh, but, um... But, I really hit it off with that, uh, with the leadership that was here, and I retired and I was sitting around, enjoying trying to be a gardener, thinking about my next trip, doing this and that. And I turned down several nice jobs, mainly for my wife because she didn't want me to work, and I was, you know, sixty, about ready to get Social Security, max out Social Security, and then, you know, so why work? And Karen called and said, "Hey, how would you like to be on our foundation board?" And I said, okay. Man. Was that? I mean, she hooked me for, she had me set up. And I thought, hey, yeah. And I was on several boards, and so-- none of 'em paid. And, and I was gonna stay that way. And I'd bought my RV [recreational vehicle]. That was my retirement gift to myself, you know, nice. On that Mercedes chassis, looking good, driving down the freeway, camping out, fishing. And we did enjoy it. We do still have that. So we still enjoy it. And, I got calls from the governor's office. You know the boards were kind of pretty demanding anyway, and California State Parks was in a horrible position. They had money that they couldn't account for. It was mishandled. It wasn't stolen, thank goodness. Nobody lined their pockets with it, but it was making the headlines and, and, and I couldn't believe that Parks was so screwed up. Visintainer: If you want, I can pause this. Jackson: I'll just stop. No, this is.. It's amazing how these people get your number. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: My kids would text, my wife would text, you know, but these people will uh, are clever. Visintainer: Yeah. So that would've been around 2012 if I-- Jackson: Yeah. That was two thousand, yeah, twelve. Yeah. So, uh, and I'm just, I was in-- I was kind of amazed. We have no idea what the civilian sector pays for jobs in the military. As a general officer, you're basically working for nothing. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Because you've, you've maxed out the retirement scale, and because you can retire when you hit 30 years, you get 75% of your base pay. When you, in two and a half years, every year there after, so I was at 36 and a half years, so you'd imagine that I'm 75%, two and a half years times, and so I was already at 95, 97%, something like that. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: So, you're, you are working because you love what you do. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Yeah. I mean, you're, you're, you're totally into what you're doing and it takes care of your family and all that. So I really didn't want to work. There was one job that I might have taken, and that was when the Chancellor for the UC system asked me if I would like to apply to be the President of CSU Maritime Academy. Visintainer: Wow. Jackson: Up in Vallejo. And that was in the spring, only two months after I had retired from the Marine Corps. And it was just, it would've just been the wrong time. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: But our, but I did accept the Rockefeller Family Fund. I got to be known for some of the speeches that I gave, rather, now that I've seen the video, rather impassioned speeches about why we go to war, to a group of engineers and scientists, in particular, this one speech. And I was still in uniform and giving that speech, and I told them that, I just asked the audience of hundreds. I said, "Why is it that we're at war in the Middle East?" And you could hear the word oil echo out. You know? And, uh, and, uh, and I told 'em it was their responsibility to take us off of being dependent so we don't have to send our men and women overseas to bleed, you know, and I didn't realize they were videoing the damn thing. And it pops up all over the internet, right. So, and my job as MCI West, I mean, this is the military is a multi-billions of dollar industry in California. And as the commanding general of MCI West, you had access to the governor and Governor [Arnold] Schwarzenegger when I first got there, Governor [Jerry] Brown, later, you would meet with them once or twice a year. If there's any issues, like, you know, there's a state park on Camp Pendleton, it's one of the most profitable parks in the state park system. So this, it was good. They got the park for a $1 lease of several miles of beach, you know, and that was gonna come up for negotiation in a couple of years. And Secretary of the Navy wants real money for it now. It's not just a being a kind person anymore. It's, uh, so you have mutual interests and the environmental California Clean Air Act and all this kind of stuff and whether or not we can meet our tanks can meet your emission standards. No. So what's gonna be the offset? Things like that. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: So you're up there negotiating and trying to make them aware. And being a Californian, it also gave me a little bit, um, adopted Californian anyway, it gave me a little bit different access because I was one of them sort of. And so when I talked to a senator or to the member of the of the governor's cabinet, it came out, uh, we had positive discussions. So they knew me in Sacramento. And they knew I had a green side. And they knew that we were doing all of our green development on our bases. We were doing a lot. It was funded by the Secretary of the Navy, Secretary [Ray] Mabus and President Obama. And so, we were being really green. And so I was speaking the language of the Commander In Chief and the Secretary of the Navy, being really green, and as my war experience as well made me have pretty much total buy-in. And my wife's Prius. And the fact that she put in, I gave her $30,000 and put in solar at our house. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: So, you know, all of those things, you know. And so I got a call from the, from the governor's office and the Secretary of Natural Resources, if I would please consider being the director of California State Parks. I said, "Oh, man, that sounds so good. I could do my job in my RV." And my wife, who's just a natural member of, at that time of the Sierra Club and the California Native Plant Society and all that. This, that's actually a job I'll consider. So I told her about it, and she said, "Well, if that's what you want to do." Which is her logical, her normal answer too. And so I took that up, I mean, to get the millions of dollars back in the right place. They had a morale problem. But they're kind of like military people in as much as, uh, a bunch of really dedicated people that don't get paid much for their dedication. They work for the state, the state doesn't realize, matter of fact, I'd say in some of the assignments that the park rangers have, they live more austere than a military family would definitely live. And the state doesn't recognize that, but they're-- If you're a ranger and you've got a series of parks in Carmel, Monterey, and those beach parks and stuff like that, and the state can't pay you enough for housing and stuff, things like that. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And some of the more remote places, it's amazing! Old ranch houses that they'll rehabilitate, you know, and they learn to love what they're doing. You know, they, they, they do it because they love the great outdoors. They love people, they love the animals and all of that stuff. And they hear they, "Hey, I want to give you a pay raise, bring you to Sacramento and put you at my right hand." "Oh, no sir. I want to be, I want to be right down here where I am. I don't want to be in Sacramento." Uh, and they, they, they, there's a very different, uh, they're, they're much like Marines, but they don't have an up or out sort of ethic or, or, or, or value system. Theirs is, "I'm here. Like, this is my park, these are my parks, and this is where I want to raise my family, even if it's a twenty-five mile bus ride for my kids to go to kindergarten." This is, this is in the, I loved them for that. Great people. And, and I think they were, I don't want to talk too badly of my predecessor, but they needed the kind of leadership that's taught and admired in the Marine Corps. So getting in my, I literally got my RV, we have a state park on-- Border Fields State Park right there at the fence. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: Separating Tijuana from us. And we have one all the way on the Oregon border. Arizona border. Nevada border. And so I just, my wife and I, and I call the office in, um, and I tell my secretary, Lynn Black, I say, "Lynn, tomorrow I'm gonna be at Humboldt State Park. You can tell him now." Okay. But I didn't want her to tell him, you know, a week in adva-- I didn't want him scrambling. Visintainer: Yeah. Yeah. Jackson: You know, I know how it is in the military when you know the general's gonna show up. It might be two weeks of scrubbing brass, you know, you know, if they got two weeks notice, they have two weeks of panic. If they, if they have twenty-four hours of notice, they only got twenty-four hours of panic. And you can't fix much that's broken in 24 hours. So that was great. I, I did enjoy that. I did not want a new career though. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: You know, I told the governor I've got two or three years, and not only that, I had grown spoiled, as a general officer to make critical decisions, life decisions. And you cannot do that. I mean, you're a political appointee of the governor, right? Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And you gotta be approved by, you know, two-thirds of the state senate. So you had to go through those hearings and all that, so you could not be totally, you could be what the governor wanted. But maybe not the governor's staff. The initiative was a little bit frightening. My initiative I think was a little bit frightening in Sacramento, and I can't stand micromanagers. Visintainer: Yeah. How was it frightening? Jackson: Uh, say your question again? Visintainer: How was it frightening? Jackson: Um, who, my initiative? Because I might do something that, uh, that might be really good for parks, really good for parks' people, but maybe it doesn't suit the governor's budget agenda. It might be too, you know, and so you did not want, and you didn't want to be that guy that-- but you wanted to do the right things, and you had to have people that would kind of support you in, in, in, in, uh, that you were trying to do the right thing. Now, they could argue, and you might not be able to do it, but I did not feel that-- the military's incredible in terms of the responsibilities that I was given. And it was based on the special trust and confidence that I had built up over, you know, thirty years of service. And that, I mean that is, you're making really important decisions affecting people and maybe tens of thousands of people. And so to come down from that, it was, was, was not ideal. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And you had to come down from that, uh, you know, uh, your ego. Something had to, had to, had to back off. That you no longer had that much special trust and confi-- You had some trust and confidence. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: But you didn't have that ultimate special trust, you know, because, you know. And, uh, and so I, I, I, I decided that certainly I didn't wanna spend any more time in that environment than fixing what I could fix. So got the budget money straight, got it all back, started fixing restrooms, started-- I, you know, I took it like it was a military operation: to develop a campaign plan, publish it to everybody. To everybody. Put it on the, on the website so every employee could read it. Visintainer: And at some point-- Jackson: I, you know, I set up a, it still goes, they dropped me off the mailing list. My wife is still on the mailing list, but it's an email newsletter goes out every Friday. It's the same thing the Marine Corps does. I still get 'em from the, from the... from the Chief of Naval Operations. And I get a daily report of what's important. And then from the Marine Corps, every Friday I get one. You know, so that when I'm communicating as a member of a community, I'm talking from some firsthand knowledge. Not all of it, I don't, I'm not nothing secret, all open source stuff that we can communicate when we're out in our communities. As a flag officer, you still have certain responsibilities. Visintainer: Sure. Jackson: That, uh, uh, so yeah. So the civilian world's a little bit different, you know, and it was kind of... I think you have to, you have to adapt to it though, it's not gonna adapt to you. And so I, you know, after about two years, I kind of said, okay, and things are relatively stable here, for you. And, I would, I'm gonna step down and I was like I'm, I was just ready not to, and my wife one day, she goes, I was, I was commuting back and forth. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: So I would like fly home on Friday night and maybe Thursday night sometimes, and then I'd fly out Sunday night back to Sacramento or early Monday morning. And, you know, and that-- one day she looks at me and she says, "This is just like you're deployed." Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: You know. So I knew it was about time to put in the hat. Those two things came together, that deployment remark. And I was like, challenged whether or not I did, I wanted to give up the idea of that special trust and confidence that I had grown so used to as a military officer. Visintainer: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Jackson: Mm-hmm. So. Visintainer: I had a couple questions about Camp Pendleton I wanted to ask you. Jackson: Sure. Visintainer: One was, I was, I was curious about the base's relationship with the surrounding North County community and how that changed, how you've seen that change over time, if it has, maybe it hasn't? Jackson: Actually. Um, you know when Oceanside [California] was like shootouts at the O.K .Corral, not shootouts, but get drunk, go to a strip club, that kind of thing. In the seventies, it was, it was pretty, pretty harsh. And 'cause the Marine Corps was, it was, it was-- those were tough times for the Marine Corps and the city and the development. You didn't have the growth boom that's occurred over the last forty to fifty years for sure. But, I think it's really good relationship with the, with the uh, with the community. With the colleges, community colleges. I think this is a great relationship that Cal State San Marcos has with the military community in San Diego, writ large. And I think that Camp Pendleton... I think, I think the region knows that like 65% of the Marine Corps' combat power is here and you can add on the Yuma Air Station with it, is here, this is the main war-fighting engine, and you got similar but smaller in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and forward deployed in Okinawa, Japan. But they're smaller and they have different wartime commitments. This is the heavy punch. And these bases, both the airspace, the sea space and the ground space for training are unmatched in the world. So you have the finest, this geographic area, just, just what God put here makes it that way, you know, and you can have every just about climatic condition within MCI West, with the exception of a tropical jungle, you know. From the Sierras and our cold weather arctic training to the desert, to mountains and all this kind of stuff, the beaches. And, I mean, it's incredible training. And that's why Camp Pendleton, you know, was initially, what do they call it when the city comes in and takes your property? They took Camp Pendleton-- Visintainer: Eminent domain? Jackson: Eminent domain. That's how it was. You know, here's $4 million, you're out of here. The O'Neill family, and they're the ones that developed San Clemente and all that region up north of San Clemente, you know, big developers, they're still here. The O'Neil family still, part of it's still here. But that eighteen miles of coastline, the number of military and military families associated with it. That, and the Navy, I think this is, we generate billions, like thirty-six billion dollars annually. And then in the state of California, it's over fifty-six billion dollars. So-- Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Just about one in every eleven or twelve defense dollars comes to California. Visintainer: Wow. That's significant. Jackson: Yeah. I mean, you considered there's 50 states. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And they pay taxes too. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: So, um, I mean, Vista, the mayors, the, and the, and the San Clemente and, and Oceanside and San Marcos, they show up at events. They're invitees. They're on the invitation list to events. The old mayor of Oceanside, he used to be quite a character, but he was kind of losing it a little bit, and he's a really nice guy and he's had some strokes and stuff like that, but he'd still show up, you know? To things. And so I think that both from an economic development standpoint, and I think Camp Pendleton also felt that during my time there, that we were really helping San Diego, San Diego County, and the local communities with our investments that were given through the Economic Recovery Act. We were employing the citizens out there. It's a, you know, it's a kind of a domino effect on money spent from the military community here. So I think there's a really good relationship between the military. And I, and I, and, and I appreciate it because I don't think every community in California, although I'm on the governor's military council, and so I get to visit-- matter of fact, we have a meeting in another week or two. I better look at my calendar up at Vandenberg Air Force Base. But we meet all over the state where there's military communities, and we try to tie the, one of the things we try to do is tie the communities with the military base around them, and a lot of, and the communities have embraced that to the benefit of both. Because if you have a, um, a water problem or a waste management problem on your base, well, that's part of the community's problem too, because you're probably locked into the system. If you're trying to do renewable energies on the base, that's probably the community's issue too. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: If the schools aren't properly funded in the communities around the base, then you're, it's probably the base people are gonna be concerned. The military families are gonna be concerned, and they're not gonna want to go there if the schools aren't good schools. And so, I mean, we did a, around both Camp Pendleton, the Fallbrook Union School, elementary school district, and around Edwards Air Force Base, north of Los Angeles, they were both schools that are impacted by the military but weren't, were slipping in terms of, oh, quality of education, quality of facilities, and getting instructors. And some of these places are hardcore. And so the military worked with them to get matching funding in both of those school districts to, to rebuild schools, to hire teachers and things like that, that affects quality of life for military families as well as, you know, the community writ large. So it behooves the communities to, uh, to be kind of tied in with the bases, and it behooves the bases to be tied in. And so the commanders normally really recognize that and are accepted in the community. I have had one negative experience. It was actually, I was at [employed at] state parks and I was asked to be the commencement speaker at my high school in Oakland. It's kind of nice. I'm a retired general coming, and then I got a phone call from them, saying the principal wanted to make sure that I would not wear my uniform to the [ceremony]. Now I've been retired for, probably couldn't fit in my uniform and he should have thought of that. "Don't wear your uniform," basically. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And I'm going, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, wait a minute." The high school principal's asking a guy who spent thirty-six and a half years in this uniform, that he doesn't want him to wear it. Now, first of all, I wouldn't have thought of wearing my uniform to, uh, you know, if it's a military event... No, I still wouldn't have worn a uniform. Get a new tuxedo. I mean, you're in ship, tip-shop shape when you're in there. You know, you're you know. I think I've grown a little bit rotund since those days, right. Gently so. But, uh, and so that uniform is fitted to you, you know? And so I wouldn't have dreamed of it. But he, it was such an insult. I said, unless they withdraw that I'm not gonna speak. And so I didn't speak at my high school. And that was after retirement, and it was a totally unnecessary thing. But that's the difference. I mean, you'll run into that at the, at northern, you know. You know, I remember days going to watch the students riot at Berkeley and all that, but that. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: That was an attitude out of a principal in Oakland and my old alma mater. So, uh, and that's the only negative that, but I thought that was uh, and I just told him, I said, "Well, I can't come." I said, because it, it's like you're dishonoring-- Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: You want me to deny I am a general. Visintainer: That's a huge part of your, your existence-- Jackson: When you, you know, as I remember Commandant General James Conway going, no matter what, gentlemen-- all the generals in the Marine Corps get together once a year, and those who aren't forward deployed anyway, and he says, "I don't want you all worrying about whether you're a one-star, two-star, three-star, whatever. You're all just going to be generals and when they put it on your tombstone, that's what everybody will remember." They don't remember if you're, whatever, general, general, Lieutenant General. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: And so I thought that was good advice for, you know, and, uh, yeah. But yeah, it's kind of an interesting, well, let me show you one thing here. &lt ; laughs&gt ; I brought this because my wife told me to bring it, but she's my smartest counselor. She does these really cool, she doesn't do like family albums, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: She tells the family story in this, in these, so you can-- Visintainer: Can I [inaudible]? &lt ; Visintainer moves camera to show album sitting in Jackson's lap&gt ; . Jackson: She does these drawings. Yeah. Yeah. So all the drawings you see in this, she does, there's an old oak tree down by the Santa Margarita River and it's been chopped and it's been burned, and the top's been blown off in high winds, but it's just resilient, you know? So she says, that's kind of the story of your family-- Visintainer: Uh-huh. Jackson: Resilience, you know, and so, uh... So you'll see these different drawings, and then she'll go through and then she's found, it's kind of hard ; we know that on my mother's side, this is my dad's, I mean, you can see how thin [the family tree is], when you're descendants of slaves, you don't necessarily get all the way back on the African descendants' side. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: Very far. And this is my dad's little genealogical tree. And then this is my mother's. And what's interesting is from my mother's side, and this is where my dad lied on his draft card and said his parents were deceased. And, so that's my dad as a like 16 year-old. I said, he looks like older than that, and this is him at the Korean War, and this is kind of his story. And then when I said he is a boxer, now this is my dad, when I was a senior in high school. Do you think I'd ever mess with my dad? Visintainer: No you can definitely he was a, he was a prize fighter. Jackson: But he never lifted weights. Visintainer: Wow. Jackson: And this is a newspaper article when he was-- about why he chose to stay [inaudible]. He was a rated heavyweight fighter, but he chose to stick with the Army. And in this article there, they asked him why. And he just said it was more secure. But I only saw him in person fight one time. And he knocked the guy out with a, and this is his father and his mother. And yeah, that's my oldest sister and grandmother and my dad's sister. But there's, now it goes over to my mother's side, and this is my mother as a girl. And this is all seven, there's very few pictures of all seven of my brothers and sisters. And this is like third grade Tony right there with his finger in his mouth. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And this is, and this is us in Oakland. This is in Texas. And this is all seven of the kids. Visintainer: Wow. Jackson: Uh, my dad's funeral, I think that's what got us back together. But my family goes back to the original pioneers on my mother's side of, founding, they were with Brigham Young's party. And, um, and this tells the story, and one of the three people were with Brigham Young that were slaves. And my great-great-great grandfather [Green Flake] was a slave to, that was with that original Mormon party. And so he becomes a founder. That's my great-grandmother. There's a couple of pictures in here that are kind of neat. But Green Flake, that's him, was a slave. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: That came with the original. This tells the story of the original Mormon party that he was with. And he was, he was a scout. And um, and he-- and um, a road builder. And he drove Brigham Young's wagon. So when Brigham Young ends up in Salt Lake, the guy who he says, "This is the place," is my great-great-great grandfather, Green Flake. Now this is kind of a, this is my, this is Green Flake's daughter, my great-great-grandmother. This is my great-grandmother. This is that same great-grandmother with my grandmother, with my mother, with my older sister. Now, the curious thing is: so far the oldest of each generation is a woman, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And then now down here, this is a picture with my grandmother: her, my mother, her ; my sister, her right there ; her daughter Lonnie, the first of that generation, and her daughter. Visintainer: Wow. Jackson: So for seven consecutive generations, it's all girls. Visintainer: That's amazing. Jackson: And then finally she broke the mold. She now has a son, which is the first of that generation. And this is another curious thing. This is my great-great grandfather, one of them. And he's Mexican. And he changed his name to George Stevens. Visintainer: Okay. Jackson: It doesn't show up much in my DNA, less than 1%. So my family has always had this knowledge. And then my wife got really into it. And then, and Green Flake-- This is a statue of Brigham Young, which is in downtown Salt Lake City, if you've ever been there. Visintainer: I've never been. Jackson: And in it, they list all of the original pioneers. And then down in a corner it has the three slaves, and which includes my great-great-great grandfather, Green Flake, you know. And, um, so he becomes the oldest living member of the original Mormon pioneers. Of the original ones. And so he's at the Jubilee, the 50th anniversary, he gets invited back from his farm in Idaho to be an honored guest as the oldest living. Visintainer: Wow. Jackson: And so, and here this lady stands up, this is from the Salt Lake Union Tribune of 1903 or something like that when he's there. And [the lady] asked him what it's like to be a slave. And so we actually have in quotes from the Tribune what it was like. 'Cause he was born in 1828. So, so that was kind of curious. And so where they did make a marker at a park, Pioneer Park. This marker was there, and somebody tore it down years ago. And I took my sons to see it with my mother, and this is his tombstone, which is kind of cool. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Jackson: And, uh, so somebody tore this down, and then, so this-- It was amazing, this summer, last summer past, they finally-- that's my family reunion, right? This picture right here, that's my sister and aunt. They finally built this thing. Look how small they look. Over a 10-foot statue of Green Flake now is in the, the historic park, um, Heritage Park of Salt Lake City, Utah. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: He's got this oversized statue of Green is finally made the, besides the footnote. But anyway, that was just in July I think they commemorated that statue. So that's part of what gives Jackson strength. Visintainer: Yes. Jackson: You know, is knowing that you have a, you know, a big history with this. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Are we over time? Visintainer: Uh, we-- we we're actually almost out of [camera] battery strength. We've talked for a while, so I think it's as good a place of any is to end the interview. I actually have so many more questions for you, but-- Jackson: That's all right. Visintainer: We'll run out of, we're run out of battery so-- Jackson: That's okay. It was fun to talk. Visintainer: It is a real pleasure to have you-- Jackson: Be hoarse the rest of the day. Visintainer: Yeah. It's a pleasure to have you visit us and-- Jackson: Yeah, well thanks for inviting me to recall some good things and, you know. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: There were no real flashbacks, you know? Visintainer: Yep. Jackson: It can happen though. Every now and then, you know. Visintainer: Yeah. Jackson: Oh man. Visintainer: Well, thank you again. Jackson: Okay. Hopefully that was-- Visintainer: I'm gonna go ahead and end the interview. https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en video Property rights reside with the university. Copyrights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs.&#13 ; &#13 ; This resource is licensed for noncommercial educational use using CC NC-BY 4.0. 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Description An account of the resource Major General Anthony L. Jackson retired from the United States Marine Corps on January 1st, 2012, after more than thirty-six years of service. After retiring form the Marine Corps, he served as the Director, California State Parks and Recreation from November 2012 through June, 2014. Major General Jackson has also served as the Chairman of the California State University, San Marcos, Foundation Board of Directors. In his interview, Jackson discusses his upbringing in a military family, including participating in a sit-in in a local drug store, and offers a comparison between his military service and that of his father, who served in the United States Army. Jackson discusses life on military bases and support systems for deployed soldiers. Jackson recounts the courtship of his future wife, Sue, their early relationship, and the experience of being in an interracial relationship in the 1970s. Jackson discusses his later career with the Marines, including serving as Deputy Commanding General for MARCENT, where he helped make the case for the military to purchase Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs) during the second Iraq war, and working as Director of Military Operations and Logistics, AFRICOM. Jackson also discusses finishing his military career by returning to Camp Pendleton and other western U.S. bases as Commanding General for Marine Corps Installation West (MCI West). Jackson also discusses his time working for California State Parks, his relationship with Cal State San Marcos, and his family lineage, which includes the enslaved wagon driver Green Flash, who drove Brigham Young's wagon on the Mormon exodus to Salt Lake City. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC027-32 Subject The topic of the resource California State University San Marcos Camp Pendleton (Calif.) Civil rights demonstrations Iraq War, 2003-2011 Military families Mormon Church Piracy -- Indian Ocean Racism United States. Africa Command United States. Marine Corps Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023-03-07 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Anthony L. Jackson Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sean Visintainer Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Houston (Tex.) Indian Ocean Oakland (Calif.) San Marcos (Calif.) Stuttgart (Germany); Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived SC027 Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Anthony L. Jackson 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 Oral Histories Description An account of the resource Video and audio oral histories can be viewed here. Histories are listed alphabetically by last name. Individual histories are indexed and transcribed and can be searched. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <p>Rights to oral histories vary depending on the history. The library owns the copyright to some histories, and has license to reproduce for nonprofit purposes for others. Please contact CSUSM University Library Special Collections at <a href="mailto:%20archives@csusm.edu">archives@csusm.edu</a> with any questions about use.</p> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Sean Visintainer Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Martin Leyva OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LeyvaMartin_VisintainerSean_2022-10-27.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 6.0 Leyva, Martin. Interview October 27, 2022 SC027-19 02:24:21 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library Special Collections Oral History Collection Campus oral histories CSUSM csusm Formerly incarcerated individuals Imprisonment Parolees Prison-industrial complex San Marcos (Calif.) Santa Barbara (Calif.) Transitions (Program) California State University San Marcos. Project Rebound MiraCosta College. Transitions Program Palomar College. Transitions Program Martin Leyva Sean Visintainer mp4 LeyvaMartin_VisintainerSean_2022-10-27.mp4 1.0:|16(8)|33(11)|51(12)|62(7)|79(8)|91(15)|111(5)|126(4)|145(12)|155(12)|178(8)|192(7)|205(5)|218(8)|235(15)|251(15)|270(10)|282(11)|295(4)|311(3)|321(3)|341(3)|350(13)|363(6)|379(14)|391(4)|402(11)|414(3)|425(9)|443(8)|461(12)|479(13)|491(3)|507(8)|525(8)|539(6)|551(17)|572(13)|585(11)|600(6)|614(11)|628(18)|647(5)|673(10)|707(13)|728(4)|749(10)|770(5)|800(9)|813(10)|822(10)|849(8)|862(12)|875(12)|907(17)|916(12)|941(13)|954(7)|972(5)|988(9)|1013(15)|1034(12)|1055(4)|1068(6)|1098(4)|1113(9)|1147(4)|1179(8)|1198(7)|1225(3)|1243(4)|1262(14)|1293(17)|1310(7)|1329(11)|1347(16)|1364(8)|1406(2)|1460(5)|1478(4)|1494(4)|1519(16)|1538(18)|1557(9)|1589(7)|1603(4)|1626(8)|1642(12)|1664(9)|1693(10)|1720(13)|1739(4)|1750(3)|1777(3)|1789(3)|1809(4)|1842(11)|1866(20)|1900(16)|1918(19)|1928(12)|1947(7)|1967(4)|1986(7)|1998(13)|2023(17)|2041(15)|2062(12)|2076(7)|2097(3)|2119(16)|2147(9)|2158(9)|2173(6)|2204(3)|2225(4)|2238(4)|2251(17)|2273(5)|2305(2)|2317(9)|2328(10)|2347(9)|2360(5)|2386(10)|2406(15)|2425(5)|2444(16)|2472(12)|2494(9)|2506(17)|2530(4)|2543(12)|2563(4)|2582(7)|2600(10)|2611(3)|2622(6)|2641(6)|2666(10)|2678(10)|2700(4)|2721(9)|2732(3)|2747(12) 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/c5caf9a55a3ead1fafbf38f16091217c.mp4 Other video English 0 Introduction Introduction of Martin Leyva (narrator) and date and place of interview (October 27th, 2022 at California State University San Marcos University Library). 0 23 Roles at Cal State San Marcos, Palomar College, and MiraCosta College Leyva discusses his roles with Project Rebound at California State University San Marcos, as well as with the Transitions Programs at Palomar and MiraCosta Colleges, and his role as a Professor of Sociology. Leyva also discusses the Rising Scholars community college program, and what support from university and system administrations, as well as the nonprofit sector looks like. California State University San Marcos ; MiraCosta College ; Palomar College ; professional development ; Project Rebound ; Rising Scholars ; Transitions Program 0 494 Typical day of work Leyva discusses what a day of work is like for him, including supporting students, and the emotional labor that comes with his work, how to build trust with formerly incarcerated students, and what success looks like in his role. academic instruction ; California State University San Marcos ; emotional labor ; MiraCosta College ; Palomar College ; scholarship ; student success ; trust-building 0 1453 Santa Barbara City College and the Transitions Program Leyva relates how he was released from prison and had trouble with employment. At the recommendation of his niece, Leyva attended college and began forming a community with other formerly incarcerated students, which led to an informal support group. Leyva relates how that support group became a cohort model for formerly incarcerated individuals Employment ; Extended Opportunities, Programs and Services Office ; Santa Barbara City College ; Transitions Program 0 1764 Employment realities after prison Leyva relates issues he encountered in gaining and retaining employment after release from prison, and the barriers that formerly incarcerated people face in re-entering the workforce. Leyva recounts finding work on campus at Santa Barbara City College and recent legislation that is intended to lessen barriers for formerly incarcerated folks. Employment barriers ; Extended Opportunities, Programs and Services ; Santa Barbara City College ; student success 0 2930 Enabling success for formerly incarcerated students Leyva discusses "just showing up" as a way to model success and assist students in acclimating to an academic environment. Leyva also discusses peers doing work in assisting formerly incarcerated students and/or affecting change, and the characteristics that make for successful re-entry for people getting out of prison. belonging ; Frankie Guzman ; imposter syndrome ; James Binnall ; student success 0 3571 Pathways for formerly incarcerated students in academia Leyva discusses what majors and programs tend to be popular with formerly incarcerated students, what areas Leyva thinks we need more formerly incarcerated people involved in, and what professions they cannot be involved in for legal reasons. college majors ; Education ; employment barriers ; Human Services ; Justice Studies ; Nursing ; Political Science ; Social Work ; Sociology and Criminology ; STEM fields ; student success 0 3898 Employment in prison Leyva discusses the process of employment in prison ; how incarcerated individuals find employment, what that employment looks like, and what the pay is like for incarcerated people. Leyva also discusses what the prison-industrial complex and onshoring movement means for exploitation of labor in prisons. Leyva describes his experience working as a landscaper while in prison. labor exploitation ; landscaping ; legislation ; prison employment ; prison-industrial complex ; Thirteenth Ammendment ; UNICOR 0 4374 Media narratives Leyva discusses how media narratives and election cycles drive public policy and public perceptions of crime and impact non-violent offenders. Leyva also discusses the importance of being critical of our government, the systems in place, and our corporations. carceral system ; corporate criticism ; governmental criticism ; media narratives 0 4707 Childhood in Santa Barbara Leyva discusses his childhood in Santa Barbara and his hometown neighborhood, what his community looked like when he was growing up ; his family, his gathering places, corner stores, Ortega Park murals, barbecue, and childhood rolemodels. Leyva also discusses what his mother did for a living, and his family's work ethic. Manuel Unzueta ; murals ; Oak Park ; Ortega Park ; role models ; Santa Barbara ; work ethic 0 5339 First legal troubles, observational learning, and patriarchy Leyva discusses stealing mopeds and getting caught, observational learning, and substance abuse. Leyva also discusses modeling emotional intelligence and emotional management, sobriety, mindfulness, and the importance of dismantling patriarchy. Leyva tells the story of how he got caught with the stolen mopeds. Honda Spree ; moped theft ; observational learning ; patriarchy 0 5921 Further legal troubles and post-incarceration life Leyva describes his continuing legal troubles and trajectory into the carceral system, crime as a call for help, and how patriarchy doesn't teach skills to be emotionally vulnerable and to be supportive. Leyva also recalls severing a relationship upon coming back to his community, and what defying this meant. Leyva relates this experience to the struggles incarcerated people face in doing the work to heal. Leyva also discusses what home is to him, and how it changes during the healing process post-incarceration. healing ; Juvenile Detention ; patriarchy ; post-incarceration ; robbery ; substance abuse 0 6839 Recidivism, books and education in prison, and mentors in prison Leyva discusses how he won't say he will never be back in prison. He also recalls education in prison, and prison mentors that guided his reading and helped him start the healing process. Leyva also discusses prison subcultures and what literature is dangerous to have in prison. banned books ; critical pedogogy ; mentorship ; My Life Is a Sun Dance ; Pedagogy of the Oppressed ; prison subculture ; recidivism ; The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom 0 7746 Graduate school Leyva discusses coming to North San Diego County for graduate school at California State University San Marcos and the justice studies program in the Sociology Department. Leyva also discusses how our systems and environment drive the choices we make. Antioch University ; California State University San Marcos ; Chris Bickel ; Justice Studies ; rational choice ; Xuan Santos 0 7926 Prison abolition Leyva discusses his feelings on prison abolition, dismantling patriarchy, and feminist thought theory. Leyva describes his wishes for alternatives to incarceration and what a world without patriarchy looks like. feminism ; patriarchy ; prison abolition 0 8369 Project Rebound in the future Leyva discusses how he'd like to see Project Rebound grow, how formerly incarcerated people could have opportunity through it, and how he would like to see CSUSM's Project Rebound become a community hub and place to grow, student or not. community ; Project Rebound 0 8556 Closing thoughts Leyva offers his closing thoughts on the conversation, what his work means to him, and paying homage to his mentors through his work. global incarceration ; paying it back 0 Oral History Martin Leyva was the program coordinator from 2019-2023 for Project Rebound at California State University San Marcos, an on-campus support system for formerly incarcerated students which assists in their efforts to succeed in school and beyond. In his interview Leyva also discusses a similar program - the Transitions Program at Palomar and MiraCosta, colleges, and talks about his experience as a formerly incarcerated person and how his experience re-integrating into society and academia prompted his interest in Project Rebound, dismantling patriarchy, and supporting other members of the formerly incarcerated community.&#13 ; &#13 ; Leyva also discusses his experience with incarceration and post-incarceration life, especially in regards to prison employment and the prison-industrial complex, barriers experienced by prisoners upon release, and the mentorship that Leyva received from members of his fellow incarcerated community. Sean Visintainer: This is Sean Visintainer, and I'm interviewing Martin Leyva as part of the California State University San Marcos Library, Special Collections Oral History Project. Today is Thursday, October 27th, 2022, and the interview is taking place at the University Library at Cal State San Marcos. Martin, thank you so much for talking with us today. I thought we'd start off by talking about the work that you do, and I was wondering if you can speak to your roles at Cal State as well as Palomar and MiraCosta Colleges. Martin Leyva: Yeah. so currently I'm the program coordinator for Project Rebound here at Cal State San Marcos. Project Rebound started three years ago as a program that supports formerly incarcerated students. I'm also a lecturer within the Sociology [department] Criminology and Justice Studies [program]. And my work primarily is around formerly incarcerated students. It includes Palomar College's Transitions Program that started in 2016, 2017? 2017, and I worked there, also a professor of sociology there, as well as the support person for Transitions students. And same thing at MiraCosta, [unclear] teaches sociology, lecture and sociology there, as well as work with their Transitions students, so formerly incarcerated students. And the cool thing is now they're Rising Scholars, which is the Chancellor's, California Chancellor's Office support for formerly incarcerated folks within the community college. So that's what I do. Visintainer: What does that support look like from the -- you said the Chancellor's Office? Leyva: Yeah, so well, there's two parts. One, Project Rebound also gets support from the Chancellor's office to have programs in the CSU, provides financial support for formerly incarcerated folks. And that's the same thing at the community college with Rising Scholars Network is financial support and professional development for formerly incarcerated students all supported by the Chancellor's office. And that's all new initiatives that just happened in the last couple years. Rising Scholars just happened this past year, funding to community colleges, which is a big help, a huge help. Visintainer: How did Rising Scholars come to be? Leyva: Rising-- I mean Rising Scholars came to be because they saw the need. They saw like a lot of community colleges starting to build up and amplify their services to incarcerated and formally incarcerated students. I love the work. I started doing this work back in 2007 when I came home from prison. Started community college and you know, it's just, I don't know. It wasn't -- there wasn't a lot of support back in 2007 for formerly incarcerated folks and building that program and other programs that got built around existing programs and what we were doing at Santa Barbara City College, last 15 years is just more and more community colleges throughout the state started doing this work. Project rebound, expanded from San Francisco State on to thirteen other campuses. The UC [University of California] system started creating Underground Scholars that supported you know, Underground Scholars first started in Berkeley, and it had started expanding to the UCs. And I think the state of California just saw like, there was a movement and momentum around laws and policies and procedures that supported -- they needed to support formerly incarcerated students, because a lot were coming home and a lot were going to college. And it's been nothing but positivity, you know, I mean, the more they realize, the more degrees we get, the less the likelihood of us going back to prison drops significantly. And they started to fund them. So, it's been so beautiful to watch. Visintainer: Yeah. For sure. What you mentioned the that there's financial support and professional development that's provided and what does that look like? Leyva: So, professional development-- someone like myself who's been to prison, who's got a record it's really hard, especially in areas like this state, right? To get a job with felonies on your record or having an extensive background. But a lot of these programs, they're actually encouraging for institutions to hire people with lived experience. And so it opens, the professional development opens up the doors to people like myself to be able to come work for -- you know, it's interesting because at one point, how much distrust, and I dunno what the word is, distrust. And just like I was property of the state for a long time. &lt ; Affirmative&gt ; [Be]cause property of the county from county probation to the state of California being in prison and on parole, you're property of the state, and then to suddenly go to work for the state, it's kind of an interesting trajectory. But the professional development is they're encouraging institutions to hire formerly incarcerated folks to lead the charge to work with formerly incarcerated students. And I think that, that, I could see myself in admin work now. I could see myself as, you know, someday becoming like a dean of a department or-- and that was something I never thought as a formerly incarcerated individual that I'd ever see myself at that level. And I think that that through Project Rebound, I'm able to see myself as, "Wow, I can actually do this." And that's the part of the professional development, because if I was to leave here, I'm building the skills it takes to continue this work in other academic institutions or nonprofits or, you know what I mean, other places. And I think that there's a lot of skills that's being built working for the university. So-- Visintainer: So it's skill building its opening doors with state government also, I assume with private organizations. Leyva: Yeah. I mean, again, the nonprofit sector. A lot of organizations that are taking on issues around incarceration, around formerly incarcerated, around reentry you know, there are big nonprofits too. And you know, this is the professional development that if I was to leave the university, which I don't foresee me leaving the university anytime soon. You know, I got skills to be able to apply for these jobs that I would've never had. Right? And I'd be taking leadership or taking mentorship from some of our leadership here. I'm really understanding what it is to maybe someday lead an organization, right? And yeah, so the nonprofit sector even, I don't know, I don't ever foresee, like me going back to the prison system to work. But if, you know, job came up and it was, you know, proactive in helping people get out of prison, finding resources, I would take a job back into the, you know well not back into, but go back to the prison system to work to make sure that incarcerated folks had an easier time transitioning from prison to society, right? And so, I think those skills are being developed here. There's a lot of sectors that I can see myself working in. Yeah. Visintainer: So you're a lecturer. You have you have a hand in three different colleges, programs with helping formally incarcerated individuals with their college experiences. So you're very busy. Leyva: Yeah. &lt ; laughs&gt ; Visintainer: What does, what does like a typical day of work look like for you? Leyva: A typical day of work-- it depends on the semester, but it is, it's a typical day is, you know, get up, get ready for work, you take care of your household things, show up to university, check in, do your emails, support students, check in on students. Prepare for meetings, prepare agendas for meetings attend a lot of meetings. &lt ; Laugh&gt ; There's a lot of meetings in the university. And it's in, it's also preparing for class. And I don't prepare for class. You know, that's usually after hours or before work. And then, you know, different schedules, different colleges, different days. You know Monday, Wednesday for instance, I'm at MiraCosta teaching formerly incarcerated folks, sociology intro class. So, you know, the typical lecture here's the information, the grading, the mentoring of students. Tuesday, Thursday, I'm doing the same thing for Palomar College. And then quite honestly, I mean I stay busy, so I go home and I'm prepared a little food, hang out with the dog, and then all of a sudden you're--[be]cause I'm also in a doctoral program right now. So gotta do research, gotta write. It's a very &lt ; laugh&gt ; now that I say that out loud, it's super busy. But you know, I think that I also see the importance all of it, right? I see the opportunity that has been placed in front of me. And I know that there's a good benefit to it all right? I think it's also-- I stay busy as a formerly incarcerated individual. I know a lot of formerly incarcerated individuals are watching me and they see me and they could see them-- They could see their lives changing too. And I think that that's the super important part is that the mentoring that I've gotten, I got to give it away, right? And so that's a typical day is just, you know, Monday through Friday and on weekends, hopefully get a little downtime and hang out a little bit, if not, you know, I'm sitting there researching, writing, and grading and-- Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: Wouldn't trade my life for anything. Cause I think I've seen the worst of worst and I don't wanna see that anymore. And I think I can do something about that if I continue to do what I do. So-- Visintainer: So you mentioned that you-- part of your day is supporting students and checking in with students. And I imagine, and I'm making a bit of an assumption here, please, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine that there's a significant amount of emotional labor that goes into your work. What, I guess my question is what is the emotional labor that goes into assisting students with their transition to college life? Leyva: Yeah, there's a lot of emotional labor attached to it. [Be]cause it's not just formally incarcerated students here, when I teach here at the university, I'm teaching sociology to undergraduate students from all walks of life. And but when it comes to students in general, I think a lot of students still, especially at the community college, working with them, they struggle a lot with imposter syndrome. A lot of less, you know, they don't have the best self-esteem or self-value. A lot of 'em can't believe that they can actually make it. And you know, you want to support them as much as you can, you know, encourage them. Words of encouragement, sharing, you know, even the tutoring part, which is second nature to me: this is how you write a paper. This is what you should think about with research. Like, that's, that's like second nature to me now. But I also remember what it was like to be a student coming outta prison and going through education, which I'm still doing now. I've built so many skills and other skills I give away. But there's a lot of times where I think the emotional, real emotional labor comes is when students don't succeed. Right. We still have a lot of students that deal with the barriers, you know the getting a job, the family unification, addiction, alcoholism, even students that still deal with, you know, family trauma, neighborhood trauma, like gangs and stuff, right? And you, a lot of times I tell students, you, especially coming from that background, I tell students, you gotta be careful having one foot in your trauma and one foot in education, cause one of them's gonna win. And we try our best to have education heal that trauma, but a lot of times we see students go back to the old ways and that, you know, it's a little emotional taxing. I just shared in a discussion I had today that you can't change the person who's not ready to change, but what you can do is just plant the seeds that help them change, you know, and keep an open door. But there is, I find myself, this is actually a really good question cause I find myself at night when I lay down, my brain will tell me what to do next because I'll think about that student that still struggles and that's emotional. Like I carry that with me. And I think it's also a motivator to be like, "Okay, here's what I can do different. Here's who I can reach out to." This work is not just me. It is a huge community around. And there's a lot of emotional labor with that, you know, And again, just students that you know, I had mentors believe in me before I believed in myself. And there's still areas where I don't believe in myself where I still have people believing in me. And that's the thing, like I always tell students, Don't worry, you might not believe in yourself now, but I believe in you. You can do this. You might be looking through distorted eyes, but I could see the clear picture, you know, and it's a matter of them just trusting you. We also deal with the population that doesn't trust very well. You know what I mean? And so that can be emotionally taxing. It can be. And but again, we show up, we role model. And eventually the more you show up, the more they show up because they, you know, you're role modeling what you want them to do. And that's, that's super important. So. Visintainer: Is, is that the key to building trust or are there other things that you do to build that relationship? I assume there's like a feeling out stage that happens and then there's a trust that's built. I guess my question is how do you go about building trust with somebody? Leyva: I think that the students that gravitate towards me also recognize that there's a big similarity. Whether it's like, cause I, I'm very open with students, [I'm] a student in recovery, been clean and sober nineteen years. I'm a student whose, or an individual who has addressed a lot of healing within myself. And I think that when students know where I've come from and know where I'm at, they still see me for where I come from. So I'm an insider for a lot of them, right? And so there's already trust there. But again, it's also to like and I'll say it straight up, "You might not trust me now, but eventually you will." And it gets to that point where they're like, you know, you're reliable. You know, they're gonna call, they're gonna email. They don't really email. They'll call or text. And I answer and whatever they need, I say, Here, look, call this person. Go here, go that or come see me. I'll go, I'll meet you. Come to the office, or whatever. And students we rely on each other and they also know we're like-minded. You know I'll never tell a student to do something that I haven't done or not doing. I'll never ask a student to step outta their comfort zone without support. Right. And so they know that they're always gonna be supported and and cared for. They're always gonna be seen. And so, yeah, I think it, it takes a little bit to build trust, but it happens. It happens. And this is also, goes back to that question about professional development, is it's important to bring people into these institutions who actually have the lived experience of the people coming in. Visintainer: Hm-hmm. Leyva: Because we're here trying our best to succeed. And we're showing these folks that are just like us, just at a different level, that they too can be here. And they know that. It's like, there's like this insider trust, this insider knowledge, this insider acceptance that, you know I see them, they see me, and we have each other. We're gonna hold each other accountable. I will hold, I will hold students accountable. Right? And this isn't just formally incarcerated students, which is most of my workers around this has to do with students who are in the classroom here at Cal State San Marcos, who are also like Chicano or Chicana. They come from this marginal background. Maybe they're first generation, actually most of them are first generation. And then they see a professor. Cause I don't look like a typical professor, but they recognize my aesthetics, their language, my dress style. They recognize that as very similar to them. And so then you become those mentors for those students. Right. You know, when they come see you at the office, it's like, "Oh yeah, check out this resource, check out that resource." And nobody's really sharing with them that knowledge and introducing them to folks on campus that can help support their success. Right. Or their, their trajectory towards success. And the trust gets built and once it's built, it's there, right. And it's also always being there. And I, and I laugh because it's like, I've had students share with me, like, "Every time I call you answer." I'm like, "Trust me, that's my job. Because I believe in you." Right. And I want to be there for you. And cause a lot of times we deal with students who understand what disappointment and abandonment looks like. And if they come here and they get the same treatment, they're not really gonna be successful. Or, you know, the retention rates for them are gonna drop and we're not gonna hold onto them. And so I think it's important to have someone like me, someone like Dr. Xuan Santos, some of the other professors on this campus who mirror, you know, Rafael Hernandez. A lot of professors on this campus who come from the backgrounds of our students and students can see themselves in our places. And that's what we want. So it all starts with trust. We have to, they have to build trust first. And we just go from there, you know? Visintainer: Yeah. Can you talk about a great success that you had at work with either a student or a policy change? I'm just interested, like, what does a really great day at work look like and feel like? Leyva: What's a really great day at work look like? Actually quite a few and, you know, I'll share one. So I had a student, it was my first year actually teaching here. It was I felt like I'd been teaching a really long time, but after I got my master's degree here, and I started, like the following semester, I had a class and a student in this class who was very quiet, very reserved. And he was just kind of like, came out, came up with me after class. He's like, "I've never seen a professor like you." And then he started to share about him, his upbringing and his family. And right away I gravitated towards like, what this student was sharing and how he can be successful. And it was a little mentor/mentee relationship built. And a great day here is when you get the email says, I decided to go to grad school. I want to apply for this program. Can you help me? And I'm like, yes! And we're, I'm writing a letter for him for grad school. And then he gets, he sends me another letter. I got into grad school. And just that last semester, spring, spring quarter last year, he graduated with a master's degree in social work. Visintainer: Awesome. Leyva: Got a student in my office right now who formally incarcerated. He spent twenty-nine years in prison, came out an older gentleman. I met him when he first came out and he started Palomar to be able to help him. He got two associates degrees, came here, got his bachelor's degree, and he just started his first year of graduate school, right. And it's, I have, there's, so I'm truly-- I feel blessed because I have like, so many little stories. And I say little because they're gonna continue to grow, because these individuals are also gonna guide the next generation of students coming in. That helps. I mean that's success to me. And then just being part of, like, when I first started Transitions Program at Santa Barbara City College, to watch that program kind of grow into this big thing that policy changes, where finally, politicians are saying we need to fund programs and start programs and to see programs. Community college goes into schools-- community college goes into jails and prisons to teach associates degrees, and to me, success is like knowing that I played a small part in that. Right. And to be able to be an advocate and a voice for people ending life without the possibly of parole for minors who went to prison and playing a small part in that. Now you ask that question, I'm like, 'cause I never really think about it. I just do the work. Yeah. I just kinda show up and, and everything about, you know, like, what's, what's success to you? I'm like, you know, just show up to work. But to realize now when you say that, [unclear] had even just a small part of all these beautiful things. And as my mentor, Dr. Chris Bickel, he says, he's like, "Man, the work just began for you." Right. Yeah, I never really even think about it. Just kinda show up to do work. &lt ; laughs&gt ; And, yeah, I think that's every day too. You get students show up in the office and they get to share, like, "I got an A on this test, thank you!" And I'm like, "Don't thank me. I didn't do no-- I didn't do the study and I didn't do, I just gave you a couple encouraging words and you showed up, you took the test. It's not me, it's you, right?" And I think that you know, I get at least one piece of good news every day and that's a good thing. So, yeah. Never even thought about that, man. Thanks. Visintainer: &lt ; Laughs&gt ; Well, you're welcome. Thank you for sharing. Let's see. So, you started the Transitions Program at Santa Barbara City College. Can you talk a little bit about how the Transitions Program there came to be? Leyva: Yeah, so I got released from prison in 2007. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. All I knew was I didn't wanna back to prison. Education was not really on my mind. Change was though, right? Just not going back to jail. Not going back to prison. Not using drugs, not using alcohol, not going back to the neighborhood. I knew that that was what I didn't want. But I lost-- because of my record, I lost three jobs in three months. And my niece just had this idea, "Why don't you go to school?" And I went to the, I went to Santa Barbara City College. I was scared. It was the first time I'd really ever felt like I was-- you know I was scared to be there. I didn't feel like I fit in. I didn't feel like I belonged there. I didn't fit in [unclear] scared. My niece was the one who really practically held my hand in my first semester. And I always tell folks: that transition started out of an act of fear because I was scared to be there. I didn't feel like I fit in. And every time I went to the parole office, I was telling another formerly incarcerated individual. Back then, we were still using the word convict, right. And I'd be like, "Hey, you should come up and check out school." Selfishly, I wanted him there. Right. And I also saw two individuals I'd always see at the parole office. I saw 'em on campus. And I did really quickly, I recognized I didn't have the ability to ask for help. I didn't have the ability to raise my hand. I read and I was engaged in here, but I wasn't vocal about what I was learning. And these two individuals were Black. They're Black men. And in prison we walk around really fine racial lines. Right. These unwritten rules around race. And so, I at the time I was kind of scared to approach them because of race, but I was still institutionalized. And then really quickly, I said, I want to be here and I know they want to be here. And so I approached them, Tyrone and Malik and I introduced myself to them. We just got to talking about school, classes. Then they also felt the exact same things I was feeling. And next thing you know, we started a little support group. Me, Malik, Tyrone, and then there was a woman that joined and another person that joined another person-- and then we just started this transitions support group that turned into the school EOPS Director at the time, Marsha Wright, I said, "Hey, we need a little spot to meet." And she's like, "Yeah, I'm gonna get you a room so you can continue the support group." And that happened so quickly. The summer right after that, we had our very first cohort model of education for formerly incarcerated individuals. And I think the first cohort we had like fourteen formerly incarcerated students. Second, we had like twenty-two, then we had twenty-five, and we had twenty-five every year after that up until Covid, because Covid shut down a lot of the programs. But, you know, the Transitions Program was born and you know, addressing access to college, recruiting resources, you know learning disabilities, like a lot of the departments got involved because they saw a big need. And there this was the small community of Santa Barbara. We have students coming from Ventura, from San Louis Obispo to do the program. And so I think that that sparked the conversation. You know, campuses should address that. It's been such a pleasure and honor to be a part of that. Cause when I moved out here in 2016 to come to school, Cal State San Marcos, that first year we took it to MiraCosta and MiraCosta ran with it for one year. Second year I was here. Palomar. We had approached Palomar. Palomar started their Transition Program, which still both, now both campuses have one. And they're doing such amazing work. Right. And yeah, like I said, you know, it sparked a good movement. It's an honor to be fifteen years removed. I would say I'm fifteen years removed from prison, but I'm fifteen years born in education. Right. And that feels good to be part of that work. Visintainer: Yeah. I have so many follow up questions from what you just said. I'm gonna try and frame 'em in kind of a logical order. Okay. So you, you mentioned that you tried three jobs after getting out of prison. And did you say you were let go from 'em? Yeah. what were the jobs? Leyva: My first job was doing construction. My neighbor, I paroled back to my sister's house and the neighbor was, you know, essentially a good guy. His name's Joe. He was doing construction at the time. He said, I can get you a job at this construction company. And I was excited to work. Two things happened with that job. One, it was a big commercial industrial construction company they built, wasn't like building houses. We were building huge buildings. They ran a background check and it took about, you know, twenty days to then to come back. And they came back and this says, it's a lot of liability here. You just got out of prison and so we can't get you the job. The other thing was my parole officer. I was in Santa Barbara County and literally the job site was about three miles outside Ventura County. So, because I left Santa Barbara County into Ventura County, he's like, "You can't have that job." I'm like, "It's a job though, right?" And so not only did the construction company not continue employing me because there was a lot of liability, parole officer said, "You can't leave the county." Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: So I lost that job. So then my sister introduced me to temporary work. Right. A temp agency. And I got a job with, great job with, Powell-Peralta working, making skateboards. I thought that was a great job-- Visintainer: Cool! Leyva: Loved the skate culture. Right. And it was really cool designs and was learning how to make boards and the temp agency, I was working there. I, you know and after thirty days of working there they said, "Oh, we want to hire you're a good worker. You show up, you do your job. And you're--" They really liked me. And, to go from temp agency to permanent employment, they ran a background check and they also said, "You know, you're just too fresh out. You just gotten out a couple months," or not even a month maybe a month and a week, month and two weeks or two months, whatever. So then they didn't hire me on. And then I went to go work for janitorial, same temp agency. I was doing janitorial, cleaning buildings at night, nobody in sight, just me and you know, cleaning supplies. And after the same thing, after thirty days, they said, "We really like your work. You're good. Let's hire you on." And then background check. And so it was, it deflated me pretty quick. Like, it was just exhausting. I just, I just wanted to do well. I wanted to do good and I wanted to make some money for my kids and get back on track, whatever that meant. And that's why when my niece introduced me to school, should I go to school and then I think when I attended, started Santa Barbara City College, my parole officer said, "Well, I'm glad you're in school, but that's not a job." Right. FAFSA's not money. And I was like, It's kind of money &lt ; laughs&gt ; , right? But he's like, "No, you need a job." And then fairly quickly, I remember talking to my EOP counselor, EOPS counselor and I said, "I need a job." And she's just like, "Oh, this this thing called federal work study. You should try to get a job on campus." And I was like, "What's that?" So I explored it. Next thing you know, I'm working for English as a Second Language Department and I was doing administrative assistant work. And I'm like, "How am I do--? I don't even know what I'm doing!" But they gave me an opportunity. City College said, you know, you don't have certain crimes, so we're just gonna hire you. And I was like &lt ; surprised gesture&gt ; "Hmm." You know, next thing I know I'm working in, and I've been working in education since. An interesting thing is, same thing that happened to me back in 2007, trying to get a job is the same thing happening to people now. And this is why, again, this work is so important. We address those issues. We hire students on campuses. So. Visintainer: And you said the construction company said that the insurance liability was too much. And so when formerly incarcerated individuals are coming back and they're getting jobs and they're going through these background checks, I assume that's just a huge barrier. And things like insurance liability come up. How do you address that with students that you're mentoring and how do folks get over that barrier? Leyva: Yeah. Well now, I mean, this is the other thing about doing this work for so long: policy change has happened. Now we have the Fair Chance Act where you give me a job application and it says, "Have you been convicted of a felony?" You don't actually-- you don't have to mark anything down anymore. This allows for your application, at least to maybe go through the second process of an interview. They cannot run a background check on you until they hire you. So I always tell students, "You know what?" 'Cause some students just don't know, some formerly incarcerated folks just don't know. They see that box and they just don't even-- why is that box still on the application? I don't know. It should be removed from all applications, especially in the state of California. But I tell them, "If you see that box, don't even mark it. Put in all your skills, send me your resume, let's hook up your resume." Even if somebody doesn't have any real work experience for, you know maybe there's a five-year gap because they've been in prison, there's still skills being built, whether you worked in laundry, worked in the kitchen, did landscaping, did some type of machine shop, there's skills that are being built and we can put that in your resume. And so working with students, and the hard part is working with formerly incarcerated folks, we don't come in contact with all formerly incarcerated folks. So there's still a large portion, a large population of formerly incarcerated individuals who don't get this mentorship. But the ones that do, you know, let's work on your communication. Let's work on interview skills, let's work on all this stuff so that when they're ready to go for that job, they have a little bit of a leg up. Right. And you know, the Fair Chance Act has really given a lot of formerly incarcerated folks the opportunity to get work. Now, is it a livable wage? Probably not, but it's something, right? It's a starting point. But it's still an uphill battle. Cause we have a student currently in Project Rebound right now who is just having a hard time trying to find a job with a decent wage and attend school full time. And thinking about, you know, doing something different like truck driving school until you can save some money. There's still a lot of barriers. And as much mentorship and guidance we can give, there's still certain jobs that say, "Yeah, we wanna hire 'em." And then as soon as they find that there is a criminal background, you know, just like pull the blanket out or pull the carpet out from underneath you and you feel like you're stage one again. Right. And so it's hard. That's the other-- that's the emotional labor that we were talking about earlier. It's like, you know, I feel like I've reached a place in my career where I feel okay, but it's hard to be here knowing that there's so many other folks that still don't feel that yet. And it's both emotionally taxing, but also I feel grateful too because it's like, I understand that I've been in those shoes before and it's like, just keep showing up for them and they'll be okay. And telling them, show for yourself. You know, show for yourself. So, Yeah. Visintainer: Yeah. I have a question, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure exactly. I'm gonna let it gestate as we continue talking. Cause I'm not entirely sure what I want to ask, if that makes sense. There's something there if that makes sense. Leyva: Yeah. It makes total sense to me. &lt ; laughs&gt ; Visintainer: Okay. So let's see. So let's circle back then to the Transitions Program at Santa Barbara City College. And we've talked a little bit about how that came to be. That was-- it was really interesting. And I guess something that you mentioned there was a cohort that started and it was a smaller cohort, and then it grew as the years go on. And I was curious about how that communication starts. When before you have a program and you know that there are formerly incarcerated students on your campus, how do you get the word out about a program to help them? Leyva: It was really grassroots. So I'll start from the very-- like me and Tyrone, Malik, Christina, the number of folks in the very beginning, we would sit at this little bench on campus, right? And we would meet each other there in the morning. We'd talk about school, talk about tutoring, talk about resources. We'd support each other. But when you see a group of formerly incarcerated people or people that &lt ; airquote gesture&gt ; look formally incarcerated, the cops are also looking, right? You can see campus security, like, you know, what's this group of people doing here? Right? And I've been asked too, when the early days by campus security or can I help you? Are you a student here? I'm like, Yeah, I'm a student here. And they're like, "Can I see your ID?" And I'm like, at the time I'm like, I'm on parole. I'm like, "Yes, you can see my ID." Technically they had no right to do that right. I didn't know that. So I knew that there was like this surveillance aspect that was happening to us. And so that's why I approached the school, not to start a program, but to, "Hey, can you give us a safe place to meet?" Here's this group of people. We're all formerly incarcerated, We're all here. And it was like, yeah. So that's, that's that entry to the, to the dialogue as we're here and we need a safe place. And I said, you know, the campus security is always like looking at us or questioning one of us when we're coming into the college. And so the people that I was talking to were like, "Oh, that's not right. They shouldn't do that." Right. And they help us help ourselves by saying, If they ask you that, you don't have to answer any questions. You can actually call me or whatever. Right. They were really supportive. But then you realize when you start asking more and more formally incarcerated people to come to school, that something needs to happen. And the good thing is, is that the school, especially EOPS at that time at Santa Barbara City College, still to this day, their goal is to help marginal students their whole, And they saw the need really quickly, and they said, "You think you can get a program started?" And I was like, I actually know I can get a program started, but what is a program? Right? And they asked me like, "What do you think a program would look like?" I said, "We get a whole classroom for formerly incarcerated folks." I don't even know what you would teach, but we could all learn together and we can support each other and we can build I don't even know if I knew what the definition of cohort was before that. And then I was told, "You think you can get a cohort going?" And I just said, I didn't know what it was. I was like, "Sure. What is it?" You know what I mean? But, just-- they were really supportive. And then next thing you know, they're talking funding, they're talking, you know, "Oh, we'd like to hire you as a peer advisor to run this program and do this stuff." And I was, I was just like, "Yes." Because it was a job. It was being around the people that made me comfortable, which were four other formerly incarcerated folks. I felt good about what I was doing and I was also doing drug and alcohol treatment or going to school for drug and alcohol treatment at the time so everything we were talking about in class was fitting into this model that was being built. Right. And so I had my teachers, my professors in those classes actually telling me about group process and all this other stuff. It just felt like everything was organic at that moment. And that's how the conversation started. And that's you know, I think me and Malik and Tyrone, we just ran with it, you know, and it was yeah. And that's how the conversation happened. And that's also goes back to professional development because I feel like when they start talking about funding and, you know, writing up a budget and all this stuff, I was like, I have no idea what this means. And here I am just like watching these EOPS counselors and these program coordinators talk about this stuff, and I'm watching them do the work, and I'm like, "Oh, I want to learn this." It's not something-- not a skill I've ever had or been around. Again, I didn't know it would take me to this place, but I knew that there was some skills being built there. Right. And I think I answered your question. &lt ; laughs&gt ; Visintainer: Yeah. What is what is EOPS? Leyva: I always get this wrong. Extended Opportunities, Programs and Services. So it's like EOP here, and here it has a different definition, but it's pretty much like EOPS is the program that yeah-- So there's like single mothers, there's you know, marginal students that need extra support. Visintainer: Mmm-hmm Leyva: They're gonna provide the, the support, the resources, the mentorship, the guidance, the tutoring. We have tutoring labs in this department. And our own academic counselors in there too. We were just like, Here's your head plan. And IGETC [Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum ; course that California community college students can complete to satisfy general education requirements] and all that other stuff that goes along with, you know, students that are getting ready to transfer. And Transitions fell into the lap of Noel Gomez in the early, his name was Noel Gomez. And we pretty much formulated the program together. He was working at administration. We had the students do the work. We started collaborating. He still runs to this day. He runs the Transitions Program. And he is the EOPS director now too, or interim director, I think. Visintainer: Okay. Leyva: So he stayed in the same field doing the same work. And it's just it's cool to still have those ties, those connections and still watching him do such beautiful work and be a mentor to me, you know, So. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: Yeah. Visintainer: So you mentioned that the college gave you a meeting space. And then-- and then you get your first kind of cohort together. What was the-- can you talk about the first meeting that you had? Leyva: With the school or with the students? Visintainer: With the students? Leyva: &lt ; laughs&gt ; Yeah. 'Cause that was interesting because they said, "You can start your own program, or you can start this program. Can you get students?" And I said, "Yes." The first meeting was really interesting because we had a small group of students who had already started community college who were helping. But I remember just like they're like, "Just make a flyer." And I had no idea I can make a really fancy flyer now. Back then I said I think I even said "Transitions Program." Program-- ex-convicts I think was written on the flyers. Very unethical or very, like, these are not the language we're using anymore. But I had the, the email and the phone number to call. I remember making-- so funny because I made a Word document and I put the information on the top and then a copy and paste and put it below and then printed 'em out and then cut 'em in half. Like this, this is like my ideal of making flyers, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: But I remember, like my first conversation with students or potential students is every time I was at the parole office, I'd show up like, "Hey man, you should try to go to school where, you know, we got this program going off in school." Most people were like, uninterested or like, no, I remember even seeing one guy, he's like, "Oh, yeah, I'll check it out." And then he crumbled it up and threw it away. Right. But I'd show up to the courthouse and I'd see folks walking out of the court and I'd be like, you know, "Hey, you should try coming to school, try going to school." I'd put flyers in the sober living homes, or I'd go to sober living homes and hand out flyers or and so it was, it was that conversation. It wasn't just me. It was me and Malik and Tyrone. And even in our neighborhoods where we'd know people who were our friends that are formerly incarcerated, it'd be like, "Hey, you should try home to school." And we already knew that they were kind of tired of the old lifestyle too so they were like, "Yeah, I'll try it out." And it just quickly-- that was the first meetings. That was the first conversations about going to school. And I also knew that when they did come up to school, that I would have to show 'em, this is where the-- this is how you feel like application. This is where you do your FAFSA [Free Application for Federal Aid]. This is, you know, this is a financial aid, academic counseling or academic advising or, everything my niece showed me, I showed them. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: And everything I wanted to know, I was asking EOPS counselors and director, you know, "What do I do if a student asked about a job?" And they're like, "Oh, go to Human Resources. See what jobs are available on campus, make sure they have federal work study." So I learned it all pretty quickly. And that was the conversations with students. Cause I'm like, "Look, we can you get a job up here, you can do, you can get food up here." They were, you know, there's you know, there's-- I have a learning disability, so I was a part of the DSS, the Disabled Students Program. And I was like, "Look, if you got learning disabilities," and you know trying to break that stigma too right away. Right. So it's all about gathering resources. And every time I've met with a group of students, potential students, or individually, it was like all this information that I was giving 'em. Right. So it was quickly getting the buy in, but I also felt really good about what I was doing. Yeah. You know, and that it felt good to be like, "Yeah, okay, I'll do it. I'll sign up." And then you just meet 'em at the campus and you're filling out the application. Just at that time, it was just one finger typing too. Cause I didn't know how to type either, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: But I, you know, I just, it just felt good. And they did, there was a lot of, still to this day, people come into college and this community college, or even come to the university, there's that imposter syndrome. "I can't do it." And it's just like, "Yes you can. Yes you can." And you know, it's still, yeah. That was the first conversation. And it's-- and it feels like it still happens to this day. Right. Even though we got somewhat of a formula, we have great people, great resources. It feels like those first conversations happen all the time. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: And which even though a lot of things have changed, the individual self hasn't. "I don't believe in myself, I can't do it." And it's like, "Yes, you can. Yes you can." It feels like 2007 and 2022, those conversations are still the same. Right. So Yeah. It's conversations happen on a regular, so. Visintainer: You've talked to a couple times about Imposter Syndrome and that's like, so rampant in academia. Leyva: Mm-hmm. Visintainer: And then you throw students that are maybe not familiar with an academic environment into the mix, and you add all these barriers, these like bureaucratic and logistical barriers, like university campuses are not necessarily easy places to navigate. Especially for folks that aren't familiar with them. So how did you go about addressing and facilitating students to be successful? Navigating the bureaucracy? Leyva: You just show up &lt ; laughs&gt ; , you know what I mean? You just show up. You don't wanna show up or you feel you're gonna get push back or you feel like you don't belong. I mean, there's so many feelings even now. I mean, I still deal with that now and my role in administration and I love this campus because it's been very supportive of the programs, of me, of our students. It's a great community. Even Palomar, MiraCosta is very open. But you just show up. You just, you just show up. And I think for me, and I think also too, for a lot of our students, we know it's waiting for us if we don't show up, you know. We know what the other side of this looks like. The gangs, the drugs, the alcohol, the jails, the prisons. And that's not for all, all of us, right? There's not drugs and alcohol with everybody. But we understand what's on the other side. If we're not doing this, what else do we have? Right? And so we just show up and it feels good to actually do this work. And when that imposter syndrome or you know, that belief in self isn't there, or our value is low, self-esteem is low, we still just show up. You know, we show up. And I, you know, I think I've seen people show up and I'm like, "God, I have to do that." Cause I get in my own head. And I know that same thing when I show up, other people show up and it's like we're there. Right. You just show up and the bureaucracy is the bureaucracy, it's gonna be there. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: When I'm getting pushback, not the funding or, "You can't do that program," or you can't, you know, it's like I always tell folks we've heard no so many times their life is here. No. Again, it's not gonna hurt us, but we're still gonna show up, you know? And I think that we've had a lot of doors closed our faces or a lot of denials for jobs or resources. And it happens with formerly incarcerated folks it happens and it's gonna, it's gonna happen even more, but we're still gonna show up. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: And we're still gonna show that we can do the work. We're gonna do the work. And statistically thinking or talking that's like all incarcerated people in the United States, 95% of people are coming home someday. And that always is one of those driving things to say, like, coming home to what? Let's create something so that when they do come home, there's resources in the community. There's resources in academia, there's resources that're gonna help their mental health, their PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder], their you know, and we have to, we have to build those really soft landings for folks to come home and have a fighting chance to make it in society. You know? And I think that we live within a system that still, even though we see a lot of positivity and we're going in the right direction, there's still a lot of barriers. There's still a lot of doubt. There's still an industrial complex in the prison that relies on our labor, relies on our, the exploitation of who we are. There's still laws and policies and politicians that say, "Well, we can create these laws and policies to continue funneling people into the prison system." It still exists. And it's-- I mean, we still have the thirteenth Amendment &lt ; laughs&gt ; , you know, we're still combating just the thirteenth amendment alone, let alone all these local laws and policies that just flood our jails and prisons. We just show up. We continue to do the work, and we continue to role model. We continue to, to, you know, I love watching people like you know, Frankie Guzman up in Oakland who's you know, a formerly incarcerated lawyer who's a policy lawyer, you know James Binnall from Long Beach, he's a professor, Dr. James Binnall, who-- he's a formerly incarcerated lawyer, he did his LSATs [Law School Admission Test] in prison, and now he's a professor and he does a lot of policy work. And it's like folks like that ; they're inspiring. You know what I mean? They're inspiring. It's like, you know, we-- again, they show up. I show up, they're motivation for me. And I can just rattle off a bunch of names of people who are formerly incarcerated who're serious allies for this population. And they want to, they want to do, they wanna do great work. Or they do great work. And it's just like that, that encourages me to continue doing the best work I can. Visintainer: Yeah. It sounds like tenacity then is a really big ingredient to success? Leyva: Yes. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: Yeah. Visintainer: What are some other characteristics or expand upon that if you want, but I was just curious, like, what are the characteristics that you feel are really important to build, uh, for folks to build when they're getting out of prison? Leyva: I always tell folks this: I say, "Greatest education that you have is your own lived experience." Right. That we use every time we've had a door shut in our face, every time we've been denied something, every time we've been at the lowest place in our life. Like those, that's the motivator to create change. That right there should be single-handedly the thing we use to create change. So you know, our strength is just who we are. You know, I've seen unfortunate-- some of the-- California Department of Corrections is a hard place to live. Yeah. You know, there's everything from drugs and alcohol and violence and assault and denial of medical, mental health services, medical services, it's hard. And it's like that right there though is probably one of the greatest teachers we have that builds our character up to be like, "I don't wanna take no for an answer. No, I'm here. I'm gonna do something else." Right. And I always tell folks, it gives us a reason to fight, a reason to &lt ; unintelligible&gt ; . And obviously not talking physically, but mentally, emotionally. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: Politics and, you know, getting involved with like, you know, they should build us up to this place where we feel empowered to create change. We already have it. We've already been to the lowest places that society can send us. Right. And I think that we can only go up from here if we stop colluding with the system that's there. Right. We have to stop colluding with it. Visintainer: Yeah. What, what do you mean by that? Colluding with the system? Leyva: You know, we bump up against it. You know, it's just same thing if you-- when an individual, and I see this happen, and it's disheartening when an individual loses a job or can't get a job and he or she knows that, you know, the informal economy exists, like selling drugs or, you know, hustling for what they need. I respect that. You gotta do what you have to do as a person, as a family person. But we get denied jobs, get denied access to certain resources, and then our only, we can resort back to some drug sales or some criminal activity. We're colluding with them. We're actually saying, "Well you know, you're gonna call me bad or create this level where I can't succeed. I'm gonna do what I have to do." And we go back to colluding with the system that send us to jail or prison. Stick with it. Stay within the long haul. We're always gonna get what we want. But, and the more we collude with the system, the more we actually allow the system to say, "This is why we need laws and policies. This is why crime rates are the way they are. This is--" And so it's like it's like we have to just really try our best to not collude with that system but change that system. And as insiders, we can change the prison system. We can change the laws around gang injunctions, mandatory minimums, three strikes laws, and all these things that are created through laws and policies. Why can't we become the politicians to change that? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: Formerly incarcerated people can be politicians. You know, we can actually be [on] school boards, city councils, county supervisors, all the way to the state level, all the way to the federal level. We can be politicians and instead of colluding with this criminality as they used the word, you know, let's just bump up against the system and change the system. Make it work for all people. So it's fair and just and equitable. And that's what we push. That's what I push, you know? And, you know, and I'm not alone. There's a lot of beautiful people doing great work out there. Men and women, gay, straight, able, disabled. There's a lot of formerly incarcerated people who are doing this work that, you know, we just, yeah. We just put our best foot forward and keep walking. &lt ; laughs&gt ; Visintainer: I was curious if there was any particular like majors or disciplines that students that you mentor through either Transitions or Project Rebound here if they tend to gravitate towards any specific majors, disciplines in academia? Leyva: Yeah. The biggest one we see across the state, not just here at Cal State San Marcos, across the state, is usually sociology and criminology, right? Because we want to, we come from that. We know that so well and we do that. But also like human services, like counselors, drug and alcohol treatment counselors MSWs [Master's of Social Work], because we want to, we also wanna help, right? We're very empathetic. Some of the majors they don't gravitate to, which I'm actually excited about at Cal State San Marcos, it's usually like STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math] fields. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: We do have four students here at Cal State San Marcos that are in STEM, which is probably the most, because we don't gravitate to it. We gravitate towards how can we create change. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: So sociology, criminology, justice studies, MSW, counseling. Those are the main fields. You know, some psychology 'cause you do-- we're helpers. We want formerly incarcerated folks want to help out another individual. My goal is to get people into political science and other fields to be like, "Let's go to Washington." You know what I mean? Let's get in those halls. Yeah. And you can do that with sociology and stuff. But those are the main, those are the big disciplines or the big majors that people go into. And that was mine, bachelor's degree in psychology. My master's degree in sociology. And my doctorate will be in education. And that's all because I want to create, understand these systems so well that I could create the change within 'em, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: And that's formerly incarcerated folks. I got a group of twenty-two formerly incarcerated students at MiraCosta right now. And all of 'em say same thing. I want to help people. So I wanna do sociology. I wanna become a counselor, I wanna do this, I wanna do that. And I'm like, "Where's my politicians at though?" You know what I mean? Where's my &lt ; laughs&gt ; ? Where's my--'cause you know, there's also, they understand that, you know, some of 'em say they want to be nurses, but there's no access to nursing if you're formally incarcerated. There's a lot of fields that uh-- actually not a whole lot. Nursing is one. Education is another. 'Cause a lot of times if you're formally incarcerated, you can't go back in the high schools to teach, can't get your credentials if you're formerly incarcerated, which I think should change. I think we would make great teachers, especially of high school students. Right. Visintainer: Yeah. I think there would be real value in, in having people who are formerly incarcerated in classrooms. Leyva: Yeah. And we see that too, because when I was in Santa Barbara, I was working in the high schools teaching social and emotional intelligence and social justice work through a non-profit. And the high schools over there saw my value. Out here, we could take Project Rebound students and other students we work in, you know, continuation high schools and court, juvenile court community schools, and those schools sees the value of formerly incarcerated students coming into their school, doing the mentorship, doing all that stuff. And there is a lot of value in it, you know, and not just, I mean, you know, we gravitate towards drug and alcohol treatment or counseling because we understand those folks really well. We also understand marginal high school students and middle school students, they say, "Let us in here" because we can actually really change the outcome for a lot of the students, especially our Black and Brown students that get targeted in other places other than the schools ; their communities, even their homes. We can actually-- I feel like we can really do a lot of work in that area, but until the policies around hiring formerly incarcerated folks to work in high schools, to work as teachers, to work as nurses, caretakers-- The other thing too is we're doing that work in prison. Nurses in prison exist, but some of the main caretakers-- people doing like CNA [Certified Nursing Assistant] work or LVN [Licensed Practical Nurse] work, they're inmates. They're, I don't really want to use the word inmates anymore. They're incarcerated folks doing that type of work. They're caretaking for elders, they're caretaking for people with terminal illness. They're doing dentistry work. They're being, you know, incarcerated folks are already doing that work. We, they allow us to do it there, but as soon as we step out of the prison, "Oh, you're not allowed to do that work anymore." Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: You know, and it's like, we can benefit. We have a big benefit to society if you allow us to do that work. Right. Just like incarcerated firefighters, they're out here fighting some of the biggest fires. We can do it, we can do it while we're in prison, but we come out and we can't join a fire station. And the laws, that's the other thing too. That's another part of where laws have changed. Now formerly incarcerated firefighters can get a job doing forestry fighting now. And that's, you know our next step is let us in the firehouses in the cities, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: So small policy changes, small changes are happening. Visintainer: And how does employment in prison happen? Leyva: Ah, that's a good question. You know, you go to prison and there's a couple ways. One if you're an incarcerated folk like I was, I had to serve eighty-five percent of my sentence. So a lot of resources for somebody already serving that much time. You kind of get put on the back burner. There's also a population of incarcerated folks that go and do, they have to do fifty percent of the time. So they get sentenced to ten years. They only do five. They have to earn that five years. So they put 'em to work right away. And then also if you're, if you're lucky enough to just be like, I got certain skills. 'Cause they do, they run your resume. "What kind of work have you done? What kind of skills do you have?" And they'll place you if there's jobs available, right? So it all really depends what skills you have, how much time you have. So there's a few defining things that get work. But you know, when you go to prison and you get a job, I was a landscaper in prison and it was a job I landed just because somebody was going home and they made a recommendation saying, "Hey Martin should do this job," right? So they hired me right away and it was-- The pay scale. I think the pay scale recently changed. So they're hiring certain people with certain jobs that actually is a decent wage. But I was making thirteen cents an hour in prison. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: And because they had restitution, they were taking fifty-five percent of my thirteen cents to pay back restitution. And so at the end of a month, you get paid once a month. maybe able to buy maybe a jar coffee, &lt ; laughs&gt ; . Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: Right. Jar of coffee, a couple soups and not a whole lot coming from there, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: So and there's still a lot of prisons that are still paying their people cause they're still paying folks. Pennies, pennies on the dollar, you know. Visintainer: And is that based out of like some sort of private company using labor? Leyva: Um. Visintainer: Why is there, uh, why is there such a huge disparity between the wages that somebody's being paid when they're incarcerated and somebody that's not incarcerated doing the same work? Leyva: It's just the exploitation of labor, right? Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: Depending on what you're doing inside prison, what prison, what industry is contracted with the prison because certain, you know, IBM and Levi jeans and, you know, no longer Victoria's Secret, but there's a lot of companies that contract with the prison industry for cheap labor. Right? So it just depends on those contracts. And that's the rise of mass incarceration though, right? You can actually have companies and corporations that on Wall Street, stock market, made in America. You know, you be careful. Chevron and Exxon, they all have a lot of products made in prison. There're so many companies that use prison labor cause it's cheap and they can say that their product is being made in the USA right? And it sucks. Even like the federal prison system for instance, they have a corporation called UNICOR [Federal Prison Industries] and they make all like military flak jackets and military gear. And yes, they're made in the USA but they're made by cheap labor, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: And again, given that we're doing the labor in prison, we're getting the skills, much needed skills, but it doesn't equate to jobs as soon as we leave prison. And I think that's where, you know, I'm glad to be working while I'm in prison, keeping our minds busy staying active, which is good. But you know, you've got the private prison industry, it's, you know, you got an entire industry that's on Wall Street. People can actually put money in the stock market and just relies on the exploitation of people. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: It's kind of a gross system that we have &lt ; laughs&gt ; . Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: You know, and I've seen the labor, you know, everything from making our license plates to maybe a lot of this furniture that's actually here was built in prison. Our shoes, our clothing items, everything that we have is actually built in prison. So it's like there's an entire industry that relies on our labor, you know? There's another thing: a lot of people don't really understand that, you know? They think that jobs went overseas. Yes. Jobs went over overseas for sure, but jobs also went into the prison system. Jobs that could have been for a lot of people. So we can't blame fully overseas. We blame our prison system and the allowance of written contracts to have this labor be done there. You know? And a lot of people are just, they don't-- They're just not well informed about what's really going on. Right. And so yeah. One, I'm glad that was working 'cause I would drive myself nuts if I wasn't. But it's also like, you know, you're completely exploiting, you know, my labor. Visintainer: Yeah. Yeah. When you were a landscaper, excuse me. So you were landscaping like outside of the prison? Leyva: No, it was on the inside. It was on the inside, Yeah. And, you know, it was sure around some of the offices, never was allowed off the grounds in the prison system. But the aesthetics of the prison was important for the face. Right. It has to look good on the outside. The inside was really quite run down, but the outside, the grass was cut nicely. The hedges were trimmed, the flowers were growing on the outside. And that's what you're doing. And trust me, I really enjoyed it 'cause I like being in the sun. I love gardening. I love plants. I love the work. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: But, you know, yeah, it was-- I was happy to do the work. I wasn't, you know, especially then I was like, "Oh, I'm cool with this job. I like these thirteen cents an hour," because I was misinformed. I was uneducated. Soon as I came home, and I knew that there was like some exploitation happening, [unclear] understand it, you know, on the outside I'd be getting paid ten dollars an hour, fifteen dollars an hour, whatever I was doing on the outside. And in here it sucks to get thirteen cents an hour or whatever. But now that I'm in academe, I'm educated, I understand these, how the system allows for this to happen with the thirteenth amendment and all these laws and policies and how I really honestly feel like even in education, how I was targeted as a Brown male, it all makes sense to me when I see the rise of the prison system, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: At one point, crime rate, crime rates are kind of going up right now, but for the longest time, crime rates were dropping. Were on a steady decline, but our prison system kept growing. And it took education for me to really understand what is happening with laws and policy, what is happening with contracts in the prison system, what is happening with our politicians who are, you know, law and order issue. You know, "We need to get crime under control!" I'm like, crime rates are dropping though. Why is our prison population 2.3 million people in the United States if crime rates are dropping now, Covid and everything else. Yeah. Crime rates are, are rising, but they're not at a dangerous level. Right. Where our prison system stays at the same amount of people. You know, we can, I love research &lt ; laughs&gt ; . Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: I love research, right? Visintainer: Yeah. And I don't know if this is necessarily a question, but then there's also, you know, I've been seeing like people talking about New York, the crime rates are not actually rising, but there's this narrative that the crime rates in the city are rising. So you have like Adams, the mayor, you know, running on this like tough on crime cop platform and getting elected. And so, I don't know, I don't know what my question is, but I think there's something there too with, with media narratives being-- Leyva: Oh, yeah. I mean that's huge for us. And it's also the time of the year too, right? With, with elections coming up, obviously gonna be this focus on crime and crime in America and all these things. And they're gonna, it's easy for politicians and media to be like, "Well, this crime happened in Chicago, this crime happened in New York, and they could be like all people, right?" It's like, no, that was an incident. Right? And it's gonna happen at this time of the year during elections, midterm elections presidential elections. It's gonna, you're gonna hear about how horrible we are, right? And as soon as the elections stop, you'll go, we'll go focus on something else, Right? Monkey Pox or something else, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: It's always gonna be something to focus on. But right now, crime rates are the thing because of this media. And that's the interesting thing is how we always, I always call this the sandwich effect, right? When you take media and they'll start the conversation with "murderers this, murderers that," and then they'll have like this middle part of like low-level crimes and criminals, and which is a huge bulk of the percentage of people in prison are crimes that are just like, you know, stealing or property crimes or something that's not dangerous, but it is a crime. So you start off with murderers and murderers and all these violent crimes, which is a very small percentage. And then you talk about this big section of people who are low level crimes and petty criminals, whatever they call 'em. It's a huge percentage of our prison system. And then you end with like rapists and child molesters, people who are misinformed through our media, they hear murderers and then something else, and then they'll end with like murders and rapists, and that's where they lump everybody up. But our major prison population is really people that are like systematically inundated with inequality, lack of access to jobs, lack of access to resources like medical, and they commit crimes that are like informal economies. They're like, you know, petty thief or selling drugs or, you know, something-- that's the bulk of our prison system. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: But media more entrepreneurship says murderers, killers and violent crime, and then they end with murder or rapists and child molesters. And that's a very small percentage of our prison population. You know? And but when you, when you start with that and end with this? We're all bad people. Right. And it's not-- Yeah, I'm so critical about media &lt ; laughs&gt ; , you know? Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: 'Cause they, they strategically figured out how to get the vote. You know? And I'm not talking about, I'm not voting for one. It's like, you know, liberal Democrats are one way and conservative Republicans are another. And I kind of feel like, no, there's a lot of in between that we're ignoring you know? There's a lot of great politicians or people who are just silenced by these two big conglomerates. Right. And they're supported by these big media corporations. And they're all-- I would say they're all in it together. Let's just be very critical about them. That's my job as a citizen, as an educator, is let's just be critical about our government, the systems that run our government, the corporations that run our government. Because if it isn't about the prison system, it's also about lack of education for people. It's also about lack of medical care. It's a lack of good livable wages. You know what I mean? There's so much more if we just remove the prison system, there's so much more to focus on. We just need to be critical about the entire system we're living in. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: I think Covid taught me that because we breathe the same air, we should be talking about the same things. Right? &lt ; laughs&gt ; One person gets sick. We should all think about, we all can get sick too, right? And I think there's an illness with the prison system. It impacts us all. Your tax dollars, my tax dollars. I think there's forty-five percent of people in the United States who have a loved one in prison or who know somebody's been locked up. Some major portion of our population who know somebody's impacted by the prison system. We should all be focusing on it together. Right? Visintainer: Yeah. And we're the largest carcell-. Sorry, I didn't have trouble with this word. Leyva: Carceral. Visintainer: Carceral, Thank you. Leyva: Yeah. &lt ; Laughs&gt ; Visintainer: Carceral country on earth, aren't we? Leyva: Mm-hmm. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: I always say it's a, you know, United States is five percent of the world's population, but twenty-five percent of the world's prison population. It's pretty wild. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: You know, and you think, like, you know, China and other countries are bigger than ours, but they, they have less prison system. Right. And it's again, we can get into the exploitation of labor. But-- Visintainer: Yeah. And I do want to talk about systems with you, but could we shift for a little bit and talk a little bit about kind of your journey to where you got and then I want to follow up with systems. I got some kind of more big picture questions for you. So I just wanted to ask, where did you grow up? Leyva: Born and raised in Santa Barbara [California]. I always have to name my neighborhood. The west side of Santa Barbara is my home. I love that place. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: Don't want to ever want to move back, but I love that place. &lt ; laughs&gt ; Visintainer: Yeah. What do you love about it? Leyva: It's just a great little community. It's beautiful beaches, mountains family still there. A lot of history there. When I go back, just like cruising certain neighborhoods, certain streets. It's just a lot of-- it's just a beautiful place. Visintainer: Yeah. What did in your childhood, what did your community look like? Leyva: It's interesting you ask that question because growing up my community was just like, it's a beautiful community. A lot of good little restaurants, a lot of good neighbors, a lot of good food, a lot of good communities. But you don't know what you don't know, right? But it was a lot of poverty, a lot of crime, a lot of sadness, a lot of hardships. But you don't really see that when you're in the middle of it. Right. You don't really ever, you don't ever really critique it when you're like, this is my life. Right. So it was, there was a lot of that and a lot of-- there's a lot of beautiful community built around this ugly thing, you know what I mean? Like the crime and the police and, you know, the lack of schools. But if you don't know what it is, you just, and that's all you know, and you're accepted, right? Yeah. It is beautiful. My family, my mom, my two sisters, and, you know, cousins and community members-- its good people all around. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. What were some of the gathering places? Leyva: The gathering places in my community growing up? The home is always one. That's the best one. But, you know, our, you know, little parks. And for me, I like this question actually, the gathering places. I don't know why the-- places like Oak Park and Alameda Park, these places are ringing a bell, but also the corners. Right. thinking one in particular. San Andres and Micheltorena Street, like those were the gathering spots. Those are like--Bath and Ortega Street. You just see the little cornerstore friends and family gathered there, you know? Yeah. Starting trouble or laughing or yelling at each other or something. But yeah, those are-- I like that question. Visintainer: Yeah. What did Oak Park look like? Leyva: Was Oak Park and Ortega Park were the two main parks and I'm thinking Oak Park was just that a lot of oak trees, a lot of barbecue pits what they would call the kiddie pool. Right. The pool that's only like a foot deep and the playground. And on weekends there was the smell of barbecue and beer &lt ; laughs&gt ; . Visintainer: Yeah. Visintainer: You know, and Ortega Park is still to this day, one of the most beautiful places there in Santa Barbara because there's same thing, the swimming pool, the playground, the basketball courts, the soccer field, and it's just a block wide. It's not even that big of a park. But there's murals, right? That's like kind of Santa Barbara's own Chicano Park. It's just one little area. Okay. But there's murals on the wall and there's growing up I didn't see the, the crime that was happening, the drug you started, I didn't see that stuff because that's just, you're in the mix, right? You're in the, that's just what happens there. Now I can see it differently through different spectacles, but yeah, it was just the same thing. The smell of barbecue and beer and laughing and music, you know what I mean? Visintainer: Did you have a favorite mural or do you have a favorite mural? Leyva: God, I wish I could show you the picture of it. Yes. There's like this Aztec warrior mural and it was just like this side view. A guy named Manuel Unzueta is the muralist and he's from Santa Barbara. He did a lot of the murals there. But yeah, it was like this Aztec god kind of person. And back then I wasn't really like really into the history yet as I am now, but I remember going back to Ortega Park after being educated after coming home from prison and be like this, like now there's like a connection, not only that's my childhood, but also like academically thinking like I understand the history of where we come from, right? Yeah. So but also I love bright colors and love like images, so yeah. That was, that was one that always stood out. Visintainer: You talked about barbecue a couple times. What kind of barbecue? What did folks like to barbecue? Leyva: Oh, you know, tri-tip and chicken! Santa Barbara, it was Santa Maria nearby. Santa Maria is the birthplace of tri-tip. And so this tri-tip and chicken and corn wrapped in foil, &lt ; laughs&gt ; put on the barbecue pit. And that was, that was the thing. Visintainer: That sounds good. Leyva: Yeah. &lt ; laughs&gt ; Visintainer: Who were your childhood role models? Leyva: Um. My childhood role models. Quote unquote the "bad guys." I didn't see 'em as bad guys, you know? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: It's funny because uh, just had this conversation earlier today, but you know, family members, like my uncles, you know, they were the cool guys who dressed nice, who got the handshakes, who got the respect in the neighborhood. And again, growing up in that, you don't see or think about the negativity that's going on. But they were my role models because they were the ones who like would give me a hug and tell me they loved me or tell me they see me or buy me a coke or an ice cream. Right? And you look up to that, right? Not understanding that the money that they used to buy that stuff for people in the neighborhood, like little kids in the neighborhood also came from drug sales. You don't see that, or nor do you even think about that. You just know that these role models were like the men who were, you know, the men who actually recognized me and saw me. The women who would always be like, "Are you doing your homework?" And, you know, and the women weren't particularly like into a positive lifestyle either, but they would use terms like mijo or mi rey, right? "My little king." And they would always say, you know, go to school and do good. And the kid, the men would be like, "Don't get into trouble." You know what I mean? You know, but if you got in trouble, they'd be like, "Good job." You know what I mean? &lt ; laughter&gt ; So it's like one on one hand, don't get in trouble. Second hand like, alright, good job! You know what I mean? So yeah. They were, they were the ones that actually saw us for who we were. Right. And I love having that experience in life and now being able to see it from a different vantage point. Right. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: They were just doing the best they can with what they had. Right. And that they had a-- you know, my mom and my stepdad and my uncles and all the other men and women in the neighborhood giving me the best they can with their own unresolved trauma. Right. That they did the best they can and that their life was better than what they had when they were kids. And that my life was better than they had it. And that my generation after me, my kids have it better than what I had it. And that's the trajectory of life right, now that I'm able to see it from a vantage point. Absolutely. Love those role models. You know, even though now I'm like, "Ah, you were doing some shady stuff, but I love you for it." You know what I mean? So, Yeah. Visintainer: What did your stepdad and your mom do? Did they do for a living? Leyva: My mom main job was house cleaning, cleaning hotel rooms or cleaning houses or factory work. And my stepdad was a-- he worked in a nursery and a, he worked in a nursery taking care of plants and also a mechanic at the nursery. That was their main industry. You know, I was, I did the first gen talk today and that was interesting. I'm a first-generation college student. College, school wasn't that important to my family. Work was, you know, they valued work over education. You know and working hard too. I think I got my work ethic from my mom. My mom sometimes especially after my stepdad left, would work, guaranteed two jobs and sometimes if she could three jobs, which wasn't the best for my upbringing pertaining to like a mom I could come home to and do homework with. I never grew up with that. Right? So, you know, I left high school in ninth grade, so prior to going to prison and getting my high school diploma in prison, I was, had a ninth-grade education. And so that's what I felt like when I entered these spaces. I'm like, I've a ninth-grade education 'cause I don't remember my high school diploma. But, you know, thinking about my mom, I mean, that was, you know, she was, she's a hard worker. She was a hard worker. She retired early because she worked so hard. Right. Medically retired. But yeah, it was uh-- good work ethic I'll tell that. Show up to work and were just sick or not, show up &lt ; laughs&gt ; . I'm like-- When I'm sick. But she's like, "No, you gotta go to work." I'm like, all right. Going to work sick. But going. Visintainer: Yeah. We come back to tenacity then. Leyva: Yeah. &lt ; laughs&gt ; Visintainer: Yeah. Can you tell me about the first time that you got in legal trouble? Leyva: Yeah. About fifteen [years old]. I mean, kind of a funny story, but you know, I got in trouble for stealing mopeds. I remember going to court for it and like, "Why are you stealing mopeds?" Or, you know, they didn't ask the question. I just wanted to ride a moped. I didn't to sell it or try to make money. I was just like, I learned how to hot wire a moped. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: And as soon as I did that, every time I saw a little Honda Spree, I pop the top, pop the front cover off and pull the wire and it'd just kick right over. And it was just fun. And you know, I got in trouble for having, I think like three Honda Sprees in my backyard, you know, and got popped and got in trouble and, you know, I'm, you know, committing crimes you know. Visintainer: And how did you learn how to hot wire a moped? Leyva: Once again, observational learning. Yeah. I think I think there's this like misunderstanding how people commit crimes and yeah. Certain people will teach you how to do certain things, but for a majority of people in prison, we just learned by observation. You know, I saw this older guy in my neighborhood and I don't even remember. He's like, "I gotta go!" And he went up to this Honda Spree, he did like the little move. And he just took a little knife out of his pocket and popped it and I saw him take the wires out and jumped on it and kick started it. And just hit the handlebars cause the handlebars had the little lock on it. The lock broke real easy. And he just took off. You know, I was like, "I'm gonna try that." Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: You know, and then I saw a Honda Spree and I know stealing ain't nice. I know it's wrong, but at the time you're like, that was so cool. How did you do that? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: I saw a Honda Spree downtown one day and I think it took me a little longer &lt ; laughs&gt ; to get it going, but as soon as I got it going, there was a rush. Right. And again, I'm not saying it was okay cause it's not. But that rush felt good. Visintaienr: Yeah. Leyva: You know, and I saw him, I'm like, "Ah, where'd you get that little, where'd you get that little Honda?" I'm like, "I took it." He's like, "Oh, let me take it." And he took it from me. Right. So it's like when you steal a bike in the neighborhood, it becomes a neighborhood bike. Everybody's using the same stolen bike. Right. And yeah. It's just a thing to do right? Through observations. Even like I talk about my addiction cause I was addicted to substances and alcohol. And I say it openly with students. I was addicted to heroin for a long time, and it wasn't like somebody taught me how to do it. It wasn't-- You weren't literally taught how to do it. You just see it happening. And when you see it happening, it just becomes, "I know how to do that," because you saw somebody else how to unfortunately use drugs, whether intravenously or not, you just learn it by watching. And I think that's how we learn how to say the things we say, dress how we dress, act like we act, respond, how we respond, whether you know, violence was never taught to me, but it's something I grew up watching. Right. I remember everything from like learning how to express sadness. I remember my stepdad would be like mad, like sad and then he would just like hit the door with his hand. And when you're a little kid and you're watching that or he'd say like, I'm so mad. And then he hit something. If I'm mad too, I gotta hit something. Right. And it's everything with committing crimes to expressing feelings and emotions. It's all observational. Visintainer: Yeah. So, is there an analog to the work you do now? Providing-- Leyva: Yeah. Visintainer: Providing, modeling for people that are learning? Leyva: Yeah. Emotional intelligence and emotional management. When we feel something, you know, it's me. I've been clean and sober nineteen years and when my mom died four years ago, because I trained my mind that when I feel a big emotion, my mind goes automatically to the reaction, which is the drug use the violence or whatever. Even though my mind thought about it, I've taught myself that there's no visceral reaction. My biological response doesn't have to, I don't have to do these things. I don't have to act out in these ways. And so when I work with individuals around emotional management and understanding that we have no control over our emotions, you're gonna feel something, you're gonna feel it! But how we respond to it, the emotional management part is how we should focus on. Mindfulness, meditation, taking a deep breath, taking a step back. I always say, "Pretend you're the outsider looking in." Take a step back and take a look at what is gonna hap-- what you know is gonna happen or what you feel is gonna happen and respond from that place rather than inside of it. And I'm also big on dismantling patriarchy 'cause I feel like patriarchy is the number one pusher of so many systemic issues of oppression. Even the war in Ukraine is patriarchy. Right. Like patriarchy is very dangerous. And as somebody who is raised in it and colluded with it, they've created it so well-- I want my kids to have a good understanding of who their father is. Not in that violent state, but in this healed or healing individual who can talk about feelings and emotions, who can allow myself to cry without feeling something I couldn't, I could wear a pink shirt and pink socks without somebody saying something to me because I'm very comfortable with who I am. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: And I think that working with individuals that becomes my educational piece, is we have to really learn who we are and how we respond. Because how we respond sometimes takes us to the places we are, the jails and the prisons, our addictions, our own self harm, our own self destruction. I love these places, these places. And education has given me this understanding of who society constructs me to be versus who I want to be. And a lot of times we follow the construction because they make it glorious or cool or like, this is all I have. It's not all we have, we're meant to be other people. We're meant to be who we really are. Empathetically, empathetic, caring, understanding, loving, warm, you know. So yeah. I teach a lot of emotional intelligence to our students. 'Cause I think we need to be there for our families and our communities. And we can't do that if we're angry or mad or not-- being angry or mad is okay. But how we respond to it is different. Right. We shouldn't have to respond in negative ways, you know? And so far so good. I've been doing this work for a long time. I see a lot of change. So, you know. Visintainer: That is beautiful statement. Thank you. Um, I don't know, I think a lot about, you know, growing up in patriarchy and masculinity and how harmful, like, I didn't even know how harmful it was, you know? Leyva: Yeah. Visintainer: And yeah, I don't know. I'm glad you're doing the work at dismantling it, I guess is all I have to say about it. Leyva: &lt ; laughs&gt ; Yeah. No, it's an uphill battle sometimes, right? Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: But I always say, you know what, in football they always say it's a ten-yard fight. Just go ten yards and start again. Go ten yards, start again. And but I feel it's an obligation too, it's an obligation. And I want to, if there's one way to shut down the prison system is really help people stop going. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: You know. That's the goal. Visintainer: Yeah. So, you had three mopeds in your backyard. So how did you, how did you get caught? Leyva: Just being reckless, right. Driving without, you know, back then you didn't need a helmet. But you know, driving through my neighborhood and just crossing stop signs and cops, you know, or like, I remember one time I was driving. And if you remember the Honda Sprees, they had like this little section where you put your little feet right? And I was driving and had one guy standing right in front of me. So I was leaning to the side to look where I was going. And then I had another friend of mine sitting behind me. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: So, three people on a small Honda Spree, cop saw us and said, pull 'em over. Right. And as soon as I stopped, my two friends just took off. And I'm like, "Well, here I am." Right. And so obviously the cop could see the wires on hanging on the side and, you know, it's so funny to think back at the little things I used to do and be like, how did I think I can get away with this stuff? You know? And that's how you got caught. Just being reckless and I guess funny at the same time. But, you know, the, the consequence isn't something to laugh at, right. &lt ; Laughs&gt ; . Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: You know. So-- Visintainer: Did you go to juvenile detention? Leyva: Went to juvenile detention. Juvenile court. Mom was always working. So my sister, remember my sister going to court with me, they were both older than me. Back then it really was a slap on the wrist, a little juvenile detention you know, a little probation check-in here and there. You know, the more I got in trouble... I dunno life moved really fast 'cause actually, you know, I'm eighteen and going in and out the county jail again for, you know, driving cars without licenses for DUIs [Driving Under the Influence], for stolen-- possession of stolen property. Not like, and not saying that DUIs is not a big deal, it's a huge deal But you know, nothing really big or major. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Levya: Right. No violence. And sure there was violence happening, it just never got caught doing it. Right? And I always tell folks like, I've been really lucky not to go away for the crimes that I have committed. Not to say I should have gotten away with it, but I did. And it's like, also it's another fuel that adds, it's more fuel to be like, "I need to do this work because I know that there's a lot of people doing things they wish they weren't doing and they're just not getting caught for it." It's like, let's give them another avenue to go down. You know? So but I think my life led to the point where, you know, I got in trouble for selling guns or having, you know, illegal guns and, you know, this stuff was again, all just part of a lifestyle that I was living that, we don't critique it. We're just in the middle of it. All the way to my last, my last prison term which was a robbery, you know, walked into a place and demanded some money, not even demanded it. Just say, "Hey, I need some money." I knew, I actually knew I would get caught on my last crime. I knew I would get caught. I didn't run, didn't try to pretend it wouldn't happen. Committed a robbery in 2004 and knew I would get in trouble. And I think it was my, I think it was my cry for help because I was so embedded within my addiction and-- no, I felt like I didn't have another way out. I didn't know how to ask for help. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: And so when I think about my crimes as a juvenile, just the trajectory of how just, you know, petty crimes to maybe not so petty crimes, but gun sales to more violations of probation to led to, you know, a robbery that wasn't an armed property, I didn't have a knife or gun. But still it was a pretty significant robbery. I think that that time going to prison was my cry for help. You know, I just didn't want to do drugs and alcohol or live this life where I just felt really like in a sense like I wanted to die. Right. I talk to a lot of folks who were formerly incarcerated who say, you know, "I've reached that point where I didn't know what else to do. I'd rather go to prison than have to deal with the struggle out here, the suffering that happens out here." And I think our prison is full of individuals who feel like they had no other option. You know, because a lot of times when we grow up in this very patriarchal environment, especially for men to say, "I'm sad, I need help. I wanna change, but I don't know how," because that's a sign of weakness to say like, "I feel emotional." And for other men or even women to say, oh, they use these negative connotations. Like stop being-- you know, they relate it to words that are used for women and they just, we don't wanna feel that. So what do we do? Go out, commit a crime, go to prison. And I know I've had conversations with other men in prison and be like, "I just, I'd rather be here than out there." Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: You know, I know men who've gone-- who are in prison and they, their date, their release date's coming up and they automatically like go after another inmate or they go after a guard and they commit another crime so they can stay longer. I never understood that when I was in prison and then I come home and I start doing this work and I'm like this place is harsh on us. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: You know, and there was even a time when I first left prison where I felt like [unclear] I can't get a job. I keep losing this job. You know, I'm sleeping on my sister's couch. You know, my daughter wants to hang out but I don't have money in my pocket. I was like, "Fuck I'd rather be back in prison than have to deal with this stuff." Right. And I, you know, that was me in 2007 and that's the individual I could talk to right now. Who just got out. It's like. It's easier to live in prison than it is there. You know, you got strict rules and boundaries. But we understand that life. And when I committed my crime in 2004 and I committed the robbery, that was a cry for help. And I'll never say that prison saved my life because it didn't. But it gave me an understanding. Finally I was ready to do the work. You know, something happened all of a sudden where I'm like, I get out and I'm gonna try my best to stay out and I'm gonna be humble. And, you know, if I turned away a lot of friends when I came home from prison because as soon as I got out my neighborhood was like, "Hey, you want to hang out? You wanna do some--Let's go partying!" For me to say no to the people that I've never said no to was the hardest thing. Right. And that was me facing patriarchy right on. I had a friend when I came home from prison, literally the day after, I hadn't heard from him the entire time I was a prison. He offered me a thousand dollars and an ounce of, of methamphetamines. Right. This was his way to show love his way. He wasn't trying to get me in trouble. He wasn't trying to set me up. But this is my understanding of this is how we take care of each other. And sure. As he's standing in front of me, he's offering me this. "You know, it's just to help you get back on your feet," is what he said to me. And for me to say no in that moment, I knew that I was defying an entire system that was set up for me. 'Cause he looked at me and he is like, "Okay, okay. Like, that's kind of weird." You don't, you don't say no to this in this neighborhood. You don't say no in this culture. You don't say-- you don't deny this offering. But I denied it. And when I denied it, I defied the system that I knew well. Visintainer: And did that, did that sever that relationship? Leyva: It did. I've not talked to the guy ever since. This is fifteen years ago. Visintainer: Do you mourn those relationships that are gone? Leyva: I think there's an emotional and mental and in a way a spiritual transition that needed to happen. Yeah. Because, you know, I mean these just like-- I took care of them. They took care of me. On the outside. They didn't care for me when I was in prison. That's usually what happens. But I knew that once I denied that, if I needed help, he was gonna deny me. Right. Or there needed to be a reckoning of that. And by not hearing from him anymore, I knew that okay, my life. Yeah. You defied this thing and I kind of felt like, okay, my circle all of a sudden got real small. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: Right. And I just shared today in my talk today, that the more healing one does, the more healing I did, the more work I did on myself, the smaller and smaller my circle gets. Right. Some people just will not accept you anymore unless you're doing what they're doing. As long as they feel like you need them and they need you because misery is old--the saying misery loves company, right? They don't know a lot of people in my community, a lot of people in other areas, they don't know what to do with healed or healing people. Right. And my circle got real, my circle's small to this day, my circle is real small and I think now I prefer it that way. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: You know, I feel safer. I feel more included. I seem more like it's easier for me to ask for help. It's easier for me to, to give help. Right. Because a lot of times when you're in the mix of misery, you're carrying the burdens of that too. And I still, I carry a lot of burdens on me 'cause I got people coming home from prison every single day. People coming home from jail every single day. People relapsing and reaching out. I need help. I need a rehab, or I need a detox or I need something and, and to be of service rather than, you know, to be part of the solution rather than being a part of the problem. It's a, it is a heavy load to carry, but it's a lot lighter than carrying the load of my neighborhood when I denied that guy, my homeboy. I can't, I appreciate you, I love you and thank you for this offer, but I can't accept it. That all of a sudden put, you know, Martin-- the rumors started, Martin is oh, he must have snitched or he must have done this or he must have done that. Or you know, all of a sudden there's speculation about who I am versus they can't just accept the fact that I want to change my life. Right. But yeah, it's that's a struggle that a lot of incarcerated people are thinking about when they're coming home. And a lot of formerly incarcerated are faced with when they walk outside the door. And they wanna change. You know? And this is why programs like the in the community college or the university are so important because we give people that visibility and understanding that there's nothing wrong with you. And I don't even wanna say there's something wrong with my community because it's a culture that's there, right? But we don't have to partake in that culture anymore. That I can still be me. I can still be aesthetically who I am. I can still understand that. And I don't have to code switch if I don't want to. But again, I don't have to feed into that, you know? And so yeah. We went from my first crime to this &lt ; laughs&gt ; . Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: But it's all, it's all really interconnected because I think that people are committing crimes because we don't know what else to do with ourselves and we don't know how to ask for help and we don't know how to-- We're being denied resources or jobs and so we commit crimes. And you know, sometimes I remember getting paychecks, you know, I was doing construction for a while and I look at my paycheck and, you know, I just had my first daughter was born. I was like, this isn't enough money to pay for rent and food and all this stuff. So I'd go out and I'd sell little drugs and do a little this and all of a sudden I had a little extra money. Not like I was selling to try to get rich. I was selling to try to keep the lights on or try to, I want to provide. One of my daughters wanted, oh, this little bike is cool, my paycheck ain't enough, but you know, I could sell a little bit of this and then go get that bike. You know what I mean? It makes me feel-- I know it's not the right thing to do. I know now, but at the time it's like the joy of seeing my daughter have something. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: The joy of seeing a family around Christmas and Christmas presents, knowing that it's gonna put a smile on their faces. You think I'm really caring about the feeling I had about selling drugs to get that money. Not, you know, and it's you know, could I do it now? Absolutely not. Right. 'Cause I know there's harm being created, but yeah. Visintainer: That must have, that must be like a really difficult part of the journey going home and realizing, I guess is realizing that a home is not exactly the home that you're-- it's not the same place that it was before you went to, I guess. Leyva: Yeah. Visintainer: Or it is but you're not the same. Leyva: You're not the same. No, it's hard because it depends how we define home. Right? My home with my sisters and my mom, she unfortunately passed away four years ago. Home changed when she, when she died, right? Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: Home changed when I decided to stop being the identified patient, Right. Because in my home, everybody's worried about Martin. Everybody's worried about, he's in jail, he's on drugs, he's doing this, he's doing that. I was the identified patient. And when I stopped being the identified patient in my family, my family didn't know what to do with me, let alone my community. You know, my friends growing up, like all of a sudden he's different. He's-- you know there's a loss there, right? But also now looking at home, whether it's the family or the community, now that I can see home as a different thing, I can help create a better home for those around me. Right. Access to, oh, let me help you with your job resume so you can get a better job. Let me help you get into college. Whether it's a welding certification or a HVAC certification, a job that'll get you a better pay. Right. And you can have a record and still do this work. Like, understanding this is like now I can actually help mold a new home for people, including my home. 'Cause my neighborhood in Santa Barbara is still my home. I live in San Marcos in a little neighborhood. That's considered my home too because it mirrors the same neighborhood I grew up in. Escondido, Ocean-- certain parts of Ocean[side], like these places around here. The struggle of my neighborhood is the struggle of these neighborhoods. They're not different. So I get to define and create what home is. Right. And I hope that makes sense. 'Cause it to me it's like, I think that's an obligation I feel like I have. And I always tell formerly incarcerated folks that we have an obligation to create the change that we didn't have. Be the mentors we didn't have be the fathers, we didn't have be the uncles and the brothers and everything that we didn't have or the mothers or the sisters. You know what I mean? This is-- gender's important, but we get to define home now. Hopefully better. Right. It's a matter of whether the people around us want to accept it or not. &lt ; laughs&gt ; Yeah. You know what I mean? So. Visintainer: The, the last time that you went into prison, did you know when you were in prison last time that you weren't going back? Or was that something that you realized afterwards? Leyva: You wanna hear something pretty wild? I still don't know if I'm going back. Cause I'm not the individual that says I'm never going back to prison. Visintainer: Gotcha. Leyva: I'm not the individual who says I'm never gonna drink or use again. I just know that right now, today, I'm not gonna go back and I'm not gonna drink. I'm not gonna use tomorrow. I can't predict, I can't predict two days from now. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: And so I live my life that way. Right. But I knew-- This is a whole conversation itself. I didn't know, I knew when I was in prison, I was like, you know, this is, I know what rules to follow. I know what rules to adhere to. I know what rules to, to press. Right. I knew how to discipline somebody if they crossed the rule or broke a rule. That was a, is a easy life for me. I think what was, I think what happened -- actually, I don't think -- I know what happened is I met a group of men this time in prison that I was listening to. These men who were like talking to me about feelings and emotions. They were talking to me about spirituality and the sweat lodge and praying. They were talking to me about critical pedagogy, like mass incarceration and the war on drugs and gang injunctions. And I was like, "What the hell are you talking about?" These are not words that I know. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: Right. And then they would give me books to read and they would like I remember after again-- I remember asking if I can go to college and the prison counselor was like, no, because you have a write up. I don't even know why I was asking for college. I got a high school diploma. I was like, I just wanted to-- I knew other people were doing college on their bunks right. From their cells. And they denied me college right away. But I still got educated in there because I read Pedagogy of the Oppressed for the first time in prison. I read My Life Is a Sun Dance by Leonard Peltier. I read Fanon, Marx and Lennon and I read all these books in prison. I had no idea what they meant. But these men were trying to critically teach me in the belly of the beast, mass incarceration. We build these buildings, we create the labor force and all this stuff. And I was back then, knowing what I know now, right this second, back then I was like, "What the hell are you talking about?" But I was still reading it. I was still listening. I was still paying attention. And when I entered college for the first time, and I'm sitting there and in sociology, they're talking, well, mass incarceration, these laws and policies and all of a sudden I'm thinking about Mitch and Joe and Squeaks these men who already put these language in my head. And I was like, this is why I gotta be critical. Right. And it all made sense. And I believe in the universe. It was the universe put that stuff in front of me. Even if it made no sense, it made sense later. Right. How did we even get here? &lt ; Laughter&gt ; But there, there is, right? I think this is super important because it's like we become, I knew I didn't know that I would never go back to prison. I still don't know. I didn't know that. I all I knew is that when I left prison, I didn't want to go back. How I was gonna do it? I don't know. But I also knew-- one advice my uncle gave me, who also I learned through observation about drug use and violence. My uncle told me a long time ago, I don't even know, I mean thirty years ago, he told me, "When you get to prison," 'cause it was a matter of if it was a matter of when or, "When you get locked up, don't drink, don't use." He always said, "Use that as a moment of clarity." And so I took that to heart. So every time I've been incarcerated at any time, I've never drank or used in prison or jail. And I think this last time I spent years not drinking, not using, because it's easy in jail, in prison to use. And I think it just had this moment of clarity where I was like, "I don't want this." And I had this guy, Mitch Bodner, who was one of my elders in prison. And he passed away this past year, last year. Early on in my sentence, he's like-- he's like, you remember pointing this finger at me and saying, "You don't belong here. There's something about you. You don't belong here." And I got offended. I was like, "What do you mean? I mean I'm here. I got the same tattoo you got!" Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: You know, "I run with the same group you run, what do you mean I don't belong here?" And he mentored me from that day on. And he's just like, when you go home, you help the people. When you, you know, you gotta be there for your kids. You have to be a father. You have to, you know what I mean? He kept plugging me in with all this stuff. And for the beginning I was like, "You're full of shit old man." Right. But he wasn't. He wasn't. He knew what he was talking about. And I am friends with his son who's also formerly incarcerated. And as Mitch passed away, me and -- his name's Creighton Bodner -- I could see, I could see Mitch's wisdoms spewed out on him too. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: Right. And I understand what Mitch was saying, like, people around you matter and they can, you take care of them and they'll take care of you. You take care of each other, you got an entire community of people who advocate for each other. And I learned that through some random dude I met in prison. So yeah. I didn't know I wanted to, I just knew, All I knew is I didn't wanna go back to prison. And so far I'm fifteen years successful. &lt ; laughs&gt ; Visintainer: Could we talk a little bit more about the mentors that you met? Leyva: Mm-hmm. Visintainer: So how did you meet them? Leyva: Well, Mitch and Rodeo Joe were part of the same subculture. I don't call 'em gangs anymore. Like, "Oh, you're part of a prison gang." I was like, "I'm part of a prison subculture that kept me safe." And they were both-- Rodeo Joe was an artist, is an artist. And Mitch was part of uh, he's kind of a revolutionary. And Mitch was really that one guy who was like the father-figure. Right. The guy who was like-- mentored me around spirituality especially. And I always say, the sweat lodge and Native spirituality really is my practice today, it saved my life. Really. And he showed me songs and rituals and these things that, you know, I felt like got a father finally. Right? And Rodeo Joe was the, he's always reading and creating art. Reading and art. And he always-- he handed me books and said, "What do you think about this book?" And I-- we'd have conversations about different books. He was like my, both of 'em were like my teacher. But Squeaks on the other hand, I talk about Squeaks quite a bit to folks cause Squeaks was an old Black man. And in prison you don't cross lines ; drugs and cigarettes and even water. Right. Like, things you just don't do. And it's a funny story. And I've written this story before where it was easier for Joe and Mitch to be my mentors 'cause they're part of my subculture. But for somebody like Squeaks who I always say, and I'm writing about this in my dissertation, where out of Squeaks, I've cultivated this idea of a cellblock intellectual. 'Cause I remember sitting in my cell one day, the yard was open, We can exit our building, we can do everything. And I was reading The Four Agreements[: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom]. Ruiz, no not Ruiz, anyway, The Four Agreements, I don't remember the author's name, um, Miguel Ruiz. I was reading The Four Agreements and I remember Squeaks came up to my cell just to the door and he said, he's like, "What are you reading?" And we kinda have a little exchange of eyeball exchange because, you know, he's Black and I'm Native and we just had to have this understanding. It was a really funny story. And I was like, Four Agreements. And he's like, "Oh, that's a good book. It's kind of a shitty read." You know, &lt ; Visintainer laughs&gt ; like he started critically thinking like, "It's a crappy book, son! You know what I mean?" And he's the one who first handed me Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: And he said, "You should read this book." And what was it? Maybe he was, no, actually I think he handed me Leonard Peltier's book. And he's like, "Here, you should read this." He starts telling me about the book. "Just to help you understand the place you're in." I took the book and I said, "Cool, thanks." Didn't pay it no mind. And sure enough, as soon as I opened it, I started reading it, I didn't really understand it, but I knew because Leonard Peltier was also Native and in prison, I had a connection to Uncle Leonard, right? And like a week and a half, two weeks later, about a week and a half, I was walking the yard and Squeak comes up to me, said, "What'd you think of that book?" And it was like, I knew that there was something there when I said, "That's pretty good." And he started to started telling me about the book. Like he had it memorized. And from there he became my mentor. And nobody ever questioned the relationship between me and Squeaks and race because they knew it was about education. Wasn't about drugs, it wasn't about food, it wasn't about anything illegal is about books. And nobody ever questioned the mentorship around literature in prison, everything else they would've. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. So there are certain ways for people in prison to interact across the racial lines then-- Leyva: Yeah. Visintainer: Where that, where that dynamic is not present or not as present. Leyva: Definitely. Definitely. And I think that education is one and you know, you can talk to whoever you want to talk to, but we also know that, you know, Squeaks and I both knew and Squeaks was an old dude already. So he wasn't involved in politics even though he would definitely go head to head against the system. But the prison politics, he wasn't involved. But we also knew that if anything was ever happened amongst races, we would go against each other. We just knew that without a doubt. Right. What's interesting, and it makes it very important thing to note, is that even Miguel Ruiz's book, The Four Agreements, Pedagogy [of] the Oppressed," even like the The Souls of Black [Folk], like all these books that I was reading in prison, they're all considered banned books. They're considered banned books out here. Right. And in the prison system, I can get-- Squeaks and Rodeo Joe, we can all get written up for having these books. And the more writeups we can get a sent to administrative segregation for literature. We can have our visitation privileges removed. Our commissary privileges removed, our job detail removed. Just for literature. And he always said, "Here, read this and don't get this book taken away from you." And I never understood that, "Well, who's gonna take away this book?" Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: You know, I had to learn about banned books when I came out here and I realized that every single one of those books I read was on a list that the prison system had. That if you get caught-- Pedagogy of the Oppressed had like a paper bag cover on it Didn't even say Pedagogy of the Oppressed on the outside. I remember this didn't happen to me, but I remember like books that would say, you know, Holy Bible on the outside, but on the inside it's like a whole other book. Right? Visintainer: Yeah. Yeah. Leyva: And they strategically hid literature inside other literature. Danielle Steele and these fucking novels, these love novels that people would always read. A lot of times it was just the covers but the books on the inside were different. Of course people were reading like love books and stuff, but I can never get into that prison book &lt ; laughs&gt ; . But I understood banned books when I came out here and I began to read about banned books and I began to understand like I can, you know, I don't understand why it's just literature. But, you know, the Attica uprising and racial groups banding together is dangerous for the system. Right. They don't want us to band together. 'Cause it would become, I always say it become like a union force. Right. And they don't want that. So they make it difficult and, and make it difficult for us to have these books. They make it punishable to have these books. Squeaks and Joe and Mitch and others knew that this was a thing. I didn't at the time, I just read the books and had conversations. Right. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: But that was my mentors and that, you know, I wholeheartedly to this day hold them in high regard. And I remember it was Mitch who said-- he always said this whole thing and people said this old cliche too. He's like, "Make sure you burn your idols. Anybody you idolize be better than them. Never-- anybody comes in your life that is teaching you something. Make sure you learn it better than they have it." And that's the goal too, when I mentor somebody, it's like, "Oh, Martin, I want to be just like you." I'm like, "Why you wanna be like me? Be better. Go higher, go farther, help more people." Do you know what I mean? It's like you always gotta, and that's what Squeaks and Mitch and Joe taught me. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: And their mentorship was, is, is, and from my understanding, well one: I know Squeaks and Mitch have passed on and I think Joe is still alive. I'd love to get an interview with Joe. But yeah, that's the goal is just, you know, take their mentorship, their guidance, their love and amplify it. Visintainer: Yeah. That's a good goal. Leyva: And that's what I feel like I'm doing. I think I'm paying them a lot of respect by doing the work I do right now. Visintainer: Thank you. Thank you for talking with me a little bit about your background and how you kind of came to where you're at now. I was curious-- let's see. What led you to North San Diego County? Leyva: Graduate school. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: Graduate school. Which I never thought I'd do. Right. I'm the first male in my family to go to college, let alone get an associate's degree or bachelor's degree? I got my bachelor's degree in Santa Barbara at Antioch University. Cost too much money. But Dr. Chris Bickel, who teaches here was teaching at San Luis Obispo at the time, encouraged me to go to graduate school. And it just so happened he just started teaching out here too. The same year. I came out as the same year. I think it was here about a year and a half before I came out here. But North County, San Diego was home because of graduate school and because it's a critical-- Cal State San Marcos was a very critical department of sociology, you know, they teach justice studies rather than criminology. Justice studies for me I knew for a fact when I got my bachelor's degree in psychology, I was like, "I wanna be a MFT or social worker." And then I was like, what brought me here was the idea that they were gonna pick apart rational choice here. Cause I always heard rational choice, like, people choose to drink, people choose to commit crime, people do this. And I was like, Dr. Bickel, Dr. [Xuan] Santos were like, there's systems that make-- that create this playing field that's not fair, just. There's, people don't just choose to wake up like, I'm gonna commit a crime. No. It's like your access to jobs, your access to money, your access to all these things is denied. So then we commit crimes. Right. I remember, and I did this -- really quickly -- I did this in my neighborhood: I did a little experiment in my neighborhood in Santa Barbara. I stood on the corner for like four hours, four or five hours. Hung out on the corner. In about every seven minutes there was a cop that drove by. And then I counted the liquor stores in my neighborhood. Nine block radius, eleven liquor stores. And I remember hearing a judge once tell me when I got in trouble for alcohol. They're like, you know, "You're nothing but an alcoholic." You're, you know I don't know what the judge said, but I was like, okay, you're blaming me for my alcoholism. Who's blaming you for allowing so many liquor store in my neighborhood? "Oh, you're always continuing to getting pulled over by the police. You must be trouble." I said, "Why is there then a cop driving through my neighborhood every seven minutes?" Cause they're looking for something. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: So you want-- I want to be accountable for the things I do, yes. But this school brought me out here. I came out here to this school because they're gonna help me hold the system accountable for the things they're doing too. The long, long que-- a long answer to that, why I'm out here, right. &lt ; laughter&gt ; Sorry. Visintainer: No, it's all good. And it's a um, I think it's a really good segue into some questions I wanted to ask. So do you believe in prison-- excuse me, prison abolition? Leyva: That's a loaded question for me because I do, I believe that we have, there's a better way. I think there's really good alternatives to incarceration. And the only reason I am not one-hundred percent sold on abolition work is because we live in a society that has not dismantled patriarchy. And so, even like Feminist Thought Theory says we should shut down the prison system, or feminist abolition work, I love it. It's beautiful work. But if we don't teach men and women to dismantle patriarchy, how are we going to open up the doors to prison for men and for women? Cause they feed into it as well. Gender, like, I would say gender's super important. We can't open up a prison or, or dismantle the prison system where people haven't dismantled sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism. Right. These integral parts of patriarchy. Are we ready for that? I think that unfortunately I do, I've met people in prison who I've like, I hope I don't know, I hope you don't get out now, but I think everybody can be rehabilitated. Visintainer: Mm-hmm. Leyva: I don't think we have a prison system that's doing a-- not even a halfway decent job. I wish we didn't have prison systems. I wish we had alternatives to incarceration because people do commit crimes and people commit heinous crimes. And I think that we have to be careful saying we want to abolish a prison system. I don't think we need a prison system at the magnitude that it is. You know, I don't think that there's 2.3 million people in the United States that are bad and dangerous people. I think that there's a small, maybe even less than five percent of that number that maybe should be in a facility of some sort, some rehabilitative community, some therapeutic community -- we don't have to call it a prison -- who need real help. Right. But I don't think we can abolish a prison system unless we dismantle patriarchy first. I don't think we can do it. And I've been there, I've lived inside the prison system. I've lived inside the jails, I lived inside the violence enough to know that if we abolish this system, especially coming from feminist theory, we're not ready for. Right. &lt ; shrugs&gt ; It's also a goal though. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: How do we begin to do the work on patriarchy to set people up so they can have a successful reentry. Right. So I'm not one-hundred percent sold on abolition, even though I do push a lot of abolitionist thought. You know, I mean, we have better, we can have better systems knowing what we know now. But I think we need to really focus on dismantling patriarchy before we open up the doors. Visintainer: Yeah. I think, you know, generally speaking, people have a hard time envisioning a world without a prison system, without police, you know, things like that. Without-- and I guess maybe the question that I want to ask in light of your answer to your last question is without patriarchy as well, people have trouble envisioning a world without that. Even if it's all around us and we don't even necessarily see it all the time, right. So what does a society without patriarchy look like? Leyva: I think it looks like-- I do often think about this. I think a, a society without patriarchy looks a little bit more empathetic and caring, a little bit more understanding, a little bit more -- very much actually -- community-based approaches to everyday things that happen. Arguments and fights and misunderstandings, miscommunications. Right. That if we-- I think patriarchy, there's a response to it. Right. Anger, yelling or violence or these gender roles, right. These gender roles of what women are supposed to do, what men are supposed to do. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans folks, all these folks, like all these people that live within our society. Elderly, young people, disabled, able-bodied, like the intersections of all those things, race, class, gender, ethnicity. That we need a world without patriarchy is an understanding that everybody here should be on the equal level playing field. And when something or somebody commits something against a group, right. This is the importance of restorative justice. This is the importance of conflict resolution, of alternative to violence, like all these great fields. I think that if we started teaching this stuff in literally preschool or pre-k[indergarten], first grade, second grade, third grade, all the way up has a curriculum that's based around feelings and emotions and understanding. I think we'll get to a generation someday who's less violent. Less violent, more empathetic, more caring, more-- sees the world completely different. Right. Maybe this is a big hope and dream of mine. Right. Maybe this is something that's maybe never gonna happen. But I always look at it as, you know, it's always worth the shot because what we have right now ain't working for shit, &lt ; laughs&gt ; you know what I mean? It's not working. And, you know, we gotta understand all the intersections of single parents or, or children growing up without parents or the foster care system or, you know, the world we live in with you know, sexual exploitation of young people and like a world that's a really harsh place. Right. But if we don't start teaching this stuff at a young age of how to really see each other, care about each other, you know, but I think that uh, but I do think, I think we can grow up in a world where there's less patriarchy or more defined like, you know, I'm not saying that being masculine or being-- there's something wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just our response to things doesn't have to be so like, harsh, you know? Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: We can have disagreements and a conversation after. We can have a disagreement and space apart from each other, then come back and talk about it. Like, we can still have our feelings and emotions, but we teach people how to dismantle their reaction. I think little by little a world without patriarchy is more caring, you know? And it doesn't have to be loving. Nobody has to love each other. Right. But we have to care about each other. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: We're in it together. Covid taught us that. &lt ; laughs&gt ; We're in it together. Right. So yeah. Visintainer: What's your future plans for Project Rebound? Or where would you like to see it head? Leyva: I think my future plan is the same future plan as a lot of the coordinators and directors across the state. But just to see it in every CSU. To see every incarcerated person have the access to associates degrees when they come home, they can, if they want, can come to a CSU and be successful and grow as an individual. I also would love to see Project Rebound here and other places. Cause we, every time we do somebody does something at their Project Rebound, we share the information. Right. I'd like to see it become a hub for not just students, but community members come get their records expunged, come and find jobs or resources, come get food. And what we say in the office is come in and shoot the shit. Let's come in and talk. Some people gotta get stuff off their chest and it's a hub where we just see each other and care about each other. Right. And right now, that's what we kind of have down there. We're just kind of building on it. It's a very small community. We want more community members that are students, but we want a bigger community of people around the university to say like, Project Rebound is supporting and helping us and that we're getting the help we need. Right. I think I see the, the work in the future for Project Rebound that it's just a place to come in and grow. Visintainer: Yeah. Leyva: Student or not, you know what I mean? And you know, and we get, I get this idea from students who are not formally incarcerated, but are system impacted. When a student comes into my office, or, and I'm not gonna say my office comes into the office and they say, "Oh, my dad's incarcerated and I don't know what to do." And we're sitting there, me or Lawrence or one of our formerly incarcerated students to sit there to talk to the student about what they're feeling, what they're going through. I see that as a community space to heal. Right. So that's where I see the future. It's just a place to grow and heal and be seen and cared for. Visintainer: Yeah. As you know, I spend some time working around the corner from you there and from my perspective you have a community there. I see a lot of engagement. I see a lot of students talking with you and it's pretty cool. Visintainer: Yeah. Yeah. It is really nice. Especially post-- pre-Covid. I mean, I was trying to, I was trying to sit there in little desks and do work and there'd be like ten people in that small space and I'm like, I gotta put some earphones on or something cause &lt ; laughs&gt ; yeah. I'm trying to get work done here. Right. It is, there is a community built there and it's nice to see it come back pretty quickly now that we're back on campus and yeah, I'm grateful for that space. Visintainer: Yeah. Is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't? Leyva: No. No. I think I really have appreciated this interview, this conversation. I wouldn't even call it an interview. It's a, it's a conversation because I think-- I know I'm super grateful for this opportunity to be in this academic space and this community around people that I love being around. And I mean, as a formerly incarcerated person, again, feel obligated to continue helping people because in a way I'm really helping myself. Do you know what I mean? Like, I, sometimes I feel like I'm overpaid. Like I can go home even though I take a lot of the stress home with me or the emotional labor home with me. But I also know that every day I'm putting my best foot forward and I'm doing the work. And that pays homage to Joe and Mitch and Squeaks and others. 'Cause I still remember the day I walked out of prison, the faces I left behind. Yeah. And this is my obligation to those men there. Not just the men, but all incarcerated people across this globe because incarceration is a global issue. You know, we just have the biggest one in the United States, but it is a global issue. Right. So, but I think question wise, or I think I'm good. Visintainer: All right. Well, I really appreciate your time and the conversation, so thank you very much. Leyva: You're welcome. Thank you. Visintainer: All right. 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The researcher agrees not to record, reproduce, or disclose any Social Security number or other information of a highly personal nature that may be found. 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LeyvaMartin_VisintainerSean_2022-10-27.xml LeyvaMartin_VisintainerSean_2022-10-27.xml https://archivesearch.csusm.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/22735 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 Leyva, Martin. Interview October 27, 2022 Description An account of the resource Martin Leyva was the program coordinator from 2019-2023 for Project Rebound at California State University San Marcos, an on-campus support system for formerly incarcerated students which assists in their efforts to succeed in school and beyond. In his interview Leyva also discusses a similar program - the Transitions Program at Palomar and MiraCosta, colleges, and talks about his experience as a formerly incarcerated person and how his experience re-integrating into society and academia prompted his interest in Project Rebound, dismantling patriarchy, and supporting other members of the formerly incarcerated community. Leyva also discusses his experience with incarceration and post-incarceration life, especially in regards to prison employment and the prison-industrial complex, barriers experienced by prisoners upon release, and the mentorship that Leyva received from members of his fellow incarcerated community. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC027-19 Subject The topic of the resource California State University San Marcos. Project Rebound Formerly incarcerated individuals Imprisonment MiraCosta College. Transitions Program Palomar College. Transitions program Prison-industrial complex Santa Barbara City College. Transitions Program Transitions (Program) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2022-10-27 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Martin Leyva Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sean Visintainer Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant San Marcos (Calif.) Santa Barbara (Calif.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Martin Leyva https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/bfc2d82b5e9047e6b1800bd05678e389.pdf bd0290ddc910011850030dbfa284a3ab 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 Transcripts Description An account of the resource Written oral histories and transcripts are available for researchers that prefer the written word, or to see the whole interview in a document. Transcripts of <a href="https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/collections/show/5">audio and video files</a> are also available as part of those video files. 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 Rafael, Joel. Interview transcript, August 20, 2025. Description An account of the resource Joel Rafael is an American singer-songwriter and folk musician from San Diego County, California. Joel has been making music with his band and solo for over fifty years. He is well known for his writing and performance in the style of Woody Guthrie. In this part one interview, Rafael discusses his early musical influences, his participation in the 1960s counterculture movement, and the beginnings of his success in the music industry. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Joel Rafael Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jennifer Fabbi Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-08-20 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Joel Rafael License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RafaelJoel_FabbiJennifer_2025-08-20_transcript Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Escondido (Calif.) Chicago (Ill.) Covina (Calif.) West Covina (Calif.) Portland (Oregon) Seattle (Wash.) Fallbrook (Calif.) Subject The topic of the resource Songwriters -- United States Folk music Counterculture -- United States Guthrie, Woody, 1912-1967 Art and artists Community history https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/ea24b429155af41d444a44919d85e657.pdf ab3045bf6d40ed747bf10654c0b06d48 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 Transcripts Description An account of the resource Written oral histories and transcripts are available for researchers that prefer the written word, or to see the whole interview in a document. Transcripts of <a href="https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/collections/show/5">audio and video files</a> are also available as part of those video files. 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 Knowles, Cheryl (Cheryl Dinning). Interview transcript, May 16, 2013. Description An account of the resource Transcript of interview of Cheryl Knowles (Cheryl Dinning), Petty Officer First Class, United States Navy. In her interview, Knowles discusses her enlistment, basic and advanced training, and four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Knowles also discusses life in the Navy, including shipboard life, as well as what it was like serving in the Navy as a lesbian during the Don't Act, Don't Tell era, and how it forced her to lead a double life and impacted her ability to be her genuine self and to grieve the loss of her daughter. This interview was conducted as part of the War At Home and Abroad (WAHA) project, now called the CSUSM Veterans Voices project. WAHA was conducted by the California State University San Marcos History Department in collaboration with the CSUSM Student Veterans Center (now the Epstein Family Veterans Center) from 2012-2013. The project aimed to document, preserve, and make accessible the experiences of CSUSM's student veterans. Portions of this interview were edited, including the removal of the interviewer from the recording. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cheryl Knowles (Cheryl Dinning) Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Anthony Mino California State University San Marcos. History Department Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-05-16 Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001-2021 Gay military personnel--United States Great Lakes Naval Training Center (Great Lakes, Ill.) Iraq War, 2003-2011 LGBTQ+ life United States. Navy United States. Navy -- Recruiting, enlistment, etc. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Afghanistan Dubai Iraq San Diego (Calif.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived War At Home and Abroad oral histories Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. California State University San Marcos License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/</a> Relation A related resource <a href="https://archivesearch.csusm.edu/repositories/4/resources/55">CSUSM Veterans Voices oral histories</a> (external link) Type The nature or genre of the resource text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KnowlesCheryl_WAHA_2013-05-16_transcript Community history CSUSM Veterans Voices LGBTQIA+ experience Veteran experience Women's experience 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 Oral Histories Description An account of the resource Video and audio oral histories can be viewed here. Histories are listed alphabetically by last name. Individual histories are indexed and transcribed and can be searched. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <p>Rights to oral histories vary depending on the history. The library owns the copyright to some histories, and has license to reproduce for nonprofit purposes for others. Please contact CSUSM University Library Special Collections at <a href="mailto:%20archives@csusm.edu">archives@csusm.edu</a> with any questions about use.</p> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Jennifer Fabbi Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Karen Schaffman OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=SchaffmanKaren_FabbiJennifer_2025-06-05_access.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 6.0 Schaffman, Karen. Interview June 6, 2025. SC027-084 00:00:00 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library oral history collection CSUSM csusm Karen Schaffman Jennifer Fabbi moving image SchaffmanKaren_FabbiJennifer_2025-06-05_access.mp4 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/5c41e45a9e19b8754a22c3428a572fc2.mp4 Other video English 0 Interview Introduction 0 56 Experience with dance as a child and adolescent Schaffman reflects on being a lifelong dancer starting with her initial experience with dance as a child and her mother’s role in exposing her to dance. lifelong dancer ; mother ; Connecticut Ballet ; ballet ; jazz ; Hartford Conservatory 0 382 Formal education Schaffman details her formal undergraduate and graduate education in dance including a degree at the European Dance Development Center in Holland and a PhD in Dance History and Theory at University of California, Riverside. University of Massachusetts ; women's studies ; feminism ; gap year ; San Francisco ; improvisation ; Holland ; Germany ; California ; University of California, Riverside ; Feldenkrais Method ; Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais 0 874 Foundational theory and practice for Schaffman’s work Schaffman describes theories and practices that underpin her work including a somatic approach to dance, perceptual improvisation, dance dialects, and contact improvisation. somatics ; perceptual improvisation ; dance dialects ; contact improvisation ; performance and cultural theory 0 1802 Service to the community and profession Schaffman discusses her teaching, scholarship, and service and how she was able to differentiate her service from teaching and scholarship during the retention, tenure, and promotion process. teaching ; scholarship ; creative activity ; service ; David Avalos ; Susan Foster ; Lower Left ; Bonnie Biggs ; Mtfti Imara ; California Center for the Arts ; Andrea Liss ; Kristine Diekman ; Meryl Goldberg ; Center ARTES ; Marilyn Huerta ; Arts and Lectures ; curriculum 0 2233 International work Schaffman speaks to her work in and travels to different countries and the influence this has had on her life and career. global citizen ; intercultural exchange ; Europe ; Mexico ; Pachuca ; Day of the Dead ; Holland 0 2238 Plans in retirement Schaffman shares her plans for retirement including slowing down, participating in a training institute in Vienna, and coming back to teaching at CSUSM as part of the Faculty Early Retirement Program. Donna Ray ; Feldenkrais ; training institute ; Vienna ; Pilates 0 2456 Schaffman’s journey to CSUSM and evolution of the campus and curriculum Schaffman reflects on the evolution of CSUSM, especially regarding the growth of the dance curriculum and program, faculty, and guest artists. curriculum ; University Curriculum Committee ; dance minor ; Choreographies of Resistance ; Michael McDuffie ; Ranjeeta Basu ; Cheri Hill ; breadth ; active learning ; social justice ; diversity ; Arts and Lectures ; Dancing through Prison Walls ; Visual and Performing Arts ; space ; theater ; Anya Cloud 0 4019 Working during the Covid pandemic Schaffman talks about her work during the Covid pandemic and the rise of Black Lives Matter and murder of George Floyd. (keywords: pandemic, Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, online performances, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Mtfti Imara, T. Lang, Melicia Taylor, Black artists, Zoom, Skyla Miles, Minnie Atkins, sabbatical, Think Gravity Dance Tank, symposium, Anya Cloud, Ishmael Houston-Jones, contact improvisation, Contact Dance International Film Festival, Makisig Akin) pandemic ; Black Lives Matter ; George Floyd ; online performances ; Historically Black Colleges and Universities ; Mtfti Imara ; T. Lang ; Melicia Taylor ; Black artists ; Zoom ; Skyla Miles ; Minnie Atkins ; sabbatical ; Think Gravity Dance Tank ; symposium ; Anya Cloud ; Ishmael Houston-Jones ; contact improvisation ; Contact Dance International Film Festival ; Makisig Akin 0 4486 Schaffman’s most impactful work Schaffman reflects on what she considers to be her most impactful work. She believes the creation of the Dance program at CSUSM is the most important accomplishment of her career. Debra Hay ; Lower Left ; dance program ; Summer Arts ; Think Gravity 0 5169 Additional projects and collaborations Schaffman adds a few more collaborative projects that she wants to give her colleagues and the University credit for. United and Severed ; Kristine Diekman ; traumatic injury ; PTSD ; palliative care ; Mindfulness Center ; Elizabeth Hospice Center 0 Oral history Dr. Karen Schaffman is a Professor of Dance at California State University San Marcos since 2002. She has been pivotal to the development of the Dance program at CSUSM. For Karen dancing is a transformative, healing and transgressive force for self-awareness, political change and social communication. In this interview, Schaffman covers her early exposure to dance, her formal education, international work, and her time at CSUSM. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION BEGIN 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:29.614 Hello, this is Jen Fabbi, and today I am interviewing Dr. Karen Schaffman for the California State University San Marcos University Library Oral History program. Today is June 5th, and it is 2:10 p.m. This interview is taking place at Karen's office on the CSU San Marcos campus, where we are guests on traditional unceded Luiseño/Payómkawichum land. Karen, thank you for interviewing with me today. 00:00:29.614 --> 00:00:31.545 Thank you. 00:00:31.545 --> 00:00:41.375 So to start off, can you tell me about your experience with dance as a child and adolescent and where you got your passion for dance? 00:00:41.375 --> 00:00:47.495 Great, thank you. And first, I'd like to begin by also thanking you so much for the opportunity to share my story, and it's really truly an honor in this moment of my life to have this interview. 00:00:47.495 --> 00:00:49.638 Absolutely. 00:00:49.638 --> 00:00:54.228 Thank you so much. 00:00:54.228 --> 00:00:56.064 You're welcome. 00:00:56.064 --> 00:01:30.356 My childhood story began with dance. So I've been dancing--I'm a lifelong dancer. And I began dancing as a kid. And very young. My mom, there was, we lived on the end of a street, and there was a summer creative dance program. I must have been two or three. I don't have the exact date from my mom. And that's where I fell in love with dance. I have some little picture somewhere stored away with me like in some kind of end of something performance. But it was on the playground, and it was outdoors,and that's where my dance career began. Dance for me--should I just ramble? Is that good? 00:01:30.356 --> 00:01:34.752 Yeah. 00:01:34.752 --> 00:05:45.834 Dance for me was always a sense of a place for me to belong and I'll say survive. I was very supported to go to dance through my whole childhood, but we were a middle class family, and so I relied on scholarships, I usually got them. I was seriously into dance. So I danced until I was probably in seventh grade, No, maybe sixth grade, like twice a week. And then I got into a dance company, and I had a child's part in the Connecticut Ballet, regional Ballet Company. So very early on was I in a very kind of intergenerational environment, and you'll hear through this interview that that's really important to my work and maturing as a still as a performing artist. So it was really, uh, that was like a turning point for me to be in that company. But it was also a time in my life where I had been studying ballet where--my body started to change and I knew that, and then peer pressure and things like high school and things like that. So I changed to modern dance and jazz. So at the time, jazz dance was really predominant. So that's my, just my, like, early days. But I think I'm really not getting to the heart of it with my mom, because my mom really shuttled me back and forth. She was a nurse and, uh, full time, so I had a lot of chores at home to do and things like that. But I always knew that after the chores, my mother was coming home from work and basically going back to the same neighborhood. And so, yeah, it was a really important time for me. My brothers were very into sports and at the time we didn't have Title IX, and I was not encouraged to do sports. I think I probably would've been a good athlete, actually, but I wasn't really invited or included. So dance was really a natural place for me to be physical. But I loved going to dance class. I loved--in the ballet--I was in a ballet conservatory. It was called the Hartford Conservatory. Again, I was one of the young ones there. And there was a live pianist. His name was Julius. And I just remember just loving going there. And I had two older brothers, and it was really, it wasn't a great home environment. My brothers were pretty rough on me to put it lightly. So going to dance was always a place for me to just go and be. And I had really, really good training. I have to be--I'm so grateful that I landed in those places because my teachers were very supportive, but they were also slow with me. They were like--I was called Little K--Little K, we're not putting you on point shoes yet because your ankles aren't strong enough. So I actually had really, really, really good training. So I'm very--I'm very, very grateful for that. My mom, later in life, showed me a letter that they were encouraging me to go to a performing arts high school, and my mother didn't want me to go. And it was after I got my PhD and a career in dance that she said, You know, I need to--it was like she needed to make amends. So she showed me the letter from the Hartford Conservatory encouraging my mother to put me in a professional program, but she didn't. So, but that's interesting. So I don't know where my career would've went at that time. But I stayed in. So, my time with dance was--but I was very, very shy, I have to say. So I grew into not being shy as I got older, but as a kid I was a very shy, and so people asked me to dance in front of them. I'd always be like, no, I--it's like I didn't, I wasn't one of those kids who would be like, get up on the table or get up in front of grandma and grandpa and show them what you do. So I was very, very shy as a kid. So dance was a place where I-- and performance was a place for me to go. Yeah. I could go on and on about that, but. 00:05:45.834 --> 00:06:22.134 Well, maybe it'll come up in some questions. Okay. So you have substantial formal education. You earned a BA in Dance and Literature at UMass Amherst, and an equivalent degree in experimental dance at the European Dance Development Center in the Netherlands, and also your PhD in Critical Dance Studies at UC Riverside. And please fill in anything that I missed. How did your formal education impact who you are as a professional? 00:06:22.134 --> 00:14:14.595 So I only applied to three schools for undergraduate, and it was not a given, but pretty much where I grew up in a very middle class family that I would go to college. I didn't get into Cornell. That was my first choice. I didn't know how I was gonna afford that anyway. And then University of Connecticut was my backup, but they didn't have a dance program, so I didn't really want to go there, but my parents encouraged me. And at the time, there was this five-hour radius of driving, like, it was very strict where we were gonna apply back then. And I was on my own, actually, my grandmother was very ill, and my grandparents had moved from Brooklyn to be next to my mom. So I got into a dance major program at University of Massachusetts, and it's a very good program. They had something called the Five College Dance Program, which is part of a consortium with Smith College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke, and Amherst. So I got to pay, it was still outta state, Massachusetts, but got to take advantage of the five college dance program. But even finishing my first year, I was like, something's wrong here. I didn't really like the dance program. It was very competitive. And even though I didn't have any issues with what they thought would maybe be too much weight in the wrong places or anything, they were very critical of other dancers. And I knew right at that age that I wasn't really jiving with that program. Though I was even teaching my first year 'cause I was very advanced. So they gave me the work study teaching, like for the university. So I kind of gave up that opportunity, and I dropped out of the dance program, and I did what was called a bachelor's degree with an independent concentration. So I did dance and literature. So I always continued dancing, but I took all of my dance classes in the five college area. So I kind of got this semi Ivy League or alternative school 'cause Hampshire is a very alternative education. And then I took other classes at UMass, but UMass just opened my eyes up to many things. I did musical theater there and, but my dance and literature was really, really important because I did a lot of, what we called then, well, was--it was UMass had one of the first women's studies programs. So I did a lot of women's literature and I did, I learned about feminism, I was like, this was like my awakening. Yeah. I took a lot of what we call then third-world women's writing and literature courses. So I'm not from the third world, but we don't even use that phrasing anymore. But UMass was in the forefront of politics in the body at the time. So, it's interesting how that became, came back and around. So I had a great education there. I did take what we call now a gap year at the time 'cause I needed to get out into the world. And then I went, I lived in San Francisco for a while and then I knew I wanted to live overseas or go overseas, but I didn't wanna be a tourist. So I got in--there was no internet or anything then. So I was studying in San Francisco with Joe Good in a summer workshop. And this woman who's now well known in New York, Sarah (now I show my absent mind). Sarah Mickelson said, you should go here. She was British. and so there was a school in Holland, and they take two guests a year, and they accepted me with like my CV and a cover letter and a letter of recommendation. And I had no money. My parents were not supporting me at all in this phase of my life. I was waitressing in San Francisco and doing dictation. I worked on the first little Mac box. And I got a loan--I think I'll share this--from the Hebrew Free Loan Association. They gave me $2,000 up front, but I had to pay, start paying back $50 a month. And off I went to Europe, and I paid my tuition. And so I had like, I don't know, I had only like $500 left in my pocket, and I went to the school in Holland. And that basically just changed my life. So it was very alternative. And it was very much based in improvisation, but many of the teachers were coming from either England or the United States, from New York. So it was kind of the New York, the downtown scene, all of the people who were working with somatics in the body. So really doing deep research in terms of inner sensation and anatomical release it was called. So it was a very particular kind of dancing. And I was just like, I would just, I was just mind blown. I would stand there in the studio and somebody would do a performance where they would just take ten minutes to raise their arms. And it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life. I was like, okay, what is this? And then the school split. They opened a new school in the town called Arnhem, and I went to Arnhem, and I spent two years there. And I had an amazing experience there with many amazing artists that I'm still, some of them I'm still in touch with. And I've curated, actually, here at the school and in summer arts. And so I went to there, changed my life. And then I got a job teaching in Germany before Germany had master's degrees in dance. And I worked in a conservatory environment there in a clown and dance school, So I taught at a clown and dance school for three years. And that was a great experience. But at the time I was involved with someone. I had to make a decision. So I decided to move to California. And, I was, What am I gonna' do here? And that's a longer story, but there was a brand-new program that I was thinking about getting a master's, but because I became so open to this other way of dancing, there was really no master's programs at the time that I was interested in, except maybe in New York. And I was like, Well, I live in California now. But there was a brand-new program at UC Riverside. It was the third year, and it was one of the very, among the very first top three universities that gave a PhD in dance. And so when I saw the poster in the back of one of these magazines called Contact Quarterly is how I found out about it, I was like, Oh, wow. So I went and I sat in on a few seminars and I was like, I wanna go there. So I applied. And so then I went to UC, Riverside. And it's really a groundbreaking program in terms of dance studies, the field of dance studies, which is different than just getting a degree in dance. Yeah. Dance studies is really about the political, social, and cultural impact and of the body and dance in the world. So that's what I did. And then I have one more education that I did that's very extensive called the Feldenkrais Method. So thank you to this university who partially funded that education. Yes. It's a four-year program, and it's based on the somatic educational method. And it's based on research of someone named Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, and he was part of the human development generation. Yeah. He was also born the same year as my grandfather in the Ukraine, which was interesting. But he had a knee injury. He was one of the first white people, men, white men, to learn judo. And he learned judo, and he brought a lot of Eastern philosophy into this body modality. So it's not a dance training, it's really about finding ease in your own movement. So I still do that now. I bring that into all I do. And so I have, those are my key big degrees. 00:14:14.595 --> 00:14:34.754 So following up on that your focus for your career for the last several decades has been on somatics, perceptual improvisation, contact improvisation, and performance and cultural theory. Can you tell me a little bit more about these areas of focus? 00:14:34.754 --> 00:18:27.000 Yes. So you had somatic, perceptual improvisation, cultural theory, and contact improvisation? Yeah. So a somatic approach to dance, or the body, has to do with more about feeling than how it looks. It's really about inner sensation and really getting in touch with oneself on a very cellular level, if I can speak that way. It's more about embodied and lived experience and of course, that has cultural and impact culturally and through people's cultural history and ancestry. But it--and it really includes this very sensorial based way of dancing and through the world. So it's not about how it looks like, for example, like ballet where you have to look a certain way or something, but really about an inner sensorial world that brings forward the dance or the healing or whatever. So it's, it's an ancient way of being with oneself before we had technologies and things like that. So that's the somatic piece. Is that clear kind of? It is? And then perceptual improvisation really has to do with, again, responding to the conditions. So it's a little bit more related to the visual art world. And one of my areas that I researched, well, probably since I'm a kid, but is visual art. And I also studied--I took Harvard summer school one summer way, way back when, and I did video when it was a three-quarter inch and you sit down (unintelligible). So I did some--I've studied some videos. So I'm, it's really about--how do I explain perception improvisation on an interview like this? Let's see. Something about how do we, how do we perceive the world? So it's, it really does relate a lot to visual arts in terms of perspective and visual field and responding, but could be your auditory field as well. So it's related to somatics in that way. It also is really, really related to Eastern thought, which is about inner perception and meditation and things like that. So I've cultivated a more contemplative way of approaching dance as well. Yeah. It comes from, I wouldn't say I am a Buddhist or anything like that, but I've studied Eastern philosophy. I've done a little bit of martial arts, just a little bit. So I've kind of come at it with that. And then cultural theory is dance and cultural studies. Dance studies is really a blend of dance and the field of cultural studies. So we're really looking about diversity in dance, and we're considering not just a European perspective of dance, which becomes very stereotypical. And so it's changed so much then. But it's really the dance studies field really emerged out of celebrating and analyzing, honoring the histories and practices of diverse cultures across the world. I mean, there's so many dance dialects that around the world. So dance studies really opened my eyes up to how big the world of dance is and how much of an impact it has politically and socially on our identity and things like that. So everything we learn about dance can be applied to (unintelligible). Dance studies can be applied to any field, really, in my opinion, because it has so much to do with the politics of the body. Yeah. 00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:28.000 That's really interesting. 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:35.444 Yeah. Yeah. And I bring that here to Cal State. 00:18:35.444 --> 00:18:43.535 So how have your areas of focus benefited your students? Many students over the years? 00:18:43.535 --> 00:23:12.493 Well, and I did talk about contact, so I'll bring that back 'cause that's what my area of research was about. I think I should say something about contact now. Is that okay? So my PhD was based on contact improvisation, which is, brings together all of those other practices--somatics, perceptual improvisation, dance technique, and then cultural studies. So I was looking at something that emerged from the fifties and sixties, which was a huge art movement in New York and really influenced a lot of people. And it was based on gravity and momentum and touch. So contact improvisation. My dissertation was really also a lot about touch and how contact improvisation, which is a touch-based dance form. It's like what happens when two bodies move together? And with gravity and momentum? Now we do this, people do this, not me, in tango, in salsa, and all sorts of dance traditions around the world. But contact has a particular aesthetic. And so it might look like something, but it's so much based in sensorial awareness. So this was--has been--a big part of my life is contact improvisation. And so--but contact improvisation sometimes universalizes this idea of what the body is. So my dissertation also took that apart and down a bit that said, No, this is very particular as a particular way of moving. It's not universal. Not everybody does it, you know, things like that. So anyway, it's a longer discussion, but I bring all of that into San Marcos when I--CSUSM--when I came here there was no program. And so it was clear to me that I was starting in a very challenging place but also really exciting place. One of the reasons I took the job here--I got an offer at a school that was already established as well. Because dance, dance for here, the byline here is that dance is for everybody and every body. And that this would be an inclusive environment and that this would be an environment that welcomes all students. So it would not be conservatory driven or even wanting to go in that direction. Even though we would be working on our technique, on our awareness--we would use words like awareness rather than virtuosity. You know, virtuosity is great, but would be more about awareness. So it's a very inclusive environment. And I think I was highly successful at that. And that is actually happening. So I think that's the biggest thing. But the students always are like, it's really different here. When people come to visit or high schools come always like, oh, it's really different here because it's really about community and there's a lot of support. We don't just dance. We talk about where we're at. We take a weather report. What's going on? One word, you know, everybody share a word. How do you feel today? We talk about access needs. We don't make assumptions in the class that everybody's gonna do everything. So there's a lot of that. So it's really with what my friend, Anya Cloud, collaborator, brought the phras--she was a lecturer here for nine years--"Dancing with the body you have." So yeah, no assumptions. No assumptions. Yeah. And also adaptability. access needs, cultural backgrounds, what's going on in the world. We don't ignore, we don't go, you may get a great escape in a dance class, but dance studies is not about this dream. that dance helps me escape the world. It's basically the opposite. It's really about grounding in the reality and what am I dealing with and what are the conditions right here and now? So I've cultivated those kinds of values here. And then the other big thing is because I went to Riverside, early on I brought in that students need to relate whatever we're learning in the class. almost every, and almost--not all classes, but many classes are like--how do you relate this to your major or something you care about in the world? Because dance is always in dialogue. We're always in relationship to the world. 00:23:12.493 --> 00:23:14.733 That's really, it sounds very unique. 00:23:14.733 --> 00:23:28.015 Yes, it is. (laughter) It's a unique program that that emerged. And, um, yeah, see where it goes, too, so I'm hopeful. 00:23:28.015 --> 00:23:35.375 So what has scholarship and creative activity looked like in your career as a professor of dance? 00:23:35.375 --> 00:24:20.000 Um, in my career? Or just, what was, can you repeat the question? I'm sorry. I was looking at my note up before that. I just said at the end, I wrote myself a little note about my area of focus. "It's fun and entertaining, but it's also much more than that." I talk to students. First of all, it's more than just the steps. We're not gonna just learn phrases in here and look in the mirror. I wanna add that students freak out 'cause in many classes we're like, let's close the curtains. Like, we don't always have to--and that's the somatic aspect, okay, is can you feel this movement? Why are you staring at yourself in the mirror? The mirrors can be very helpful, but, so I just wanted to sort of add that. 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:33.743 So the, the question, the question was, as a professor of dance, what does scholarship and creative activity look like to you? 00:24:33.743 --> 00:24:36.664 Oh. 00:24:36.664 --> 00:24:47.233 And, and one, so in your CV, you also give example, a lot of examples of curated performance processes.And so are those things related? 00:24:47.233 --> 00:29:24.000 They are, for me, but in terms of teaching, I think it relates again to students who find--for our students here--is to find the connection of what dance does for the world and how it is universal. And if it's not, it's because it's being policed, right? By a government that won't allow dance. And like, where are we going now? So the scholarship in dance is about the awareness of what the body can do, like in music or visual art. You know, like we have art history, but we only have dance historians that take it really seriously. And there's tons of books now about dance. But in terms of curation, that's like a separate thing. Yeah. So my own scholarship has been that I've done a lot around--writing about contact improvisation and presenting on that. But I often combine my creative projects with political and historical research. So, for example, a project that was before--that I didn't curate, that I was invited on was like a European project based on a fictional choreographer named Veronika Blumstein. So I ended up spending like two years on that. And then she comes back every now and then, came back during COVID. I was like, okay. Somebody invited me 'cause they were interested in my work with Veronica. And so these Polish and German artists and one person from Slovenia came together in a research project. And they didn't know what to do. And for some reason, at the time, the zeitgeist at the time was a really, like a lot around healing in terms of World War II and the European Holocaust and genocide there. And so, and then the Polish people were so impacted by the war in another way. So this opened up a huge pot of research for me by looking into Veronika Blumstein. And I lived in Europe, but I had never gone into some of my own personal roots. And so I did a lot of ancestral work at the time. And then through that project many things came up because they wrote a fictional--they wrote about a fictional character who happened to be a Jewish woman who escaped and went to New York and studied with all these people that were like part of my own dance lineage. So it became a lineage project. So in that way, I was like weaving together all of these different things. Now, like curation is kind of, I'm, it happens globally, but I know it because I've spent so much time in Europe, like this kind of careful 'cause curation--because they have different funding sources. So in the US, our, the field of dance curation has grown so much and it's--there's so many amazing people doing great projects. But my work in curation, well, I just recently did this Think Gravity Project, which we'll talk about. But I did a big project called the Live Legacy Project. And so I was invited by a former classmate of mine from the school I went to in Holland Center for New Dance Development, which became European Dance Development Center. And we did a whole cultural history on how dance migrated from US and Ukraine, uh, Ukraine--US and the UK through the Dutch school into Germany. So she was living in Germany and the German government gave a huge sum of money to this curation. So we had a symposium that resulted in a film, but we brought together many dance elders and then the younger generation. So it was a big intergenerational project. So we had workshops. So we did everything at the symposium. It wasn't a talking symposium. We had the workshops, intensives alongside the talks, alongside the films. But everybody went to everything. So it wasn't like, I will choose at a conference, it would be like a symposium for a hundred people. And then they came to everything. It was very, very well documented. They all experienced everything together. Yeah. So it's like educational and creative all at once and people got to share their work. Okay. So in that way, like the curation is a way to bring about a living archive. So I'm interested in curation that's very much alive. Does that make sense? 00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:26.222 It does. 00:29:26.222 --> 00:29:35.275 Okay. There's a lot of topics we're we're hitting now, so I hope they're making sense. 00:29:35.275 --> 00:29:47.000 They are. So, you talk, have talked a lot about, you know, previous to this interview about your involvement with Arts and Lectures on campus. 00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:48.809 Yes. 00:29:48.809 --> 00:30:02.505 And so, like a more broad question is what does campus and community service look like in your career over the years? But I know that Arts and Lectures, you know, we talked about as being a substantial-- 00:30:02.505 --> 00:33:42.000 Yes. Well, before I get into Arts and Lectures, what's interesting is I'm flashing now to David Avalos, who was a mentor for me. And, he really helped me when I arrived here, especially with my file, because I, like my service and my scholarship and my teaching all intertwined. And the committees at first didn't really get that. So he had me write this intro and it was really helpful. And so I also share that forward with other people I'm on committees with because it's known now. But even twenty years ago when I was a PhD student, we didn't do a practical PhD. Now there's many practicing dance PhDs. And at the time, one of the most famous godmothers of dance studies, my mentor, Susan Foster, said, Karen, you need to put dancing aside for a while. Get reading, get writing. And I didn't really do that at the time. I still was, I had a very active performing career, and I was curating with a group called Lower Left in San Diego. So it's just like doing way too much. But that's what I did for a large, most of my life. So it's that intertwining of these things that I think is really important. That my service here was always intertwined with my own work in the classroom. Because also, I was performing with students or creating performances with students both at the, in the early years. And it was like, that was my service. I didn't get course release or it wasn't counted as a class, even though I was teaching a class or a project that added another ten hours a week for six to eight weeks. So that's what we do, though. We dance. You gotta make the work. It doesn't fit into a four hour a week class. So my service really got intertwined entwined with dancing. But then I got involved right away because I had been curating in Europe. I had been cur--you know, when I was teaching at the clown school was my first curating. And then I, when I arrived here, I got involved with Bonnie Biggs from the Library, who was running Arts and Lectures, and she invited Mtfiti Imara, Dr. Imara, to do a performance. So that was another big project. He did a--he created a song that was called Power to the People. And I had a group of dancers. It was all extracurricular in our first year. We did a big performance at Center for the Arts in Escondido. It was amazing. And then Bonnie--oh, and then another curatorial thing was happening was Dr. Andrea Liss, who I collaborated with a lot, and Dr. Kristine Diekman. I mean, excuse me. Not Dr. Professor. (Kristine. I love you. You know, it's just as important. what you've done.) Okay. So they were doing a women's rights symposium. So in my second year or my first year--I can't remember, it's in the flyer (points to flyer). It was a really wonderful symposium. So I made a student piece for that, intergenerational. I was on a panel and then I also performed, they invited me. I did this piece in the late nineties called Monster Girl. And it was a very pop piece, feminist piece. And I wore, like, you know, I was standing on a Tide box and doing my soapbox and dancing to Mission Impossible. And it was just like wild. Blue wig-- 00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:43.000 I saw the box up there-- 00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:44.882 Oh yeah. Blue wig. Oh-- 00:33:44.882 --> 00:33:45.617 --that says Monster Girl. 00:33:45.617 --> 00:36:43.000 Oh yeah. It has the handcuffs in it, too. I mean, it was just like this kind of rant about women's rights. And so they knew I did the piece. Kristine had actually seen it at Sushi Performance and Visual Arts in '98. So they invited me to perform that. So I kind of came off and running, like performing, early on a lot. I performed a lot less as the years grew on, and I became more administratively driven. So yeah, so that was a curatorial piece. And then Meryl Goldberg picked up Arts and Lectures, and I was on the committee when she was interim. And then she got started in Center ARTES, so I came on and that was a big part of my service for the University. I worked with Marilyn Huerta for many years and for about--I think I was running it for five years. I used to call myself the unofficial Director 'cause they didn't give me that position. That's what--didn't really didn't compensate me. It was just my service, but I can tell you it was more than nine hours a week. And we did between thirty-nine and forty-two events a year for many years. And even the language that's on the website, I'm like, maybe you should update it. No offense (no shade there, Gina, or the committee). Hey, if it's still working, I'm honored. You know, Meryl also came up with some of those, uh, invoke, inspire. So, but I really brought so many performances to this campus. I mean, Dance has always done at least two a year, but I could tell you this year, we got an IRA grant this school year. We did, I don't know, but there must have been--but I have other faculty working with me. So, but Dance Studies probably hosted at least twelve major public events open to the public. So a lot. So it's big. And then my other service to the campus was, I mean, I created the program. I wrote twenty-eight courses. Of course, they're not all offered. There wasn't any, there was a, few courses on the books, and I did keep one called Global Modern Dance, which I think is very sophisticated. Don Funes wrote that when he founded the program. And, I mean, I guess you probably have knew, you already know the history of this program. It started off as an interdisciplinary program, and then there was the desire to branch out into our own disciplines. But there's always been a desire to work cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary. and Dance always does. We work with theater, we've worked with visual art, we've worked with literature and writing, we've worked with women's studies, we've worked with theater. And so I've done many projects with all of the faculty. I was actually hired as a collaborator that wasn't going--the job description was to be a collaborator. Even though it was for somebody in dance, was to be a collaborator. So I did that. I definitely did that. 00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:44.000 Yeah, you did. 00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:48.264 Yeah. Am I talking too fast, also? 00:36:48.264 --> 00:36:50.815 I think that you are doing just fine. 00:36:50.815 --> 00:36:55.025 Okay, great. Okay. It's a lot. 00:36:55.025 --> 00:37:13.000 Okay. So you've done a substantial amount of international work, and you talked about your desire to live overseas and not be a tourist. And--but how has that work outside of the United States contributed to your development in the field? And you've already kind of touched on this. But if there's anything else you'd like to say. 00:37:13.000 --> 00:40:30.235 Well, to lift up our campus with the, especially with what's going on right now in the world i--the goal is for us to be global citizens. Isn't that part of our mission still? And so learning about other cultures and living elsewhere gives one that lived experience of intercultural exchange, opens your world perspective. It demands one to be flexible and adaptable. I'm open to new ideas. So it's really enriched my life a lot. And it's given me a lot of empathy, compassion, inspiration, all of those things for ways of being in the world. And, I mean, I've primarily worked in Europe, but I've also--I've been to Mexico a few times on some big projects. And those were really, really wonderful experiences. And because our campus is in, you know, our demographic is so Latinx, that it's really important for me to have firsthand experiences there. So I've traveled personally there, but I've also done artistic project projects there. And it's been an incredible experience. Most recently, I went to Pachuca with Kristine Diekman. And we did an incredible project with sound and movement and electronic art. It was really amazing. So that was so great. And it was based on Day of the Dead. And even though I'm not from that culture, people are super open, and I learned so much at the time. And in fact, my mom had just passed, and so they were like--there were ofrendas everywhere. It was very meaningful for me. I got to learn a lot. So it's like just stepping out of one's, where one's from, you know. So yeah. I mean, I think it's super important and I--really sad to hear that programs like that are in jeopardy right now in our country. 'Cause it's like huge. It's a win-win for everybody. So, but yeah, I've had really amazing experiences overseas. I mean, the school I went to in Holland, we were seventy students from twenty-three countries. So it was on one hand chaotic. But on the other hand, we were from a lot of different cultures, but our language was dance. So we were really in the room together and just, and, you know, there was a lot of nonverbal relational experiences. And so that's where dance comes in as its own language. And it's not a universal language, even though we all have, you know, not all, but many of us, or most of us who are fortunate enough to have our four limbs and or five limbs if you count your spine and your whatever, you know, count many, many limbs. But it was, it was a life changing experience for me. And I had traveled one year. I had traveled in my gap year as well, too. So it was an experience. Yeah. Very big travels (unintelligible). 00:40:30.235 --> 00:40:56.255 Okay. So now turning in earnest to your time at CSUSM--you've been a faculty member on campus for twenty-four years. You already talked about what brought you to CSUSM, but what has been the evolution of CSUSM for you and your time here? For example, what did dance on the campus look like in 2001 compared to now? 00:40:56.255 --> 00:42:50.000 Okay. Yeah. Like I mentioned, I had another offer in Idaho. I mean, I had a lot of interviews, so I was very fortunate for that. I got two offers, and it was kind of like no brainer. It was like, ah, this is just opening. There's so much potential. There were a few courses on the books and they were taught by a lecturer named Terry Sprig, to honor her. She's a dance artist, local. I don't know if she's making work still. So she taught a few classes, but I don't even know to the extent. But as soon as I came in, they gave us, it was, days were different. They were like, okay, you have ten days--they don't tell you us before you get hired--you have ten days to get the courses you want to teach on the books. We're gonna be fast tracking those in in UCC (University Curriculum Committee). I'm like, okay, I don't even know what it's called then. So I wrote some quick courses, and one of the courses I wrote was Women in Performance: Choreographies of Resistance 'cause that really came out of my research and my dissertation. And I did a lot of work on circus when I was in grad school. Even though I did contact improvisation, I did a lot of work on physical culture, the turn of the century, the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. So I got to put that class on the books. I put on a technique class and--but there was like, there was only like three classes. One was Global Modern Dance, which we kept, or was it Cultures in Motion? There was a few. Cultures in Motion we kept, too. Upper division general ed. And then, you know, Bill Bradbury was the chair, and he was like, you need an intro course, so write it. So we like--literally, I'm teaching three courses and then I had to write-- 00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:52.000 --this curriculum. All this curriculum. 00:42:52.000 --> 00:49:49.000 Yeah. Yeah. So it was a lot. But now it's, now it's really challenging. It's great. We don't get a lot of allocations because of how the students have a shopping cart and how they, how they go through the system. 'Cause we're still a Dance minor. So when I got here, there were only a couple of classes on the books. And I was offered the opportunity within the first ten days, faculty when we arrived, you jump in, you teach your three courses and you get on a committee and then we'd like you to write the courses you'd like to teach in the next ten days. I'm like, okay. So I did that. I know that one of the courses I wrote was called Women in Performance: Choreographies or Resistance 'cause I was really fresh outta graduate school. This was my research of feminism and performance. And so I taught that class for like twelve years. Really exciting. And it became a general--upper division general ed class. And I'm looking forward to teaching it when I come back FERPing (Faculty Early Retirement Program) actually, 'cause I haven't taught it for a while. And then I put technique classes on the books, and then we all were putting in these intro classes. So I put an Intro to Dance class on the books. I think at that time, it might have been a year or two later. It's hard to remember, but I wrote twenty-eight classes over time.mI am grateful to the Dean's office when Michael McDuffie was there and Ranjita Basu, and Michael gave me great advice on how to create curriculum that would satisfy many things. So I had a lot of topics courses at the beginning and things like that. So, I've also--one of the most popular classes--the program has grown in just so many ways. So we were just me. And then there were me one lecturer. And then at one point there were me and like five or six lecturers. And then it was down to just me and like two lecturers, you know, with the ups and downs of the, of our economy. And now we are just--it's been a wonderful group of people. We're five people. In fact, two of them are, one of them just got their PhD as well from UC Riverside. And another one is getting their PhD, Cuauhtemoc Peranda. And Dava Hernandez just got her degree too. So, and then we have Nhu Nguyen and we have finally got a new hire because that was supposed to be related to the development of our own major. And so after many years, Dance got another tenure track line. And so I'm working with Cheri Hill, doing great job and will be the next leader of Dance Studies. I'm really excited about that. Sheri comes with a lot of experience as a teaching artist, and she's worked in the field of arts and ed and dance and education. So before she came, I had already been working with Liberal Studies and Meryl Goldberg on creating a class that would feed Liberal Studies. So we do actually six courses a year that feed Liberal Studies. So that's great. But it's also, we are losing some of our allocations. So it's hard, but it's great. It's great for the field, it's great for the students. And I'm really excited about the way that's really grown. The other area of the program that's grown is like, the diversity of the kinds of classes we wrote, that I wrote, over the years. So I really tried to--we're not doing, like--we're not doing ballet, modern, and jazz, you know. We had hip hop. It declined. We're gonna have--Cheri just wrote a new course. We're gonna have a wonderful new intro to hip hop class coming on that's related to, it's called Hip Hop Fundamentals. So it'll really meet the criteria of general ed. And then we will learn about the history of hip hop and alongside the commercial aspects so, and the very, the strong politics of the field. So we're really doing a lot. And then I'm really proud of a class that I co-wrote called Contemporary Folklorico. So that course has been on the books for almost ten years now. And I wrote it with Alfonso Cervera, and he was a student over at UC Riverside as well, and now is teaching at Ohio State. Amazing job. Amazing leader in dance in terms of Latinx work. And so that class is one of our most popular classes. We teach five or six sections a year, too. And I'm really proud of that because it really meets our demographic here and serving our Hispanic service--our Hispanic learning institution goals. So I just think it's very important that dance just stays--it's an alive field. So it's also, it's not the course--like there were other institutions where you might go work and they would--at least 20 years ago--they would just hand you the book and they're like, here, teach this dance appreciation class. But I've always been like, no, you teach what you know, I'm gonna trust that you're gonna teach some breadth. So when I hire faculty, I make sure that they can teach the breadth of the field and touch on many things, but they can really focus in on their, on their areas of research. So Cuauhtemoc, for example, is really--their p PhD is on voguing. And so they're really teaching the students like the history of voguing, the roots of voguing, the political significance of voguing. And so it touches on a lot of different things in terms of sociology and political science and history. And so we do all of that. So all of the dance classes have built in a practice-theory component. So there's always something, whether it's just a project that's embodied--so the students step out outside of the box and have to do something physically--that you know, that they're able to do. So it's a very active learning environment in Dance Studies. And that's really different here. And I think school--other schools have grown into that, but I was able to start that off at the ground. And so I'm actually really proud of that. This program really fosters that way of learning. So we're not just like watching a movie, we're gonna, at some point you're gonna get up and either make a movie or do a documentary and step into what the work is. Yeah, so we're moving towards a major. Unfortunately it didn't pass UCC, and Cheri is leading that and I'm working with Cheri on that. And we're looking at it as really like a degree that meets many branches of the field. So we still wanna' be creating and nurturing those that wanna' be dance makers. We're also meeting the field of arts and education, integrative arts and learning, and also social justice. So, we could say that word (unintelligible). Social justice. 00:49:49.000 --> 00:49:50.835 Absolutely. 00:49:50.835 --> 00:49:55.625 Yes. All of those things are a threat today, so-- 00:49:55.625 --> 00:49:55.848 Yeah, of course. 00:49:55.848 --> 00:52:55.000 But that's what we do. And you know I will say like every course that got passed here has the word diversity in it because that's what we do in dance. Dance is a diverse field. And even though I'm a white woman, I mean, from the beginning I always started with Black dance in America because when I taught lower division general ed, because our country is built upon the history of African people. So, dance is so infused with the migrant experience from so many different cultures. So, and then over the years, we have done a few things with American Indian Studies as well. So we're, we're working, we're working it here on our campus. We do a lot of outreach. So whoever we're bringing in is working that way. It's very integrative. So just this semester I'm really proud of a project. Can I say a little bit more about that? In terms of curriculum? So, I always brought guest artists here. And because it's really important for students to meet people working in the field outside of the institution--even though I am working outside of the institution in the summers and in general with my research. But, so I've always brought in guest artists through Arts and Lectures but also through Dance Studies through grants and things like that. So we started off with a very small lab budget, and it's grown. So I have a little line item to bring in guest choreographers. So I've brought in some amazing people. Many of them my teachers. And so those projects really influence the curriculum. So even though we might offer a choreography class, students can take it three times because it'll be different every time. Yeah. And this year, we brought Dancing Through Prison Walls, and it was just a very profound experience. So, I got a nice grant from IRA (Instructionally Related Activities fund) and Arts and Lecturers, and they came, and we did a residency. So again, in terms of like the hours with dance--and I my offer students alternatives if they're working and they can't make it--but they, I always, for the last, before COVID, there were three years and, yeah, three years of artist residency projects. So artists would come and they would either stay with me or friends, or last year we got a little grant money, they could get their own Airbnb. But I put up several artists over the years and they'd make a piece with students and they would leave and then either I or another faculty member would nurture that. And Anya Cloud and I did that for several years together. We did that for three years, where artists would come for a week and then they would leave and then we would rehearse and nurture the piece all the way through the spring dance concert. So yeah. The spring dance concert is our culminating event. Yeah. It's amazing. Very big event. Did I answer your question? 00:52:55.000 --> 00:53:30.304 You did. Okay. So this is a little bit more general, but ,it sounds like, from what you've talked about and your history, that you could have chosen different paths when it comes to dance. Different career paths in terms of what you did with that. Or even back to the high school, right? Like what would've happened if you had gone to the performing arts high school? But you chose a career in higher education. How has that lived up to your expectations? 00:53:30.304 --> 01:03:00.324 Wow. Good question. I have to say I'm super grateful because at least in the U.S., there's not very many jobs in dance. I'm extremely grateful to have a salaried position in the beginning, a pension. So I don't take that lightly. And, yeah. That's big. And there's not that many jobs in dance and higher education. So I feel very, very fortunate that I got this job as well. And that's why when I got it, I mean, I take it very, very seriously. There's a lot of work to be done in the field. And this--I don't even like the word fighters--but everybody working in dance and higher education is, we're fighting for it all 'cause the resources are less and less, unless you're in certain institutions. But it's a lot. It's a lot of work. So I worked really hard, I realized. My mom used to even say--'cause I, when I was chair also of VPA (Visual and Performing Arts) for a year and a half, almost two years. Interim chair. And I would go see my parents on spring break 'cause they're from the East coast. And so I'd bring my computer and my mother would be like, You gotta' take a break. You gotta' take a break. You gotta' take a break. So, yeah, I mean I worked a lot. I worked way more than forty hours a week in this job, like way more. And I don't have any regrets. I'm a little tired, maybe, but I know I'll refuel. Hence retiring a little sooner than I thought I was going to. 'Cause we'll probably get to that question, I imagine. Somewhere along the way. But, you know, our campus has grown a lot, but we all in the School of Arts are working hard. You know, we, how do I say this? Lots of gratitude, but we've all, you know, we've all talked about how we need space, how we need a theater. Our university has grown to a size that we're really ready for--I'm not so fixed on dance has to be in a theater. But we do need a place. So I think dance could grow more and could have grown more had we had a space. So we have a beautiful studio that doubles as a black box theater and we share it with Theater. But that's all we have. So, and then we use--Music, Theater, and Dance share the theater, the performance hall that was designed for music. So that's been hard. And so it's like, it gets to be, I used--I don't even use the expression anymore, but for like five, the last five years, I'm like, broken record. Like, we cannot, how, you know, what do you need? Or, you know, if I'm writing with Cheri, the needs that we'll need to have a major, and just because we write we need space doesn't mean that that should halt the major. We have to keep moving forward. But it's that whole what what comes first. It doesn't really work in today's economy, but dance is more important than ever, I believe. And I think the, our SoCal and our nation's culture around dance has changed so much in positive ways. With social media and many things. I'm like, wow. You know, and when I, you know, there was like ten years where people are like, do you watch Dancing With the Stars? When it came out. And I'm kind of like, no you know, like I don't have time to watch that show. Or, you know, like, oh I'm going to the theater this weekend. Because I'm really into promoting for students live art, live dance. Students, when they go and see a show here, they've never been--so many students.have never been to the theater. And it's like, so I really, I'm so grateful for my parents that I had that experience. And again, we weren't, I was from a very working class family, but it was a priority for my parents. And my mom used to take me to Brooklyn College. So I saw like really traditional, amazing Black dance in America throughout the seventies. I mean, my dance education was really opened by having my grandparents in New York and going in and out of New York. And my mother would just take me to these things that I probably would never have seen before. So, I just think the live art experience is really important, and I think our University could be cultivating that more. So that's an expect--that's one criticism. Like we had a President who called it the crown jewel, and it really is, and it could be more of a cultural hub. So that, but otherwise, you know, like I'm super grateful. It took me a long time to get to the pro--dance program. So I worked for fifteen years just doing what a program director does but not compensated for that. I just built the program because what else was I gonna' do? Everybody else was building around me. So I'm like, okay, well build a program. So I kind of floated around a little bit. So I reported to Visual Arts for a while and, but I was still doing the work of being a director. So it's really my--the art. When we sent things up to CAPC (Curriculum and Academic Policy Committee), there was a year that, my colleagues stood up for me and said, It's now time for dance to get a hire. So, to be a program. And then there was the moment where to get a hire--so I was, dance got ranked finally for a hire--but that took like five years once the School of Arts stood behind dance, moving up the line. So there was just many, many years where I was carrying everything. You know, I had a great colleague in Anya Cloud did a lot, and Cherie Hill is doing an amazing job. And all of the lecturers right now are above and beyond. But I also, and I also give them autonomy to do what they want. First of all, I can't do it all on my own anymore, but it's like, in terms of positionality, you know, we're very, we've got a wide spectrum of cultural identities and ethnic identities in our makeup of our program. And that's really important. And so for me, it's like I need to step aside what other people bring, people who they wanna' bring. Even though we always had conversations, I was kind of carrying it. But that now I'm able to find a little pot of money so that they can get a little stipend for curating something that they wanna' bring. So I'm really--contact improvisation at it's heart is about horizontal politics, so I lead with horizontal politics here. And I always have too much information. I send too many emails after the Dean's meeting, even though they're lecturers, I'd send them what's going on because we're, we say we're small and mighty. So in order for the program to grow, let the young people come forward as well. Though I do believe in intergenerational, but I also believe, you know, let the young people come forward. And Cheri is doing and also she's gonna do a great job. And she's already done so much since she's here. So, I trust that it's gonna carry forward. I don't know in what ways, but I'm open to that. You know, and I think I, I believe and have faith that the School of Arts is in full support of Dance. I have great colleagues. I've done many things, but we're all working really hard so--but it's just a great group of people. It always has been. So what was the question? Has CSUSM lived to my exectations? Well, yeah. I would say yes. And yet we know we really, we do need some more space, and I wish we had more allocations 'cause we can't build the min--we can't build the major unless we get the classes. And then you can't get the classes if you can't offer them. And you can't get, you can't offer them if the students don't sign up for them. So there was that moment where the shopping cart card came forward for students. I don't think that was great. I liked when we used to do--it was a lot of work. And even I didn't have a program I used to advise for Visual and Performing Arts. So I would have my own list. You know, the chair would say, Karen, here's your list. You're gonna advise all these people. Okay, what, what do they need to take? You know, they're visual arts students. But these halls used to be full, lined up, you know, when we'd be registering for classes. So you'd get to really meet the students, but then you would ensure that all these classes are gonna be full. But now the students, it's a different climate, but, you know, I can't change the system, so-- 01:03:00.324 --> 01:03:04.231 Bringing on the technology and you know, having-- 01:03:04.231 --> 01:05:40.445 it's great. But it's also, I think students, they need the advice and the opportunity to sit down with not just advising, but here. I think I'm taking a tangent from the--okay. So I hope, I hope that the, I hope that, yeah. I've also, the other thing that I've done with the curriculum that I've been en enabled to do with some amazing colleagues on our campus is create community engagement projects. I didn't really talk about that, but I did a few highlights. I did-- I started the collaboration with A Step Beyond, and our dean is now on the board, a fairly new dean, Dean Leora Gubkin. And for five years I taught a class over there. So, and that really ties into our dance and education pathway that may or may not grow into directly into that, but it's a great opportunity for students. And Meryl is working with Cheri and other faculty on this big arts and education certification. Arts certification project. So we're really in that already. And then I've gotten a few students jobs over at A Step Beyond. And so that was great. And I worked with Community Engagement. I got a little stipend at one point to work with them and create a course that was specific to working with them called Dance in the Community. That was inspired by Kristine Diekman as well. She did a big video in the community project for many years that always inspired me. She made public service announcements with like, so many underserved communities in our area. And so she's always been like, how do you do that? So she, she lit the way for me, so I wanna' acknowledge her also in this interview. So there was that. And then I did, I worked with Veronica Anover and worked at the Glenner Town Center, which is an Alzheimer's day center. And we did a whole project there. And then I did another fundraiser over at the Conrad Prebys theater in La Jolla. So I've done a few big community projects. I worked with the Museum of--it was called Museum of Man then--at Balboa Park. And I worked with Judy Bauerlein, and we brought guest artists there, and we did big project there. So I think those kinds of experiences for students are so important. 01:05:40.445 --> 01:05:45.172 Yeah. And a lot of like community feelers and outreach. 01:05:45.172 --> 01:06:24.000 Yeah. And bringing community to campus, too. I've brought a lot of community to campus 'cause I brought some well-known artists here. So different schools would come here. I worked with NCHEA (North County Higher Education Alliance) as well for like five years in my early days. And we did some really big projects. We brought legendary Donald McKayle here. He was at UC Irvine. He was already in his late seventies, early eighties when he came. I think it was early eighties. And he was the Alvin Aileys teacher. And so we've done, we've done some big things. I'm sure there will be more big things. Yeah. So to our little campus, we've done some big projects. 01:06:24.000 --> 01:06:59.605 That's right. Okay. So this is changing gear a bit. Okay so my, the overarching question is what did you do during Covid? But in our pre-interview you mentioned, you talked about the double pandemic and that the Covid-19 virus increased awareness of systemic racism. So the question really is what did you do during Covid? When we were all kind of locked inside-- 01:06:59.605 --> 01:14:20.635 Well, I did a lot during Covid. I--with the rise of Black Lives Matter and the murder of George Floyd, you know, everything stopped in certain ways. And I immediately, you know--for a moment--and then I immediately gathered with other colleagues in School of Arts, a few of us, we worked the entire summer to create a series. We got some money from the dean's office through some donors, through the Wagner family. And we used all of that money to program online lectures and performances. So that was like a big project. I don't know. We did at least nine, ten events per semester that was open to whole campus. But we really geared it towards School of art students to get them, to get them going. And it was, at that time during COVID, too, there was a HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) project that I worked that Mtifiti Imara invited me to be part of. So I worked with a faculty member.So the artist that we worked with was T. Lang. And we also worked with Melicia Taylor, who's become a friend and collaborator Melicia was a lecturer here in Music. So Melicia was also hired. So these are significant Black artists. Melicia is a sound designer and an opera singer. And Melicia came here and brought compositions. And we did a piece with, I think it was my choreography class. It was choreography or improvisation. We did a dance film called I Am, and the students did their own choreographies at home. And then she worked with a filmmaker to sew it together. So we did a film. I brought another artist. We were still in--well we were just opening--Jose Abad from San Francisco, another Black artist. So I brought a lot of--working with a lot of Black artists to campus. I was doing that. like I said, I've been doing that all along. But it was really a focus on that with HBCU--our campus relationship grew with that. Cheri just did that project this year. So yeah, I was really amazed at that. And we worked with students. We came in even though the campus was on lockdown. We got permission to come in and students got to work with some of these choreographers over Zoom and made their own works. So Skyla Miles and Minnie Atkins both made work, both alum from Dance Studies with, during this HBCU project. Also brought, Mayfield Brooks, who was very known in New York and in Europe and South America, and well, globally, for her work with--she calls it improvising while Black. And she has written a lot and did a lot of projects around Black culture and survival and things. So yeah, it was very, very prolifically busy and happening. And then at the same time, I was gearing up for my sabbatical application. And so even though we were in, still in Covid, I wrote my application to do this project called Think Gravity Dance Tank. So that was really involving--it was happening still during Covid. And we had a symposium and it was taking on the 50th anniversary of contact improvisation. So that's my, it was almost a continuation. It's kind of is a continuation of what I wrote about in my PhD in 2001 about contact not being universalist and who writes the history. So we brought forward some less recognized histories. So Ishmael Houston-Jones was my teacher in Holland way back when, in 1990. No, 1989. 1989. That's his brick (points to brick on window sill). He has a very famous bit called White Hope that he dances with this brick and he's danced with a brick internationally. And he's a very well respected artist. So it was a very creative way to do a curatorial project, where we invited four people, and we let them invite four people. And then we brought students. So Anya Cloud got a job at, in Boulder, University of Colorado. So they have a much bigger facility. So we did it there. And we had a week-long symposium, and we called it a reckoning with contact improvisation. And we stepped back 'cause we're both white women and we let everybody else lead. And, but we held the container and things like that. And then from that, we created a film because we had so much stuff. We had interview, we interviewed everybody, and then we had incredible footage. So we made a documentary. That documentary won best documentary at the Toronto Dance Film Festival. So we were happy with that. Or Contact Festival (Contact Dance International Film Festival) was just recently. And we've screened it in a few places, and it's gotten really good feedback. So it's a bit of a reckoning with the history in terms of who's identified 'cause contact improvisation is historicized as very white. Whereas its influences are very much based in African American culture, history and ways of working in jazz music and things like that. In terms of what is a jam, what is it to improvise. And then also there is a history of Eastern Asian American and Asian art influences in terms of what is yielding, what is gravity, what is meditation. So we brought in other voices to speak about cultural histories and positionality in terms of race and culture. So it was really, it was really productive and it was a deep experience. And it was cool 'cause we brought--I got student success funds from here and Anya got some money from her institution. So we involved, we were about twenty-six people, something like that. Between twenty-four and twenty-eight. But half of them were students. So it was really important to bring the future forward. So again, this was another project that really is based in intergenerational community and containers. And I'm really happy 'cause Makisig Akin is Philippinx and they took the model of curation and they did a whole BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) dance festival in Berlin, probably one of the first or of the first. And they used that model of curation and they were really, really excited that, to learn that way of curating. So there's that curating piece of mine, too, that yeah. People, if nobody curates, then you're not gonna' have the work, you know And we're, it's strong to curate one at a time, but it's also strong to curate symposiums that bring people togetherfor some time. Yeah. 01:14:20.635 --> 01:14:32.795 Okay. So do you have work, a work that you've accomplished in your career that has been most impactful in your opinion? 01:14:32.795 --> 01:14:34.704 Impactful on the field or-- 01:14:34.704 --> 01:14:35.805 To you. 01:14:35.805 --> 01:14:42.104 Oh, to me or to the field? 01:14:42.104 --> 01:14:46.305 Or both. 01:14:46.305 --> 01:16:17.000 Well, in terms of my training, my work with Debra Hay affected my perceptual improvisation very greatly. So Deborah Hay is a, still working artist and dance elder. And I studied with her, I saw her perform in Holland, but I wasn't in her class. And then I brought her with this group Lower Left that I worked with for many years in San Diego. So I've dipped in and out of her work. And I'm really proud that I recently got to perform with her in her work at the Getty. It was a re-dance, a recreation of a work from the sixties. So she was a very significant artist that emerged in the sixties. And she's continued to emerge internationally. So she really had a great impact on my career of how I dance. But I think--I don't know, it's such a hard question. I guess--now I'll get a little emotional because I guess creating the program is probably my biggest impact. I mean, it was a lot of work. 01:16:17.000 --> 01:16:19.000 A lot of work. A lot of really important work. 01:16:19.000 --> 01:19:24.505 I hope University continues to support it. I mean, I think it had the greatest impact 'cause I--thousands of students have taken dance classes here. And I'm sure, because you can read it, some of them was whoa, but most of them always write in the evals, I didn't know dance could be like this, or I didn't know--I just can't imagine that we would talk about dance like this, or dance could be this way or this class--even if I'm not teaching it. But creating a program where the people are invited to teach what they love to teach, to teach what they know and but to also really keep bringing in this idea that we're gonna embody the learning. I think San Marcos is unique like that, and I think the way it's open has and its opening, is pretty unique. And, but I guess, you know, I've, and I've done Summer Arts as well, so I've worked within the system and I did six summers with Summer Arts. I did two as an artist. One was during my hire, one was before my hire. And that program is over. It just got closed. 'Cause one of the biggest things the State of California did for the arts was like, oh my gosh. But I think it's, I guess I never really thought about that when you said is there some favorite work? And I was like, favorite, I mean, you know, Think Gravity was enormous. Veronica was enormous. Live Legacy was enormous. You know? I had a big practice in San Diego with people for seven years. We met every Thursday researching dance, and then I'll show you after on the wall. Lower Left was huge part of my life. Holland, Riverside was huge. But I guess the biggest accomplishment or impact, the greatest impact would be I guess this Wow. I never thought about it like that. When I visited, when I was doing, um, the Deborah Hay work--Deborah Hay is friends with Susan Foster, who's the, who I referred to as the godmother of dance studies. I don't know if she'd like that title, but I'll give it to her. She was like--I went to visit her house. She was like, You did it. She, because I think when they took me into that program, I was a bit of a wild card card 'cause they took a lot of scholars. They didn't--at the time wasn't practicing PhD, but I was dancing, like really committed to dancing and performing still. And so I was a bit of a wild card. I didn't get the, I didn't get the scholarship, you know, the first year. I didn't get the teaching the first year. They took me, but they didn't give me the, they didn't give me the scholarship. And, but I was like, I'm gonna do this anyway and see how I like it. And so that, but she looked at me, she's like, You did it. 'Cause you know, I guess I did, right? There's a program here. So time to let it go to the next people. 01:19:24.505 --> 01:19:26.000 Well, that comes to the last question-- 01:19:26.000 --> 01:19:28.000 --the last question, I imagine-- 01:19:28.000 --> 01:19:29.000 which is-- 01:19:29.000 --> 01:19:30.496 now you got me going. 01:19:30.496 --> 01:19:43.234 Oh it's. We want to, we want to get your feelings in there, too. What do you plan to do both personally and professionally in your retirement? 01:19:43.234 --> 01:23:27.185 Well, the first thing I want to do, and I am doing it, is slowing down a bit. I'm coming off of a season of lot of loss, too, a lot of loss of family. So yeah, I wanna' slow down. So I'm gonna slow down this summer and do some organizing. Continue to clean the office a little bit. And also, um, yeah, do some organizing. And then planning for my fall. I'm gonna go to Austria. I've been invited by my mentor, Donna Ray, who's a top-level Feldenkrais teacher. And she runs the institute in Vienna, the training institute. So I'm gonna' go with, there's a brand-new cohort starting. So I rented myself an apartment overlooking some park in Vienna, and it has a beautiful view of a park. And I'll walk through the park every morning and I, I'll be an assistant in the training. That means I'll be working basically. And I'm hoping that will really hone my skills even more so as I transition into retirement, I'm still gonna' be working. I'm not like retiring. So there's a woman who, as a dance legend, there's just many dance legends, you know, who work into their nineties. It's not like you stop. I really think I will always be working in the field in some way. I don't know what that is yet. I would like to curate in a theater, but they don't have those kinds of spaces in San Diego anymore, where you can just have a studio like that where you can. That's one of the things I would, I could imagine. So I'm gonna' do that and I'm gonna' go to visit a former student who's now a well-known Swiss actress and has a wonderful family. So I'm gonna' stay with her and watch her on the big stage and take a walk in the Alps. And then I'm going to do a vocal training. And it something--it's called Roy Hart. And I studied with them in San Francisco, one of their proteges. It's in a long line of lineage from the thirties and forties. And it's a vocal technique that was used in theater, like experimental theater, in the fifties and sixties. But it's also like, I'll use the word therapy. I'm not afraid of that. It's therapeutic as all art can be therapeutic, healing. Like let's transform. That's what we do in the arts, we transform. So I'm going to study some voice. And then when I come back, I'm already invited--there's a, I used to, I put myself through graduate school as a Pilates trainer, even though I'm not certified at Pilates. But I'm gonna bring Feldenkrais into their Pilates studio and do like a little one night a week class. And then, my friend Anya is up for--Anya and Mcsig are up for a big, NEFA, the New England Foundation of the Arts is one of the few funders that give fairly big money in dance in our country. They're a finalist if they get that they're doing an interdisciplinary dance project. And I guess I'll be performing. So that's the goal. The goal is to keep doing yoga, dance, walk, social activism. And I also like to paint and write. 01:23:27.185 --> 01:23:27.965 Wow. 01:23:27.965 --> 01:23:33.154 We'll see. There'll be a little more time for that. Yeah. 01:23:33.154 --> 01:23:36.994 I love that. You're gonna keep busy. 01:23:36.994 --> 01:23:41.045 Yeah, I'll be busy, but I've also, this summer, I'm gonna slow it down. 01:23:41.045 --> 01:23:51.000 And that's really good, too. So is there anything else you'd like to talk about in this interview? 01:23:51.000 --> 01:25:41.064 I think what I would like to do though is we talked about taking a few photos. And I'm really happy--I guess what I'll say is that I'm really happy that the University's interested in this interview and maybe scanning some of the posters and all things that were presented. Maybe they can even use it to use it as fuel to get a theater or a bigger production venue. Or, or a unit that would like to take care of some of these things so that faculty don't have to do all that work, But I also, I guess I wanna' really honor the founding faculty. Maybe just take a moment. I could close with that. Everybody worked really hard, and I'm really honored to have been part of the upstart. And I hope and believe that our campus will keep on during whatever's going on in the world. And I really hope that the arts can really stay strong here. Yeah. I think we are such an incredible group of artists in the School of Arts, so I just wanna' wish everybody well and to keep on. And I really, I hope that students will--and faculty and committees and the administration will--see really the value of what Dance does. 'Cause dance is really, plays a big role in the world. And like I said, it can be a lot of fun, but it goes way deeper than that. 01:25:41.064 --> 01:25:57.645 Well, that's a really great note to end on. Yeah. Thank you. And I just want to thank you for allowing us to celebrate you and your career and every, all the hard work that you've done all of this time. And I know there's a lot more to come for you, but kind of at this milestone-- 01:25:57.645 --> 01:25:58.354 Thank you. 01:25:58.354 --> 01:26:01.805 --you know, moment for you. Just thank you for sharing with us. 01:26:01.805 --> 01:26:09.234 Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Yeah, thank you. 01:26:09.234 --> 01:29:28.000 There's a few projects that I'd like to highlight that were highly sponsored by the University and that had a great, also had a great impact on my life. And the first one is a project called United and Severed. I think that I will reach for the pamphlet to refresh myself on how important this project was. So I did this with Professor Kristine Diekman, and actually this project was really personal, but I was able to take a very personal experience--this is what artists do if you don't write memoirs, and they take it out into the world. And so it was following my own--I had a very severe traumatic injury while I was employed here. Lived through that. And I stood in as like a surrogate body on film for the topic of that window of time. So it deals with women and traumatic injury and PTSD. So at the time, I was also in close relationship with somebody who is working as a active--not active duty--non-active duty for the military, who was working around soldiers and PTSD and the Afghanistan and Iran and Iraq aftermath. And so Kristine and I looked for alum and students from our school, who were survivors of traumatic injury and how they dealt with it. And so Kim Anderson is--was in it and she was a CSUSM Liberal Studies major. And Ivy Kensinger was a student of mine and also Veronica Anover. She survived a horrific car accident on the way to campus. And turns out she is now a PhD in psychology. So very--came through in a miracle way. And we did a project that was a very poetic representation of movement and understanding disability. So that was featured. And we also worked with Butoh dancers because it was also during the time of some wild fires out in East County. So we took a group of students and we took down a tree from the extremities down to the trunk that was burned. And Richard Keeley is a professor, was a professor at San Diego State--is retired. and Anna O'Cain is a professor, visual art professor, who was working at Miracosta. And we did a huge project together that was featured at Center for the Arts Escondido. So I really wanted to highlight that. It was a very deep project. We have beautiful video footage. Kristine did an incredible job editing. I was sitting alongside her. She pushed all the buttons. Of course, it was really her editing that made the project so spectacular. And our work was featured in many film festivals internationally. So I just really wanted to mention that we have this beautiful artifact from that. And then the other project that I wanted to talk about was, um, wait a minute. 01:29:28.000 --> 01:29:30.315 Your palliative care work. 01:29:30.315 --> 01:30:59.000 Oh, my current work that I will continue when I'm, that I actually have a meeting in ten minutes for, that I'm working with Palliative Care--that's a pilot project--that's run by Michael McDuffie. And I'm working with Ranjita Basu and Andrew Spieldenner. And now we have a cohort of people from the Mindfulness Center working on it. And we're working with Elizabeth Healthcare Center, Elizabeth Hospice Center. And we're doing a once-a-month project on mindfulness. And so I'm bringing in the somatic piece. So really it's been a great, We've been working on that together for about a year and a half. And now we're enacting it over there in Escondido. And next week we'll have our third monthly session, and it will go through the year. So I will be still staying involved as a volunteer for that, while I'm off the books. And so I'm very happy to be doing practical applications in different fields. And that connects as I interweave everything that I've said today, that you know, that what I do with dance and what I believe dance can do in the world has a great impact because we're working with the body and compassionate empathy. We all have a body. We're always moving, even if it's, we're just, we're down to the breath. Breath is movement. And so with that, I'll just take a breath and say thank you. 01:30:59.000 --> 01:31:00.000 Thank you. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END ]]> https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en video Property rights reside with the university. 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The researcher agrees not to record, reproduce, or disclose any Social Security number or other information of a highly personal nature that may be found. &#13 ; 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=SchaffmanKaren_FabbiJennifer_2025-06-05_access.xml SchaffmanKaren_FabbiJennifer_2025-06-05_access.xml https://archivesearch.csusm.edu/repositories/3/resources/19 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 Schaffman, Karen. Interview June 6, 2025. Description An account of the resource Dr. Karen Schaffman is a Professor of Dance at California State University San Marcos since 2002. She has been pivotal to the development of the Dance program at CSUSM. For Karen dancing is a transformative, healing and transgressive force for self-awareness, political change and social communication. In this interview, Schaffman covers her early exposure to dance, her formal education, international work, and her time at CSUSM. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC027-084 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-06-05 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Karen Schaffman Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jennifer Fabbi Subject The topic of the resource Higher education Dance Study and teaching Improvisation in dance Movement education California State University San Marcos -- Faculty Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Connecticut Amherst (Mass.) Riverside (Calif.) San Francisco (Calif.) Holland Germany Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Karen Schaffman Art and artists CSUSM history Women's experience https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/abdeb6b5993217c41d7d8f3dc1554cff.mp4 3c6df60dbdd1c712db4b06dd7a37c483 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 Oral history of Tiffaney Boyd, April 15, 2021 Description An account of the resource Tiffaney Boyd is a CSUSM alumna and former president of Associated Students, Incorporated (ASI). She was a driving force in the creation of the Black Student Center (BSC), Cougar Pantry, and Sigma Gamma Rho. In this interview, Boyd Tiffaney details the process in which she and her fellow ASI cohorts proposed the idea of the BSC. She also discusses the politics that were involved in the process and the major contributors helping to bring the BSC to life. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tiffaney Boyd Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sierra Jenkins Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-04-15 Subject The topic of the resource California State University San Marcos. Black Student Center California State University San Marcos. Associated Students Incorporated California State University San Marcos -- Students Activism, Student Black experience in America Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant San Marcos (Calf.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Tiffaney Boyd License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource moving image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Boyd Tiffaney_JenkinsSierra_2021-04-15 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Black Student Center Oral History Project 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 Oral history of Tiffaney Boyd, April 15, 2021 Description An account of the resource Oral history interview of Tiffaney Boyd on 2021-04-15 for the Black Student Center Oral History Project at California State University San Marcos. Tiffaney goes into detail about the process in which she and her fellow Associated Students, Incorporated cohorts proposed the idea of the Black Student Center. She also discusses the politics that were involved in the process and who were major contributors to helping bring the BSC to life. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tiffaney Boyd Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sierra Jenkins Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021-04-15 Subject The topic of the resource Black experience in America California State University San Marcos, Associated Students Incorporated California State University San Marcos, Black Student Center California State University San Marcos--Students Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant San Marcos (Calif.) Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Tiffaney Boyd License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Type The nature or genre of the resource moving image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BoydTiffaney_JenkinsSierra_2021-04-15 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Black Student Center Oral History Project https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/2f5f1f5e8e2ab849149ddd2d77b15aa4.jpg ba32d71554e6120c0b7841a00e58146b 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 Alphonso Cevera titled "Poc-Chuc Iteraciión 4" Description An account of the resource Guest artist choreographer Alphonso Cevera. Collaboration and Performance with Dance Studies Students: Vanesa Bedolla, Nicole Carr, Kati Echeverria, Xochitl Garnica, Alex Maravillas, Emilia Medina, Raelen Pellos, Karen Rocha, Maria Sandoval, and Nina Watts. This performance is part of the The Experimental Dance Project (EDP), which celebrates dance through interaction with professional artists and project-based learning. The EDP brings outstanding dance artists to perform, lecture, dialogue, teach and create with CSUSM students. Importantly, the EDP offers cutting-edge training and performance opportunities by hosting dance artists across the spectrum, including people of color, Latinx, Black, and LGBTQ identities. The EDP embraces our campus’ mission of inclusivity.  The EDP focuses on experimental and improvisational approaches to dance, with a particular emphasis on social justice and community engagement. The EDP aims to break down societal norms around dance and create a space where students can explore their own unique movement styles. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tim Richards https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/803d77588fbc77f28af85130979c60c1.jpg 9ced4a5c7480b90010047507e5db9e0e 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 Jaamil Olawale Kosoko titled "The Chameleon Complex" Description An account of the resource Guest artist choreographer Alphonso Cevera. With Live composition/sound designer Malesha Tayloy, Professor/Dr. Karen Schaffman and Dance Studies students: Kevine Benitez, Xochitl Garnica, Alex Maravilles, Emilia Medina, Raelene Palos and Cornelius Stringer. This performance is part of the The Experimental Dance Project (EDP), which celebrates dance through interaction with professional artists and project-based learning. The EDP brings outstanding dance artists to perform, lecture, dialogue, teach and create with CSUSM students. Importantly, the EDP offers cutting-edge training and performance opportunities by hosting dance artists across the spectrum, including people of color, Latinx, Black, and LGBTQ identities. The EDP embraces our campus’ mission of inclusivity.  The EDP focuses on experimental and improvisational approaches to dance, with a particular emphasis on social justice and community engagement. The EDP aims to break down societal norms around dance and create a space where students can explore their own unique movement styles. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tim Richards https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/0e7e677cdb8596e444b17c80b2adfb8c.jpg 45067d84631621666986f8424dcf45c0 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 Karen Schaffman and Ishmael Houston Jones Description An account of the resource Karen Schaffman and Ishmael Houston Jones at Think Gravity Dance Tank.Think Gravity Dance Tank: Celebrating & Reckoning with Contact Improvisation and Performance was an intergenerational research gathering in Boulder Colorado from March 21-26, 2022. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tim Richards https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/5f893935bd6c92420817c088e0d444cc.jpg 5e968aadd43e72d0487cb77679d8b7c9 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 Karen Schaffman and Darrell Jones Description An account of the resource Karen Schaffman and Darrell Jones at Think Gravity Dance Tank.Think Gravity Dance Tank: Celebrating & Reckoning with Contact Improvisation and Performance was an intergenerational research gathering in Boulder Colorado from March 21-26, 2022. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tim Richards 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 Schaffman, Karen. Photographs, June 5, 2025. Description An account of the resource Four photos related to the oral history of Karen Schaffman. Photograph #1 depicts dancers in a performance of the Experimental Dance Project titled "Poc-Chuc Iteraciión 4." Photograph #2 depicts dancers in a performance of the Experimental Dance Project titled "The Chameleon Complex." Photograph #3 depicts Karen Schaffman with with Ishmael Houston Jones in the Think Gravity Dance Project. Photograph #4 depicts Karen Schaffman with Darrell Jones in the Think Gravity Dance Project. Click on the thumbnails to view the full images in more detail. https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/0068bb6bea2ea5f55c2f9c5c968a5d27.pdf a666cc68c14f402d6f965e1b1ace736a 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 Transcripts Description An account of the resource Written oral histories and transcripts are available for researchers that prefer the written word, or to see the whole interview in a document. Transcripts of <a href="https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/collections/show/5">audio and video files</a> are also available as part of those video files. 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 Schaffman, Karen. Interview transcript, June 5, 2025. Description An account of the resource Dr. Karen Schaffman is a Professor of Dance at California State University San Marcos since 2002. She has been pivotal to the development of the Dance program at CSUSM. For Karen dancing is a transformative, healing and transgressive force for self-awareness, political change and social communication. In this interview, Schaffman covers her early exposure to dance, her formal education, international work, and her time at CSUSM. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Karen Schaffman Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jennifer Fabbi Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-06-05 Subject The topic of the resource Higher education Dance Study and teaching Improvisation in dance Movement education California State University San Marcos -- Faculty Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Connecticut Amherst (Mass.) Riverside (Calif.) San Francisco (Calif.) Holland Germany San Marcos (Calif.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Karen Schaffman Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SchaffmanKaren_FabbiJennifer_2025-06-05_transcript Art and artists CSUSM history Women's experience