1 10 183 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 Ryan Willis Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Mark Wyland 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=WylandMark_WillisRyan_2023-04-10.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. American politics;California government;State Assembly;California Senate;Oral history in classrooms 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 Wyland, Mark. Interview, April 10, 2023 SC027-38 02:30:04 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library Special Collections oral history collection CSUSM This interview was made possible with generous funding from the Ellie John Foundation and was created as part of the CSUSM University Library and History Department Internship in Oral History. csusm Politics and government -- 20th century ; Politics and government -- 21st century ; School boards -- California -- Escondido ; Lumberyards -- California -- Escondido ; California. Legislature. Assembly ; California. Legislature. Senate ; International relations ; Bills, Legislative ; Legislation -- California ; Oral history American politics ; California government ; State Assembly ; California Senate ; Oral history in classrooms Mark Wyland Ryan Willis .wav WylandMark_WillisRyan_2023-04-10.wav 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/064306702b5e232aff51531efbfa8101.wav Other audio English 0 Family history / Upbringing / Early career Mark Wyland begins the interview by discussing his family history. His maternal grandparents had moved to San Diego in 1925 and his grandfather was an Escondido city councilman and a supervisor for North County. His grandfather, father, and uncle also began a lumber and building materials business, which is still in operation today. Wyland also explains that he grew up in Escondido and attended Escondido High School. After high school, he attended Pomona College and studied International Relations. He further explains how he later worked for the City of New York on school construction while in graduate school before returning home to join the family lumber and plywood business. He adds that he stayed with the family business for twenty years. San Diego (Calif.) ; Escondido (Calif.) ; San Diego North County (Calif.) ; New York (NY) ; lumber and plywood business ; family business ; Ponoma College ; International Relations 0 347 The teachers who inspired Wyland Mark Wyland recounts the teachers in his life who made an impact on his upbringing. He credits many teachers from his childhood and teenage years, such as his fourth grade and eighth grade teachers, Mrs. Stevens and Mrs. Von Bergen, as well as his German teacher, Bob Maywald. Wyland later studied abroad in Germany due to his positive experience in Maywald’s class. He also credits his high school speech teacher, Cliff Summerall, for inviting him to join the debate team and sparking his interest in politics. He also briefly discusses joining the family business and the importance of solving problems in a competitive market. Escondido (Calif.) ; San Diego North County (Calif.) ; School ; Teachers ; Fourth grade ; Eighth grade ; High school ; Study abroad programs ; Debate teams ; Family business 0 842 Managing the family business Mark Wyland reflects on how running the family business shaped him as a person. He explains how being involved in the decision-making of the business made him realize that he was analytical and wanted to solve problems, which would be later prove beneficial to him when he entered politics. Escondido (Calif.) ; San Diego North County (Calif.) ; Lumber and plywood business ; Family business ; Problem solving ; Politics 0 1058 Semester abroad program in Germany Wyland recounts his semester abroad program in Germany when he was an undergraduate student at Pomona College. Wyland explains that he lived with a family for a month in the small town of Nördlingen. He lived with a family consisting of a husband and wife, their daughter, and their granddaughter, who was also a university student. He discusses the history of his host family, explaining how they had lived through World War I and had opposed Hitler. He then explains that he later was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Germany after graduating with his Bachelor’s degree and spent a year there studying Germany policy. He reflects that both of these experiences in Germany, as well as the politics surrounding the Vietnam War, influenced his decision to enter into politics. Germany ; Nördlingen ; Study abroad programs ; Ponoma College ; Host family ; World War I ; Hitler ; Nazi Germany ; Vietnam War ; Politics ; Decision to enter politics 0 1683 School board race Mark Wyland explores his time running for the Board of Education of the Escondido Union School Board. Wyland describes the experience as “brutal” and “contentious.” He discusses incidents that happened during his time on the school board, such as a large portion of the board organizing to remove a Hispanic superintendent. He also describes campaigning to implement English education for Hispanic students in classroom curriculums during his first school board race. Escondido (Calif.) ; San Diego North County (Calif.) ; School board race ; School board ; School board politics ; Board of Education ; Escondido Union School Board ; English education curriculums ; Hispanic population 0 2124 California State Assembly race Mark Wyland discusses his time running for the California State Assembly in 2000. He reflects that the race was far more political than he had originally anticipated. Wyland describes a conflict during the race between himself and the then-assemblyman. Wyland explains that the then-assemblyman did not agree with Wyland’s previous Democratic politics and had raised money for lobbyists to go against Wyland. California State Assembly ; Politics ; Political campaign ; Primary election ; Democrats ; Republicans ; Lobbyists 0 2542 Becoming California Senator Mark Wyland discusses his time as California Senator. Wyland represented District 38 from 2006 to 2014. Wyland reflects on his early start in the Senate and how he had an interest in education reform. He also learned early on in his career that the state government is organized similar to Congress in terms of its parties, caucuses, committees, and the floor. He also explores how he found government to be much more partisan than he originally expected. He also contemplates the topic of term limits, explains the difference between state and federal laws, and discusses politicians who had abused their power. Politics ; California State Senate ; California Senator ; District 38 ; Education reform ; Organization of state government ; Partisan government ; Term limits ; State and federal laws 0 3297 The U.S. educational system Mark Wyland discusses the educational system in the United States, with an emphasis on the importance on vocational schools. He first explains the history of vocational schools, beginning with skilled apprenticeships during the Middle Ages. He also reflects on the disadvantages of the dismantling of vocational schools in the U.S., including the loss of students learning practical skills, the demoralizing of students’ drive for learning, and the increase in student loan debt. School ; Educational system ; Educational system in the U.S. ; Vocational schools ; Apprenticeships 0 4333 What makes Wyland a unique Senator Mark Wyland responds to a quote from Senator Darrell Steinberg, who referred to Wyland as a “Republican romantic.” Wyland explains that he has a great deal of respect for Steinberg and finds the quote to be flattering. Wyland also discusses the difficulty of making progress in politics and the public educating themselves in governmental matters. Politics ; Senator Darrell Steinberg ; Republicans ; Making progress in politics 0 4569 Goals as a politician Mark Wyland first reflects on the general public’s view on politics. He believes that the public does not understand politics the way they should and that many do not make informed decisions when voting. Wyland explains that it is important for the public to be critical of their government, and he provides an example of the importance of being critical of governmental spending. He also states that his goal as a politician is to provide better quality government and to help the people in becoming better informed citizens. He also states his concern over the media’s biased coverage of political matters. Politics ; Goals as a politician ; General public's view on politics ; Making informed voting decisions ; Being critical of government spending ; Media's biased coverage of politics ; Newspapers 0 5771 Objectivity in politics Mark Wyland discusses objectivity in politics. He views objectivity as an ideology, which he perceives as problematic because he believes it is too rigid of a view. Wyland explains that in his opinion, political knowledge and discussion should be more pragmatic. He also states that it is important to understand life’s complex problems and to use our power to solve them. Wyland also reflects on the importance of humility and on society coming together and respecting one another’s point-of-view. Politics ; Objectivity ; Objectivity in politics 0 6484 San Diego energy bills Mark Wyland discusses a few of the energy-related bills that he wrote. Wyland explains that one of these bills was in response to the blackout crisis of 2000 and SDG&amp ; E’s increased price of natural gas. The bill was eventually vetoed by Gray Davis. San Diego (Calif.) ; Energy bills ; Blackouts ; Blackout crisis ; SDG&amp ; E ; Public Utilities Commission ; Municipal Utility District ; Natural gas ; Gray Davis ; Politics 0 7050 Promoting oral history/ Oral history bills Mark Wyland discusses his efforts in promoting oral history in classroom curriculums. He first explains how he learned to appreciate oral history learning through his own grandfather and the grandfather from his host family in Germany and their talent for storytelling. Wyland also discusses the bills that he wrote to emphasize and encourage the use of oral history in the classroom. These bills include creating curriculums that would incorporate oral history testimonies involving World War II, the Korea and Vietnam Wars, and the history of genocide. Oral history ; History ; Politics ; Classroom curriculums ; Oral history bills ; World War II ; Korean War ; Vietnam War ; The history of Genocide 0 8078 Romanticizing history/ Closing of interview Mark Wyland discusses the issue of romanticizing history in the classroom and in American society. Wyland uses the change over time in how Indigenous and Mexican history are taught in classrooms as examples. Wyland closes the interview by stating that politicians could not do their jobs without the help and support of the public. He adds that the American people deserve to feel good about who they vote into office, even if they do not agree with every decision that they make. History ; Romanticizing history ; Indigenous history ; Mexican history ; Classroom curriculums ; Politics ; Relationship between politicians and voters 0 Oral history interview with Mark Wyland on 04/10/2023. In this interview, Wyland discusses his upbringing and family background, including his family business in Pine Tree &amp ; Lumber. Wyland explains his education background along with studying in Germany for a year, and how he was motivated to choose a career in politics. Wyland expanded on his career on the Board of Education of the Escondido Union School Board, becoming a member of the California State Assembly from 2000-2006, and then being elected into the California Senate in 2006, serving until 2014. Wyland reflects on his trials and tribulations throughout the years, offering his thoughts and suggestions on the current state of American politics and how it can be improved. Wyland also speaks on K-12 school curriculum, Native American History, and the importance of Oral History being taught in the classroom. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION BEGIN 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Hello, this is Ryan Willis, and today I am interviewing former California Senator Mark Wyland for the California State University San Marcos Library Special Collections Oral History project. Today is Monday, April 10th, 2023. The time is 2:32 PM and this interview is taking place at the University Library. Mr. Wyland, thank you so much for interviewing with me today. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.000 You're very welcome, Ryan. Please call me Mark. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:55.000 You got it, Mark. Appreciate that (both laugh). So obviously you have a very rich and impressive resume when it comes to education and politics, so definitely going to get into all of that during this interview. But I want to start off by asking you about your upbringing and your family background. Because I definitely believe that's important to bring up. First off, when and where were you born? 00:00:55.000 --> 00:02:11.000 Well, I was actually born in San Diego at Mercy Hospital, which is still there. It's part of the Scripps Network now. And Escondido at the time, I'm not sure it really had a full-service hospital, but I grew up in Escondido. My maternal grandparents had moved there in 1925 and they had a business, a plumbing business. And after the war, meaning World War II, my maternal grandfather, Brian Sweet, who had been an Escondido city councilman and also a supervisor for North County, he started a business with my dad and my uncle, and it was a lumber and building material supply business, pine tree lumber. It still exists. It's not in our family, but based in Escondido. And so, I grew up there, went to Escondido High School. When here we are in San Marcos--San Marcos didn't have a high school (laughs). 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:12.000 Right. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:05:25.000 They went to Escondido. And then I went to college in Pomona College, which is in Claremont, California, where they have a group of colleges, the Claremont Colleges. I got interested in--studied International Relations, which is foreign affairs. I spent a year after college on a grant in Germany. And then I was in graduate school in New York studying to be a professor of international affairs. But I'd gone straight through and I, you know, it was kind of a time as a young man where I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I'm not a city guy. I hated New York (laughs) because I grew up in rural Escondido, basically in an avocado grove. And so, I ended up--I got a lot out of that program--but I ended up working for the university. And then I worked for the City of New York on school construction of all things. And I was very close to my grandfather, and he wanted me to come back and join the family business. I thought I would never do that. But he had had a stroke and I was very close to him, and I was sick of New York, and I thought, “Well, I'll just interrupt the program.” You know, I can always go back, and something that was important and played out later: I wrote a master's thesis on a topic that really interested me. Basically, it was how people see the world, their worldview. And so I came back, I thought it would be here a year, and I ended up staying. And this was a business I'd worked in summers as a kid, and I'd done every job, you know, manual labor, loading lumber, driving forklifts, driving trucks. I'd done all that. And I ended up doing that for, my gosh, almost twenty years. And that also had a big impact on learning how to solve problems. And my dad, who's extraordinary, I learned a great deal from him--unfortunately, passed away fairly young, but I always had this interest in what we might call “public policy.” And I always had this interest in schools. And I had tried early on in that job, they had an opening on the high school board, not an election-appointed one. I tried to get that. I didn't get that (laugh). 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:26.000 Right. 00:05:26.000 --> 00:12:11.000 And so, it turned out there was another opening on the Escondido Union Board, which is K-8. And I applied for that and got it. And the rest is history. And we can talk about that. And I know we have questions. I would like a shout out though to a few Escondido teachers who really made a big difference. And first, my fourth-grade teacher. Believe it or not, I lived in old, it was in town then--Central School. Mrs. Stevens, who told stories about when she was living in Mexico City and married to her husband who's Mexican. Really interesting stories. And I thought, you know, that's a different culture, and that's pretty interesting. And then I had this wonderful eighth grade teacher for social studies, Mrs. Von Bergen. It didn't hurt that I had a crush on her (Willis laughs). Oh my gosh. And in eighth grade in California, you spend a lot of time on the Civil War. And again, she really piqued my curiosity because I remember learning that it wasn't just simple. It was more complicated between the North or the South. And we actually--that was the first time I had to write a term paper, which I found later, I still have. And it's, you know, it's not very well done, but it's eighth grade (Willis laughs). And I realized between what I was trying to write was--this is really interesting: the North was industrialized and the South was agricultural, and there are all these other cross currents. And then when I was a sophomore in high school, the speech teacher, Clifford Summerall, he was invited to go into a class where students were giving oral reports, and I gave one. And I was pretty good at that. So, he asked me to join their debate team, and they had tournaments. And these are national. And all kinds of speaking ; humorous speeches. I've forgotten the categories. And they had a national topic, which I don't think they do that anymore. They still have speech, but it tends to be more impromptu where you learn about a whole bunch of things and they say, what do you think about--whatever it might be? And that era was a national topic, and the topic that first--yeah, I was fifteen, a sophomore, right, was “Should we strengthen NATO?” Well, that was sixty years ago, (Willis laughs), and it's as current today as it was then. And what made it--why it had such a big impact was they gave you the materials and you had the same topic for the whole year. So, while my friends are--and I don't mean to diminish this, you have to do it, but it's, you know, they're reading chapter eight and answering the questions and the tests on Friday kind of thing--I'm learning about post-World War II and the Soviet Union and their march and to those eastern European states, all this really adult stuff. And because at a tournament, they would assign you different sides--you're for or against--so you really had to learn about the issue. And what fascinated me was: it's not that simple. There are arguments for it and against it, and you don't know for sure how it's going to work out. A lot of the people doing debate, you could tell were going to be future lawyers. You know, I had my kind of sport coat and a tie, and I had to laugh in retrospect, some of them would, you know, their kids would come in like these dark, you know, suits, and they would try all these tricks. It was about winning. But for me it was like, “What's the answer?” And then the next year, the question was, “Should we increase federal aid to education?” Again, it's as current today as it was then. And so you had to look at a lot of analyses and statistics. So Cliff Summerall gave me a gift. He's still alive, he's in his nineties. I met him on a plane from Sacramento by sitting down to him--I'd forgotten. And I thanked him in some detail. And according to his wife, he was very moved. He gave me a real gift. And then I had a couple of other iconic teachers, anyone of a certain age will remember John Georges. English teacher who had been a Marine in the South Pacific and World War II. And a German teacher, Bob Maywald, who was German and had as a teenager gotten here after the war. So those are local people that really made a difference. But--and I ended up majoring in International Relations because really of that interest. 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:12.000 Right. 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:21.000 And ended up spending the year in Germany, because I had a really good German teacher. So, when I got to college, that was pretty easy. 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:22.000 Yeah. 00:12:22.000 --> 00:13:43.000 So, I can stop there. One of the thing I do want to add, when I ended up coming back here and being in the business ; the building material supply, especially lumber and plywood, mostly for houses, it's a commodity. And it's very competitive, because, how do you say, “Well, our two by four is better than their two by four?” And so, it has to be not only the quality of the lumber, but the service and that sort of thing. And prices change really fast, and you really have to be on top of it, but you have to--it's not a business you can just let go by. And so, every day you have to know what you're selling, if there's a problem, if your competitor is undercutting you, and you have to get on it to solve the problem. Many of our competitors went under because you--and so I learned that you have to solve problems. You can't ignore them, and you better get after it. 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:44.000 Right. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:14:02.000 So, I'll just stop there. I guess I had been doing that for, I don't know, twenty years, somewhere in that neighborhood. But I wanted to do something else. I was interested in education, and that's why I went for that school board appointment. 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:16.000 Yeah, I was going to ask for the family business that anybody within your family tried to push you to stay in that line of work, or were they more open to you doing other things? 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:20.000 My dad, had he lived, would've been very encouraging, I think. 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:23.000 Yeah. 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:35.000 And I learned that his dad, who had passed away before I was born, who I thought was just a quiet engineer type, turns out he was fascinated with international affairs. 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:36.000 Oh. 00:14:36.000 --> 00:15:01.000 Would read newspapers. That was during the Roosevelt era. My--I was in the business with my cousin and I were running it, and his dad was still there, but my cousin and I were running that, and I think they thought I was crazy (both laugh). Which is what a lot of people think, you know, it's conflict and-- 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:02.000 Yeah. 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:06.000 It's thankless, which it pretty much is. 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:17.000 (laughs) Right, I was going to say, pretty much what it sounds like. So, but it really sounds like that business really helped shape who you became and it really helped you when it came to getting into politics. 00:15:17.000 --> 00:16:07.000 Yeah. What it did was, I always had this analytical bent and, you know, to go from college and think about a PhD and all that, you have to be very analytical. But what it added was: you better identify a problem and you better fix it, because if you wait it was very unforgiving. You know, there are businesses where, you know, it's just steady. And, and it wasn't like that. When I started out there were probably twenty lumber yards in San Diego County, and when we finally sold it in early 2000s there were basically two. 00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:08.000 Right. 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:18.000 So. And so when I got into government, I wanted to solve problems, I wanted to analyze them and let's fix them. 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:19.000 Right. 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:21.000 That's kind of hard to do (laughs). 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:28.000 Yeah. Right. Were you involved at all in that decision to sell the family business? 00:16:28.000 --> 00:17:36.000 Yeah, it was hard because, you know, the older generation who passed away, my cousin and I were running it, we--each of us had a sister who were not involved. And it's hard because he and I had grown up doing it. And our sisters, they weren't living locally, and they were all in favor of it. And this is very common in family businesses. You get different interests. So, but I was already in government, in the legislature, and he was frustrated and I had to say, “You're the guy there,” you know? So. But I actually think ultimately, actually, he regretted it. On the other hand, when it's a family business and you don't have people to hand it down to, and we had daughters and who--which is not a problem--but they weren't interested in it. 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:37.000 Right. 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:38.000 So. 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:49.000 Right. Gotcha. So, going back, you said you spent a year in Germany. What was that experience like for you? 00:17:49.000 --> 00:20:07.000 Pomona had a semester abroad program. And in that program--which I think is the best way to do it, but it, these programs don't exist--you lived with a family for a month, and I happened to live with a family in southern Germany, a little town, Nördlingen, a little town in Bavaria. And I lived in a family that was the age of my grandparents and their daughter and their granddaughter, who was in her early twenties and was at the university. And it turns out that they had lived through World War I, he was in World War I, but never fought, but in the military ; went through hyperinflation in Germany ; the rise of Hitler, whom he strongly opposed. And he was working in the local government of this town, and they said, “Well, if you're working here, you have to sign up to join the Nazi party.” And it almost brings tears to my eyes. He wouldn't do it. And I thought so many times, you know, it's so easy for us in this country to say, “Well, they should do this or that.” And I've often wondered, would I have had the courage? All it was was signing a paper, they weren't making him do anything. Would I really have had the courage of my conviction? But he did. And it was during the war, and so they made him--Germany had taken over Czechoslovakia, so they made him move and go to Czechoslovakia. I mean, they kind of--that was his punishment. And he was there until the very end of the war. When they came back basically on a wagon, walking, he had lost so much weight, he said people he'd grown up with didn't recognize him. 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:08.000 Wow. 00:20:08.000 --> 00:22:15.000 So, and I just really got along with them. And they had had a son who was drafted at the end of the war into the German military. He was only sixteen (years old). They were taking kids. And the last time they saw him, they argued about the war because they were against the war. They were against Hitler. And, whatever people may think, there were plenty who didn't like Hitler. And they argued and their son said, “Well, our lieutenant tells us that Führer has this new weapon and we're going to win.” He was a kid, right. Sixteen. And that was the last time they saw him. He was stationed near Berlin, and the Russians came in and, and so I think part of it was here was this young guy, I was only like nineteen or twenty (years old), and I think we got along and I think it was almost like here was their son that they lost. So we became really close. So that was my junior year. And then my senior year, my mentor--who later became famous--he had had a Fulbright, which was a scholarship, to Germany. And he said, “Mark, you should apply for this.” So I did. And lo and behold, I got it (laughs). So it was kind of a rough year. Because, again, I was graduated and I still didn't know what I wanted to do, but, so I spent the year in Germany studying German foreign policy. And that's one of the reasons I know so much about, a lot about Germany and the society and the culture and all that sort of thing. 00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:34.000 Right, right. That's fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. So, it sounds like, as far as what motivated you or pushed you in the direction of politics, a lot of it sounds like it was self-interest to begin with, but I know you also mentioned that the Vietnam War had a huge influence as well. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? 00:22:34.000 --> 00:23:39.000 It did. I was of that era, which is only probably about five or six, seven years. And they, we had the draft which they ended, I think 1973 or something like that. And I was never in the service, but it affected the whole country, families, and it affected all the young men. And that's what I, what I ended up studying and writing about, and I'm still interested in the same thing, is: how people saw the world. How do you, in international affairs, the thing that's interesting to me is everyone wants peace, peace and prosperity, all over the world. That's what people want. 00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:41.000 Yep. 00:23:41.000 --> 00:28:03.000 And how did the decisions come about to say we need to engage militarily? And I have enormous respect for all those who fought there. And there are people from Escondido whose names are not along the wall in Washington, but in the park around the state capitol, there is a monument with the names of every Californian who was killed there. It's kind of emotional. Oscar Cruz, I'd grown up with Oscar Cruz ; he's on that wall. And I've forgotten his first name. One of the Durbin boys, I didn't know him, but they were a well-known family in Escondido, the Durbins. And I think what happened was we had kind of a Cold War mentality, which was: if you--they remembered so clearly what happened, the lesson that all those people make in those policies. You had Lyndon Johnson, you had (David) Dean Rust, the Secretary of State, you had McNamara, Secretary of Defense, you had the National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy. All of them were of the era where they had grown up in the ‘20s and then the Depression, and went from the Depression into World War II. And they knew the cost and they had lost people. And so, the lesson was the lesson of--and, I can't recall the British politician's name who earned peace in our time in Munich--and the lesson was just like, from Hitler, you have to fight them. You can't let them gain. And it's really what's playing out right now, even though it's not our people there, but in Ukraine with Russia. And I didn't think that lesson applied very well to Vietnam. But what I wrote about was Dean Rusk, who was Secretary of State, and all the different elements of his worldview. And what I think happens to people in general is you get a kind of a take on something. And pretty soon, well, that's just the way it is. You know, if I am, I could be a doctor--and, you know, there are these debates now about diets, for example, and you get--you know, these are smart, highly trained people, and they have, “Well, this is what you should eat or not eat,” or whatever it might be. And it's the same thing with solving all the problems that we have. And I worked a lot on education. “Well, this is what you do.” If you, if you want to teach, make sure English learners, and we have a lot of them in California who speak a different language at home. “If you want to make sure they learn English, this is the way you do.” And what I learned through those experiences is you can have some ideas, but take in new information and make sure that--and always be open. And in international affairs, you make decisions, but you don't know how they're going to turn out. And that's part of the interest and the tragedy of it. So, in the case of Vietnam--and I identified a dozen, maybe twenty different aspects of the worldview, how they saw things. And I don't think they really had thought it all through. 00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:38.000 Right. I know in the short amount of time in getting to know you, Mark, you are extremely passionate about education. And you were a member of the California State Assembly, and you served on the Board of Education of the Escondido Union School Board. You told me essentially that school board politics were just plain ugly. And that's putting it extremely lightly. What made school board politics just so ruthless? 00:28:38.000 --> 00:32:04.000 It was brutal. Brutal. Well, later on, when I represented half a million people in the (California State) Assembly and later on in the (State) Senate, a million people, which is more than a member of Congress, I dealt with many different school districts and cities. And what I learned about local government: they can vary greatly. You can have one city where everything is smooth. The city council, a school board, and you cross the line, and the city council and the school board are contentious. And at that point, on the Escondido Board, it was very contentious. And they had hired a new superintendent who was Hispanic. And then I think the district was probably two-thirds Hispanic. Now, it's probably at least three-quarters. And many, maybe most, came to school with either imperfect or no English. And they had hired this guy, but there was a group that opposed him. And they were organized and included some of the administrators and some of the people opposed me because I was appointed. And they thought their person was robbed. And it was very organized. And they had--it was organized politically to get rid of him. And we would have these meetings, you know, the state legislature, few people know this, but if you want to show up on a bill and you show up in the committee on the day a bill is heard, almost always, I mean, rarely it's not, they will ask, “Is there anyone else who wants to testify on this bill?” You can go right up there and testify. You can lobby all the people, send them letters, meet with them. But almost no one does it. But when it's in local government, they do. And we had some board meetings that, well, they were quite raucous. And I'll never forget one (laughs) where this--she came up and she wasn't--she had made some good points, and she had, and there's no dias. It was just same level. We're just behind the table. And she said, “I've got--you all deserve pink slips.” And she had little pink pieces of paper. And that was what you gave someone--you used to get that if you're going to get fired or laid off. And she plunked down in front of us a pink piece of paper saying, “You're fired.” You know, I can laugh about it, but it was awfully serious. And ultimately for a variety of other reasons we decided to part with that superintendent. But there were people working for the district who unfairly, I thought, suffered. And because they were seen as, you know, on the wrong side. 00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:11.000 Right. Did that at least prepare you though, for the next step in your career? Which we're going to get to next as far as— 00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:12.000 No. 00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:13.000 Being elected into the Senate? 00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:17.000 No, because I couldn't believe it would be like that. 00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:18.000 Gotcha. 00:32:18.000 --> 00:35:22.000 I couldn't believe. But it was. And I'll tell you one funny story which illustrates it. I had a very contentious election. And this is important: we had two newspapers. This ties right into how we solve the problem of people feeling better about the government. We had The San Diego Union Tribune, and we had the North County Times, and they were robust, and they covered--The San Diego Union Tribune had, just on the editorial side, in addition to reporters, had a full-time editorial guy covering North County. And the North County Times did a great job. They covered school board meetings. They would editorialize about when we had these contentions about the school board. They had columnists who wrote about the school board. And people read the paper and they got a lot of information. And that's unfortunately no longer the case. So, what I--I had been very interested in this problem of Hispanic students learning English, because I knew their futures and the future of the state--you know, there are the immigration debates--but the fact is they were here. And I knew that their future and the future of the state depended upon them acculturating and being able to get good jobs, et cetera. So, I thought, “This can't be that hard.” And I thought--it's very naïve--I thought, “Escondido can be a model for the whole state.” Because it's small enough we can fix this. And that's kind of the business guy’s approach. Here's a problem, we need to jump in there and fix it. And it turns out in education, there are all these ideologies about how you teach reading and how you teach math. The business approach, which is, I think most people’s, is more pragmatic: I don't care. Let's just see what works. Well, it turned out, with all this contention, it was really hard. And I thought, and these mandatory tests were coming down from the state--which I thought were actually helpful--and I thought, “That's the place to fix this.” And that race was also brutal, that first race. But I don't need to, unless you want to, to get into it (laughs). 00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:24.000 (laughs) It's up to you. 00:35:24.000 --> 00:40:12.000 Well, I--you know, I ended up leaving graduate school with a master's and not going back for the PhD, but I think I got a PhD in practical politics. I was pretty naive. You know what, I'll tell you a little bit about that race, a little about that first year, and then maybe we can pause and figure out where you want to go next. I never--first of all, it was a primary. Primary of 2000 and the primary of 2000--and I was a Republican who had been a Democrat. And again, it was pragmatism. I just ended up agreeing with more of the Republican policies and fewer of the Democratic. But it was always pragmatic. What's the best answer to the problem? So, in that time--it's not the same now--but in that time, North County, and that's the district is, oh, 450--475,000 people. A congressional (district) then was around, I think 700,000 just to give--and a state senate (district) was just short of a million. And it was most of North County, big chunk of North County. And it was very conservative. So, whoever won the Republican primary was probably going to win the general election. So, I ended up starting out with a--I got some help to do this. You have to get help, really. And through that--consultant is what they call them. I ended up hiring a campaign manager who turned out to be a crook, a straight up crook! But he hadn't vetted him enough. So (laughs), so then, we--and there were seven or eight people in the race, which actually makes it easier because all you need is a plurality, not a majority. So, I ended up--that consultant, we parted ways and I got a very capable consultant. Some states just have a campaign manager--I had a consultant and a manager--and they design the race. And a key part of it is communication by mail. When you see TV ads, that's really expensive, and only a few campaigns have the money to do that. Same thing with radio. And in that era radio was going strong. So, you had radio, TV, ads, and mail. And so we were going along with issues that we thought were helpful. One's kind of a profile where you introduced the person. I was still reasonably well known in Escondido. They were still old guard. My family had been there forever. And I was at that point, president of the school board. And then, the then-assemblyman who was termed out, he didn't want me. He liked control. And he had picked someone that he thought he could control. So he was against me, which is hard because he raised money from lobbyists to go against me. And he discovered that when I was a Democrat, I had given money to Democrats. I'd given money to Al Gore in 1988. Well, in a primary you get the most intense voters. So having given money to Al Gore, to a good loyal Republican would be like in a Democratic race, having given money to Trump or Bush when they want Obama, it's like (Willis laughs) this can't work! 00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:13.000 Yeah. 00:40:13.000 --> 00:41:44.000 And you can't explain in a short campaign, you can't--the explanation was at that point--and I still believe now, you need two strong parties, which are reasonable. Well, Al Gore in 1988, I thought was pretty reasonable. I was a Republican, but I also wanted a reasonable Democrat. And he was running as a moderate Southern Democrat (laughs). Well, you can't explain that to people because it's ten, twelve years later. And by then he had changed. So anyway, it cut down my margin and I managed to squeak out a victory. Only because they--if they'd had more money, and money does play, people hate it, but it's like marketing. It's like, if you represent Coca-Cola and I've got “New Great Coke,” and you have a million dollars of marketing and name ID, and everyone likes Coke, and I've got a little amount to say, “Hey, this new stuff is really good,” it doesn't matter. And so they didn't have enough, and I squeaked it out. I think I got less than twenty percent of the vote. 00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:45.000 Oh, wow. 00:41:45.000 --> 00:42:02.000 I barely made it. And there was another guy on that race who was the mayor of Encinitas, Jim Bond. And he was on the ballot as James Bond. And the James Bond movie had just come out like few months before. 00:42:02.000 --> 00:42:04.000 Oh man. 00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:09.000 (laughs) And I, so I just barely squeaked it out. 00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:10.000 Gotcha. 00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:22.000 And I was not prepared. It was intensely political, more than I expected, but I wasn't really prepared for it. 00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:40.000 That's fascinating. So as far as the Senate, you represented District 38 from 2006 to 2014. Is that correct? (Wyland nods) So what was that moment like when you got into the Senate? Do you remember how you felt? 00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.000 Well, yeah. Let me give you, let me go back a little bit. 00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:45.000 Yeah. 00:42:45.000 --> 00:49:26.000 Because I could talk about growing up in Escondido in that era for a long time, but we've got hundreds, if not thousands of my era, who can tell you that story. This is what's a little different. So, when I got to the Assembly, a friend of mine in the Assembly, but he had been there, I was new--later, a friend of mine in the Senate (Tony Strickland), now the Mayor of Huntington Beach, he came to meet me and we, he tells this story, which is true, and he said, “Well, Mark, what are your interests?” And I said, “Education.” And he kind of chuckled and said, “Well, what about education?” And I said, well, I say it was a five-point plan. He says, it was like a ten-point plan that I said, “I've got this plan.” And he started to laugh and he said, “You don't understand. Education is controlled by the Teacher's Union. And whatever they say goes.” And I did say “Yes, but they haven't seen the power of my ideas.” I used that phrase, “The power of my ideas.” Where upon Tony, Tony Strickland, he just started rolling on the floor laughing because he realized I had no idea how it worked. And what I learned was, local government is very different. Once you get in state government, it's just like, organized like Congress. There's parties, there's caucuses, legislative committees, floor--it's set up like that. And I always thought, you know, I'd been a Democrat. Everyone wants the same thing. Good jobs. Well, it--there are party differences. Not everything. Maybe half of the bills pass, everyone votes, which people don't understand enough of. It's not people like that all the time. You have to work together in the same building. But I did find it was much more partisan than I had expected. You know, “Our interest group says this, so that's how we're voting. Our interest group says this, so that's how we're voting.” So much so. It's a two-year session in the Assembly. So I ran in 2000, served in 2001, came back for my second year in 2002. And I'll never forget going into the basement of the building and then getting in the elevator to go up to my office. And my heart literally sank. It's a sensation I had never had. And I thought, “I hate this. I cannot keep doing this. I worked so hard to get this. I just hate this.” We aren't trying to solve problems. It's just the partisan--and some people in these bodies are very--there's a range of partisanship. Some are very partisan, some (unintelligible), but what happened that year is I happened to have a chief of staff who really understood politics and how politics works. And he also was, he'd probably deny it, but he was an amateur historian and they didn't have kids yet. And we would spend probably an hour, hour and a half, after work every night talking about history and Vietnam and all these things. And I learned about politics and got more engaged in politics, because I was ready to quit. So that's how that happened. And then in 2006, the Senator who had held that seat, Bill Morrow, he was retiring because of term limits. But before then, around 2005, there was a congressman here, Duke Cunningham, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, North County. And this is uncommon. I know a lot of people think it's common, it's uncommon: he was fraudulently selling his vote. He was on a relevant committee, appropriations for defense. And he had a contractor that basically, “If you give me this much money, I'll make sure you get this contract.” And I really want to emphasize as much as people think, “Oh, it's all about money, they're crooked.” No, they really aren't. And long and short of it is he was forced out. And a lot of people were saying, “Well, you need to run for that seat.” Which many people have told me, I would've pretty much walked into. But it was an identity crisis, a midlife crisis, because we'd sold our business. And I thought, “Well, if I don't win, what am I going to do?” And plus, my interest in education, that's really a state issue. They will talk about education at the federal level. The reality is the federal government has very little to do with education. It's primarily local and state. Long and short of that is I decided to stay with the state. And you know, sometimes gone back--think well, I should have done that. But I stayed with the state, and I walked into the seat because my potential opponents were running for the congressional seat. So, I walked in. 00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:28.000 Yeah. 00:49:28.000 --> 00:51:08.000 And the Senate is different from the Assembly, just like the United States Senate is different from Congress. But it took me a little adjustment because there's a new group of people. But there's only forty. So the United States Senate is a hundred, and you really get to know those people. So I continued, I worked on a lot of different things, but education was a key part. And then it's four years. So the reelect was 2010, and I almost quit then. I only told my family, I didn't tell anyone else because if you say you're leaving, it's--you're a lame duck. It's a mad rush. And I just thought, it's so hard to get--so hard to make this better. And I had, and we can talk about them, things I worked on. And it's, to me, they were so obvious. And it's not because of malice or anything, it's just change, even positive change, it's just hard to get people--especially if it's different than what they're accustomed to. But ultimately, I did run again and so I stayed there until 2014. 00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:13.000 Right. And then you hit, you had hit your term limit at 2014, correct? 00:51:13.000 --> 00:51:14.000 Right. 00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:20.000 If you had the ability to continue on, would you have or would you have gone now regardless? 00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:40.000 That's a really good question. I think I might've done one more term. I think, well, I'm idealistic and you read what the Senate leader said about me. 00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:41.000 Yes. I wanted to get to that. 00:51:41.000 --> 00:52:56.000 I keep thinking there's got to be a way, (both laugh) you know, there's just got to be a way. So, I might've done one more term. I think something that's very common with people of my age. So, I'm seventy-six now, and we think of retirement depending somewhere in the sixties. It can be early or young sixties or later. But from my friends, I would say a significant percentage want to keep working. Maybe they'd (work) not as much or as intensely, but there's kind of a desire to contribute. And I'm still on a--I'm emeritus now--but I ended up along that period of time being involved with Pomona, the alumni group, and then the Pomona Board. And I'm emeritus now, and they allow me to attend meetings and talk. So, I would like to have done more. 00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:04.000 Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I could tell you had that ambition, even when you thought about quitting, you were like, “No, there's more to be done. I know I can make a difference.” 00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:33.000 Yeah. And one of the things, I worked on a--I worked on a lot of things in education, but because of that time in Germany and Europe, I really--no system is perfect, but Americans don't know enough about how Europeans do things. And it's frustrating when people kind of knock Europe. They're our cousins (laughs). 00:53:33.000 --> 00:53:34.000 Yeah. 00:53:34.000 --> 00:54:57.000 We, you know, our society and culture and our government to some extent comes from that tradition. And I think it's important, not necessarily to copy, but well, how do they do this? Well, how do they do this? And in education it's not perfect, but they have one system that works really well, and that's apprenticeships. I worked on that. And there are misconceptions about that. And Americans, Americans will say things like, “Well, yeah, you know, plumbers make a lot of money.” And by the way, my grandfather was a plumber. That was his first business. So, I'm a--you know, I worked with those folks when I was in the lumber business and I did that work when I was--but apprenticeships are everything! Everything. Bankers are--start off as apprentices, realtors, insurance people, people managing resorts. Probably eighty, eighty-five percent of the jobs are various types of apprenticeships. And they give you training. And then if you have a facility and you're pretty good at, they give you more training. And the sky's the limit. And for a lot of reasons I thought we needed to develop more of that. 00:54:57.000 --> 00:55:21.000 Yeah, I completely agree. I know we discussed that in our pre-interview, how the United States is pretty much completely different than all the other countries out there. They have that focus of, “Hey, let's do an apprenticeship.” We have vocational schools. Of course we do have vocational schools here in the U.S. but we don't seem to put as much emphasis on them. Why do you think that is? 00:55:21.000 --> 00:58:12.000 Well, I'll tell you what the history is. First, Europe. Europe, starting in the Middle Ages developed guilds. Weavers, obviously technology moved beyond the people who wove, did weaving of cloth. And there was a great deal of respect. So, if someone was skilled at this ; a goldsmith, a baker, whatever it was, there was appreciation for that skill. And once the university got started, and they had medieval, you know, first in the early Dark Ages, it was in the monasteries. But then when universities got started, they were very old. But the modern university came out of Germany. They didn't have science and engineering. That was not common. It's all, it all started in Germany. Even in things like theology and archeology and all those things. And the same thing with all these various other jobs. And they were accustomed to, if you have a certificate, you really--there's a lot of respect. I think what happened in America, I mean it's a longer story, but the short of it is we had those, and we had in California, all the high schools were known as comprehensive high schools. So you didn't have a separate vocational school. So every high school--it was same at Escondido, same for all the high schools--you had a whole range. You had courses for people who were for sure going to go to college, those who weren't sure, and a lot of vocational courses. But there was not, it was sort of like, well, college somehow is like the ideal. But those vocational courses were great because there were a lot of great boys, and boys in particular, who didn't want to sit there and listen to a teacher talk all--they wanted to do things. And we had many agricultural classes, we had--before computer aided design, you could take four years of drafting. You had machine shop, you had auto shop. Well, it's not like they became auto mechanics. They learned practical engineering. 00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:13.000 Yeah. 00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:29.000 I mean, in auto shop they learned how machinery works. They learned a lot of physics. They learned the chemistry of combined--they learned all those things. And so, they could sit through the boring class because they had their cool project they were working on. 00:58:29.000 --> 00:58:32.000 Yeah. 00:58:32.000 --> 00:59:27.000 I think it was unintentional but misguided that they dismantled that because it was driven by misguided administrators who thought, “Well we need to just, it needs to be all college.” College doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. They will use the word, they don't have it. It's an American invention. And they don't understand it. And even in some cases, like in Spanish, there's “colegio,” which it translated to college. It's not, it's more like a high school. And in Germany, if you use the word “high school,” which in German is “Schule” (technische Schule), we think high school, “Schule” is like a technical university. It's called a technical high school. 00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:28.000 I see. 00:59:28.000 --> 01:00:27.000 And so, there's all this misunderstanding. But what we did was, the message became for those young people who weren't academically inclined--but are very capable and smart--the message was, “Well, unless you want to do this college thing, you know, you're not really, yeah, it's not so great, you know, if you have to do that.” That's so completely misguided. And so you get right here at San Marcos High School down the road--I drove by today because of this traffic mess--I had a buddy who was the soccer coach there, and he told me one day, he said a bunch of his kids came to him and said, “Coach, they're closing the machine shop.” And the kids said, “We only come to school to play soccer and for machine shop.” 01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:28.000 Yeah. 01:00:28.000 --> 01:01:17.000 There's a lot of great healthy--it applies to girls and women too, but in a different way--healthy boys who--they, just, they're not the academically inclined. But to give you an illustration with machinery--and I've been in the factory in Switzerland where they make high-end machinery--you can start out as a machinist and end up as a mechanical engineer. And they train you and they train you. And so, I think the combination of this misguided notion that everyone has to go to college, we end up where we are. 01:01:17.000 --> 01:01:18.000 Right. 01:01:18.000 --> 01:02:44.000 And then we end up with a problem of how do you finance it? The biggest debt we have in this country outside of home mortgages, it's not auto loans, it's not credit card. It's student loans! It's over a trillion dollars. Yesterday the brother of my niece's husband, I may have been telling you, he's moved out here. He's a chiropractor. He has an outrageous student loans. That doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. They have this, the system is stripped down. But if he were in one of those other--let's just take the European countries--he might have a small loan, but it'd be very small. And it's not just higher taxes, it's because the system is different. So I did lots of work and lots of bills. You know, you have to take a slice of it. So, one of them, for example, was that every school district had to have a council that advises them and builds connections between various industries and the kids. So, that's my pitch. And if you survey Americans, they agree. 01:02:44.000 --> 01:02:47.000 Right. 01:02:47.000 --> 01:02:55.000 But it's really hard to make those changes in the school. 01:02:55.000 --> 01:03:09.000 We're forcing a lot of these kids to just have to figure it out on their own. Because a lot of them, when they're going through the K-12 system, they're like, “Well, this isn't for me. I already know this.” But especially once you get to high school, it's all about college prep, college prep. 01:03:09.000 --> 01:03:10.000 Right. 01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:12.000 Taking these tests. 01:03:12.000 --> 01:03:13.000 Right. 01:03:13.000 --> 01:03:22.000 And I know for me, when I was going through high school, that was demoralizing because I was never a good test taker to begin with. I was never good at math. 01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:23.000 Right. 01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:24.000 Never good at science. 01:03:24.000 --> 01:03:25.000 Right. 01:03:25.000 --> 01:03:28.000 And they put so much emphasis on these tests. 01:03:28.000 --> 01:03:29.000 Right. 01:03:29.000 --> 01:03:31.000 And if you don't do well on them, you feel like a failure. 01:03:31.000 --> 01:03:32.000 Exactly. 01:03:32.000 --> 01:03:34.000 And you’re not smart. And that’s not true. 01:03:34.000 --> 01:06:21.000 That's what I'm talking about. And you know, I don't want to leave the young women out. And women probably understand that better. And I'll give you an example though with young women, two of them. But I think with boys in particular, I'm going to start saying controversial stuff (Willis laughs). I think boys are wired to go out and do stuff. They're just like, solve a problem. you know, hunt, you know, (laughs) just, and I think I was lucky because I was--things came easily enough to me. A lot of school I didn't like. But it came easily enough that just like with German, it came easy, so it wasn't that hard. But, and so that's the problem. It's demoralizing. And they wonder why there's such a dropout rate. And they--why the use of drugs and all this stuff is a--particularly younger males. You need to be validated, like you're making a contribution. And in these other countries, they have that. Now, one of the things that a lot of Americans don't like, they think, well then you're at a young age, you don't know what you want to do. And you're plugged into something. It's not that simple. I'll give you an example. Young woman who's trained and you start fifteen, sixteen, where you're going to school three days a week and then three afternoons a week and two full days as an example, you're in the business. So, she was trained in an auto dealership. First off, you're paid. So, you're sixteen. It's not a lot of money, but you're paid for that. And you learn all these skills. A lot of older people might say, “Wow, they don't even know how to answer the phone.” You learn all those skills. You learn how to write a business letter. You learn if the manufacturer sends a letter about a defect or something, you learn how to understand it, how to respond. You learn the economics of it. Well, our salesman paid a commission. How does that work? Inventory. How do we do that? By the time she's nineteen, she's ready to go. She understands that business backwards and forwards. But she doesn't have to say, “Well, my career, the rest of my life is doing that.” She's got all kinds of skill sets that you can go all sorts of places. 01:06:21.000 --> 01:06:22.000 Exactly. 01:06:22.000 --> 01:08:01.000 Nursing, I worked hard on nursing. We have so many--mostly young women, a few young men--who would be great in every aspect of healthcare. And what do we do? All we do is make it hard. All we do is make it hard. And we made it worse. It used to be in an earlier era, nursing schools were affiliated with hospitals. And it was a combination of hands-on and classroom. So, if you applied to nursing school, and they had dormitories, you know, it's after a high school and a combined, classroom and clinical. So, you know, after six months, if you couldn't stand the sight of blood, you learned that and you didn't have to continue. And you're working all the time in a clinical setting. Plus learning the science. Well then we decided we have to upgrade it--has to more time in the classroom. Well, here's what happens. Whether it's at Palomar (College), and CSUSM’s (California State University, San Marcos) doing a pretty good job, I will guarantee you the freshman class comes in and there will be many times more kids who want to go into that. Well, we don't have the slots. And in those other countries, you can get that slot and you can be the most sophisticated OR nurse and you've done this and you can do it. And then you, if you want to, you move up. If you don't want to, you go into something else. 01:08:01.000 --> 01:08:02.000 Right. 01:08:02.000 --> 01:08:14.000 So, the part of the reason I'm so passionate about it is it's horrible to see these young people discouraged or demoralized. We need them (laughs). 01:08:14.000 --> 01:08:16.000 Right. That's our future. 01:08:16.000 --> 01:10:31.000 And, and I totally understand why young women will come from training in another country. I totally get it. They get here, it's their lives go up. But what about our young women? And some of them are coming from difficult backgrounds and all they need is some assistance. A little more time. And they'll be great. And instead, you talk about spending money? Two friends of mine had wives who were nurses. Each of them went to the four-year undergraduate (school). Liberal arts. It's got its place. I'm a beneficiary of it. It's got its place. But then after that, and all the money, money society spent, money they spent, loans. Then they have all this intense nursing training, and then we don't have enough opportunities. So, and one of my doctors--you get to my age, you're in doctor's offices all the time and--meet this young man. He wants to be a PA, physician's assistant. Well, guess what? There are only a few programs, one's at UC Davis (University of California, Davis). I know that, because buddy of mine was a professor there. Why don't we have that? Every state school should have that! Because the people who are going to be treating people more and more are going to be physician's assistants and nurse practitioners. And let's talk about doctors. We're--there's now a shortage around here. Because there's a lot more of us in my baby boomer era. What's the limit? The limit is why--you tell me why the University of California, you can get a PhD. I don't mean to pick on them (Willis laughs). I love the UC, but why do we really want an administration that's practically as big as the student body? And I read the other day, Stanford's administration has more people than they do students. 01:10:31.000 --> 01:10:32.000 Oh, wow. 01:10:32.000 --> 01:11:55.000 And all the data show these administrations keep growing. And how come we don't have expanded medical schools? In 20--I think it was 2010 or 2012, we had a new senator from Riverside. And I was talking to him and I said, “What are you interested in?” He said, “My number one goal is to expand the medical school at UC Riverside (University of California, Riverside).” And it was kind of the reverse of what my friend Tony had done years before I chuckled and said, “That's not going to happen.” “Well, we need it.” I said, “You're right. And I will help you. And I'm on the budget subcommittee for education. I'm on the education committee, I will help you. But you just need to understand, when you come across that huge bureaucracy and you say, “Does every campus have to be able to grant a PhD in medieval French literature at every campus? Or should we expand the medical school?” And maybe we give them an incentive. If they agree to work in underserved communities for a few years, why don't we make it free? It should be free. 01:11:55.000 --> 01:11:56.000 Yes. 01:11:56.000 --> 01:12:07.000 Why shouldn't they be graduating and saying, you know, “I love family practice, but I'm going to make a lot more money doing this.” It's crazy. 01:12:07.000 --> 01:12:09.000 Yeah. No, I'm right there with you. 01:12:09.000 --> 01:12:10.000 I'm sorry, Ryan. I get wound up. 01:12:10.000 --> 01:12:11.000 No (laughs). 01:12:11.000 --> 01:12:12.000 It brings it all back. 01:12:12.000 --> 01:12:58.000 No, it's a great conversation. I feel like we could talk about it for hours, but I did want to go back to your time in the Senate, near the end, in particular, when you had to retire. I want to talk about something a little bit more positive. Senator Darrell Steinberg, who I know you have a lot of respect for, he was quoted in saying, “Senator Wyland, I see you as the Republican romantic. You are somebody who constantly strives to make the world what it should be instead of what it is. You are a special member of the Senate, partly because you are unique.” How does that quote make you feel, first off? And in your opinion, what made you unique? 01:12:58.000 --> 01:14:00.000 Well, first of all, some Republicans say, “What do you mean, he is a Democrat!” Look, I have a lot of respect for Darrell. And in some ways you get to know people better even than their friends and family do. Because he really knew me. He'd seen me, you're working together all the time. We'd gone on a trip to Switzerland and Germany to look at these programs. And so I think it's one of the nicest compliments. There were some others in those tributes I really appreciated because I think he did understand. And I plead guilty. He's right. I can't--I'm pragmatic, but I can't, just can't say, “Well, that's the way it is. We can't fix it.” I keep thinking, “You know, we got to--we can make this better (laughs).” 01:14:00.000 --> 01:14:01.000 Yeah. 01:14:01.000 --> 01:16:09.000 So, it made me--it first of all blew me away because every year when people retire, it's every election year, there's tributes. There's only few retiring, and there's a session where people speak about the member. And I was totally unprepared. From all the comments, I just, I was completely unprepared. So, it was a wonderful compliment. The downside of it is, and it's same thing in that column that Dan Walters wrote, well, that's great, but how do you make progress? (Both laugh) You know, it's--progress is tough and it's not--when I talk about these things, I'm optimistic. I do see the glass as half full. It's kind of a--I have a pretty high standard, and I think we just have to keep working at these things. And something that's really important. People are so cynical about politicians: it's not that easy. And at some point I would like to talk a little bit about my project because the biggest challenge is people know less. And so when they know less, it's harder to hold government accountable. And it's not their fault. I have friends who say, “Well, they're just lazy. They could find it on the internet.” It's really hard. It needs to be easy to understand how well you're being governed. But I'll tell you that and some of those other comments, especially from the other side, the other side, the other party, were--I really appreciate it. 01:16:09.000 --> 01:16:26.000 Yeah, I imagine. So that kind of is a great segue onto the next thing I wanted to address, which is something you mentioned to me is that the general public does not understand politics the way that they should. Can you elaborate on that? 01:16:26.000 --> 01:23:42.000 Yeah, Ryan, there's a lot of research that would illustrate this better. But my--here's my direct experience. When I first ran in 2000 and for several years after that, most people got a print newspaper. It wasn't that expensive. And most people when they established a household or got in their twenties or mid-twenties, got a paper. And the papers did a good job at reporting on what government was doing. And most of the reporting was fairly, I would say, fairly objective. They had different editorial policies. You know, one may be more conservative, one more liberal, but even then, that was within a group. And I say this as a guy started reading The New York Times when I lived in New York, so I'm kind of a newspaper addict. And the North County Times would publish probably--they'd have two pages full of letters. So, people felt they could weigh in and people would read the letters and respond. And for a whole bunch of reasons, the economics change, the advent of the internet and social media, less advertising, newspapers are dying. The North County Times (is) no more. So, the entire big chunk of North County is--there's some coverage and they try in The Coast News. And there's some--a little bit in the Solana Beach, maybe a little bit North, Encinitas-Del Mar area. But if you're living in San Marcos or Escondido, it's a news desert. How do you know when it comes time to vote for a city council person or a school board person, or a Palomar College trustee? How do you know? And so, I think the way to change this and to change some of the anger that we have and the demonization where our side's good, the other side's evil--and you know, I'm a Republican, but I see this on both sides. And they'll take the most outrageous person on the other side. And all the outrageous things they say, well, look like if you take Congress, and we'd be the same thing if they cover the state. That's a lot of people. There's always going to be some people who (laughs) you know, who will say outrageous things, some of them purposely because of the coverage. So, I think the solution of my project, I call it civic knowledge, it could be civic information, it could be any name is--I want a way for someone, and it has to be partly on the internet to say, “How much are we spending in the state? I read there's a twenty-five-billion-dollar deficit. Where's the money going? Where'd it come from?” And it becomes so common as you as like googling. And there it is. Historically, easy. It's not that complicated with pie charts and color. Holy cow. I had no idea that half of the money we're spending on is education. And by the way, are we measuring--are these kids learning to read? What skills do they have? How come thirty years ago we spent a huge amount on transportation and now we're not spending any? No wonder we have all these poorly maintained roads. I think it just--here's a national one. The whole issue of Social Security and Medicare, everyone who knows this, which is—knows, which is every member of Congress, all the staff, all the experts, the average people know that it has to be fixed because the--we're not generating enough money. We're paying out more in social security to me and my generation than we're taking in. Well, there's extra there, but it's diminishing as more and more people get older. There aren't enough people of your age who are chipping in. And by the way, they may send you something, but the money you send in is not going to Ryan Willis in his account. They keep track of it, because you will get it. The idea you will get it. But it's going to Mark Wyland and his buddies who are retired. So the reason, the underlying reason I think it doesn't get fixed is it's too tempting. If you and I are running and I say--you say, “Hey, we got to fix this. Look at my generation. I deserve it. I've been chipping in, my employer's chipping in, we got to fix this, got to reform it.” But the people don't understand we need to. My temptation, it's human: man, if I say, “Ryan wants to take away Medicare and take away Social Security and make you after retire at seventy-five (years old), I can win.” And so that's where we are. So no one touches it. And so, what my project is, everyone won't do this, but if enough people learn it (Social Security) has to be fixed, then instead of letting me get away with that and demonizing you, it's like, “Hey, Wyland, at least Ryan knows there's a problem. And he's talking about solutions. What's yours? Just rather than attacking him because you're pretending like there isn't one.” You see what I'm saying? What I'm trying to do is something I've wanted to do for forty years, which is change the nature of politics where enough people, it doesn't have to be everyone, just enough people, ten, fifteen percent, twenty, wonderful. Who know enough that pretty soon, instead of just these attacks, it's “Okay, here's the problem. What's your solution?” 01:23:42.000 --> 01:23:44.000 Yeah. 01:23:44.000 --> 01:23:46.000 You see what I'm saying? 01:23:46.000 --> 01:23:51.000 Right. I know you said that your mission really is obtaining better quality government. 01:23:51.000 --> 01:23:52.000 Yeah. 01:23:52.000 --> 01:23:55.000 And how do you do that? People need to be more informed. 01:23:55.000 --> 01:24:57.000 And it's the people that can hold them accountable. Because--look, I was a Republican. I am a Republican, but, and it's generally, and I have most of my oldest friends are Democrats, we need to get rid of this stuff (mashes fingers towards each other, indicating conflict). It's like, how do we solve this problem? And I'm more interested in, at the end of the day, not just, I may think, “Well, this is the best solution,” but I'm more interested in the gift I would like to give is let's have a discussion where we actually understand what the issues are. And you know what, I may say Social Security is better if you make--if people have to work another couple of years and you may say, “No, we should do this, or tax--the company has to pay more.” I don't care about that part as much as, “Hey, we're talking about how we solve it.” 01:24:57.000 --> 01:24:58.000 The discussion. 01:24:58.000 --> 01:25:46.000 And that's how you get better government. Sadly, the newspapers used to help us. They don't. TV's a joke. Boy, I'm starting to say things I might regret (Willis laughs). Look, I get local TV news, I understand it's a business. It gets worse and worse and worse. If you even have the first segment as real news, you're lucky. And all of them used to have reporters who knew government. Same thing with--I'll say this about the UT (The San Diego Union Tribune) and I know some of those people--they don't have enough reporters who actually understand government and as it declines and declines, and then they say, “Well, we're about this. We're about focusing on this group.” 01:25:46.000 --> 01:25:47.000 Yeah. 01:25:47.000 --> 01:26:51.000 I heard one of their key people there, I just could hardly believe it, say, “Well, we want to write stories about, you know, instead of old white men, we're going to focus on what this group or that group or my group.” And I'm thinking, tell me who doesn't want a good job, a good education for their family, a reasonably safe environment, who doesn't want to sit in traffic?” I mean, everyone has the same thing. Everyone wants healthcare. Some people have a bigger problem than others. We need to work on it. It's like (laughs)--and they don't know that. And they will write these endless stories about--that avoid--and because solving the problems is where it gets hard. That's where the hard work is. And that's where you realize, “Gosh, it's not as simple as I thought.” 01:26:51.000 --> 01:26:58.000 But with your project you feel like it can explain it to people and give them a platform. 01:26:58.000 --> 01:27:49.000 I can give you succinctly--we don't think twice about googling, right? And a friend of mine had this experience just recently-- I've been talking to, because I'm trying to get the fund(ing)--I actually have a nonprofit I set up years ago: the Institute for Civic Education. And you could do it as a nonprofit or you could even do it, you could sell it to libraries and things like that for research. It's not that hard. If you--people who are informed, educated, if you say, “Well, you know, there's these fights about defense and Social Security. Well, where do they spend the money?” They don't know. 01:27:49.000 --> 01:27:50.000 Yeah. 01:27:50.000 --> 01:29:51.000 I was talking to a friend of mine, highly educated guy, retired now, when I lived in New York, he was a pretty big-time business guy. And we're--but he's lifelong Democrat. But we, you know, we didn't used to have those divisions, you would joke, you'd kid, “Ah, you know, he is a right-wing, crazy, ah—" you like, it didn't matter (laughs). And I'm trying to get, we need to come together as a country. And I remember he said, “You know, I've lived in New York for forty years. I couldn't tell you,” I--he gets The New York Times every day. Maybe The Wall Street Journal. He said, “I couldn't tell you where the money is spent.” It's that simple. And they've got major problems. Look at the billions we're spending on the bullet train. I know trains, I knew more about that than anyone in that entire building, the legislature. Because I'd lived in New York and I'd taken it every day and I'd lived in Europe. And there's only a few places where they make sense here. In some places. So, because we no longer have the newspapers, I think if we get this information out there, you can market it, not necessarily for money, but--and pretty soon it's in social media, and instead of someone saying, “well google it” Hey, check out Civic Knowledge, check out Civic Information on that. We're debating this or that. Check it out. Who--and it has to be objective, it cannot be partisan. And it has to include solutions across the political spectrum in their own words. We were talking just before we started about an interview on 60 Minutes, which is what this would not be, where it was clear the intent was to do what I call “gotcha journalism.” 01:29:51.000 --> 01:29:52.000 Yeah. 01:29:52.000 --> 01:30:34.000 “I'm going to come up with a question that's going to make you sweat and everyone's going to see, you know, how horrible you are.” No. They need to, in their own words, they need to be exposed to the solution. I guarantee you what people will see is, it's harder than they thought. And it's a kind of a way of maturity when you become an adult and you realize--and people tend to be more pragmatic and let's see if we can move the ball forward. 01:30:34.000 --> 01:30:53.000 Yeah. No, definitely. So, along those lines, looking at politics today, I know you've expressed to me that one of the core issues, I mean, I know there's a lot, but one of the core issues with voters, and it's been problematic for decades, is not knowing who they're even really voting for. 01:30:53.000 --> 01:30:54.000 Right. 01:30:54.000 --> 01:30:55.000 Who are these people? 01:30:55.000 --> 01:30:56.000 Right. 01:30:56.000 --> 01:31:02.000 And many voters either don't do their due diligence or they don't really know where to start. 01:31:02.000 --> 01:31:03.000 Right. 01:31:03.000 --> 01:31:09.000 When it comes to researching these people and they really just go off of endorsements. 01:31:09.000 --> 01:31:10.000 Right. 01:31:10.000 --> 01:31:13.000 And relying on their own emotions essentially. 01:31:13.000 --> 01:31:15.000 Right. Exactly. 01:31:15.000 --> 01:31:17.000 I would love to hear more of your thoughts on that. 01:31:17.000 --> 01:32:22.000 Well, you nailed it, Ryan. And it's a change in a short period of time. That's what's so staggering. I mean, when I started in the early 2000s, you could get (laughs), I'm kind of an addict, but I was getting six or seven papers a day. I was getting four or five California papers. And journalists, they, and it's--their problem is it's a business. And their business went away once advertising moved to the internet and people no longer--it was no longer part of a rite of passage as you got older and formed a household, well, you get the paper--and maybe initially, and it's still true today--the guy, the first thing he's going to look at is the sports. And I know people still subscribing to the print version of the UT which is going down, who are disgusted with other parts, but they're reading the sports-- 01:32:22.000 --> 01:32:23.000 Or the comics. 01:32:23.000 --> 01:32:25.000 Or the comics (laughs). I'm a fan of the comics. 01:32:25.000 --> 01:32:26.000 Same here. 01:32:26.000 --> 01:32:27.000 I read the comics every day. 01:32:27.000 --> 01:32:28.000 Yep (laughs). 01:32:28.000 --> 01:32:29.000 Certain ones I really like. 01:32:29.000 --> 01:32:30.000 Right. 01:32:30.000 --> 01:35:10.000 And there's a lot of wisdom in the comics (laughs). And so it's an art form. So, I think that's made it harder. And I have a friend who was a pretty big-time newspaper publisher in other parts of the country. And we talk about this a lot. And I'm trying to say this is the only solution I know because when I started here, both the North County Times and the UT interviewed virtually every candidate, every candidate, if running for city council in El Cajon or Escondido or San Marcos, they interviewed you. And when I first sat down with the UT Editorial Board, it was seven or eight people and they apologized that they weren't all there. They had a separate editorial specialist on national security issues, which made sense. Here we are in the Navy town for crying out loud, the Navy and the Marines. And so, the only way I know to help change that and bring people more together is to have a simple way of seeing this. And if it's fully fleshed out, you can have a simple summary and then you can add more detail. So, if you want to know, well, how come we don't have more doctors? It's not hard. You figure out, well, they have to have residencies, who controls the number of residencies? Medicare. Medicare controls that. So, you ask your congressman, “Why don't you expand residencies for medical schools here?” Okay. You see, you can ask the governor this, and every legislator, you can't tell me. And if you saw the numbers and how big that bureaucracy is, you wouldn't believe it. You're telling me that you don't have enough room for doctors. Give me a break. Come on. The CSUs and the community colleges ; when Palomar has a three quarter a billion-dollar bond issue, and I said to them, “Aren't you going to expand your facilities for people who want to go into nursing?” “Well, you know.” Come on. I get why you're saying that, but this is something society needs. 01:35:10.000 --> 01:35:11.000 Yep. 01:35:11.000 --> 01:36:11.000 So, I said yesterday at Easter gathering, a family gathering, this came up and my sister's approach was, “Come on, people are lazy. They won't check it out.” Well, au contraire, (laughs) I think if people get accustomed to it, people check out their Google all the time. If they get used to it and it's objective, it can't be seen--so, if you portray someone's view on something: so-and-so introduced a bill to do this, if they call up and say, “Wait a minute, that you--you need to read it, that my intent is this.” I'm going to put exactly what they say. It has to be reliable. And I think it's one of the few ways out of this mess we’re in. 01:36:11.000 --> 01:36:30.000 Yeah. No, I agree. You mentioned it being objective. And I find that interesting because I know in one of the classes I have taken as a graduate student, one of the professors used to always ask, “Is it even possible to be objective?” What are your thoughts on that? 01:36:30.000 --> 01:48:04.000 You put your finger on a huge issue. And I want to think carefully before I go down this road. But I'm going to say it straight out anyway. I'm getting wound up. This ideology--and I'll say straight up, I can't stand ideology because I'm not talking about values or world views. Those are fine. But I define ideology as a rigid view. “It's only this way.” And new information bounces off. “It's this way.” And if I decide if there's some new issue, what my position is, what does my ideology say? I think it needs to be more pragmatic. And an ideology that has grown up in academia, which has had, I believe a really pernicious effect started in the 1970s in literature with postmodernism. And it used a couple of French philosophers, Jacque Derrida, and the other one escapes me. And ultimately developed--conservatives say it's Marxism and socialism. Not really. I think it took something that's real. Human beings have a history of--there are people who take advantage of others. And I think the promise of Western civilization--we need to go beyond the U.S.--is we confront things and try to fix them over time. Freedom of speech is part of it. Well, as that developed--this is my view--into all the iterations with all the terms. And it certainly happened in history. And it went from social history to, you know, critical theory and all the aspects of critical theory. And then to the deconstruction of text because--which applied to law. “Well, it doesn't really mean this because if you deconstruct it, it's yet one more example of those with power, especially white males, trying to oppress those without power.” And like with most insights, there's example--I mean, and most of this stuff that is anti-the West in anti-United States never looks at the sweep of history. I actually did a bill on this. It never looks comparatively, it never looks what happened within, oh, there's a name for it, Aboriginal groups. And with modern, whether it's anywhere in Europe, encountering less-advanced societies, it's always there. And the promise of western civilization is that we've worked hard to overcome a lot of those things and to build in tolerance. So, the problem I have with it is, it doesn't give you solutions. So I'll give one last example. Because I, you can see, I can go on. A professor I know has won many teaching awards and always liked to yank my chain. So, we're at a conference and he at a table, another professor and I am there and he comes up and says, “Well, you know, Mark, capitalism has hurt and damaged a lot more people than it's helped.” I knew what his goal is. He's read so many academic works, he's going to put me in my place because he knows this author and this author and that. But I don't rise to that bait. I said to him, his name is David. I said, “You know, David, all of us want people to do well. All of us.” There's no one who says, I want him to be poor, to struggle. But I said, “Here's the challenges.” And I just walked through the challenges, said, “What are you going to do if someone's got a good manufacturing job and China is subsidizing it so he can undercut the American company? He loses his job.” I just walked through all these challenges. Well, of course he has absolutely no idea. And he said, “Well, that's not my job. My job is to point out the problems, not the solutions.” Well, he was being so jerky about it, I said to him, I said, “Well, David, you know, that's okay for your students who become like you: an unaccountable academic. But for most people, what they do in their lives--work lives--is solve problems.” Well (laughs), he got all upset and stomped off. But my point was, that's how we can come together. That's how we can come together and respect each other more. So--and the same thing's true with ideology on the right. I mean, that happens to be, there's ideology and ideological things I've seen which are ridiculous. And I remember when I was early on up in the legislature, one of these ideologues on the right was saying, “Well, you know, we just have to be like on the budget has to be this.” And I said, “Look, I tried to sell my lumber and plywood materials to contractors who said, “Yeah, but I got a cheaper price over there.” I couldn't pound the table and say, “Well, this is a fair price.” He'll walk away. I have to figure out a way. And that's what I'm trying to achieve. I think--this is part of your history. And I think history is, if I hadn't studied IR (International Relations), I would've been a history major. It's got so much. But the only caution I would use, I think it's an important trait. Humility. Yes, you can define, you can say, “Well, one person's objectivity is another person's subjectivity.” I understand that. But it doesn't mean you don't strive for objectivity. And part of the problem of this worldview, and it's illustrated--and I'll get you this in a very important report from the Cronkite School at Arizona State--from prominent journalists ; former executive editor of the Washington Post, one of the key executives at CBS, and they quote many others, and they take it head on. They want to destroy objectivity. And they say objectivity is basically this white male point-of-view. I want to include all points of view. But you also have to have data and evidence. You can come up with the 1619 Project, which she says is a work of journalism. And you can cite evidence. And I'm not against that. But you also have to respect the evidence. Evidence is not always clear. And unlike a chemistry or a physics problem--and I thought a lot about this in the understanding politics--you can't say, “Well, the atomic weight of this molecule--" You can't do that. You have to--and so, so when I say “objective,” what I mean is I'm happy to have the standard that people of goodwill would say, this meets the standard, and that's where the solution part comes in. I don't care whether, I mean, it's not the crazy stuff, but I mean, you can go on the left with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, less say, AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), because she doesn't know as much but her as well. And you can go with whoever it is on, on the right. And you fully, you want their point of view out there and you want as much evidence as you can get. And if there's a disagreement about it, someone says, “Well, I think the number is this.” You put it out there. Because my goal is not, “I want this policy.” My goal is: you achieve--that's how you achieve objectivity and transparency. I would love to have the debate with any academic who says that. Now, is perfect--you know, the University of California changed a decade ago. It's--they have their own guide for research and they eliminated objectivity. The origins of this is an intellectual movement that came out of academia all those decades ago. I would never contend there is perfect objectivity. And one person can say, “My view's objective, so is the other one.” But you try to gather as much evidence, as much transparency. And the idea is you, all of us in the public who just want good governance, who doesn't want to sit in traffic because Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) can't get their act together, who work 24/7 and get that fixed. And most of us also want them to do enough maintenance and repair. So, they're prepared for a lot of water (laughs). 01:48:04.000 --> 01:48:14.000 Yeah. I know you mentioned that most people don't even know where to direct the blame when it comes to politics. 01:48:14.000 --> 01:48:15.000 Yeah. 01:48:15.000 --> 01:48:25.000 This is going to go into--I know you wanted me to ask you about some of the bills that you wrote personally, specifically an SDG&E bill (San Diego Gas & Electric). 01:48:25.000 --> 01:55:59.000 (laughs) I went after them. You know, there are a lot of them, and I'll just name two that don't have anything to do with education. My first year, and it's relevant today: (California Governor) Gray Davis in 2000, there were some blackouts, I mean straight up blackouts if we weren't, this wasn't like we've had where reduced power, straight up blackouts. People were incensed. So he panicked. And when people are upset, they tend to take it out on whoever's in the office. So, the first year we spent an enormous amount of time, special sessions, trying to understand what happened. And it had to do just like now with the price of natural gas. And the reality, most people don't know, and it's shameful right now that UT and the others don't seem to understand it: these utilities, and there's three major ones, are private companies regulated by government, which is the Public Utilities Commission. What SDG&E was committed, in our case, to paying for natural gas that shot up outrageously, had to be approved! They can't do that on their own. It had to be approved by the Public Utilities Commission. So what the heck are they doing? Well, the governor appoints the Public Utilities Commission. That's where you need to look at. What did they let SDG&E get away with that their cost of natural gas was so high that our bills skyrocket? And I think, Ryan, you know this, there are people who were really it through threw budgets. It really destroyed a lot of people's budgets. And so, it wasn't as bad, but what I came up with is, well, rather than have all these entities, people don't understand, let's have--it's a MUD, a Municipal Utility District. There is one in Sacramento, it's been there for years. And a Municipal Utility District, it's a non-profit. And people elect the governing board. So like, if it were in San Diego County, say five people. And I'd like to see that today, where there's direct accountability. Ryan, you're on that board, my bill's going up, what the heck is going on? Well, you're elected and you're going to respond and you're probably going to respond ahead of time. Because you know it's coming. It's not like, “Well that's SDG&E,” which really doesn't care. Why do they care? Their business decided by the Public Utilities Commission. So, you know, UT said, “Go to the meeting, get angry.” What do they care? Go to the PUC (Public Utilities Commission). What do they care? Now, if they said “Governor (laughs)!” So, what happened was, I couldn't--the utilities really had outsized interest in the committees and the legislature. So, I got help from a former--a Democrat--a former State Senator from South County, Steve Peace. He helped me. I could never have gotten that done at every turn. I managed to get it past the main first committee in Assembly. Well, the procedure is, it has to be transmitted physically. The bill has to be taken to the chamber to go to the next step. Well, they just didn't transmit it. They weren't going to. But Steve called them up and said, “Hey Mark. I had to tell them, get that bill out of there because they were just going to hold it,” which meant it would've died. And then it had to do with an interpretation of the law, which I thought I understood because I must have read it a hundred times better. And SDG&E said, “Well, our lawyers say we won't oppose this.” Besides, they didn't want to be the bad guy. Long story short, I got it pretty much overwhelmingly passed for Gray Davis to sign. And son of gun, he vetoed it. And what his spokesperson said was--here's what happened. He got so panicked. He went out because of the blackouts. He went out and made long-term contracts for natural gas. All the experts, because we had them there talking to us, testifying, all the experts said, “Whatever you do, don't do that, because we know the cycle. It's high now it's going to come down.” He panicked. So, he said, “Well, we've made all these long-term contracts, it's like per million cubic feet or whatever at like ten dollars. And now it's only five dollars. If I sign this, if I sign Wyland’s bill, they're going to have a MUD and they're going to buy all the gas cheap. And I'm stuck with all this expensive gas.” (Willis laughs) And I'll just say, give an example of one other bill, which I never had heard because it would never have passed, but it was introduced. And what it would've done is said, well, instead of considering the budget every year we're going to have a two-year budget. And the first year of every session, all we do is the budget. We don't do these hundreds--there's hundreds--there are sessions where there's 2,000 bills introduced. It becomes a bill factory and too many aren't really that important. All we'll do is the budget. And then it had the state auditor looking at every expenditure and developing a way to explain the history, the funding, the intended effect, and to devise a system to measure: is it effective? And then a recommendation. Is it really effective? We need to do more. Is it ineffective? We could get rid of it. And the idea was over time that the legislators would get really familiar. Really familiar. Because here's another little secret that shouldn't be, the single most important thing all government does is its spending, where does it get the money? How much do we pay in gas tax? Try to figure that one out and how it's changed and where does it go? Is where you get the money and where you spend it. And when you see these articles about this bill or that bill. Yeah, there are occasionally some bills that they feature. But you know, I'll bet you, I mean, my gosh, one year in education, a couple years we did over two hundred pieces of law. And I used to say, “Well, I voted on 2,000 new laws for education.” Do you think education is 2,000 laws better (both laugh). 01:55:59.000 --> 01:56:01.000 Right (laughs). 01:56:01.000 --> 01:56:35.000 So those are two things I worked on. I knew that wouldn't--you couldn't pass it because it's too big and it's too much of a change and it's too hard for people to get their arms around. To me it was no big deal because I've been used to being in business where we need to make this radical change because three months from now, we're going to be losing money big time if we don't do it. But in government, that's harder. So-- 01:56:35.000 --> 01:56:40.000 Different way of thinking for sure. 01:56:40.000 --> 01:57:23.000 It's not, it's not malicious like people saying, “I'm going to make things harder or worse.” It's just people get set in their way and they get set in their beliefs. And I was just listening to some scientists talk about nutrition science and talk about how many recommendations are made without good evidence. And we think of, “Well, science is always simple, straightforward.” Well, there's debates there too. 01:57:23.000 --> 01:57:24.000 Yeah. 01:57:24.000 --> 01:57:30.000 And, but they have studies they can debate and this, that's what I was trying to achieve. 01:57:30.000 --> 01:57:43.000 I see. Since I am part of the oral history project here at CSUSM, it would be very remiss of me if I did not ask you about your efforts in promoting oral history. I understand you wrote three bills? 01:57:43.000 --> 01:57:44.000 Three. 01:57:44.000 --> 01:57:57.000 That emphasize and encourage the use of oral history in the classroom. Why did you and still do feel so passionately about oral history? 01:57:57.000 --> 02:10:49.000 I think we need a lot more of it. We need it in the classroom. Good oral history. Mine might be too boring. They might say after ten minutes, “Okay, teacher, come on, we’ve heard enough of this guy.” I think human beings are hardwired to like stories. It can be a TV, a movie, a song. And my grandfather was a great storyteller. And as a little kid, he would tell stories about growing up in Minnesota on the farm. He was a good storyteller. And he was just really good. He would even perform and all these things. And then when I spent that semester in Germany, I learned so much from the grandfather in that family of what he had experienced. And you can't read it. And then his--another relative who later married his daughter was a great storyteller. And when you hear the stories and what happened in Nazi Germany and you hear someone say, “I was in this professor--this Jewish professor's office, and we hear all this commotion in the street and we go over the window and we see the brown shirts marching in the street.” You can read about it, but it's just not as powerful. So I became a huge believer in it. And I also was concerned that we were losing a sense of patriotism, which does not mean our country's perfect. Everything is perfect. I wave--I've never worn a flag lapel or all these things. But it means I've studied a lot of history in many different countries and societies. And unless there's some residual belief in your society, belief that we may not do things right, but there's a reservoir of goodwill, something like that ; it bodes--it doesn't bode well. And I knew you can't go out and get into these curriculum wars, you know, my book or my view, or we're going to teach the 1619 Project. We were racist in the beginning. We're--it's in our genes we always will be. Or this view that says, you know, the colonists were gods on earth, et cetera. I thought, “What about the stories?” And I thought about my parents' generation, World War II. So, I wrote a bill for to incorporate junior year taking American history, the stories of World War II veterans, and people on the home front because the country was really united. I even had a series of things I wanted them to cover. And everyone liked it. I couldn't mandate it. I couldn't say every history course has to have it. I did want it to be available. My idea was, it's available. Teachers need help. I wanted it, I didn't get there where you're teaching American history in high school and here's an oral history unit, you can use it one day, one week. It's curated. Here's essay questions, test questions, (unintelligible) the whole thing. And here's an in-service where you can learn how to do it. To make it, you know, so teachers say, “Yeah, that'll get kids interested.” The one thing though that illustrated the change, and this has to do with objectivity, it's right there. The last sentence and that they're supposed to be asked was--because I didn't say, just tell the story. I wanted them to cover certain things--what did they think about our entry to the war? Did all these sorts of things. Their opinion of the end of the war in the Pacific and the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Well, I knew that every single vet is going to say, “Darn right we did that. We would've lost thousands plus thousands of Japanese. We needed to end that war.” And here my own dad was getting ready to get shipped overseas. He was ready to go when they dropped the bomb and the war ended. And I also knew that so-called revisionist, Cold War history. And I don't know if you read any of that stuff, but I'd read it in graduate school. And the professor said, “Once you read this, you'll think it's utter nonsense, but it's out there and I think it's important you'd be familiar with it.” And then we went through it. And the lack of evidence and selected use of evidence you're talking about--that was subjective. And I knew that some of it at the extremes was saying, we initiated the Cold War because we dropped those bombs purposely to challenge the Soviets, to show them “You better watch out.” That's an oversimplification. And by the way, it was also racist act, just like our internment. Well, we interned, I mean, no one can deny we did all those things. But the humility of trying to understand history and other people is try to look at it from their perspective. You know? And, so it was intended to be an antidote because what I'd seen was, it's only this perspective. I tell friends of mine, I said, you ought to read because I have textbooks. I said, “you ought to read a current textbook when it covers World War II.” And because it's not that it didn't happen. We had riots in Mobile and up in Oakland at the shipyards. All those--no one denies any of that stuff, but there's more to it than that. And all the things that we knew, we knew every battle. We knew what a sacrifice, those poor marines. And we knew the debates: MacArthur convincing Roosevelt to waste all those men's lives and Filipino lives and Japanese lives invading the Philippines. The Navy clearly had the right--forget the Philippines, we can beat them with-- anyway, all those important things. And so, son of a gun, it (the bill) sails through. And I had a co-author in the Senate, great senator who could have gone on to be Mayor and Congress and all the rest of anything she wanted. And from San Diego. And we're ready to go. And it's on the Senate floor. And then it would've gone to the Governor and son of a gun in my office says, “You know, Mark, we got a call. There's a problem. You can't get it off the Senate floor.” Son of a gun. The Speaker, the then Speaker whom I liked, John Burton--he was old school, old school Democratic politician from Northern California whose brother was a member of Congress when they had that horrible thing in Central America with “Drink the Kool Aid.” Anyway, he had empowered, he didn't do it. He had a staffer who was younger and she read that thing. And the minute she read that line about dropping the bomb (waves arms as if referee), no goal. And she told my office, “You take that out and it's fine.” Now that is the reality because she was younger and she had an ideological view--in my view, in my opinion--an ideological subjective view that the use of those weapons was evidence. Total evidence. Not, “Well what's the other view? I've never actually talked to veterans, how they’d view this.” Total evidence. Because she had read--oh my gosh, one of the authors, Gabriel Coco, there were several, I used to know all of them--that that was reality. And I got it through. And then the next year I did one for Korea and Vietnam. And it was before, I think it was before Iraq, but it covered what had happened in the Middle East. Same thing. And then I did one that took me about four years, on genocide. I finally got it through my last year. And I thought it was important to understand the historical phenomenon of genocide. Not just the Holocaust. And what I said to Jewish members up there, “We, you know, we do a tribute to the Holocaust, memory of the Holocaust every year, but it's not just the Holocaust. This is human beings do this.” And I started as with oral history. So I started with the Armenian (genocide). And we have a lot of people of Armenian backgrounds in California now, as examples. Not the only ones. Armenian, the Holocaust. I used Cambodia, Rwanda, I think Somalia, maybe Bosnia as examples. And you know, it's the dark side of human history. And very importantly, I included that when students consider this, they need to consider how we can avoid these in the future because the solution part is so important. And that's the hard stuff. And I even had in there for example, “Should we be willing to deploy UN troops or American troops?” Neither of which we would do. And I just wanted them to understand, you can get wound up and a lot of people are wound up and emotional about all sorts of things, but do the hard work about solving it. And once you get in the trenches, it's harder. And so that was the idea. And because interestingly enough, the only reason it took me so long, was there is a very powerful Turkish interest group that says the Armenian genocide never happened. It's a fiction. And finally I was able to get that passed. And if you've ever heard any of those documentaries, which I'm addicted to, and you can hear like for the Holocaust, some of those films. So, you're embarked on something really important. I think the oral history is really important. And when you become a professor of this, a teacher of this, I hope you incorporate it. 02:10:49.000 --> 02:10:56.000 Definitely. I love the concept of oral history. And I wasn't even introduced to it until recently. 02:10:56.000 --> 02:10:57.000 Yeah. 02:10:57.000 --> 02:11:01.000 This is something that I would've loved in high school. 02:11:01.000 --> 02:11:02.000 Yeah. 02:11:02.000 --> 02:11:09.000 Instead of a teacher just--talk, talk talk--“This is what happened in this war. This war is what, okay, let's take a test on it.” 02:11:09.000 --> 02:11:10.000 You know-- 02:11:10.000 --> 02:11:11.000 Hearing these perspectives-- 02:11:11.000 --> 02:11:12.000 Yeah. 02:11:12.000 --> 02:11:13.000 Would've been mind-blowing. 02:11:13.000 --> 02:14:34.000 Well see my, both of my grandparents, all four of my grandparents were raised on farms. That's how you learn. We were agricultural. And you hear their stories. And all of them left because the work was never ending and really hard because they're family farms. And my grandfather was the youngest in a big farm family. And he was a good storyteller. So, I learned about the nineteenth century from those stories. His name was Bryan Swede, who was the city councilman supervisor. Well, he was named after William Jennings Bryan. And that's my middle name. Because his father was a devotee of William Jennings Bryan the Prairie populist. And he had gone to rallies as a little kid for William Jennings Bryan, where they had songs, you know, I had music, they had these political songs and how would I know this? But he explained his father--this was in Minnesota, was--some sort of official state official who, and you would know the period better, but ended up going to Colorado during that period in the early twentieth century where they had all the mine riot--the mine strikes and all that stuff. And he saw how the miners were treated, and the strike breakers. And it radicalized him to use a modern term. And he came back and he joined--he was a Wobbly, International Workers of the World (Industrial Workers of the World). Now this is a guy with not a lot of education, but you really got, you really understand what it was like when you saw--you know, you can read about strike breakers--but he went and saw the way they were being treated. So, you know, it's powerful. And if I hadn't learned all those stories in Germany, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I--you (laughs) when--and it's not only the family I lived with, but then the husband of the daughter who--and what it was like being a student with no money and eating--in Vienna when there were riots and the cops were all on horseback with sabers and all that stuff. It's like, wow. We're at the end of the war when he was an official, he was an economist he was on the train from Frankfurt to Berlin. The train is stopped--end the war. German soldiers are deserting. Stop. They go through, check everyone's ID, find Germans who they consider deserters and they spring them up right there. And you just--all these, that's--I don't--that should, that's too negative. (Willis laughs) But you really, yeah. 02:14:34.000 --> 02:14:36.000 It changes your perspective completely. 02:14:36.000 --> 02:14:37.000 Yeah. 02:14:37.000 --> 02:14:42.000 And this is going to be one of the last things for me, Mark, as we're wrapping it up here (Wyland laughs). 02:14:42.000 --> 02:14:44.000 I've done a whole-- 02:14:44.000 --> 02:14:45.000 No, this has been great. 02:14:45.000 --> 02:14:48.000 This is a dump (both laugh). 02:14:48.000 --> 02:15:01.000 I've enjoyed every minute of it, I assure you. But one thing that's really, obviously as an historian, really important to me is just knowing the truth. Like, I love learning history, but I want to know the truth. Don't give me this, you know, romantic-- 02:15:01.000 --> 02:15:02.000 Right. 02:15:02.000 --> 02:15:08.000 Romanticized version of it. And one thing I'm very passionate about is Native American history. 02:15:08.000 --> 02:15:09.000 Right. 02:15:09.000 --> 02:15:10.000 My wife is Native American. 02:15:10.000 --> 02:15:12.000 Right. 02:15:12.000 --> 02:15:21.000 We are taught as young children that, “Oh, you know, we, the Natives welcomed, you know, the white man with open arms.” 02:15:21.000 --> 02:15:22.000 Yeah. 02:15:22.000 --> 02:15:24.000 “We shared their land. We had Thanksgiving.” 02:15:24.000 --> 02:15:25.000 Right, right. 02:15:25.000 --> 02:15:28.000 We don't learn the truth about it until we're adults. 02:15:28.000 --> 02:15:29.000 Yeah. 02:15:29.000 --> 02:15:32.000 Which is incredible to me. 02:15:32.000 --> 02:21:04.000 Well, that's--you posed an interesting question. Because we know the truth. And I thought it had changed, but maybe it hadn't because when I was in high school, a long time ago, taking American history, maybe it wasn't in the textbook, but I remember the teachers saying, you know, we estimate there were this many--they didn't use Indigenous peoples--Native Americans. There are this many Native Americans. And then, you know, the--had collapsed, the Vale of Tears March (Trail of Tears). We learned that stuff. And, the history is the history, you know, the missions, we all know what happened. The missions subjugated the Mission Indians and all that stuff. So, certainly, we need to know that. I think, my gosh, now this was in college, I took a course in Latin American history. And when the Spaniards first started coming into the Americas, there was a theological debate. And the theological debate was, “Are they human? Because if they're human, we need to save them,” which meant convert them to Christianity. And the only thing I would say about that is we've come a long way. We certainly need to know it. But I think to make it complete, we need to see the changes that have been wrought. And it needs to be comparative. If you were Indio in Mexico or Latin America, you know, they'll talk with pride. And I learned in Colombia, you know, we think of it all the same. They’re all different, right? The Colombianos do not particularly like the Mexicanos. And part of it is all the Americans think, you know, they're Mexicanos and they're not the Colombianos. And they would talk about “el orgullo de ser Mexicano,” which means “they’re arrogant” and they brag about, you know, their great history of the Aztecs and the Mayans. They don't get treated very well. And I'm not doing that to cast aspersions on them. What I'm saying is, look at the Europeans in Africa and Asia and the rest of it. There's something about human beings that tends to do that. And the question is, okay, “What is the history since then? How are we solving the problems?” Now in California and other places, the advent of gaming has done a lot because all of a sudden there's a lot more money. But all the tribes--I know a ton about this, Ryan, because you can't be in the state legislature. And I was on the relevant committee. I've been--I haven't been invaluable, but I've been in almost every one of them. And they're all different. The, you know, the tribal leaders are all different, then they can change. And some are, you know--and when I went up to my sister’s, I go right by Valley View, go right by Rincon. And if I turn left, I'd--you know. But so. I think it's really important to learn the history. But not, not that there's just one lesson, but there's a lot of lessons because humans--the, however you want to think how it happens, either it's something in us, or if you're Jewish or Christian in Genesis, we're fallen, we sinned and we're driven out of Eden. We're--you're in trouble now, you know, East of Eden. And women will bear children in pain. And the next thing you know, Cain slew Abel, his brother. And it's sort of whether it's that's what happened, that's what I believe, or it's a parable, I think the challenge for all civilization is “How do we overcome these things in the right way?” Does that make sense? 02:21:04.000 --> 02:21:05.000 Yes. 02:21:05.000 --> 02:22:22.000 But you do have to learn the truth. When I was in elementary school, we learned about the sharing and all that sort of thing. But in high school, you know, we got, we got the real thing. And then what do you do? And that's why I did the thing (oral history bill) on genocide because I said, “Well, there's these groups, but you can add in lots more.” And how do you stop it? And how do you get people--see, I think that's Western, for all our sins. How do you get people--it's western civilization that is able to say, “We need to see people and accord them respect as they're like us. It's not that easy. And I also know a lot about immigration and immigration into Europe and all these other things. It gets complicated. So yeah (both laugh). Well, and you know-- 02:22:22.000 --> 02:22:23.000 It's a heavy topic. I know. 02:22:23.000 --> 02:22:24.000 Well, it's an important one. 02:22:24.000 --> 02:22:25.000 It is. 02:22:25.000 --> 02:23:02.000 And, and, and, but here's the key. And I did have a bill, which I think I did as a resolution or something. Actually, I was looking through them, so I need to find some of it. It's important to learn it in that context. How many--I had thought that, well, when Cortez landed, you know, they rode in to--they rode into to, I think it was called Mexico. I've forgotten what the Capital was with the Aztecs and the chief Aztec said, “Oh my gosh, these are gods on horses.” 02:23:02.000 --> 02:23:03.000 Montezuma. 02:23:03.000 --> 02:23:18.000 Montezuma. I don't know, you may know this. I didn't. It took them years. And what they did was they built relationships with neighboring tribes that had been subjugated by the Aztecs. 02:23:18.000 --> 02:23:19.000 Right. 02:23:19.000 --> 02:23:23.000 Who had enslaved them and taken their kids for sacrifices. 02:23:23.000 --> 02:23:26.000 So they were more than willing--“Hey I’ll help you out.” 02:23:26.000 --> 02:26:38.000 So they were more than willing. And so how do you--in a world, when I was studying international relations, they call it IR for short. And it was the Cold War. And after 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was very stable. But we thought it was dangerous. And it was, but not like now. So, what do you do in a world where the next biggest, some people would say bigger economy (China), is utterly totalitarian, where everyone has a social media score where they can take--same human thing. The Uyghurs aren't like us. Only ethnic Han Chinese get treated well while the Tibetans and all the rest, they are subjugated. How, and that's such a powerful country and getting more powerful. How do we maintain societies where rule of law isn't perfect, but people cared about the laws we passed? You know what, again, this is not dumping on Mexico, but I'll tell you a story that illustrates the conundrum. This was a professor of mine while we were negotiating NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. And he had a conversation with--he was then Foreign Minister of Mexico. And I think he's a professor now, totally bicultural, American PhD. I'll think of his name. I can't think of it right now. Anyway, and they were still negotiating and the US was asking for more environmental guarantees. And he said to my friend, “You Americans don't get it. Because in America, law matters. Law doesn't matter in Mexico.” Give us all the guarantees you want. We'll sign them. It won't make any different. Now, that's not because Mexicans don't want--they don't want the cartels. They don't want--they want the same kind of democracy--which is imperfect--we have. But maybe you're the next generation and you're studying history. Maybe you can help us figure out how we can create more of this and at least maintain what we have. 02:26:38.000 --> 02:26:58.000 Yes, absolutely. I'm right there with you. Well, Mark, I can't thank you enough for your time and your candidness today. It has been extremely informative. It's been an honor to be able to speak with you. Before we close the interview, is there anything else you would like to add that we did not get to? 02:26:58.000 --> 02:28:46.000 Well, there may be, and I may have some stuff I can send you if you're interested. Because I started thinking through all of this and I appreciate it, Ryan, because not only are--number one, you're actually interested, which is great. Number two, you're going to teach, I hope, because I think you would be a good teacher. And it's been fun actually. And I didn't think I'd get so wound up (both laugh). But, you know, I'm trying to make it better. And gosh, the issue with Native Americans, I can't tell you that hours I have spent with all these issues in great depth. And they've had their, their challenges. And one of the interesting things about state government, once you take out national defense or a couple of things you're dealing with, actually there are many important issues that the federal government doesn't deal with. And in a state like California where it's a very activist legislature and government, you really deal with a huge number of things. So anyway. Well, I appreciate it and I appreciate you letting me talk about my plan to fix it all (laughs). I still see the world the way it could be. 02:28:46.000 --> 02:28:50.000 Right. No, and I admire that. We need more people like you honestly, that think in that way. 02:28:50.000 --> 02:28:51.000 Well-- 02:28:51.000 --> 02:28:58.000 So, I know, I really appreciate it. So thank you for everything that you have done and continue to try to do. Because I think it's very admirable. 02:28:58.000 --> 02:29:42.000 Well, I really appreciate that and I appreciate--you can't do it without help and support because people want that. People deserve--I'm not one of those who says, “Well, they voted the wrong way. They deserve it.” No, people deserve feeling good about their government, being able to say, “Well, I didn't agree with everything, but you know, they're trying to do the right thing.” And right now we don't have that. And I think this is one way to restore it. And I couldn't do it, even think about it if I didn't think people think, yeah, let's do that. 02:29:42.000 --> 02:29:43.000 Yeah. 02:29:43.000 --> 02:29:45.000 So anyway, well— 02:29:45.000 --> 02:29:46.000 Really Concur. 02:29:46.000 --> 02:29:48.000 I enjoyed this (laughs). 02:29:48.000 --> 02:30:02.000 I did as well. I think anybody that's going to check this interview out's going to really enjoy it. I learned a lot. And that's, I think, really the ultimate goal. So Mark, thank you again so much for joining me today at the California State University San Marcos Library. And I will now stop the recording. 02:30:02.000 --> 02:30:04.000 Okay. 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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=WylandMark_WillisRyan_2023-04-10.xml WylandMark_WillisRyan_2023-04-10.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 Wyland, Mark. Interview, April 10, 2023 Description An account of the resource Oral history interview with Mark Wyland on 04/10/2023. In this interview, Wyland discusses his upbringing and family background, including his family business in Pine Tree & Lumber. Wyland explains his education background along with studying in Germany for a year, and how he was motivated to choose a career in politics. Wyland expanded on his career on the Board of Education of the Escondido Union School Board, becoming a member of the California State Assembly from 2000-2006, and then being elected into the California Senate in 2006, serving until 2014. Wyland reflects on his trials and tribulations throughout the years, offering his thoughts and suggestions on the current state of American politics and how it can be improved. Wyland also speaks on K-12 school curriculum, Native American History, and the importance of Oral History being taught in the classroom. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC027-38 Subject The topic of the resource Bills, Legislative California. Legislature. Assembly California. Legislature. Senate International relations Legislation -- California Lumberyards -- California -- Escondido Oral history Politics and government -- 20th century Politics and government -- 21st century School boards -- California -- Escondido Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023-04-10 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mark Wyland Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ryan Willis 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 (California) California Germany Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos 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%20">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Mark Wyland Community history History Department internship Politics and governance https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/112b21d9155ea35c00877f0832c5a9a6.pdf be319453aba0694528cf6ede19e42c5e 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 Wyland, Mark. Interview transcript, April 10, 2024 Description An account of the resource Oral history interview with Mark Wyland on 04/10/2023. In this interview, Wyland discusses his upbringing and family background, including his family business in Pine Tree & Lumber. Wyland explains his education background along with studying in Germany for a year, and how he was motivated to choose a career in politics. Wyland expanded on his career on the Board of Education of the Escondido Union School Board, becoming a member of the California State Assembly from 2000-2006, and then being elected into the California Senate in 2006, serving until 2014. Wyland reflects on his trials and tribulations throughout the years, offering his thoughts and suggestions on the current state of American politics and how it can be improved. Wyland also speaks on K-12 school curriculum, Native American History, and the importance of Oral History being taught in the classroom. This oral history interview was made possible by the Ellie Johns Foundation stewarded by the Rancho Santa Fe Library Guild. It was created as part of CSUSM's University Library/History Department internship in oral history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mark Wyland Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ryan Willis Julia Friedman Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2024-04-10 Subject The topic of the resource Bills, Legislative California. Legislature. Assembly California. Legislature. Senate International relations Legislation -- California Lumberyards -- California -- Escondido Oral history Politics and government -- 20th century Politics and government -- 21st century School boards -- California -- Escondido 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.) California 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%20">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Mark Wyland 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 WylandMark_WillisRyan_2023-04-10_transcript Community history History Department internship Politics and governance https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/00489b285627c9a6866f172944112fe8.jpg 35c5e00c18f7596b84d9e666d6751988 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 Aviation Cadet Description An account of the resource Williams dressed as an Aviation Cadet at an unknown location and unknown date https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/cbae0566763ce0270fef5d0ce938bcf7.jpg 6cfb3c021344133fed396067d8844597 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 P105 in Saipan Description An account of the resource Williams posing with a P105 plane in Saipan, 1946 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/0282d85f8cb82816431c217d88442ad3.jpg c66638dba65f748b3e0953e8422311a5 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 Wedding Day Description An account of the resource Camilla and Elmer Royce Williams on their wedding day in Clinton, Minnesota, June 1, 1947 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/4a703a89795ad0efa0544261d8fd56e5.jpg 846e93989267282dbe4cfb29d90d9fdd 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 Christmas Dinner Description An account of the resource Mark, Elmer Royce, Bruce, and Craig Williams having Christmas dinner, December 25, 1962 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/6cb0bce3640d8b5336eeafafe1c22ca4.jpg cba0af63d47198f9508ab961b6e2ec14 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 Arrival of VF-33 Description An account of the resource Commander Neilsen T.L., Camilla Williams, and Elmer Royce Williams at the arrival of VF-33 from Key West, U.S. Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia, January 2, 1965 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. Photographs, Various dates. Description An account of the resource Five photos related to the oral history of Elmer Royce Williams. Photograph #1 depicts Williams dressed as an Aviation Cadet at an unknown location and unknown date. Photograph #2 depicts Williams posing with a P105 plane in Saipan, 1946. Photograph #3 depicts Camilla and Elmer Royce Williams on their wedding day in Clinton, Minnesota, June 1, 1947. Photograph #4 depicts Mark, Elmer Royce, Bruce, and Craig Williams having Christmas dinner, December 25, 1962. Photograph #5 depicts Commander Neilsen T.L., Camilla Williams, and Elmer Royce Williams at the arrival of VF-33 from Key West, U.S. Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia, January 2, 1965. Click on the thumbnails to view the full images in more detail. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource undated - 1962 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 Jason Beyer, Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Elmer Royce Williams 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=WilliamsElmer_BeyerJason_2024-11-08_access.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. Veteran;Korean War;Naval aviator;Dogfight 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 Williams, Elmer Royce. Interview November 8th, 2024 SC027-074 00:00:00 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library oral history collection CSUSM csusm Veteran ; Korean War ; Naval aviator ; Dogfight Elmer Royce Williams Jason Beyer, Marilyn Huerta, Adel Bautista Moving image WilliamsElmer_BeyerJason_2024-11-08_access.mp4 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/d6799d074d31395fe8b6205edd027f3f.mp4 Other video English 0 Interview Introduction 0 50 Military Background Williams lists his years of service, branches of service, the highest rank he attained, and the wars he participated in. Navy ; Army ; Navy Captain ; World War II ; Korean War ; Vietnam War 0 76 Childhood Williams describes growing up in rural South Dakota, where he lived on a farm and worked in a grocery store. Wilmar, South Dakota ; rural ; farm ; grocery store ; World War I 0 136 Military Enlistment Williams describes his decision to enlist in the Army. He was always fond of aviation, and the military provided the best training. enlistment ; Army ; aviation 0 221 Military Training Williams reflects on his military training. Includes his worst experience, his first assignment after basic training, his views on instructors, his switch from the Army to the Navy, and his promotions. training ; bootcamp ; promotion ; instructor ; Army ; Navy 0 600 Adaptation to Military Lifestyle Williams describes the highs and lows of adapting to military service and mentions the wartime conflicts he was part of. World War II ; Korean War ; Vietnam War ; family ; military lifestyle ; stateside service ; wartime service 0 751 The Korean War and the Dogfight Williams tells his remarkable story about surviving a solo dogfight against seven Soviet pilots during the Korean War. Includes contextual details about the Korean War as well as descriptions of the political aftermath. Williams describes how some historians have written about the event. dogfight ; Korean War ; Soviet Union ; combat ; Washington ; Eisenhower ; Admiral Briscoe ; history 0 2141 Keeping Military Secrets Williams describes how difficult it was to keep his experiences secret in order to preserve national security. He recalls seeing reports on military events that he knew to be inaccurate or untrue. secrets ; military ; history ; censorship ; lies 0 2180 Interactions With Local Cultures During Wartime Service Although most of his service was in aircraft, Williams describes a war-torn Seoul. Shares stories of how Korean political and military leaders continue to honor him with awards for his service. Korea ; Medal of Honor ; Seoul ; Eisenhower ; culture 0 2282 Comradery and Recreation During Service Williams describes the strong bonds he built with members of his squadron. He also describes recreational activities, including volleyball and reading. comradery ; friendship ; squadron ; recreation ; volleyball ; reading ; religion ; prayer 0 2458 Injury, End of Service, and Return Home Williams experienced a plane crash in San Diego. He recalls how he dealt with the injuries that would eventually lead him to retire from the navy. retirement ; injury ; plane crash ; hospital ; San Diego ; surgery 0 2774 Return to Civilian Life After leaving the service, Williams gets his master’s degree and works in business. He describes his experience with the GI Bill, working in law, joining veterans' organizations, and keeping friendships. college ; business ; GI Bill ; law ; veterans’ organizations ; friendship 0 2949 Life Lessons from Military Service Williams describes life lessons he gained from military service. His recent nomination for the Medal of Honor has kept him busy with speaking engagements. He is also the president of a local congregation. He encourages people to stay positive, find community, and treat their civic responsibilities seriously. Medal of Honor ; life lessons ; reflections ; congregation ; president ; community ; civic responsibilities 0 3126 Involvement in North County San Diego Community Williams describes his involvement in the North County San Diego community, particularly in the city of Escondido. He also describes some of his day-to-activities with his family. Escondido, California ; community ; family ; Ikebana ; shooting ; home building 0 3271 Reflections on the Experiences of Veterans Williams wishes more people understood that veterans are kind people who serve their nation and are an important productive part of their community. He says military service taught him that life is a team sport. He recommends having a family and says family has been important to him. veterans ; family ; nation ; military service ; community 0 Oral history 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. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION BEGIN 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:50.774 My name is Jason Beyer, and I'm a graduate of California State University San Marcos. Today I will be interviewing Elmer Royce Williams. Today's date is Friday, November 8, 2024. The general location where this interview is being conducted is at the Williams residence in Escondido, California. My relationship to the interviewee is that we are both military veterans. The names of the people attending this interview include Marilyn Huerta ; camera operator, Adel Bautista ; Jason Beyer, the interviewer ; Elmer Royce Williams, the interviewee. And the purpose of this interview is to conduct an oral history. Please state your full name. 00:00:50.774 --> 00:00:53.435 Elmer Royce Williams. 00:00:53.435 --> 00:00:56.045 What branch of service you were in? 00:00:56.045 --> 00:01:04.474 I started in the Army for a couple years, then I went into the Navy. I served 37 years. 00:01:04.474 --> 00:01:07.204 What was the highest rank that you attained? 00:01:07.204 --> 00:01:10.394 Navy Captain O-6. 00:01:10.394 --> 00:01:13.185 What war or conflicts were you a part of? 00:01:13.185 --> 00:01:16.545 World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. 00:01:16.545 --> 00:01:23.265 That's the easiest part of this interview. Now it's time for the questions. Where were you born? 00:01:23.265 --> 00:01:29.075 Wilmot, South Dakota in 1925. 00:01:29.075 --> 00:01:33.385 Does your family have any past affiliations with the military? 00:01:33.385 --> 00:01:45.745 My father was in World War I. My brother was in the same wars that I was. He retired as a Marine Colonel. 00:01:45.745 --> 00:01:50.504 Did you hold any jobs before entering the military? 00:01:50.504 --> 00:02:00.715 Yes, uh, I was in a rural area and I worked on farms. My father was a grocer, and I worked in the store. 00:02:00.715 --> 00:02:06.734 What was it like for you working in the store and growing up on a farm? 00:02:06.734 --> 00:02:16.645 Well, I think it was the standard of the day. And, it suited me. 00:02:16.645 --> 00:02:21.995 When and why did you choose to join the military? 00:02:21.995 --> 00:02:53.555 My first airplane ride was when I was four years old. I was enthused and my dreams—well, this brought me toward aviation. And, in those days, the best organized, publicized aviation was military. And I sort of switched my dreams in that direction. 00:02:53.555 --> 00:02:56.254 Did you—were you drafted or did you enlist? 00:02:56.254 --> 00:03:01.324 I enlisted when I was 16. 00:03:01.324 --> 00:03:05.925 And which branch did you enter, and why did you choose that branch? 00:03:05.925 --> 00:03:42.064 Army. And primarily it was National Guard that was nationalized. I had two cousins in it. They deployed to North Africa. My two cousins were killed. I didn't go because of my age, I think. So I continued to serve and I trained and spent time in Camp Ripley in Little Falls, Minnesota. 00:03:42.064 --> 00:03:50.224 The earlier days of service. For your earlier days of service, what type of training or school did you have? 00:03:50.224 --> 00:04:15.034 Primarily infantry training. Rifle range, cross country marches. And I was trained as a drill instructor, which came in handy for the unit I was attached to. 00:04:15.034 --> 00:04:27.824 What was your most vivid memory? Both best and worst parts of your time in training or in school. 00:04:27.824 --> 00:05:09.653 Well, I'll say interesting. We had a cross country toward dusk and it took us through some of the lakes and ponds in Minnesota and swarmed with mosquitoes. In that it was night, we had to orient our maps with a flashlight but not be seen. So I took my poncho, put it over my head, and studied the map. Trapped about 30 some mosquitoes when I did that. And that was unpleasant. 00:05:09.653 --> 00:05:12.425 So that was probably—I would say—your worst part of the training. 00:05:12.425 --> 00:05:16.584 Yeah, that was (laughs). 00:05:16.584 --> 00:05:21.694 What was your first assignment after basic training? 00:05:21.694 --> 00:05:54.653 The unit that was located at Ortonville, Minnesota. It's, uh, at the south tip of Big Stone Lake, which is 36 miles long and is a prominent part of the western border of Minnesota. It comes straight up from Iowa, and it hits Big Stone Lake and makes a jog. 00:05:54.653 --> 00:06:00.144 Do you recall your instructors while you were in school? 00:06:00.144 --> 00:06:08.795 Not by name. I'm not good at remembering names. But yes, I recall my training. 00:06:08.795 --> 00:06:11.605 Were they good instructors in your opinion? 00:06:11.605 --> 00:07:12.264 I thought so. Problem we had was we were on the rifle range with ammunition from World War I stored in Panama, which is moist and not good conditions. So we were advised that if we had a problem and it didn't fire—hang fire, we called it—to not open the breach but call the sergeant instructor. I had one that was poor performance. Pull the trigger and it fired, but the bullet landed in the grass about 10 feet in front of me. But down the line on the rifle range was a man that didn't follow instructions. And as he opened the breach, it fired and he lost an eye. 00:07:12.264 --> 00:07:25.795 Did you qualify for equipment such as vehicles, aircraft, radio, weapons? And if yes, what was the training like with that equipment? 00:07:25.795 --> 00:07:43.154 Well, definitely airplane. When I switched over to the Navy, I was in the aviation cadet program. And if I completed it completely, I would be on my way flying fighter aircraft off aircraft carriers. 00:07:43.154 --> 00:07:50.754 What was the switch like for you, and how did it make you feel switching from the Army over into the Navy? 00:07:50.754 --> 00:08:09.345 It's what I wanted. I wanted to be a carrier pilot, and this offered an avenue, and I was happy about it. 00:08:09.345 --> 00:08:17.024 Did you receive any promotions, and could you tell me about them during your time in the Navy? 00:08:17.024 --> 00:09:03.595 Yes, in the Navy I had sort of a head start going through bootcamp and was a company commander. And that followed me through aviation cadet training, as well. Because I was a corporal in the Army, I had training at, uh—gave me kind of a head start—And then in a long career I got commissioned, and I moved up the ladder in normal sequencing to an O-6 position. 00:09:03.595 --> 00:09:16.315 What would you say was the biggest difference between your enlisted promotions and your officer promotions? 00:09:16.315 --> 00:10:00.965 As an officer it was more wide-ranging at where instead of being a specialist, except for flying, was broad and personnel management. But records and maintenance training—many avenues and responsibility at a higher level—to where, eventually, as command of a ship it is a rather interesting and wide-range responsibility. 00:10:00.965 --> 00:10:08.865 What was the hardest part of the military lifestyle for you to adapt to? 00:10:08.865 --> 00:10:11.835 Being away from my wife and family. 00:10:11.835 --> 00:10:14.335 Why do you think that was? 00:10:14.335 --> 00:10:52.565 'Cause over long periods of time, it left my wife managing three sons. All different ages, different schools. I can't imagine how she was able to maintain the driving schedule. And when I retired she said, "Okay, now you do the income tax." So she had a wide range of responsibility. And unfortunately, I would love to have been partnering in it, but I was gone so much of the time. 00:10:52.565 --> 00:10:59.125 What was the easiest part of the military lifestyle for you to adapt to? 00:10:59.125 --> 00:11:25.325 Friendships. Harmony. You're part of a team. You get to know and like one another. Trust. Lean on. Depend. And, um—I think all aspects of military are—you're working with teamwork. 00:11:25.325 --> 00:11:37.924 What were your interactions like with people you encountered during your stateside service? 00:11:37.924 --> 00:12:08.384 Well, it was a variety of things. Often schools—even if you were just with a unit—it is mostly training in the fighter business. We would train over in the desert to fire rockets and bombs and guns and hit the target. Coordinate with the rest of the team. Prepare for combat. 00:12:08.384 --> 00:12:14.294 During your wartime service, what wartime conflicts were you a part of. 00:12:14.294 --> 00:12:31.294 World War II—I didn't actually get shot at by enemy—uh, Korea, Vietnam. I was rather heavily involved in those wars. 00:12:31.294 --> 00:12:36.365 Where and when did you serve in the Korean conflict? 00:12:36.365 --> 00:13:11.705 1952-53 on an aircraft carrier normally operating at the 38th parallel in support of ground forces and destruction of enemy logistics, trains, trucks, ox carts. But of course, air support for our fighters on the ground. Except for one novel incident that I got involved in. 00:13:11.705 --> 00:13:14.995 Do you care discussing that incident? 00:13:14.995 --> 00:29:24.605 Sure. Admiral (Joseph) Jocko Clark was Task Force 77, which was on site on the USS Missouri and was running the naval operations. That was basically the eastern half of Korea, both north and south. And the distance between targets—some of it was very important manufacturing and storage, and logistics is the heart of wars. So our job was to stifle, destroy their capability. And we couldn't get to all the targets because of distance. So Admiral Clark formed a task force of three carriers and probably twenty-some other ships, destroyers, including his battleship. And we moved north off the city of Ch'ŏngjin, which is about a hundred miles south of the Soviet Union and Vladivostok. And we operated there and could then reach all the other targets that we normally wanted to but couldn't. And, uh, I was on the first mission in the morning and we hit targets in a city called Hoeryong. It is right on the Yalu River, which is the border between the Soviet Union and North Korea. These operations stirred up the Soviets. We didn't go to their territory, which is having such—military operation that close to them got them very excited, and they launched lots of airplanes and the radio chatter became heavy and everything, you know, they were very concerned. Well, upon completion of that, I went back and landed on the aircraft carrier, and I was told to get lunch and get ready, and I was going to go off on the next combat air patrol. When the first flight, the weather was good and we were operating pretty much in clear air. In the meanwhile, a blizzard moved in and the bottom of the clouds were around 500 feet and the tops were at 12,000 feet. So we briefed. I got lunch. Briefed. We launched. And we rendezvoused four aircraft below the clouds, and then climbed two for an assignment above the clouds. And while in and on our way, our combat information center notified us that there were inbound bogies, meaning unidentified aircraft. They could be friendly or enemy. We didn't know. Well, as we popped on top of the clouds, I could see, coming from the north, seven contrails in formation headed right at us. I didn't particularly diagnose who they might be, but they were coming from the Soviet Union direction. Well, as they, uh, were getting near us, the leader of the flight had a warning light that his—well, engine warning problem came on and he was directed to take his wingman and return. We would stay over at the task force. So that left me and my wingman to handle the rest of the mission. So, they said to proceed and intercept. So I charged my guns and made everything ready for war and led the two of us climbing in their directions. Well, as they came over, they reversed and headed back from whence they came and out-distanced me. So when we got to 26,000 feet, they were probably 50 miles north of us and—extreme altitude, 50 some thousand feet, I'm sure—but making contrails, so they were easily sighted. But they split into two groups and turned away from each other and started diving out of that altitude. And when they left the contrail level, it was just plain sight to the airplanes. And I no longer could see them and reported that to the ship. And they had also lost sight in that it was a smaller target and they didn't hold 'em on the radar anymore. So I was directed to reverse course and set up a barricade between the last sighting of the aircraft—which I had identified as MiGs (Mikoyan and Gurevic), which meant enemy—and to patrol between the last sighting and the task force. Well, in that turn, four of them came in sort of head-on—ten o'clock position, all firing—and I knew the game was on. So as they passed, I made a hard turn and ended up on the tail of their last guy. And after a short burst, he fell out of formation and started going down, and my wingman left me and followed that aircraft on down. And so he was out of the fight. And I'm alone with the other three airplanes that dove in the other direction—now joining the group. So I am one against six. So they climbed sharply above me to a rate I couldn't maintain, but I was pointed at them and trailing, and they turned around and came back at me as I'm the target. And I was intending to encounter the guy that just lost his wingman, but I lost him in the sun, and I saw the other two already lined up coming at me. So I switched my aim and aimed at the lead aircraft who was already shooting with larger caliber guns and probably having capability to shoot in an encounter at a greater range. Well, when I sighted on them, I was in range and I fired a short burst. And he stopped, fired, and turned away. And I had later on learned enough information that I have surmised that he was probably hit. The other guy, his wingman, now was coming directly at me and shooting, and I turned and sighted on him. And when I was set ready with him, my target, I fired a burst and he quit firing. But he didn't maneuver. He just kept coming and went directly under my airplane. And I was hosing him all the way. So he was definitely going down. Probably killed. So they had now passed me, but the other three planes came in from the other direction and now they were all split into individuals and taking their turns attacking me. Well, my attention at that point was primarily my six o'clock tail position where they were taking turns on me. And I was their target, and my job was to spoil their aim and survive the attack. And as a good pilot, they often made the run, and then they pulled up abruptly to get back in position to make another run, um, at a rate that I couldn't follow. But there was another guy right behind him, so I was pretty much full-time defensive. Occasionally they made a mistake. One of them flew in front of me and I got on and I hit him close in, and pieces of the airplane were coming off, and I had to maneuver to avoid hitting him. Well, it went on like that for thirty-five minutes. Longer than any other such mission I ever heard of—ever. And they had kept up, and I occasionally had the opportunity to have the sights on 'em and shoot. I at one point was on the tail of one, and he was burning, smoking and going down—slowing. And I was going to give an extra burst, but I was out of ammunition. And I looked around and that's the first time I straightened out that much and didn't pay attention behind me and (he was) on me—right on my tail. So I maneuvered hard, and he kept firing, and he hit me with a 37 millimeter, which is an anti-aircraft size ammunition. And it went into the wing butt on the starboard side of my airplane and exploded in the accessory section of the engine, right mid-airplane and shrapnel everywhere. And it severed the cable connecting to the rudder. So I no longer had that control. And it destroyed all the electrical and—not all of it—but all of the hydraulics. So I had a hydraulic controlled N1s (low speed spools). So I had very little control of that, mainly elevator. But luckily out-maneuvering left me pointed directly at where the task force was, so I didn't have to do a lot of turning to head toward that blizzard and the clouds at 12,000 feet. And this guy settled right on my tail, and 300 feet or so—ideal range to shoot me down—and he was just firing away with all of his guns. But I was using my elevator and I would jam it forward then pull it back. And I'm doing this sort of thing. (Williams gestures up and down). So I'm seeing the bullets go under me, then over me. And this just kept out until I got into the clouds. Heavy clouds that he lost sight of me. I lost sight of him. And since I was damaged and the airplane wasn't flying right—was auto rigged—I did a little testing to see what my survival rate might be. And I was too far away from the task force to eject. I had planned on ejecting, but there wouldn't have been anybody there to rescue me. And that was winter time, the conditions of the water and all. And even with the immersion suit that I was wearing flying, I wouldn't lasted more than maybe 18 minutes. So I stuck with the airplane and kept on track to get to the task force, hoping that I could do something to get rescued there. I didn't believe I'd be able to get landed aboard an aircraft carrier in these conditions, and the conditions of the weather and all. But I got undone and was coming in, under the clouds. So I'm visible to them, and unfortunately they were general quarters. And for all the ships there, that means guns free if they have an unidentified target, hasn't been labeled friendly, they're cleared to shoot. Well, the coordination had broken down between air control and the gunnery liaison people. So they shot at me. And my commanding officer had just taken off to be my relief, to go up and be on the air patrol. And saw what was happening and called them off. Said, he's friendly, and they stopped firing. So I started coordinating with the landing signal officer on the Oriskany, the carrier I was flying from and making plans for what's next. And it looked like I might be able to at least approach the carrier, which means there would probably be rescue forces all over the place. And I still was just barely hopeful I would land on the ship. Well, they were loaded with all the ships aft, the tail end, on a straight deck carrier. So they had to all be moved to the front part of the flight deck to provide space for me to land. That took a while. And I used that time to position myself as best as I could to be where I should be when I got the signal to land. And I tested the airplane at that time, and I found out that it wouldn't fly below 200 miles an hour, 170 knots. So I informed him of that. And they talked to the commanding officer of the carrier and he said, "Bring him in. Any speed he wants." Strong winds from the storm and the ship could do 30 knots. So not a problem speedwise, but alignment was another thing. So when I got the signal to land, I was lined up with the ship into the wind for landing, but I couldn't line up going down the deck to make a landing. I would've come across the deck, which is just a short distance, and I'd (have) gone over into the ocean. At least I would be near rescue forces if I lived through the crash. So I was coming in, doing the best I could, and the captain of the ship saw my plight and, being an aviator, he knew the problem—the only time I ever heard of it. But he turned the ship and lined it up with me, and I landed to catch the number three wire, which is perfect. So I'm back aboard with a whole lot of holes in an airplane, but I'm safe. 00:29:24.605 --> 00:29:31.724 So what happened once you landed and had to—did you hear from Washington or— 00:29:31.724 --> 00:35:41.905 Yes, I went to the ready room. The ship was at general quarters. All the pilots that weren't flying were in the ready room, they're stationed in those conditions. And as I came in—I was surprised—they were all smiling, beaming, and no one's saying anything. And my next job is to be debriefed by the intelligence officer. So I asked him, "What's going on here?" And he says, "I had them all pledge that they wouldn't say anything until I got through debriefing. So we went to the debrief area, and he didn't start talking. I said, "What's going on?" He said, "We are waiting for the flight leader." Well, the flight leader was already over the ship and had nothing to do with this combat. But he waited for him, and when he came in with the last one to land, they'd eaten up a fair amount of time. And on the squat box or radio communication between other units of the ship, the intelligence center is calling in Mac, our intelligence officer, "Get in here, Washington's on the line and they want answers. Right now!" We didn't know anything because the intelligence center would send things on our little—sort of TV—saying that I was engaged and so forth. So they knew that. And they knew I was hit. But not the rest of the story. I didn't know! Actually my attention was that hitting somebody and then diverting it immediately to my next problem. So when the whole flight got back, he started with the flight leader to debrief. And then his wingman, which had a little to say—important. And then to me. And I got a little into it of what little I knew. And he just broke it right up. They just kept—"Mac, get in here, get in here." And so he had to make a report, and he made it up, and it wasn't true. And that became Navy history. They don't wanna' know the truth. All—moving on. It's our last line on the combat line, and we're going into Yokosuka for repairs, replenishment—R&R (rest and recuperation)—and I was ordered to report to Admiral Briscoe, the Senior Navy Admiral in the Pacific—Western Pacific. And when I—oh, on the way down there I saw an aviation boatswain's mate. They're the people that handled the aircraft on the carrier. And I told him who I was and I'd been the pilot and I'd like to take a last look at the airplane before going ashore. He said, "I'm sorry, sir, but we pushed it over the side." And so what I heard was that they robbed it of usable parts, and so forth, and got rid of it. Turns out later, that might not be true. But that's what I was told. So I met with Admiral Briscoe—and I knew his aides and stuff—and they brought me to the door. He said, "The Admiral's waiting." And sure enough I did. He closed the door and he said, "Now, what you're about to hear, you could never tell anybody ever." And that sealed it as far as straightening the record—I just couldn't talk about it. But I learned that we had a new capability called NSA (National Security Agency), and a lot of people say no such agency. They were very closed mouth and don't share information except probably with the President and a few others. But they were on the line on a cruiser right off the coast of Vladivostok, where the base from which these MiGs came. And they wanted that young man to know that he got at least three. Okay, but I can't tell anybody. So I didn't for fifty some years. But in the meantime, Soviet Union broke up, and the Russians out of Moscow came up with a story in 1992 talking about this mission, and they put the names of four that were shot down that day. And then a naval historian came up with a book about something "on the Yalu," covering the big engagement during the Korean War, which was mainly the Air Force half, which was on a daily routine of trying to shoot with another down. But it covered this incident. And of the seven, only one returned. And that's not well known, but that's what the history book says. And where was I going with this? Well, concluded my debrief with Admiral Briscoe and went back to the ship, and in short order learned that President Eisenhower had pledged that if elected, he would go to Korea and see firsthand how things are and what he ought to do about it. And then he learned about this and he says, I want to see Royce Williams. And so as he came over, I was set up to meet him. 00:35:41.905 --> 00:35:47.505 Was it hard for you to maintain that secrecy for so many years? 00:35:47.505 --> 00:36:20.000 It was initially 'cause I just saw a bunch of lies and they put it out as though I said—or Rolands, the wingman, or Middleton, the wingman of the flight leader—all having been in the area, but they gave them credit for things they never did and they never personally admitted that they did it until they got used to it. It sounded so darn good that they played along and abused history. 00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:31.043 What were your interactions like with local cultures and the people you encountered during either your deployment in Korea or in Vietnam? 00:36:31.043 --> 00:38:02.315 Albeit in an aircraft carrier, I didn't have a lot of opportunity to see others. I was amazed and interested in the visit with President Eisenhower and his staffs and all in Seoul. It was such a battered city. They had two bridges crossing—the river goes through the middle of town—and they were both in the water. I went back and visited after that. They got 22 bridges almost per block crossing the river. And it's just beautiful. What an amazing change in the geography. But I do wanna' say that the Koreans—I can't believe this—have told me they think I saved their nation. And they have been acting like that. And their president came over here, and I met with him, and they presented me with their Medal of Honor. And I've just been inundated with visits from them—bringing presents, and invited me to the consul in Los Angeles, and the consul general's become a friend. I visited their ships. And it's been amazing. 00:38:02.315 --> 00:38:12.704 What kind of friendships and comradery did you form while serving in Korea or in Vietnam, and with whom? 00:38:12.704 --> 00:38:53.014 With the personnel on the ships I was on, primarily your own squadron. You have a ready room, which is the enclosure with seats and briefing materials and whatnot, where you ready yourself for flight. And actually, otherwise, it's sort of a central for that squadron, and people spend a fair amount of time there. Sometimes in the evening you have a movie and so that's kinda' home base outside of your quarters. 00:38:53.014 --> 00:38:58.304 What did you do for recreation when you were off duty? 00:38:58.304 --> 00:39:21.605 Volleyball, running, maybe a little sunbathing—very little. Some reading, some studies, some—you have other assignments besides flying, So you have to pay attention to that as well. 00:39:21.605 --> 00:39:29.824 Do you recall any particularly humorous or unusual events while on shift? 00:39:29.824 --> 00:40:34.364 Found to be a bunch of them (laughs). Well it's—our pilots get shot down, and if they're rescued, they eventually go by way of another ship and then used breeches buoy, which is a sort of a seat that you get on and have wires connecting two ships and you spin and you can send this little trolley thing with the chair back and forth to send supplies or people. And in a big storm, while they're doing that, the ships come together. Sometimes that close without engaging one another (Williams extends arms in front of himself). But that makes that line instead of taught go down like this (lowers arms). The people often get dipped in the ocean and then come snap it back out of it (raises arms). It's kind of an interesting drill. 00:40:34.364 --> 00:40:38.085 Was there something that you did for good luck? 00:40:38.085 --> 00:40:58.085 No, pray! I am religious and I give credit—I should not have survived that incident, but I did—and I did it with other outside help. God was with me. 00:40:58.085 --> 00:41:06.925 Do you recall the day your service ended? Where were you when your service ended? 00:41:06.925 --> 00:43:59.045 In San Diego, I had had a plane crash where I broke 11 vertebrae. I continued to serve and fly, but the medical department made exceptions in my case to where I was authorized certain medications that I should not have been taking and flying. And as time went on and I would indicate need for more help, they would increase it. And I got to a point of a ridiculous amount. And then the flight surgeon, when I came back from our first tour in Vietnam, talked to his friend who was the leader of the medical department at Pensacola, Florida. And they were so surprised they ordered me to go back to Pensacola for an evaluation. Well, during that they said everything is doable. For instance, thyroid normalcy is around two grains. They had me on five and a half grains a day. And they said, no, it's normal. Just stop taking it. Well, there were results. My hair's falling out, I'm just weary. I'm flying day and night off the carrier. And the results of that study was studied in Washington at the Bureau of Navy Medicine and Surgery. They said, this can't be. So, they got the Bureau of Personnel to give me new orders that you authorize for flight in combat, at sea, down at the actual command—at the actual controls. Why is the wing commander, for heaven's sake? I said, How do I run a wing in combat not flying? So I sent myself to the school for the rear seat—the naval flight officer, we call 'em now—now we have their old set of wings and so forth. At that time, it was so early in the game that we were using the wings that were also used for enlisted flight crew. But as time went on, I was a primary player in getting that law changed that didn't allow NFOs (Naval Flight Officers) to have command. So for officers, NFOs, they'd probably quit at lieutenant commander. There's just no further promotion for 'em. Well, we got that law changed and now we have four-star admirals as NFOs. 00:43:59.045 --> 00:44:02.965 Did you return home when your service ended— 00:44:02.965 --> 00:44:03.000 Oh, ah! 00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:04.000 —Sorry, go ahead. 00:44:04.000 --> 00:46:14.405 So where was I? My physical problems were starting to make life tougher. I started dragging the leg and they sent me to the hospital here in San Diego and operated on me. And I came out, and they put me on temporary retirement until I got healthy. Then I got recalled in 1980. This was—I went in early, second month in '42 and then went out in the first of January in '80. So there was a little gap from when I came out of the hospital until I was cleared for active duty again. And meanwhile, I'd had a ship and a whole lot of very important jobs. I had two-star job on Admiral McCabe staff, who was the first Inspector General, CINCPAC (Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet). I was Chief of Staff COMFAIRWESTPAC (Commander, Fleet Air Western Pacific). A whole lot of pretty important stuff. But I came on back and was on COMATG PAC staff (Afloat Training Group Pacific) when I went to the hospital and they operated on me, set me aside, I came back, and I got ordered as commodore with amphibious task force for training. So I took a group of 20 some ships to Hawaii and that sort of thing. And I came back and retired in 1980, built this house, and grew 200 rose bushes. Spent an awful lot of time below the hill (laughs). 00:46:14.405 --> 00:46:22.324 How did you readjust to civilian life? Did you work, or did you go back to school, or— 00:46:22.324 --> 00:46:52.505 I got a master's degree in college. And I worked for a company as vice president of a startup group. And I saw that they had problems, and I excused myself, and said if they straightened out their operation, I'd be pleased to come back. But in the meantime, they went to jail and I did not. 00:46:52.505 --> 00:46:56.824 Did the GI Bill affect you after you completed your service? 00:46:56.824 --> 00:46:57.293 The what? 00:46:57.293 --> 00:47:02.445 The Montgomery GI Bill or the GI Bill for education? 00:47:02.445 --> 00:47:02.652 —Yes— 00:47:02.652 --> 00:47:03.474 Did you use that? 00:47:03.474 --> 00:47:04.755 —Yes, I used that. 00:47:04.755 --> 00:47:06.000 What are your thoughts on it? 00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:57.065 Excellent. Yeah, it helped me feel fulfilled. I didn't actually use the ability—I also, once I completed the business part of it, I went into law and I was working down near San Ysidro and leaving here at about five-thirty in the morning and getting back at ten and spending all day Saturday in my office reading and my wife bringing me coffee. And just—I said, Why am I doing this? And I had no good reason. So I didn't continue in the law business. 00:47:57.065 --> 00:48:01.954 Did you join any veterans organizations? 00:48:01.954 --> 00:48:03.025 What type? 00:48:03.025 --> 00:48:05.164 Veterans. Military veterans— 00:48:05.164 --> 00:48:20.224 Oh, yes. Oh goodness, yes. All of them. Yeah. Legion (The American Legion), VFW (The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S), the DAV (Disabled American Veterans), and a lot of local groups. Mostly aviation oriented. But I have something almost every day. 00:48:20.224 --> 00:48:27.394 Did you continue any friendships after the service and for how long? 00:48:27.394 --> 00:49:09.545 Well, I was taken out of the circle of friends. When I moved out here, I formed a lot of friendships, became engrossed in the Homeowner's Association. Golfing. But as far as contact, when I learned to play the email bit, I stayed in contact with some of my military friends. But most have died, and I just now get spam (smiles). 00:49:09.545 --> 00:49:20.864 These are reflections. So, how has your service impacted your life, your community, your faith, and your family? 00:49:20.864 --> 00:50:56.394 Wow, you covered it all (laughs). Immensely! Especially since an admiral that I had served with the four different times, at a reunion came to me and said, "Hey, Royce, there's more to your story than you've told, isn't there?" I said, Yes, sir. And he says, "Well, do you know that it's no longer classified and you could talk about it?" Well, new world. What am I gonna do with this? Nobody knows enough to even ask me to say anything. So I told my wife and she said, "Oh, Royce!" (laughs). But eventually the word got out, and I'm nominated for the Medal of Honor. And that has spread the word. I'm busy with speaking, visiting engagements. You know, it's impacted it very heavily. As far as the church goes, I've been president of the congregation—active in there until I got so old that I don't do that anymore. I've been busy, yeah. I've been involved—when I engage in something, I pretty well go in wholeheartedly and try to find a slot where they can use me. 00:50:56.394 --> 00:51:06.114 What are some life lessons you've learned from military service? 00:51:06.114 --> 00:51:27.954 Outlook. Keep positive. Try to be happy. Don't get mad—you don't have any enemies. Never did. People wanted to kill me, but that was the government's business. Same here in my part. 00:51:27.954 --> 00:51:36.585 What message would you like to leave for future generations who will view and hear this interview? 00:51:36.585 --> 00:52:06.934 To take their responsibilities in citizenship seriously. And if you can find a way to contribute—and there are lots of ways you can—do something for your country. When you do that, you're doing something for everybody and especially yourself. 00:52:06.934 --> 00:52:17.514 How did you become associated with the city of Escondido in this north San Diego County community? 00:52:17.514 --> 00:54:31.735 1965, I was a waiting commander. My headquarters at Miramar Naval Air Station. And I lived in south Escondido and had church membership in the community. I had three sons that were all at home at that time before they went in the Navy and whatnot. And a lovely wife who was involved in Ikebana Japanese floral arranging. And was very good at it, as you can see her hand right here at home. And a good cook. And I had some guns and enjoyed shooting. So if I wasn't required on the job on a Saturday, we would often—she'd make a picnic lunch and we'd take some of our guns and look for a place to shoot. And I found hidden metals before there were any homes out here. Just a dirt road coming up. And I loved it so much. It's just—it's beauty. So, later on in 1972, I was on Admiral McCabe's staff in Hawaii, and I already had far more than the 30 years of service, and I knew I would be required to leave any day soon and had no place to retire. So wife and I came back—space available—and borrowed my dad's car and came up to Escondido—he lived in San Diego at that time. And headed straight up here once I got my instructions right. And there were only two houses but underground facilities, roads, and beautiful place. And so I bought some property here, which I built on later. And, so from the very beginning, they've had my fingerprint up here. 00:54:31.735 --> 00:54:45.355 Thank you for taking the time to share your recollections of military service. Is there anything you've always wanted to share about your service or veteran experience that you never have? 00:54:45.355 --> 00:55:00.445 No, I've had plenty of opportunity to talk to groups, and I don't withhold anything that I think is of value, so it's pretty well out there. 00:55:00.445 --> 00:55:07.045 What do you wish more people knew about veterans? 00:55:07.045 --> 00:55:37.474 That the very highest percentage of them are genuine, loving Americans that felt they wanted to do something for the sake of everybody in the nation. And that once they get committed there, it's the lifetime and they're an important productive part of community. 00:55:37.474 --> 00:55:52.155 In your unveiling of the journey, what are the lessons learned from your military experience? 00:55:52.155 --> 00:56:23.144 Try and be somewhat organized but realize that there isn't much you're going to accomplish on your own. It's a team sport. Get to know other people. Some you'll find have a lot of guidance, maybe some provide opportunity. You're not gonna' do it by yourself. Have a family if you're so oriented. That's an important part of my life. 00:56:23.144 --> 00:56:24.635 Thank you, Captain Williams. 00:56:24.635 --> 00:56:25.635 You're welcome. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END ]]> https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en video Property rights reside with the university. Copyrights are retained by the &#13 ; creators of the records and their heirs. This resource is licensed for noncommercial educational use using CC NC-BY 4.0. 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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=WilliamsElmer_BeyerJason_2024-11-08_access.xml WilliamsElmer_BeyerJason_2024-11-08_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 Williams, Elmer Royce. Interview November 8th, 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. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC027-074 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2024-11-08 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Elmer Royce Williams Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jason Beyer Marilyn Huerta Adel Bautista 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 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 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. Elmer Royce Williams 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> 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 Robert Sheehan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Alex White 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=WhiteAlex_SheehanRobert_2024-04-18.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. Chamorro;imperialism;colonization;culture;decolonization;Guam 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 White, Alex. April 18th, 2024 SC027-082 00:00:00 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library oral history collection CSUSM csusm Chamorro (Micronesian people) Chamorro ; imperialism ; colonization ; culture ; decolonization ; Guam Alex White Robert Sheehan moving image WhiteAlex_SheehanRobert_2024-04-18.mp4 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/a8a1f90cbd2908f9886a3aeb3bbc3e4f.mp4 Other video This interview is conducted in English and Chamorro 0 Introduction Oral history interview with Alex White, April 18th, 2024, by Robert Sheehan, Distinct Collections Specialist, University Library, California State University San Marcos. 0 ["[\"\"]"] 23 Background and Childhood White discusses his background and childhood growing up in Colorado before moving to California and living on a Miwok reservation. During his time in Colorado, White felt that he was unable to express himself freely due to the homogenous nature of living in a white, Christian, military town. White also talks about how his father was unwilling to speak Chamorro because of his own upbringing where he was beaten in school for speaking his native language. Colorado ; California ; Chamorro ; religion ; military life ; repression ; language 0 ["[\"[\\\"[\\\\\\\"[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"]\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"]\\\\\\\"]\\\"]\"]"] 1137 Returning to Guam Alex talks about his return trip to Guam in 2015 and how that trip sparked his interest in learning more about his Chamorro history and culture. Guam ; Chamorro culture ; heritage ; Pacific island history 0 ["[\"[\\\"\\\"]\"]"] 1648 The Impact of Imperialism on Chamorro Culture Alex discusses how the extended periods of colonization and imperialism have affected Chamorro culture. From the Spanish colonization to American imperialism and Japanese occupation, the Chamorro community on Guam has had been forced to demonstrate their cultural resilience for more than 400 years. Colonizing forces have displaced Chamorro communities across the island of Guam and significantly affected everything from their culture, to their language, and how they live their lives. colonization ; imperialism ; Spanish colonialism ; American imperialism ; Japanese occupation ; Spanish American War ; World War Two ; WWII ; forced march 0 ["[\"\"]"] 2537 Differing Views of "Liberation" Alex talks about the cultural shift that is happening within the Chamorro community in regards to how "Liberation Day," the day that Guam was returned to US control from Japanese military occupation, is seen between elders and younger generations. The elders within the Chamorro community widely view Liberation Day in a positive light, but there is a growing feeling among younger generations that "liberation" really just means re-occupation. cultural shift ; imperialism ; opression ; displacement ; Chamorro culture 0 ["[\"[\\\"\\\"]\"]"] 2968 How Language can Renew the Path to Cultural Healing Alex demonstrates his views on how language can be a tool to reclaim parts of his heritage that imperialism and colonization have attempted to destroy. This is especially important for the Chamorro community because of how the Spanish words and linguistic nuances, like gendered terms, have infiltrated the Chamorro language. Reclaiming the Chamorro language also creates a connection between Alex and his ancestors and solidifies aspects of his religious beliefs. language ; generational trauma ; decolonization ; Chamorro culture ; cultural healing 0 ["[\"[\\\"\\\"]\"]"] 3379 Inafa'maolek Inafa'maolek means in the literal sense to "make good" or "to do well." In the broader sense, Inafa'maolek describes the Chamorro concept of restoring harmony and reciprocity for good deeds and taking care of one another. Alex talks about how this concept is applied by Chamorro people both on Guam and in the Chamorro diaspora. community ; respect ; reciprocity ; harmony 0 ["[\"[\\\"\\\"]\"]"] Oral history Alex White is a Chamorro activist who experienced a two week long Chamorro immersion program histed by the Prugraman Sinipok organization. In this interview, he speaks on his experiences growing up in Colorado, his engagement with Chamorro culture, and his path to learning the Chamorro language. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION BEGIN 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:14.000 So today is July 18th, 2024. My name is Robert Sheehan and I'm here with Alex White for an oral history interview with, California State University San Marcos. How are you doing today, Alex? 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:16.000 I'm good. Yeah. Grateful to be here. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Good. We're happy to have you. Thanks for being here with me today, it's really special that we get to do this oral history. If it's all right, I'd like to start with your childhood and family. Could you tell me a little bit about how you grew up and where you grew up? 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:34.000 Yeah. Any of it in Chamorro or, or 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:41.000 Yeah, you can do any of it in Chamorro. We don't necessarily have a Chamorro translator, but if you wouldn't mind translating yourself, that be fine. 00:00:41.000 --> 00:02:07.000 Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, So my name is, Tadon Guita Pago. But my American name is Alex -- Alexander Michael White. I'm currently living in, on the territory of the Pomo and Miwok people in Santa Rosa, California. But I grew up in Carter Springs, Colorado, and I come from the families of Leon Guerrero White, from the Village of Manila and Todesco Cruz from the Village of Santa Rita. So I was just like, my somewhat traditional, like Chamorro greeting is like naming like who I am and the family that I, come from. And yeah, so that's, that's the, you have to gimme like, honestly, like my brain's a little foggy, so, I'll need, I'll need more prompting than usual just given the, given my current, yeah. 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:09.000 Sure. No worries. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:11.000 Cognitive, cognitive sharpness, I suppose. 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:12.000 You bet. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:14.000 So, but yeah, so that's, that's the intro. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:16.000 How was it growing up in Santa Rosa? 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:18.000 So I grew up in Carter Springs. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:19.000 Carter Springs. 00:02:19.000 --> 00:04:28.000 I would say being, mixed race, if you will. So my dad is Chamorro and my mom is, European descent, German and Italian predominantly. And, Carter Springs is known as the Evangelical Vatican, so there's more evangelical Christian churches per capita than anywhere else in the world. And then it's also triangulated by the Air Force Academy, Fort Carson and NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) so it's kind of, a predominantly like white, militant, evangelical community and then growing up with, liberal parents, of, yeah, mixed race. So it was, the landscape was beautiful, but I'd say culturally very isolating. And I didn't, I never met another I Chamorro, my entire time. I had family there, but in saying in school and in the community, aside from Liberation, which is like one of our main, Chamorro holidays, I never, I rarely crossed paths. I never went to school with another Chamorro. so yeah, it was definitely very isolating and I think part of it being so conservative, as well as being such a, like a military town, as well as my dad's experiences after World War II. Growing up, he identified us as like, I'm American first and Guamanian second. So that's, and I didn't actually even know the term Chamorro until I was 10 years old. so I, I identified as Guamanian, but not, not Chamorro until, I was ten. So yeah, so there was, there was beautiful things. My material needs were met. I always had, you know, stable housing, food, had neighbors who were kind to us. But I'd say like there was a lot of, yeah, there was things that were challenging, I would say. 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:36.000 Like socio-culturally outside of, outside of like my like inner circle of like friends and, and neighbors. Yeah. 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:40.000 What sort of challenges did you face other than the isolationism? 00:04:40.000 --> 00:05:53.000 I'd say, the, I think of not being a evangelical Christian was probably like the, the most challenging. you know, it'd be kind of things like, my dad had a, or maybe it was my parents had a sticker on the back of the car that, had like the Darwin fish that said evolve. And so a car got keyed. You know, it was known that I wasn't that, like we weren't evangelical and so, you know, people leave like bibles on our car or like illustrated guys to salvation, like tucked in. It was also, I'd say like homophobic, and very heteronormative and, yeah, I think it was, I very much in order to feel safe, I was perceived as being white cis male and so I never really tried to step outside of that identity just to feel safe. So yeah. 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:55.000 It sounds like a little difficult growing up. 00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:11.000 Yeah, it was. I, you know, I wouldn't, growing up, I wouldn't say this is difficult. It's just upon reflection there's like a lot of, yeah, a lot of, yeah. I can reflect upon it as as as very challenging. Yeah. 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:17.000 Did your father speak any Chamorro in at home or does he speak any Chamorro now? 00:06:17.000 --> 00:08:44.000 No, I, the, the three phrases that I, the only three phases he really taught me were, . So Hafa Adai is hello. And that's kind of like every Chamorro at least knows Hafa Adai. And then Si Yu'os Ma'ase is, thank you. The literal translation is like "the creator is merciful." but Si Yu'os Ma'ase is like, our common for thank you. is the way my dad grew up saying, I love you. and then Hafa Tatatmanu Hao was like, how are you? I thought as a kid it meant I'm hungry. Please feed me. Because that was on the, one of the important phrases my dad taught me before he went back to Guam for the first time. So, but no, it, Chamorro was never spoken in the household. I know there was, Chamorro was a genderless language, and so my dad mixed up, he and she all the time, you know, which my mom found very frustrating and embarrassing. And the, I think my dad was of a generation where, you know, he was, he was beaten for speaking Chamorro, like growing up, like in schools. He was born in (19)41, so for the first 18 years of his life, he only spoke Chamorro at home, but he would go to school where it said English only if he spoke Chamorro, the nuns would beat him. And also his parents saw that in order for, you know, for his, for their children to have the greatest chance of like success and stability, they needed to learn English to get a good job. And to, also just to assimilate into American culture. So he moved to the States when he was 18, so in 1959 actually in Oceanside. And so from the time he left the island, the only time he spoke Chamorro was like with family and friends, but in the community, he really, he found like an immense sense of pride of being American, growing up. And so, very much just wanted to be American speak American act American get an American job. And so, yeah, so speaking the language like was never really a priority. And I only knew those phrases, and it's not like we ever said it really outside of like, when you like traveled to or preparing to travel to Guam for the first time. 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:47.000 When did you travel to Guam for the, the first time? 00:08:47.000 --> 00:09:56.000 First time was for Liberation in 1997, so I was 10 years old and actually was like full credit to my mom. She called the University of Guam, you know, it was like pre-internet, you know, really. So like called the University of Guam, and there's an 18 hour time difference. So I don't know if she like woke up early or stayed up late to call them and ordered a book, to be delivered to our house. And, you know, mail in a check , this is oral histories, I'm just telling, you know, like, you know, that's, it was pre, pre transferring to any funds digitally. And so she had a book delivered and that was, I remember distinctly that my dad was teaching me, like we were learning Chamorro History for the first time, and that's the first time I heard the word Chamorro was when I was 10-year-old, like from that book. But my dad was learning stories about Chamorro history that he had never learned growing up, 'cause he was taught American history, not Chamorro history. so that was very distinct. And yeah, so we went back for Liberation. So it would've been the third week of July, 1997. 00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:00.000 Is that the first time that you were kind of in a Chamorro community? 00:10:00.000 --> 00:14:28.000 Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I, we, because there's a large military presence, and I believe, you know, you can like factor, but something like, like four out of every five Chamorro, like are enlisted in the, in the military. It's like a very like high enlistment rate for our veterans. Because of the large military presence, there actually was a Chamorro community that existed, you know on base. And so, you know, once a year there would be a Liberation picnic, at a park in Colorado Springs. And so it was there, but that was really, more of like food, you know, it was like, I experienced culturae through food, but I don't have any recollection of the language or necessarily I couldn't, I wouldn't have been able to articulate that as like Chamorro like values or practices. So yeah, going on island, like for the first time, that was very much like the first time I experienced Chamorro culture and like the thing was though, is that I had a older cousin, tell me that because my mom is haole, which is like somewhat derogatory term for like a white person. not as much as like it is in Hawaii, but nevertheless, it's not like a, you don't want to be a haole , you know, like per se. But, because my last name is White, which has its own very unique story, but because my last name was White and my mom was white, and I'm light skinned, you know, my cousin said like, you're not Chamorro. and so since then, when I was 10 years old and I had a cousin telling me that, you know, who's like slightly older than me, then I, I thought like, well then I'm not allowed to, you know, I have a cousin telling me that, so I'm not allowed to say I'm Chamorro. So I would, I would say I was like Guamanian to non-Chamorros, but I wouldn't necessarily, if I was in a group of Chamorros, like I wouldn't say I was Chamorro too. Just because I thought, you know, yeah. Not that I had this language at the time, but I don't wanna be like appropriating or posing as Chamorro or like claiming an identity that I didn't have any right to. So yeah, it really wasn't until my early thirties that, I identified as Chamorro. Because of, because of that first time, like going back. I think an another experience that stood out was, that was like the first time I had experience with Taotaomo'na. So those are like our ancestors. and I remember going to a home that was next to a graveyard, and my dad asking permission, you know, for us to enter like doing like a kinda like indigenous protocol for entering like that type of space. And I remember going and then like feeling like picked up and like lifted up like as a kid. So that was like, those are like some of the, the things that I remember like standing out, like there was. And then the other was, that we were, my dad was, you know, it had been probably, let's see, he left in (19)59. They came back for their wedding one time. So it probably been about 15 years since he'd been, like, he went in (19)59, came back in the eighties (1980s) from my, my parents' honeymoon. And then it wasn't again until like (19)97. 'cause the thing is, it's, you know, there's like only one airline that goes there, and so they have a monopoly. So like nowadays it's $2,000, but you can kind of like adjust that for inflation. It's not, not like a quick, easy, affordable trip to go back. And so, you know, my parents were, working class and so it's not like we had the funds and there's actually like a story that goes with that, but I was just like, focus on that. But my dad was lost, like looking for directions on Guam. And, I just remember like, when you stop and ask people for directions, you know, they were like, oh, hey, come and eat, come and eat, you know, so, which is just very Inafa'maolek (striving for harmony). It's like our, our, like the Chamorro people are very generous and reciprocal and giving. And so that like stood out to me of like these complete strangers inviting us in to feed us food. So yeah, those are some of the, the memories from our first time. 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:37.000 Very cool. What caused you to want to kind of reconnect with your culture? And learn Chamorro and become and identify as Chamorro? 00:14:37.000 --> 00:16:51.000 Yeah, I would say, a couple things. First was that my dad had 12 siblings. Two that died during the forced march to concentration camp, on Guam. So they never survived infanthood. And I had two, my auntie Cindy and my uncle Danny passed away while I was in college. But around 2016, between 2016 and 2023, I lost my uncle Jesse, auntie Terry, auntie Annie, aunt Dorothy and uncle Vince. So I lost five of my dad's siblings. And so, especially after my aunt Dorothy, my dad became like the eldest surviving in his family. And the only one who like spoke Chamorro, his younger siblings, Agnes and David, they grew up, kinda like English first rather than like Chamorro first. and then they moved to the states when they were young, still in school. So they went to school, in the US. And so my dad was like the, the last of his, like his family, his lineage to speak Chamorro. And so just like, there's an enormous amount of grief around not learning more of the language. You know, there's, there's that saying that like, every time an elder passes, a library burns down. And so, so many of our families stories, passed with my aunties and uncles who passed in like, such a concentrated point of time, you know, it was just kind of like one after the other. So that was, you know, definitely motivated by that, of like, man, you don't have, like, you know, I felt like, at the time I very much felt like, like sand that was like trying to hold onto sand and it just like falling from my fingers of like not getting that, getting those stories while they were still here with us. 00:16:51.000 --> 00:18:17.000 The other was just going through, you know, kind of feeling spiritually malnourished, like trying to make sense of this world and my place in it. And, unfortunately got involved in some like, new age spiritual communities that didn't have good, spiritual hygiene. Did not necessarily, like appropriated practices without knowing the protocol or, consulting with elders. And just seeing a lot of harm, as a result of that. And it was connecting with other spiritual practitioners of, like indigenous, spiritual practitioners. And, I had like a specifically like a mentor Luna Pantera, who I like see as a spiritual counselor from the African diaspora had a saying that, like, you need to, you need to connect with your ancestral roots, otherwise, the coming storm will sweep you away. And so just kind of seeing where we're going, like in the larger, you know, sociopolitical, economic, conflict and chaos, , it feels like we're like, especially 2016 of how do we ground ourselves? 00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:57.000 And so like trying to develop an ancestral reverence like lineage practice, was was part of that journey of like really wanting to reconnect. And then also returning to Guam in 2015, with my siblings and my dad. And so like returning to the island and, and learning more of the history, in my adulthood, was really like another like another major catalyst for wanting to return to that. And yeah, so those are like, those are some, we'll take like a breath for you to ask my questions from there because it's like a lot. 00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:01.000 Yeah. On that. so could you tell me about the trip in 2015? 00:19:01.000 --> 00:20:14.000 Yeah, that was the, that was like the first and maybe last time that, my siblings and all of their kids, and my dad all would go to Guam together. And so we went for Liberation again. But that time I was, very much like wanting to learn about, like, about our history outside of, you know, like you grow up kind of like on, like I grew up really only knowing the story of the, of World War II and the Americans coming to liberate, Guam. That's like really kind of, the extent of what I knew about that. And so returning, I was trying to learn about what our practices were, like, what our history was prior to not only like the Americans, but like pre-colonization. and so, you know, I bought a, ancient Chamorro Society book, and was reading about that, just like very hungry for all of that. 00:20:14.000 --> 00:21:47.000 And, man, I'm trying to remember. I think, and we also like went to, oh my God, I'm forgetting the name. It's in the south in Inarajan. Oh my God, I'm embarrassed. This is on his, that there's a village in the south, I think it's Inarajan that is near a cave. But, where it was like set up like a, it's not an actual ancient Chamorro village, but it was set up like a ancient Chamorro village. So, going through those practices and, and then also of like talking like of having the awareness that you don't have when you're ten of like, of speaking to elders. So I would go and like, visit the elders and ask them stories about like their past and their history, and, visiting my dad's, like our family's old house and our village, and really just very, very hungry to understand, understand my people because I was, you know, at that point I was, let's see, like twenty, twenty-seven, no, anyways, I was in my mid-twenties at that point. And so just like to be in your mid-twenties and still like questioning and like wouldn't be able really to explain anything about my, like where my people come from, I think was, yeah, I was like was very much like inspired, by that, like by that trip. 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:59.000 How has Chamorro culture changed from pre-colonization to colonization to Japanese occupation, to liberation to US... 00:21:59.000 --> 00:23:28.000 How much time we got how, you know, it's, it's a miracle that like, we're here. You know, I'd say there's, there like our Hinengge, like our values, there's certain values that have survived like throughout the arc of, all of that, you know, I'd say like our, our values of like Inafa'maolek, so like of our kind of social reciprocity and mutual aid and like, I will support you and take care of you like when you're in need right now, because I know one day I'll be in need and like, you'll take care of me. Like that, that type of, that type of reciprocity that has survived amidst like, all of those changes like that, that cultural, like tenet is there. and I'd say like, , so like showing respect for, for elders, but as well as children. Like going both ways and just like a reverence for, you know, caring for those who are older than you, even if they're not your, even if you're not blood related, like they're your family, your community, like you take care of each other. you know. Mamahlao is like having, to have shame, like seeing that as like a good thing to like, Guaiya that's like the cultural value of love, like, and loving for each other. So those, there's certain values that have survived. 00:23:28.000 --> 00:24:33.000 And I'd say like really we're, it's kind of, it's existed in different forms, but of, of like our ancestral like reverence practices, our relationship with the land. And, you know, the foods that we make, those have all have survived, but so much has been lost, during, when the, I guess I mean, just to, just to kind of like set the context, like we were like the first first people to people, the Pacific. And so, you know, roughly 4,000 years ago, our ancestors from back then, like were at the edge, like maybe it was Taiwan, maybe it was the Philippines, probably not Indonesia, but maybe it was like one of those, like one of those points they were like on the, like eastern shoreline, like looking out over the Pacific, and they wondered like what was on the other side of that water. 00:24:33.000 --> 00:25:36.000 And so they, they carved a canoe by hand and filled, without any refrigeration, like filled their canoe with food and said goodbye to everyone they knew, not knowing if they would ever see anybody ever again. And just by like following the stars, like reading the stars and the pattern of the waves, [they] paddled east to try to find another land. And that's what they found this little 24 mile long island. And, actually it's like the birds that are like on the bill of my hat, the story goes that like they saw birds and so they knew if there was a bird, that there was land as they actually like followed the bird, like to Guam. So just thinking of like that and then creating this, creating this culture where like, you know, of course there was conflict, but there would be, it was like only amongst like the warrior class, and as soon as like one person was harmed, like, then it was over, like the conflict ended. 00:25:36.000 --> 00:26:38.000 and that all of our, our people, you know, that we had, we had healers, we had like Yo'amte, you know, like our medicine people who healed both like physical and spiritual ailments and used plants and, you know, I'm pretty sure the thing goes like is that people like live to be a hundred, and there was really an absence of like any disease and we had, you know, fresh water, we had birds that didn't exist anywhere else in the world. Like all these different, you know, it was like, it was like a paradise, you know, like of course there's conflict, you know, because there's human beings on there. And also there's these stories from like other indigenous tribes, like the, the Haida Gwaii, like the First Nations, who are like north of kwakwaka'wakw like of them, going across to like Taiwan and then down to New Zealand and everything like that. 00:26:38.000 --> 00:27:39.000 So like they, they went amongst other islands, like there was like international relations, but it was, there's like reciprocity and like sharing and that it was that way for like 3,500 years. Oh, also like the Latte Stone, like, it's like a really amazing thing. It's kind of like the Maria as islands versions of Easter Island, you know, it's these huge, these structures that like were carved that weigh thousands of pounds that they don't know how they moved these type of things. But that's like, we built our houses on top of those things. So there's things that are like, it's a very thriving, incredible culture that existed. And then, Guam was like the first one to be, colonized by like a European colony. So like in the, what was it like 1521 I think was when Magellan landed there. 00:27:39.000 --> 00:28:31.000 And you can like, I don't even wanna be telling like this story, you know, I'll just like, like share some of my stuff. But, you know, like, like say like my ninth great grandfather, say he was like eight or nine, like when the Spanish arrived, by the time he was 64, he was seen nine out of the 10 Chamorro people perish, either through like the Chamorro Spanish war or disease, you know, that the Spanish brought. And so just to think like, you know, my ninth great grandparents like survived a genocide, and to see nine out of the 10 of everyone they knew die, you know, like either killed or died. And just to, you know, that's like when they talk about like ancestral intergenerational trauma like that, like exists in our bones, like my bones are made of my ancestors that survive that. 00:28:31.000 --> 00:29:37.382 But that also, like, for us, it's like both trauma, but really trying to focus more on like the resilience of like, we still kept our culture alive, you know, amidst surviving, like that type of genocide. So there's like the Spanish period, which lasted from the 1500s to the1900s, and then the Spanish American War and just as imperialists do, you know, when America won the war, then the treat of Paris of 1898 was when, America "won" Guam like a trophy, but it's because it's one of the largest islands that far west in the Pacific. Like, it's the western most colony of America. It's incredibly strategically significant and important for imperial military operations. So it's like really significant. So then there's like the naval period, which is when my grandmother grew up. 00:29:37.382 --> 00:30:57.905 So like in the early 18, early 1900s , late 1800s, early 1900s, my grandmother and Gracia Tedasco Cruz, was growing up and yeah, so it was like, it wasn't run by the US government, it was like run by the, the Navy. And, just the way, like one of the stories that I connected with that is that like my dad is like, you know, he, he jokes about it as like the curse of the dirty corners, but it's like where like he always has to have, like, he can never leave the house. Like all the counters like have to be clean and like, even the corners have to be washed. And so I kind of like, it's, the way that manifests is like for me too is like there's like kind of this like low grade anxiety if things are cluttered or messy at home, because my dad always kept everything like super clean and he got that from his mom. 00:30:57.905 --> 00:31:15.000 But for his, like for my grandma Gracia, like my Nanan biha , like the Navy would come and do inspections of like Chamorro's houses, you know? And so if you have a Navy officer like coming in, in uniform inspecting the cleanliness of your house, like you have to keep it clean, like military standards type of thing. And so as a young girl, having this, like this, you know, white man in a uniform come in threatening, aggressive, like, you came in and clean, like you're gonna keep your house a certain level of clean. So those are just like small, like, you know, there's like kind of these like abstract academic things, but that's like the way, you know, it kind of like shows up. 00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:16.000 And they weren't in the military at all? 00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:21.000 No, no, no. They were, they were just living on their land, their ancestors had for thousands of years. 00:31:21.000 --> 00:32:28.000 But, you know, you know, that's just the settler colonial mindset is like, "I am here to like dominate and impose my culture and my rules and my regulations on these people." You know, one of the things that I get I think about a lot too is like before the Navy were there, I mean, yeah, Spanish, like I think the Spanish imposed some type of taxes, but like when the US arrived, they started, having the Chamorro people pay taxes on their own land that they had lived on for thousands of years. And that was like the thing I just think about for my grandparents is like, they didn't pay for food, they didn't pay for water, they didn't pay for shelter and they didn't pay for healthcare. Because like, all of that comes from the land naturally, the earth gives us that, you know, , it's like we, it's like, you know, a tree's not gonna charge us for harvesting it, you know, like our responsibility is to steward that land is to care for it, you know, so that, that those things can survive. 00:32:28.000 --> 00:33:20.000 But, and you would like for the, for the So'ampti and the Suruhanu , like you gave them food as like an expression of gratitude, so you take care of them so they can continue to do, you know, you help harvest their medicine, but you're not, you're not bringing money. There's actually, like, it's really bad juju to like give money to like a healer because that's like, that's seen as like, you know, there's, there's a lot of negative energy that's associated with like, that type of transactional thing. Like, you wouldn't, like, why would you ever pay someone to heal you? Like you're healing them because they need healed, you know? but I think it's, I really try to impart on like young people, like, like young indigenous people, and especially like young people like in the Pacific diaspora and Chamorros is like, it's not that long ago. 00:33:20.000 --> 00:34:20.000 Like the way that we're living right now is not the only mode of existence. Like, it's not like capitalism is like the highest potential of our human expression, you know? It was not that long ago. It was like in our grandparents and great grandparents generation, which is less than 150 years ago where they didn't have to pay for food and for water and for shelter and healthcare. It's not that long ago. And so another way of living does exist. It's in our lineage and everything like that. But yeah, so when theUS came, like the Navy came, they were trying to diminish the influence of the Spanish missionaries, Catholicism, just freaking wreaked havoc on our island too. But the Catholic priests held like enormous kind of sway and power. 00:34:20.000 --> 00:35:18.000 And so in a way to diminish their power, trying to lessen it, the naval officers came in and burned all the Chamorro-English dictionaries. And the sentiment at the time too was that like, if you spoke Chamorro and English, you only had half a brain in each. And so, like, people were stupid. People were looked down on for being bilingual, you know, it's like if like English is the "most superior" language. Also, there's a thing called like the Insular cases from 1901, which is [where] the Supreme Court said that these unincorporated territories like Guam, like Puerto Rico are an alien race that can't understand Anglo-Saxon principles, which is why they don't have rights. Which that Supreme Court case is still why, like is that's still today. 00:35:18.000 --> 00:36:26.000 It's not like, that's not ancient history. Like that is still like a Supreme Court ruling. That is how our islands are governed. So that's like a lot. But, so they come in and they degrade and exploit and take advantage and control and extract the resources from our land. And then the same day that, so my dad was born, November 7th, 1941. And so he was a month old that the same day that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor [it] was also the same day they invaded Guam. But the US had intelligence around that, so they evacuated the US military members, but those US military members weren't allowed to bring their Chamorro families with them. So they're just like, they're like, "You're on your own Chamorros!" I mean like, "Good luck!" you know, like, "We know Japan's coming, but like, we just gotta get our white military people outta here and like fend for yourselves!" 00:36:26.000 --> 00:37:35.000 And so yeah, my dad was like, a month old, like when it happened. And so then it was, they were under a Japanese rule, which was, and there was some ways, some ways that it was like a little better than the US but most ways it was, it was, cruel and just like an immense amount of suffering that like, I don't necessarily have the energy to unpack, you know, at 10:00 in the morning. You know, the one story I'll tell is like when the, US military campaign was coming to reclaim, you know, like they're doing their, their Pacific theater of like going to... the military campaign to take back those territories and to fight back the Japanese Imperial Army. The Japanese were afraid, like, were afraid that the Chamorro people would side with the Americans, that there would be like that loyalty and allegiance to America, and that they would help the Americans as they came in. 00:37:35.000 --> 00:38:34.000 And so they gathered up all of the Chamorros that they could find, you know, and did a forced march to the Manenggon concentration camp. So my whole family, my dad was three or four [years old] having to do a forced march, no food, no water, middle of the summer, so like nineties [degrees Fahrenheit] humid. And that's what, so my, my auntie Anna, my Aunt Anna and my aunt Maria, I think they were like probably less than two [years old], twins. They were twins and they were being carried. And, during that forced marched the first, one of the first twins, passed away because they didn't, because of those really severe conditions. And, the Japanese guard made my grandparents just leave her on the side of the road. 00:38:34.000 --> 00:39:44.000 And, and then a few miles later, the second twin passed away and my grandpa, so we have a belief, with like a, a very... I'm gonna try to like tell this part... but basically he didn't, it was important to him that they not be alone. And so he, took a major risk and when he saw, a wasp nest, a hornet's nest, stuck his foot in it so his foot would swell up and he risked that so it looked like he basically said like, "I can't walk anymore," to the Japanese guard. and they could have just shot him on the spot. They did that to a lot of [people], but they figured that he would just perish. And so when night came, he walked back, to the first twin that died and buried them together, on the side of the road so they wouldn't be alone. 00:39:44.000 --> 00:40:32.000 And then he went and rejoined his family and they lived in a concentration camp without food or water or shelter, just in the jungle. With violence that I've never experienced or witnessed. And that is very difficult for our elders to even talk about. So yeah, that was, and that's something that's not really taught outside, I mean, it is kind of known about, but it's not really taught much. That experience of like what the Chamorro people suffered in that concentration camp. 00:40:32.000 --> 00:40:34.000 Would you like to take a short break? 00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:38.000 Ah, no. . I'll just, I'll take a water. Yeah, I'll take a sip of water. 00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:44.000 Okay. that's such a traumatic experience. 00:40:44.000 --> 00:41:31.000 Yeah, and it just like, it, I think, you know, there's like our, it's traumatic and it just shows like our traumatic and our resilience that we could, you know, I think that's like any time that I, I'm going through like a hard time, I'm actually planning to get a tattoo, like next time I go back to Guam of, of a hornet's nest, like on my ankle, of the hive and, and it say , which in Chamorro means "this is the way" just like you'll do the right thing and you'll take care of like, of your family and your people. 00:41:31.000 --> 00:42:26.000 Like, whatever. It's like a communal thing. It's like, not about me, it's about us, you know? And so I just have that, yeah, I think that's like probably like one of like the strongest stories that lives in me, that I got from my family, and I just feel like, [it] is important to share. But yeah, so then the Americans came and they just, carpet bombed the whole island. They indiscriminately, you know, they didn't really care if there was Chamorros there, they were, they were just trying to kill as many Japanese as possible, so they leveled the whole island. And then for my dad, so it is absolutely the, like, the living conditions, the acute violence and trauma that the Chamorro people experienced under Japanese rule is like, there's no question about that. 00:42:26.000 --> 00:43:25.000 And so in terms of like being liberated from a concentration camp, yes, that is an accurate term. So that's what our Liberation day was like when the Americans arrived and liberated the Chamorros from the concentration camp. But that's what my dad's generation calls it. You know, the elders and yeah, if you're living in those conditions, and you have these Americans come in and they give you candy and you're gonna just be so patriotic, you know. You're free from Japanese rules. So that's where so much of the, there was a legitimate like love and reverence for the US military, especially the Marine Corps, like those who arrived. I mean, that's like one of our main roads on [Guam] is like Marine Corps Drive. So there's like a, almost borderline worship of the US military because of that, for my dad's generation. 00:43:25.000 --> 00:44:45.000 However, my generation sees it as... we call like Reoccupation day, because the US military came and took over two thirds of the island. You know, like stole the land from our ancestors. As we speak, they're, you know, clearing football fields, like multiple football fields of our ancient villages and our ancient burial grounds. They're like, our ancestors' bones are just in paper bags in military offices. One of our most sacred island or sacred parts of the island, the , because of the US military, you know, this is July, 2024. Like because of the enormous amount of violence that Okinawa people have experienced in Japan and the years of resistance of trying to get the military off of there. They're moving the US military service members from Okinawa to Guam, and they're setting up a firing range, over, you know, our ancient caves like a, a place [where] an eight spotted butterfly and this flower that don't exist anywhere else in the world or anywhere else on the island. 00:44:45.000 --> 00:45:46.000 This like precious, like limestone jungle that doesn't, that is like this precious one of a kind only place in the world ecosystem. They're putting in, a live firing range and doing war games and detonating, detonating, like the, it is like the, also like their way of getting rid of ammunition and things they fire from World War II and just military equipment they're not doing [anyhting with] is literally like creating like a burn pit. They're just like putting old bombs and toxic chemicals and like lighting it on fire, like on the beach, next to an aquifer that supplies 70% of the island's fresh water. You know, so like when we , when we say "liberation", you know it's a complicated term. 'Cause of course we're gonna honor our, our elders experience for like being liberated from that and are grateful to the young men who sacrificed their lives to free my elders and relatives from those oppressive conditions. 00:45:46.000 --> 00:46:20.000 And what is also true is like, it's not like we got our land back, you know? and so like we've never gotten that land back. Like we can't even go, Sumay [destroyed village in Guam] is like, you know, some of my family, we're not even able to go pay our respects to, you know, they, it's called like Sumay Day. Like, I think once a year people are allowed to go to like pay the respects to their elders, you know? So yeah it's very complicated. And, you know, if we had more time, I could even dig into that, but I'll take a breath and see what what questions are coming up for you. 00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:34.000 Yeah. Sounds like all that is a very emotionally complicated feeling to have on one hand, Liberation day for your elders and the new generation is saying it's Reoccupation day and having to walk that fine line 00:46:34.000 --> 00:47:33.000 . And we'd never say that to our elders, to the face, like ever, you know. But amongst us, you know, and it's, oh man. I was, I was there for Liberation Day in 2022 and actually for the first iteration of this Prugraman Sinipok, and man, it's just like, because they just parade all of the military equipment they have there, you know, and they're not shy about it at all. You know, they call it like "America's largest aircraft carrier." It's like how they refer to our island. and, you know, it just, it's, it's so militarized and unfortunately because you have that, because the military occupies like two thirds of the island, really the only two industries are like the military and tourism, you know, and also 'cause of the Jones Act. 00:47:33.000 --> 00:48:26.000 Like, we're not allowed to like import food from other countries, you know, it's the same thing as what happens with the Puerto Rico. So, you know, it's like, even though we're so close to China and Indonesia and like all of that, all of our food has to be imported from America. And so that's why like, a gallon of milk is like 10 bucks or something, you know, . It's insane. But because there's all that like markup, you know, the Chamorro people like, yes, we're like US citizens, but we don't have any representation. We have a representative to Congress, but they don't have any voting power. and so, you know, if you, you pay the taxes, you pay for this expensive food to be imported from America, you don't have control over your own land or your own water or your food. 00:48:26.000 --> 00:49:29.000 You know, there's all of that sloganeering of like, "land of the free, because of the brave." You know, it's like the military gives our freedom's. But how free? How free are we if we don't have any sovereignty? If we don't have any say. Also because we're a pawn, you know. North Korea is always talking about like, if they're gonna shoot a missile, that's the first thing they're gonna bomb is Guam. You know, it's like we're a pawn piece in larger imperial conflicts. It's not like Guam has any hostile relations to the Korean people, or like the Chamorro people don't have any hostilities towards China, you know, but because of the US military being there, we're caught in the middle of this larger imperial conflict. So, yeah. 00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:33.000 Can I shift gears, and talk about language for a second, 00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:34.498 Please? Yeah. 00:49:34.498 --> 00:49:43.000 Is language a way that the Chamorro people can regain part of that agency that might have been lost through colonization or occupation? 00:49:43.000 --> 00:50:58.000 Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Language is, I think language is the one of the most critical things we can do for cultural preservation and revitalization. Because there's so much of our values and our history that are woven in the language that could be lost. I have a Coast Miwok [Indigenous tribe in California] friend who, their last fluent elder passed in the seventies [1970s]. And so if they're wanting to learn Miwok, Coast Miwok, they're just listening to recordings of like, you know -- [I'm] thankful for people like yourselves who preserve that type of thing. And like, I don't ever wanna see, you know -- I will have failed the, I would have failed to fulfill the responsibility my ancestors have given me if my descendants, generations from now, are only able to hear Chamorro spoken through oral history collections, in libraries. We need to keep the language alive, you know, in like canonical terms, it is like in academic canonical terms, it's extinct. 00:50:58.000 --> 00:52:01.000 Because we only have like 20,000 speakers left in the world, and probably over 60% of those are like over the age of 80, you know, they're like my dad's generation. And so this is like an absolute critical time for us to be doing this language revitalization, and preservation and revitalization. You know, one of the things, one of the complicated things too is because we had four centuries of Spanish colonization, so much of our language has Spanish influence. So there's a lot of words. So gender comes in [from the Spanish], you know, so like saying, Maestro, Maestra, you know, instead of like, those are gender terms of like a teacher [in Spanish], but in Chamorro it's like Fafa'na'gue, you know, it's like someone who teaches and it's gender neutral. You know, there's, there's things like that in terms of like, of preserving, you know, our, our concepts of gender neutrality. 00:52:01.000 --> 00:53:03.000 I mean, one is that, you know, there's like Nana and Tata, like those are inherited terms, because prior to colonization, you know, there was, Saina was an elder, Che'lu was a sibling, and then like Patgon was a child. And so yes, you had a biological mother and father, but every elder was responsible for like caring for the children, you know, and every person your age was your sibling. And so there's that type of like, yes, that's language, but there's a worldview that exists, within understanding that framework, of like, just because we're not blood doesn't mean -- whether you're my blood relative or not, you're still an elder that I respect that I can go to, that I can count on that I also have a responsibility of caring for. Another example, you know, for Spanish, like paz is, you know, like if you're looking up like in the dictionary, like probably like the word for peace in Chamorro, but that's, that's inherited from Spanish. 00:53:03.000 --> 00:54:16.000 But [speaking in Chamorro language] that's actually like the, [speaking Chamorro language] means like "from the land." That's like the, the root of all of our Chamorro language that existed pre colonization. Hinagung is I believe breath. And so [speaking in Chamorro language] is peace. And so just like to understand those cultural concepts of like, we find peace in our breath, you know, there's, there's just these really deep spiritually culturally significant things that, come with like learning the language that -- and there's things just like, you know, the way I'm trying to parse the concepts of like mutual aid and reciprocity, like those are like the closest things that we can try to use English to explain, but there's a felt sense of Inafa'maolek like an, Inafa'maolek of like caring for each other. That is a felt embodied value and practice, cultural practice, that you can't get from speaking English. 00:54:16.000 --> 00:55:20.000 It's just, it's so critical that we learn the language and keep it alive and teach it to -- And then for me, so that's just in terms of like, in this realm, like in like of thinking ancestral reverence practices, that's another major reason I was motivated to learn the language is like I almost lost my dad in 2019. And part of my belief system is that, is to do that ancestral lineage healing is that we need to like call upon our like, well and elevated ancestors, so our ancestors that didn't experience any of this intergenerational trauma, and we ask them for their blessings to come down the lineage to heal everybody in between like me as the anchor and them as the well and elevated ancestor for us to heal that lineage. And you know, like, yes, there, I think there's prayers can be said and felt in a spiritual -- can be expressed in a spiritual sense and understood in a spiritual sense. 00:55:20.000 --> 00:56:18.000 And I think there's a critical, a thing that I, I won't even be able to explain until I become an ancestor myself, of praying, for ancestors in our mother language that just, you know. So for me, as I prepare for my dad to transition, 'cause he's 83, you know.We're all ancestors in training, and his training is nearing an end, you know? I feel responsibility to be able to call upon the ancestors in Chamorro, you know, and ask for them to support my dad's, like transition into that realm, you know. To make his transition welcoming and peaceful and loving and easeful as easeful as possible that I living in this realm can like, help support facilitate with. 00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:29.000 I know we're running short on time, so I might ask one more question. Does [attempts to say Inafa'maolek ] extend across the diaspora, the Chamorro diaspora? 00:56:28.989 --> 00:58:20.000 And so that's, that's him practicing Inafa'maolek in the diaspora. And you know, there's people who, you know, they'll see that and reciprocate, but a lot of times because that's not honored here, I think that's where a lot of Chamorros can struggle in the diaspora. Is when Inafa'maolek is not reciprocated. But, absolutely like if you see another Chamorro and they have Inafa'maolek in their heart, they will like take you in. And if I see any, I mean, that's part of me doing this interview right now is for that like Inafa'maolek of like hoping that someone watching this, you know, another Chamorro in that diaspora knows that we're here for you, you know, like Inafa'maolek exists in diaspora. You don't have to be back home for your people to care for you. 00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:28.989 Yeah. Yeah. I would say Inafa'maolek exists in the diaspora. That's kind of what you can -- for the like -- one way that I a quick story to tell about it was my dad was practicing Inafa'maolek, when he was a mechanic. So he really struggled [with] seeing mechanics take advantage of people, you know. Like up charging them for services they didn't need. So he started his own business and that there was a lot of conflict between my mom and dad. 'Cause she was the accountant, my dad was the mechanic. And, you know, if there was say like a starving college student or a single mom, he would go to the junkyard, find the part used, and then just charge at cost for the part and not charge any labor because they knew that mom needed her car to get to that job to feed her kids. 00:58:20.000 --> 00:59:33.000 And like, if you need support, we're here for you just need to call on us. Like, and we'll be there to support you, because, you know, one day we'll be in need of support and you'll support us, you know? So yeah, absolutely. Like Inafa'maolek is like the theme that unites us, like across all the diaspora. Actually I'll just like, if we got time. Yeah. Even during Typhoon Mawar, so that was the typhoon that hit last year [2023]. Man, if I had the statistics, we started like Inafa'maolek mutual aid and just within, you know, a few weeks we were able to get, two shipping containers full of water, clothes, generators, all of these needs that our relatives in the islands told us. Like we were able to get supplies to the most underserved communities on the island, before FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] was able to even disperse like one emergency payment. And so, yeah, I know for a fact that Inafa'maolek is one of the things that unites us anywhere we are in the world. I think if there's like, if, if our people know that you're in need, like we will, like we'll be there for you. 00:59:33.000 --> 00:59:40.000 That's great. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down and, and talk to me today. Is there anything else you'd like to say before we end the interview? 00:59:40.000 --> 01:00:49.000 Oh, man. Yeah, the thing I'll just say is like, it's, I think, one of the things that really -- , I think both on island and [speaking Chamorro] like in the diaspora where they struggle with is feeling like Chamorro enough. I think just like if any Chamorro, any indigenous student, any Pacific Islander, and especially like any Chamorro, like if you're feeling like you're not indigenous enough, you're not feeling Chamorro enough, I just want you to know that like, that is the voice of the colonizer that -- I promise you're Chamorro enough, you're indigenous enough. Just you existing and you having your ancestors in your bones, you are enough. 01:00:49.000 --> 01:01:44.000 It doesn't matter. Blood quantum is a control tactic of the colonizers, you know? It doesn't matter how much blood you have, how light your skin is, how much language you speak, if you know how to make our food. You have that in your bones alone and you having those Chamorro values in your heart, that makes you Chamorro. That makes you indigenous. So, you know, don't believe the lies. Don't believe what any of those external forces that -- you know. You can just -- if you need that support, reach out to your community and ask the ancestors for that support. Because you are enough and you have so much to be proud of. 01:01:44.000 --> 01:03:01.000 We have an incredible -- the fact that you're listening to this. The fact that you're listening to this and that you're here is a testament to our resilience. And so you are our ancestors wildest dreams. And so like whatever you choose, whatever path you choose, whatever you do in your life, just know that your ancestors are with you and your community's with you, and they have your back and you're never alone. And yeah, the last thing I'll say is [speaking in Chamorro language] which is like the Creator is the Creator and we are people. so just, you know, there's only so much that we can control in this room. There's so many other things that are happening outside of like our mortal perception. So just calling the creator, and you know, calling your ancestors and calling your community for support. And I think actually we have time. I'll just like end in a chant. and this comes from, Si Jeremy Cepeda, and so this is called Manetnon Hit. 01:03:01.000 --> 01:04:02.000 Manetnon hit guini på’go, Na ta tuna si Ásaina, i Yahúlulo’, Nu i gef fina’tinås-ña siha, Nu i lina’lå’-ta, nu iya hita, Nu i mañaina-ta, nu i pa’å’-ta siha, Nu i guinahå-ta, Yan hókkokok ayu ni ha na’guahåyi hit, Taiguenao Mohon 01:04:02.000 --> 01:04:06.000 [We come together here today, To praise the Creator, the Most High, For all of the great things they have done, For our lives, for each other, For our elders/ancestors, for our ancestral words of wisdom, For the things that we have, And for all of the things that the Creator provided for us, And so shall it be (Amen)] 01:04:06.000 --> 01:04:08.954 Thank you Alex. We really appreciate your time today. 01:04:08.954 --> 01:04:09.000 Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for, thank you for doing this. 01:04:09.000 --> 01:04:10.000 Absolutely. 01:04:10.000 --> 01:14:34.000 Appreciate your work. 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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=WhiteAlex_SheehanRobert_2024-04-18.xml WhiteAlex_SheehanRobert_2024-04-18.xml 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 White, Alex. Interview, April 18th, 2024 Description An account of the resource Alex White is a Chamorro activist who experienced a two week long Chamorro immersion program hosted by the Prugraman Sinipok organization. In this interview, he speaks on his experiences growing up in Colorado, his engagement with Chamorro culture, and his path to learning the Chamorro language. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC027-082 Subject The topic of the resource Language revival Chamorro language Chamorro (Micronesian people) -- History Chamorro (Micronesian people) -- Social life and customs Colonization -- Spain -- Oceania Colonization -- Japan Colonization -- United States -- Guam Decolonization -- Guam Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2024-04-18 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alex White Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Robert Sheehan Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Guam San Diego County (Calif.) Colorado Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource This interview is conducted in English and Chamorro Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Alex White 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> License A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource. <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/</a> Asian Pacific Islander Desi American experience Community history Prugraman Sinipok https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/5b0f05f2cf213129ba63269ce29c982c.pdf e70f492593d23d2cab0d1ff78b24ba9c 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 White, Alex. Interview transcript, April 8, 2024 Description An account of the resource Alex White is a Chamorro activist who experienced a two week long Chamorro immersion program histed by the Prugraman Sinipok organization. In this interview, he speaks on his experiences growing up in Colorado, his engagement with Chamorro culture, and his path to learning the Chamorro language. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alex White Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Robert Sheehan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2024-04-08 Subject The topic of the resource Language revival Chamorro language Chamorro (Micronesian people) -- History Chamorro (Micronesian people) -- Social life and customs Colonization -- Spain -- Oceania Colonization -- Japan Colonization -- United States -- Guam Decolonization -- Guam Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English and Chamorro 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. Alex White 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> Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context WhiteAlex_SheehanRobert_2025-07-22_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 Guam San Diego County (Calif.) Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource text Asian Pacific Islander Desi American experience Community history Prugraman Sinipok 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 Tanis Brown Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Lucy Wheeler 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=WheelerLucy_BrownTanis_2023-04-02_access.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. photojournalism;education;college;administration;agriculture;gender 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 Wheeler, Lucy. Interview, April 28, 2023. SC027-045 00:39:22 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library oral history collection CSUSM This interview was recorded as part of the North County Oral History Initiative, a partnership between California State University San Marcos and San Marcos Historical Society &amp ; Heritage Park. This initiative was generously funded by the Center for Engaged Scholarship at CSU San Marcos. csusm Family farms--California ; Photography ; Adult students ; Education, Higher ; Oral history photojournalism ; education ; college ; administration ; agriculture ; gender Lucy Wheeler Tanis Brown mp4 WheelerLucy_BrownTanis_2023-04-02_access.mp4 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/2d8c14513d98ce9e8b8309f763c8fe46.mp4 Other video English 0 Introduction Interview of Lucy Wheeler by Tanis Brown and Charlie Colladay, April 28, 2023. Interview conducted at San Marcos Historical Society. 0 97 Post-retirement, education, and the gift of gab Wheeler discusses moving to San Marcos after retirement at the age of 80 and discovering photography through classes at Palomar College. Wheeler also touches on what she did before retirement, and how she discovered her “gift of gab,” especially for interviewing others, through going to back to school at Nazarene College. Palomar College ; Nazarene College ; photography 0 417 Photography Wheeler discusses in more detail her coursework in photography and her return to college which she illuminates through an encounter at a skate park. Wheeler also discusses the art of interviewing in further detail, and recounts a lesson she learned along those lines from a photography class. photography ; interviewing ; skate parks ; Sam Hodgins 0 822 Connecting the dots Wheeler discusses her concept behind her business card which states, “Connecting the dots,” and idea that originated from a man who worked with dementia patients and helped them connect the dots to their pasts. dementia ; memory 0 978 Technology, the pandemic, and Wheeler’s past Wheeler discusses her work for a medical laboratory in 1965, and how she learned to view and love technology as a tool. Wheeler ties those lessons to what carried her through the pandemic. Sperry Rand ; Control Data ; Covid-19 pandemic 0 1218 San Diego County’s para-farms and family farms Wheeler recounts being raised on a farm and San Diego County’s farming conditions. Wheeler outlines where her interest in documenting local farms arose during the pandemic, and discusses some of the para-farms’ farmers that she’s interviewed. para-farms ; family farms ; Yasukochi Farm ; Neil Nagata ; Rodriguez Farm ; Joe Rodriguez ; Susan Cupaiuolo ; Primavera Orchard ; cherimoya farming ; Covid-19 pandemic ; San Diego Food System Alliance 0 1801 Oral history Wheeler discusses the insights she’s learned about oral history and conducting a successful interview. oral history ; research 0 1947 Next projects Wheeler elaborates on her plans to expand her oral history work to look towards the future of San Diego farming, her “energy budget,” and her priorities for her future. Wheeler wraps up by discussing what she has learned about using her “gift of gab.” San Diego Food Alliance ; future of farming 0 oral history Lucy Wheeler discusses college, photojournalism, and San Diego agriculture, specifically the county's para-farms and family farms. Prior to attending Palomar College to study photography, she did street photography with the San Marcos Chamber of Commerce for several years. Gender roles and assumptions about age are also addressed. Additionally, Wheeler also contemplates the current state of American agriculture and potential prosperity, oral history, and her "gift of gab." NOTE TRANSCRIPTION BEGIN 00:00:00.000 --> 00:01:37.000 Okay. Good morning. This is April 28th, 2023. My name is Tanis Brown. I’m being assisted by Charlie Colladay on the camera this morning, and we are part of the North County Oral History Initiative. Lucy Wheeler is not only a member of our cohort, but she has also agreed to be an interviewee. So, we are very thankful, Lucy, that you’re willing to speak with us today. And I met you about a year ago when you stopped by the San Marcos Historical Society and brought some pictures of a famous artist from San Marcos. His name is Ted Wade. And you started to telling me about your experiences once you moved to San Marcos. And you handed me a little card introducing yourself. It said “Connecting the dots” which just was so intriguing to me. And then we had an exchange, and you were enthralled by getting involved with the Oral History Project. So, I’d like you to talk to our audience about how you got interested in conducting oral histories way before our project and some of the things that you’ve done since you came to San Marcos. 00:01:37.000 --> 00:03:42.000 Thank you so much for having me. It’s my pleasure to have been part of this program. The way I got started was I believe that everyone has been given a gift and thank goodness they’re not all the same because it brings different pictures to a project. And my gift, I think, was a gift of gab. And in this, back in the 1900s, 1930s, women weren’t supposed to do all this exploring and curiosity things. So, I kind of put a lid on that gift of gab and I prattled day and night. It took me a good number of years before I realized that I did have a voice, and once I found it and what I really wanted to say, I prattled less and listened more. And this is kind of how it evolved. And when I came to San Marcos, I had just retired at 80, and I thought I’ve carried this camera around with me all over. I’m going to go back and take better pictures. The first assumption from probably my classmates, but certainly people that I was photographing, was she must be coming back to take better pictures of her great-grandchildren. And that wasn’t the case. The case was to take better pictures and as I began to do that, I began to shut up and listen more and look more. And through this process—and I would like to say that it is not a matter of age, of when we discover what that gift is. It could start back in our 40s. It could—the 60s. Mine happened to be after I was 80 when I went back to school. 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:45.000 And where did you go to school, Lucy? 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:50.000 I have a degree in Business Administration from University of Minnesota. 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:51.000 Okay. 00:03:51.000 --> 00:05:26.000 And through an evolutionary process, I worked as a management consultant for Fortune 500 companies, and I’ve been in all 50 states and from the North Pole to the South Pole. I lived in Japan a couple of years. And through all of this, I’d had this mantra of “just keep moving.” Then I began to really listen and see that there’s stories. Everybody has a story. Everybody has characteristics and traits that they’d like to look for. And I’ve discovered that mine is actually interviewing. And it was through the help of Dean Nelson who is the head of the Journalist Department at Nazarene College. And he had just published a book at the beginning of Covid. Thank goodness he signed it for me. And I’ve been, through the last couple of years, taking classes through Zoom and keeping—working on it. So, I stepped into your offer at a perfect time and now my goal is to ask better questions so that when I’m asking the people that I’m interviewing, ask them the questions that will really make them talk about their true story, not the one that was—we all have kind of a fake story—but looking for that real story in people. That’s my goal. 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:40.000 So, what I’m hearing you saying is that once you moved to San Marcos and found some educational opportunities—and I think you told me you went to Palomar College for photography class? 00:05:40.000 --> 00:06:57.000 Oh yes. That’s where I began to really explore that creativity and getting rid of the old ideas that just because I had a camera doesn’t—at my age—doesn’t mean that I’m just taking pictures of my family or my kids. I do street photography for the Chamber of Commerce here in San Marcos. Been doing that for about 4 or 5 years now. And I’ve been involved in that. My characteristic or habits of exploring were kind of construed as masculine traits back in the 20s and 30s. And not to express—Well, all of a sudden, I am expressing. And I think, for a while, where I live here viewed me as a likeable tomboy. (Tanis chuckles) And now, I’m not. I’m just this loveable little old lady who is curious and adventuresome and turning it all into a better perspective where I listen more and talk less. 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:12.000 So, going back to school in your 80s, how many of your classmates—Did you have study groups or go on field trips or anything like that to hone your craft? 00:07:12.000 --> 00:08:42.000 No. No. We had assignments that we were to go out and—like one was speed, just to photograph in proper way. And this was very unique. I went to a skateboard place. And this gentleman who was very well dressed and saw me with my camera had a little grandson with him. And he had a designer cap on, a little tricycle, and he was following his grandfather around. So, the gentleman came over to me and he said, “Excuse me. What are you going to do with those pictures?” And I said, “Oh. I’m taking a class, and the assignment is speed.” He said, “Well, if my son ever saw him on Facebook, he’d kill me.” And I said, “Really? Well, I’m not taking them. I’m taking them, the speed of these” who were really good skaters, just flying through the air with the skateboard. So, a little bit later, he came over and asked me, he said “So, you’re going to Palomar.” And most of my class, I would say 50% of us were older people who were looking for just honing a skill, something that they would really do. Most of them were people that were looking for to go out and hike in the desert, you know, and walk all night and wait for the sun to come up on the right spot. 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:43.000 Ahh. 00:08:43.000 --> 00:10:13.000 But that wasn’t my intent. Anyway, he came over and he said, “So, you went back to college.” He said, “Hhmmm. The other day—” He said, “I’ve been retired now for about a year.” And he said, “The other day I went in to get a cup of coffee and my wife said, ‘Get out of my kitchen!’” (Tanis laughs) And he said, “What do I do now (shrugs) I’m retired and I don’t have anything really doing. I never thought of going back to college.” So, it’s exploring what’s available to us. And I’ll never forget how he was like “What do I do now?” (shrugs) And I see so many of my peers that are like “I don’t know how to get on Zoom. I don’t know how to handle Covid.” It has been a very upsetting time, and things are confused on any level. So, that was kind of the beginning of accepting my wonder and curiosity. And creativity was also considered back in the 2000s, well, especially during the Great Depression. Because survival was what you looked for. Curiosity was a waste of time. Buck up! And get out there and, you know, get the work done. 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:14.000 Okay. 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:15.000 So— 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:35.000 So, in addition to going to Palomar and taking photography and then, as I understand it, during the pandemic you got involved in interviewing or honing your interviewing skills. Now, tell me about how that got started. 00:10:35.000 --> 00:13:42.000 Well, there was a gentleman who is now I think the head of the photography department of the Union Tribune. His name was Sam Hodgkins. He had a workshop down at Balboa Park. And I was going to take an interviewing kind of class, of photography, photojournalism. And what he did was he told us about how you go out and you interview people out in the street, the vendors. And in that class, there was I think about 12 of us, 12 or 14, but there were 3 or 4 engineers. They were perfectionists when it came to the photography, but they didn’t know how to talk to people. I went out and with my gift of gab, “Hi. What’s your first name?” (Tanis chuckles) And I came back, and I had four. But there was one lady who was getting ready, and she had a keyboard. And she was getting ready to put it up and I said, “Oh!” The sun was just perfect on the keyboard. And the background was back, but her hands on the keyboard. And I interviewed her, and I asked her, she said “Well, I’m working my way through college, City College. And this is my way of making money, is with the tips.” And so, I went back, and we had to show these pictures. And I showed mine with the keyboard. And Sam said, “Whose picture is this?” And I said, “It’s mine.” (raises her finger and has a sheepish look on her face) And he said, “Now, that’s what I’m talking about. When you’re interviewing, get the photo that draws people in to asking the questions.” And I said, “Do you think I could make a living at this?” (both chuckle) And he laughed. And soon after that, in the photojournalism class, I had to interview a person who was doing what he was doing. So, I interviewed him. And we did it at the new public library downtown. And then, he and his wife—he’d just gotten married—went to Brooklyn, New York, and she was a writer, a journalist. And he was the photographer. And quite often, like in The Tribune even, you’ll have a photographer and then you’ll have a storyteller on a different aspect of it. But I kind of liked the fact that I can go out and take photos of the vendors, those candid moments that you try to get, and then ask them the right questions. And the more I practiced, the better it is. So, this was a great opportunity for growth for me, when I met you. But that’s how it all got started. 00:13:42.000 --> 00:14:04.000 That’s great. Well, your business card says, “Connecting the dots” and I think that’s a perfect description of what you do. And you talked to me a little bit about where that idea came from. You want to share that again? 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:09.000 Um, I’m not sure. 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:14.000 The man you met at the dementia-- 00:14:14.000 --> 00:16:18.000 Oh! Yes. There was a gentleman who had worked with dementia people, and they were used to him. And he note—And he was there, and they were comfortable with his being there. So, they just kind of assumed that he was part of the woodwork. But he observed that as the family would come to visit the people with dementia, they might not know their spouse. They might not know their children. But if they were given a photo of themselves when they were young, like 17, maybe after they’d been in the service, that they would light up and just say “Ah. That! I know! I recognize that.” So, then he began to have them pose in front of like a sink if they’re washing their face. One gentleman had a smile on his face because he saw himself as a member of the service in World War II. So, he then imposed that photo of him, when he was young, into the mirror. So, he was seeing himself as young. Another one was a lady who was a nurse. And she was also getting dressed. But behind her was a different nurse, probably a therapist that was holding a walker. And the lady is looking in the mirror, of herself as a nurse, thinking “I should be the one that’s doing that because that was my job.” And you could see the confusion on her face in both of those pictures. Another was a pharmacist who was stirring his little cup of coffee and he saw himself as a pharmacist stirring, when he was young. So, I thought, you don’t really have to have dementia to remember that. So, I started practicing in that and it was enjoyable. 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:41.000 So, the other thing I am really fascinated about is that, during the pandemic, that you took a wherewithal to look into continuing your education on Zoom. (Lucy chuckles) And so, how did you go about finding all these classes on interviewing or asking the right question? 00:16:41.000 --> 00:19:15.000 Well, I was fortunate in that I was in a—I was working in a medical laboratory in 1965. And at that time—it was in Minneapolis, which is where I had my degree in Business—they decided they were going to automate the laboratories. Sperry Rand and Control Data were both there. And at that time, there were more Fortune 500 companies in Minneapolis than any other city. That’s not the case now. But they were going to automate this laboratory. And this young man, probably 30, 35, was working for Sperry Rand and he said, “I know you people are really scared you’ll lose your job and there won’t be a need for you. But” he said, “this is just a tool. Technology is a tool. And it’s meant to help you, as a tool. What it can’t do is it can’t see the beautiful sunset where the Mississippi River and the Minnesota River come together. It can’t see the shoreline. It can’t see the sunsets. It’s just a tool.” I fell in love with technology then. And through my career as a management consultant then, I really came to appreciate more and more. I had my first computer when it was still a DOS. And quite different than it is now, much bigger. But I kept up with it and became kind of addicted to Windows. Now, I’ve changed to a iPhone because of Steve Jobs and his introduction to the school systems (Tanis laughs). But, and that’s another learning curve, switching from Windows to the iPhone. At any rate, then I was pretty much aware of the technology and its value when Covid hit. And I immediately was on to this whole thing. That was how I met Dean Nelson, any number of groups that would get—and you can talk to them and discuss things. And it was wonderful. It really carried me through the two years. I was not isolated because of that. 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:25.000 That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Well, truly, you know we talk about lifelong learners, and I certainly think that you are a perfect example of a lifelong learner! 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:26.000 Well— 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:28.000 And a lesson for all of us. 00:19:28.000 --> 00:20:15.000 —I think that all of us need to stop and look at what our gifts are and learn to develop them earlier. I’m grateful that I did. It all worked out in a constructive way. But we all have them. And it’s not everybody who is going to be an interviewer. A lot of people are really very, very creative. That has nothing to do with that. You don’t have to be an extrovert (both chuckle) in order to do that. So, I would encourage people to stop and think about the moment, not the future, not the past. But what do I want to have happen? 00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:16.000 Yeah. 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:18.000 What do I want to express? 00:20:18.000 --> 00:21:20.000 So, I’d like to move our interview into now, once we got involved with this North County Oral History project. And during our first class—and we talked about our assignment and going out and interviewing at least two, and maybe three, people—you immediately knew exactly what direction you wanted to go in. And it was with the farming industry. And I was amazed because a lot of us that were in the class were kind of ticking off who might we interview. But you were really driven to capture some stories of people in the farming industry. So, I’m wondering how, where did that interest come from, Lucy? 00:21:20.000 --> 00:25:29.000 Well, I was raised on the farm in the Midwest. But I didn’t like it. Didn’t want to be there. (Tanis chuckles) It was isolated. It was, you know, not a—They needed men for the work of the farm. But the one interesting thing about this area is San Diego is the ninth largest city in the United States. But within its county, it has more farms—and especially para-farms—than any other county in the United States. That’s an unusual situation. I also know that it has 23 different kinds of soil that grows one thing on one area and then 10 miles down the road something else is better. They found that flowers and strawberries love the ocean whereas olive trees don’t. But inland, olive trees are great because the soil is different. The moisture is different. And, at the same time, there’s a crisis right now in our expensive way of living that developers want to develop the land rather than grow crops. And they would like to have condos instead of strawberries. So, it has put all of us into a very precarious situation about what’s the future of farming here. So, in order to know the past, present, and future, what better way than to go and look at the history. And, because I hang out at farmer’s markets—and in 2017 there were 5000 para-farms, which means 10 acres or less. They’re due to do a survey next year, 2014 (2024). This is done by the Farm Bureau. And I’d already been to their yearly groups and the Farm Bureau and that, and all of the farmer’s markets. And then when Vista was the only market that never closed during the pandemic. And he stood up to them and said, “If the grocery stores are open, we’re open.” And there were some vendors that came too. So, I had an inroad. So, I went back to a couple of vendors and started just curiously saying “Where did your farm start?” And I chose, first of all, the one that has the strawberry farm. And Mr. Nagata whose family came here in 1902 and was able to buy land at that time, and he married the Yasukochi family who were famous for their—everything from CSA. And their son, Neil Nagata, is the Farmer of the Year this year, here in San Diego County. Then I looked a little further and there was a farm up in north Escondido, close to Temecula, that is the Rodriguez farm. And they migrated here from Mexico in 1923. And I interviewed Joe Rodriguez who is the third generation of five in their farm. And then the third one was—and I have trouble with the last name on this because the gentleman was Italian, Capo-- (Cupaiuolo) 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:32.000 C. Susan C! (both laugh) 00:25:32.000 --> 00:30:01.000 Right! Exactly. And he passed away in 2020. But they had, he and his wife, had about 20 years of very successful cherimoya (sic) orchard which is very unusual and unique. And, as a side note, cherimoyas are only grown in San Diego County and Orange County. They won’t grow anywhere else in the United States because of the soil conditions and the moisture. But, at any rate, he passed away in 2020. So, I interviewed his wife. And she told about how they were able to make a construct of this. And this very representative, six acres, and very representative of how these farms that are under 10 acres can survive. And a lot of them didn’t during the Covid. They didn’t know how to market. They didn’t know how to sell their products. Their audience was gone. Instead of “Here’s my tomatoes I grew” where do the people come when the markets weren’t even open? So, there was a lot of things that her husband had contributed in that knowledge. He did a lot of work with Frazier Farms and promoted the cherimoyas (sic). And they had backups of ways that they survived. It was very, very interesting. And it was through this past adventure kind of thing that I’d been doing anyway that I continued then with that and pursued it, and fortunately found three families that had immigrated as well. So, as the techs from Cal State are doing these hashtags, you can look at it from immigrants that began farming. And especially the Rodriguez family was very interested in—because they’ve gone organic. And organic is a special kind of treatment that they have to go through to get their soil fertilized. It’s very costly. And yet he wants to promote now that he’s getting older. He would like to retire and just help younger people become interested in growing. Right now, the kids don’t want to be farmers. The immigrants don’t want to be farmers. Mr. Nagata told me that if they have to pay $15 an hour for minimum wage now to have people pick strawberries, they can’t afford, in this day and age, to sell wholesale. So, these things are all building up as to how they did it ; what we’re in the crisis with right now ; and then, with this San Diego Food System Alliance, look at new ways of developing foods that maybe we’ve never thought of before. Hydroponic (sic) gardening is one. There’s a few others—turning like—going against, not against, but seeing that milk products with cheese and that sort of thing maybe isn’t as productive for our own health as maybe almond milk that has plant-based cheese. And that’s scary to some people to think “Oh, my goodness. You know, let’s go back to the olden days.” (Tanis chuckles) And things change. No matter who we are or where we’re going. Attitudes change. Opinions change. Now, everybody has one whereas 70 years ago, no, you didn’t do that. So, it has been a really exciting time. I really love being out there and just talking to people about how did you do this and what do we do now? And where are my great-grandchildren going to go eat their lunch? 00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:18.000 Yeah. I’m curious because you seem so well-versed in understanding kind of the food production and history and future, is there anything through the interviews that you learned that surprised you? 00:30:18.000 --> 00:31:01.000 Um, not surprised me so much. But it brought out how do you ask better questions to get answers from people? In the storytelling process, the interviewing process, which is my thing, you have to learn to listen, and then think about it. And I made a couple of mistakes. But sometimes you have to make the mistakes to realize that that’s another growing experience, you know. Like “Oh, maybe I could have done that better. How can I do that better?” And ask a better question in a better way. 00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:02.000 Mm-hmm. 00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:04.000 That’s what I think I’ve learned the most. 00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:30.000 Yeah. So, for anybody who’s listening to this interview and might consider either being interviewed or interviewing someone, how would you recommend or promote the idea of participating in oral histories? 00:31:30.000 --> 00:32:27.000 Well, I think if they know what their interest is—and mine just happened to be agriculture—but whatever it might be, do all the homework you can. Do the research of what do I need to know to ask the right questions to get to my point? The whole purpose of an interview is what’s the point? And if the point is to make a better understanding so we can build on the future, great. Whatever that avenue might be, do your homework. And one of the best sources is Madame Librarian. They are great at helping you see sources. They know how to get on the internet and dig deep. And the deeper you dig, the more insight you get about asking the right questions. 00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:44.000 Well, that’s great. So, as we wind down this interview, I would like to ask what’s next for Lucy Wheeler? (Lucy chuckles) What do you have brewing in your mind about where you go from here, Lucy? 00:32:44.000 --> 00:35:59.000 Last year, when we started this project, it was in September I believe? And right after that, the San Diego Food System Alliance had their second big global kind of meeting. And they met over at Escondido at the Center. And I went to it. And all of a sudden, I was in rooms with these future-thinking farmers of saying “I don’t even understand the language” because they had different speakers and different ways of presenting. And that’s when I started to say I need to dig deeper. So, I’m digging deeper into how this Alliance now is viewing the food system that they’re imagining. And part of it has gotten involved with the climate part. They’re trying to draw in it as well as drawing in all nationalities, not just one, and trying to understand it more global, really raise the arena. And I’d like to be part of that. And I had asked them when I went to it. It was just a few weeks after we’d started. And they just sent me, the next one will be in October. And they will be discussing this, and I’ll have a much better language to use by the time I go to that. And I don’t—I have—One of the things that happens as you get older is you don’t have the energy you had when you were 20 or 30. So, I have my energy budget more in focus on how I can put that into my future. And for however long. None of us know how long we’re going to live, you know, if it’s going to be tomorrow or 20 years from now. But, in that interim, I plan to just keep doing that kind of thing because it interests me and it’s my reason for getting up in the morning. But I don’t have the energy to spend all day on it. It’s putting it into priorities. And that’s one of my priorities, is that goal of being interested in what might I contribute to this. And we can. We just don’t think we can. We get caught up in our own thoughts of the past. And we don’t open our imagination. And these people are opening the imagination of what can be possible, maybe more healthy. I’m not sure. 00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:26.000 More healthy. So, is there anything that I haven’t asked you about your educational process and your taking what you’ve learned and actually doing something about it in our little interview? Is there anything that I missed that you would like to tell our audience? 00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:58.000 No. I think that’s pretty much it. As we get older, things get into a different perspective like the energy. But there’s still the priority of what’s important to us. And one of the things that’s really important to me is to be able to feel like that I could contribute something. And that just means digging deeper. Not worry about my toe hurt when I was two. (Tanis laughs) 00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:07.989 All right. So, just to clarify, what year did you come to San Marcos? 00:37:07.989 --> 00:37:08.000 2010. 00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:10.000 2010. 00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:57.000 So, the last 13 years have been dedicated to really honing in on something that I always wanted to do all my life. I think I was born with the gift of gab. I just didn’t know how to use it. And it took me a lot of years to figure out that it’s pretty nice to listen. And if you really stop to think about it, when you’re talking about the weather or you’re talking about the neighbor, it’s not always focused on what our traits or skills could be, what the energy level could be. It’s a distraction. And, yeah, I think listen more and talk less. 00:37:57.000 --> 00:38:12.000 All right. Well, this has been a pleasure for me to have you share this with our audience and be part of the collection at Cal State San Marcos. So, thank you so much. 00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:15.000 I have enjoyed it to the hilt. 00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:18.000 Great. Okay, enjoy, Lucy. 00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:19.000 Thank you. 00:38:19.000 --> 00:39:22.000 Take care. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END ]]> 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. Please contact Special Collections at archives csusm.edu if you need reproductions made. &#13 ; &#13 ; Please see the related “Preferred Citation note” for language on citing materials from this collection. &#13 ; &#13 ; Permission to examine Library materials is not authorization to publish or to reproduce the examined material in whole, or in part. 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 ; &#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 ; &#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 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=WheelerLucy_BrownTanis_2023-04-02_access.xml WheelerLucy_BrownTanis_2023-04-02_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 Wheeler, Lucy. Interview, April 28, 2023. Description An account of the resource Lucy Wheeler discusses college, photojournalism, and San Diego agriculture, specifically the county's para-farms and family farms. Prior to attending Palomar College to study photography, she did street photography with the San Marcos Chamber of Commerce for several years. Gender roles and assumptions about age are also addressed. Additionally, Wheeler also contemplates the current state of American agriculture and potential prosperity, oral history, and her "gift of gab." Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC027-045 Subject The topic of the resource Adult students Education, Higher Family farms -- California Oral history Photography Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023-04-28 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lucy Wheeler Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tanis Brown Charlie Colladay 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%20">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Lucy Wheeler Community history North County Oral History Initiative Women's experience https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/71c8b4f9523f7776b3f38bb8961109e4.pdf 7d8200db0e9bea2a86b937c5c65a7c28 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 Wheeler, Lucy. Interview transcript, April 28, 2023. Description An account of the resource Lucy Wheeler discusses college, photojournalism, and San Diego agriculture, specifically the county's para-farms and family farms. Prior to attending Palomar College to study photography, she did street photography with the San Marcos Chamber of Commerce for several years. Gender roles and assumptions about age are also addressed. Additionally, Wheeler also contemplates the current state of American agriculture and potential prosperity, oral history, and her "gift of gab." This interview was generously funded by the Center for Engaged Scholarship at CSU San Marcos. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lucy Wheeler Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tanis Brown Charlie Colladay Melissa Martin Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023-04-28 Subject The topic of the resource Adult students Education, Higher Family farms -- California Oral history Photography 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. Lucy Wheeler 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 SC027-045 Community history North County Oral History Initiative Women's experience https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/4b980f381eb5f170b4d732a73f004a7d.pdf 2af1a32989492e0fe580e85a42ceffac 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 Wagner, Steve. Interview transcript, October 24. 2018. Description An account of the resource Steve Wagner co-founded Stone Brewing Company, San Marcos, CA with Greg Koch in 1996. In this interview he addresses his background, education in beer and business, details about Stone Brewing Company, future plans, and words of wisdom for future brewers. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Steve Wagner Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judith Downie Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-10-24 Subject The topic of the resource Brewers -- California -- San Diego County Brewing industry -- California -- History Stone Brewing Company (San Marcos, Calif.) Microbreweries -- California -- San Diego County University of California, Davis Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Evanston (Ill.) California -- Santa Cruz County -- Santa Cruz Los Angeles (Calif). Portland (Or.) San Marcos (Calif.) Escondido (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 <p class="p2"><a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en." target="_blank" rel="noopener">In copyright.</a></p> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. California State University San Marcos Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context WagnerSteve_DownieJudith_2018-10-24_transcript Brewchive(r) Community history