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Thinking today is Tuesday, December 14th, and I'm here today is Tuesday, December 14th. I'm here with Renee E E N T E E N. Is that right? OK. Um, let's start just with some basic biographical information. Renee, tell me, um, where you were born, where you

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grew up, who your parents were. OK. Um, I was born in 1955 in the suburbs of New York City on South Shore of Long Island. What else? Oh, the name of the town was South Farmingdale, and my parents are Larry and Elaine Ente. And where did

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they come from? Um, we think of it as Brooklyn. I don't think it was only Brooklyn, but Queens and Brooklyn. Mostly. Of immigrant parents themselves. Uh, my mother's family were Two generations ago immigrants, my grandfather who's 93 now came when he was 2 and I think

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all the rest of his siblings were born here or something like that, um, and my mother's family spoke Yiddish. No, my father's family spoke Yiddish. So they were more immigrant culture I'd say and my mother's family were German Jews so they were much more well I

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don't know if educated they just were more assimilated they just didn't seem very Jewish culturally Jewish in that way. And do you have siblings? I have a younger sister who's 3.5 years younger than me. And what was the community like where you grew up? Uh, it

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was a John Birchtown gentile hostel from my point of view. Um, how come? They thought they were doing good for their children to leave the city. And the town was just being made when they moved there. I mean, they hadn't put the streets in or anything.

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So they moved there and it's one of the things that both my parents regretted was moving to such a hostile town but I don't think they really felt very mobile. I don't think it really occurred to them to just kind of up and leave, um, but

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it was not a great place to live as a rad. I was born there, yeah, I was born there. My parents moved there just before I was born. No, no, they worked, um. In the area they eventually started their own business which was in the house

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but um that was only when I was 9 and I think before that he just worked locally all sorts of odd jobs and stuff um what do you know about your parents' lives before you were born? Much more about my dad and really we'd mostly talk

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about my dad. My dad, my mother isn't really very progressive, um. My experience of my mother growing up was that she, I thought she was very conservative, and she argued a lot with my dad about politics. My dad left her maybe. Say 15 years ago and

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at that point my mother started showing what a liberal at least she was and I thought maybe it was a front when they were arguing maybe she was just needing to play the devil's advocate and hear his answers but as a kid I thought it was

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real. Um, she never struck me as a progressive in any sense, really, um. And I know a little bit about her growing up just on a personal family stories but not anything very political or um influences on her. So you're not aware of the influences on

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her. No, no, my father much more um my father dropped out of school very young and felt dumb. And worked very hard and did he drop out because his family was he working class background and, yes, and he needed to work and the other son was

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encouraged in academics and my dad was kind of considered less smart so he kind of was tracked in that way. And he always told me stories of his life about in between like on lunch break or something he would roam New York City this was still

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when he was in New York City and he would talk about roaming every day a different direction in New York City and roaming the neighborhoods and really gave me and this that was a story from before I was born but. I sensed it in him his

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whole life of loving people, just ordinary people. He really was excited by average people, all the varieties of, you know, so I, I heard a lot about that and He lived in the city and he was around like Cooper Union and the different like soapbox kind

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of um politics and he was on the periphery of a lot of political things. I know he was um. Involved on the periphery of smuggling guns to Israel for the formation of Israel, and he was very. Traumatized by Hugh. He wasn't in the party and he

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wasn't individually targeted, but the circle that he kind of, uh, idolized. And respected were targeted and how this is all before, obviously before you were born, but what were those circles and what was it through work? Was he a union member? No, I don't think he

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was in a union. I thought it was related to maybe taking classes at NYU or Cooper Union. I don't know really what specific organizations you know by the time I was born, he still wasn't really in organizations he was very political in his consciousness and he

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passed that on to me it was one of the things we talked about incessantly um. The big political work that I knew him doing was we went to all the civil rights marches together so as a little kid I always went with him on the bus

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to DC and we went to civil rights marches and different protest things in New York City and later to peace marches around Vietnam. Um, Uh, something else I was gonna say, um, well, the local politics that he did was anti-J John Birch. They ran our school

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and library board, so my dad put a lot of effort into trying to get seats away from them on those school and library boards. And was never very successful. My dad is a wonderful heart and was not a very business oriented or um organizational type person.

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And he had friends and we would all campaign, you know, we would all go to door to door and mention some person who had no money and no name familiarity and we would try to get a John Birch person unseated, um, and then through my dad.

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You know, I became involved in politics. The first thing I did was, uh, oh, should I wait, OK, you said that you and your father talked a lot about politics. How, what did he, what did he say? How did, what do you remember? What are some

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of your earliest memories when you realized what his beliefs were or what his values were? Um, a big thing he talked about was how bad the US was in the world, you know. Things like, you know, they would try to kill. Leaders, you know, political leaders

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of a socialist country or a progressive country, um, that when, when, how did he, did he explain socialism to you? We never got very we never got very specific, you know, we never got into things like Trotskyite versus some other one or something um I understood

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socialism in a very broad term and I definitely knew that we had that leaning but we never really defined. For ourselves whether we were more communist or socialist um. He really cared about poor people and he really hated. Rich, if I could say that's so simplistic

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and what the government did to hurt other countries that were trying to help their people as you saw it, um. And during this time when you were growing up, um, his political work was around, um, local local electoral efforts. Were you aware that he was a

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part of any other left organization at the time? I don't know him really to ever be part of any organization other than that we went to peace marches and stuff, um, later he sent me to Global Exchange to um World Fellowship so he knew those, but

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I don't know that he was in anything. And his friends who were, did he have a political community? I don't think so. I think he was very isolated. Um, and I think it really hurt him deeply, the sense of smallness, you know, I don't think he

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ever really felt. Uh, in a crowd in that way, I mean he had his few individuals that we would go to peace marches with or um work on the campaigns with, but it wasn't the sense like when you come here and you feel like there are

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people that think like you. Um, and your parents' friends were diverse then? diverse. My mother liked uh the neighbors and really wanted to fit in with the neighbors, and my father kind of detested the neighbors for their conservative politics. And he had much more progressive politics,

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uh, much, much more progressive friends, largely through work, um, when they started the business, he got, they started a dental lab and they ended up getting. Quite a few radicals into the lab. I don't know how that happened, but we had a very interesting crowd of

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immigrants and ex-convicts and lesbians and gay people and uh. You know, from the immediate area that he sort of somehow. Yeah, there was a a guy from Spain who had fought against Franco, you know, a Spanish national, um. And he would talk politics with them. This,

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this crowd in the way he built his community, yes, yes, so the lab was, I guess in a way the community was very small. I mean there might have been 6 people, um. But it was exciting and it was stimulating, you know, discussing broad issues with

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them and it was quite a varied crowd I thought. Did you ever, do you remember ever feeling um well born in '55 and then by the time you were sort of conscious and aware, were you ever um fearful of your parents, uh, your father's political discussions

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activities? Did you have a sense of, you know, the, the political culture of the 50s as being, as, as putting your parents at risk in any way? Um, I felt at risk personally in the neighborhood, um. People were targeted as Jews. We were known as communists.

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Um, how did people know you as Jews because your father opposed, I don't really know, um, but how did, how you say you were known as Jews. What did that, how did that show itself? I mean, did people call you yell at you or? I remember

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a swastika painted on someone else's house and we went over to their house and talked with them. There were very few Jews. I don't think I don't really remember anything specific against me. Personally, just the general fear that if people would ask us if we were

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Jewish, I was very scared to say yes and I would say yes. I didn't really feel like there was a choice, but I would you know uh this saying the words I would feel like getting really red and nervous and um. Did Jewish mean left to

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you at the time? Yeah, more or less. I mean, at least in our case in the neighborhood, I think that the Jewish and the communists were kind of the same viewed as the same, you know, I went to synagogue and I knew that there were many

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Jews who believed in God, which my family didn't and were not progressive, but to us it was kind of the same. Yeah, yeah. What about in school? Um, did you feel, um, that you were singled out in any way? How did the teachers was, was this

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sort of, you know, uh, on the surface or was it. Well, we stuck out some we did things I did things where I refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance, so I was constantly getting in trouble for that, um. We had a lot of battles, you

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know, we fought the Christmas carols. My mother fought that we were supposed to wear skirts, so I would get sent home for any of these battles, um. I don't really remember it on a personal level like one kid to me I think it was just that

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I felt on the outside it was more like a a bigger broader thing than an individual. I don't remember any individual really saying something to my face other than kids I was playing with saying things like aren't you scared you're gonna go to hell if you

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don't believe in Jesus, you know, something like that but. I was very nervous, uh, nervous isn't quite the word stressed, you know, it was scary. I remember once riding my bicycle. To east on Long Island and seeing a big Smith act, uh, you know, you have

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to register. And I felt kind of naked, yeah, big poster up in the in the post office, and I think it said um illegal immigrants and communists or communist sympathizers must register with the whatever it is attorney general and report your whereabouts. And I felt kind

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of naked when I read that. I felt like, oh, they're going to know that that applies to me and I know that that's not a law anymore, but boy, it, I mean this must have been. I wouldn't think it could have been earlier than 67. I

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wouldn't have been riding far on my bicycle before I was 12 years old, uh, so that was a very outdated law, but it, it reinforced a sense of us being targeted and. Vulnerable. Did you, were your parents aware of how you were internalizing this? I think

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so. I think that me and my father were at one with this. I think that I kind of copied him, and I don't think he could have interrupted it much because I think I picked up his despair. Mhm. Did he try and even if he couldn't

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interrupt it, did he talk about it openly, explicitly, or did he warn you in any way? Did he advise you what to say to whom and what not, uh. No, we talked about it. I don't remember real advice. The biggest thing he told me was how

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small we were, you know, we work so hard and we'll end up with 0.11% of the vote, you know, and that could have been on a national level too, uh. You know, on a personal level, we all struggled to do what we had to do, and

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I remember in high school I had, I signed up for a civil service test and they had a thing at the bottom you had to swear that you weren't a part of an organization that was on the attorney general's list and I went through quite a

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dilemma because I hadn't, I wasn't an adult yet, so I hadn't had to sign something on threat of perjury, um, and I talked with my father and my teachers in school. I was in a progressive public school at that point. Um, what should I do? What

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should I do? And I don't really remember any advice. I, I ended up lying, I think, or I don't know. I don't remember what I did. I knew that if I didn't lie, I probably wouldn't get the job. I didn't get the job, so I don't

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know what I really ended up doing, but I again felt vulnerable and just having the question obviously was uh offensive. Now as as a child were there um when you've described an isolating upbringing in your politics, were there, um, youth groups, um, were you friends with

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the children of any of your parents political friends? Was there any way that your parents were able to help create a community for you? There was a local peace group that I became involved in as a teenager, um, and it was like minded. I never became

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personal friends. We did political work. It was um called P Smith House and the woman's name was Smith and she donated her house to any political groups, so the farm workers union and all sorts of, you know, anti-nuclear groups, um, etc. would use her house so

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I. As I got older, um, I'd say, you know, young teenagers, say 1213, 14, I started connecting with those groups. Let's go back a little bit earlier to the um the debate that went on between your mother and father um you sided with your father. Was

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he always right in your mind politically he he was always right yeah uh my mother has a knack of saying kind of dumb things that I don't even think she means, but she would. An example she once said I here I was a hippie and you

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know we're me and a bunch of friends were sitting at the table and she said, now this is Vietnam War era, right? So in our mind there was no doubt everyone was anti-war our friends. And my mother said, Well, I think any young man who's not

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a full-time student or in the army should know if anyone who's not any man who's not a full time worker or a full time student should be in the army. And we just were like ready to die that she could say something that ridiculous or provocative

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provocative is really what she was, I think so it wasn't, it was never something to agree with in my mind. I think she said really provocative. Things she worried when we went to peace marches and I a little more could understand that but we never really

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gave the worry a bigger uh choice yeah because to us it was more important to protest those things than to worry about our personal safety so no I, I pretty much through my life identified very very strongly with my father politically and. We never really disagreed.

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We didn't talk about uh. Specifics that much, it was much more kind of general. Did you feel that um one thing that I'm aware of and that other people have talked about too is the sense that there were secrets about that that about their parents' political

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views that certainly you would be open in taking in dissenting from kind of the norm, but you would never ask if anybody was a communist you would never use that kind of language. Did you feel in any way that you were responsible for protecting your father

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from sanction or targeting or. Um, that you had knowledge that could jeopardize his safety. I guess to me I thought everyone knew I thought that we were known as the Jewish communists um and there wasn't I don't really remember secrets I mean there was the uncomfortableness

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that came with that. I don't feel like I knew something other people didn't know really, partly because he wasn't in an organization from my from my eyes, um, you know, he had these lesbian friends for much of his life. And I didn't feel like that was

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a secret though it might not have come up in conversation I don't really remember anything really being a secret other than that it was uncomfortable to be who we were in our neighborhood. Um, do you feel that your father's, um, business and professional choices were determined

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in part by his political views? Not that I know of. Um, I think he didn't have many skills and he was in the army and they trained him to be a dental technician and, um, he did it in the house because it was easy and before

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he did it in the house he did a million crappy odd jobs um. You know, he wasn't in an organization, so I don't think it had the structural effect on our family that it might have for someone else. Were you ever aware of your family actually

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being um observed monitored, you know, the phone being tapped FBI coming to your neighbors, was that happening in your community? No, not none that I'm aware of, you know, I'm aware of it against me as an adult after I'd left home, but I don't think anything

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from Long Island that I that I was aware of. Um, then, how, how did you feel maybe as a, um, as a young teenager, you know, moving from into middle school and into high school, um, you feel your differences from other people, your political differences, you

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began to, to meet people obviously as you went to larger schools who shared some of that, um, how did uh did the fear transform itself into something different? Well, the fear grew into pride, um, I mean it was a defensive pride, you know, we would say

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things like, um, we don't wanna be friends with them anyway, you know it was a thing all the neighbors would have Christmas lights and my mother would say these things like they put Christmas lights up just so the Jewish house sticks out, you know, um, we

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out of being hurt, I think we try to feel proud as best we knew how. And I, I respected my beliefs. I mean, I really thought that that it was an ethical good value system, so I, I tried to kind of pat myself on the back

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for those. I think it fostered independence. Um, it definitely fostered choices that you would, you wouldn't feel like you had to follow a certain way because, uh, you might get ostracized. You were and how much money you. What you did, you've talked about your father's being

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very clear about, um, recognizing the needs of poor people and, you know, who was sort of responsible for for inequities. What other kinds of values would you, how would you describe those values? My father's values, um. Well, he loved cultures, you know, any culture he loved.

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Um, he wasn't religious by any stretch. I mean, he didn't believe in God, but he really encouraged, you know, people's languages, ethnic festivals, art festivals. We were very much into like Pete Seeger and, uh, the sloop, Clearwater, uh, my dad encouraged me to go into this

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free school which was just starting so um. I would say it was very much nonconformist and peace movement, civil rights movement. Um, we cared very much about the civil rights movement growing up and as Jews, you couldn't not see the, the similarity, um, the parallels. What

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other values, um. I mean, was it as you said you talked mostly in kind of broad values, so it wasn't necessarily the revolution is going to come after the proletariat blah blah blah, not um not it wasn't doctrine at all, um, you know, I remember him

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saying the words, um, benevolent dictator, is that what it was? There was some, you know. Dictator for the people I forget what the word was maybe there was some expression of, you know, a dictator person who really had the people's interest at heart, um, and I

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remember him saying that and I remember kind of feeling like he was trying it on, you know, um. So his his political beliefs and his values came from direct experience, from a sense of justice and injustice, not from reading or study per se. No, I don't

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think he read much at all, um, politically, no, no, none that I'm aware of, um. No, I think it was really his daily experience and what he saw with his eyes, which he's, he, we talked a lot about things he would see, you know, we'd go,

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we'd go in the Bowery and you'd see the poor people and we would talk about, you know, um, alcoholism and drug abuse and poverty and. It, I think it was really what he saw a lot. I mean, obviously the civil rights movement was bigger than just

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what he saw. But I think it really came from his heart it wasn't really from books, which made it easier for me to take, I think. Did, did your, your father's political views translate into a um an openness when you were when you became an adolescent

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and were rebelling trying on, you know, different whatever I we grew up, I'm a couple of years older than you, but um I never rebelled against my parents. There was no I couldn't be further left than they, you know, and what they said about drugs was

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very um, very powerful. They said, well, if you want to be political, you better not get into drugs. Because then they'll come after you for that. Oh, that was all I needed. I mean, did you struggle with your parents as an adolescent? Well, having this, the

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incredible split between my mother and father, I got to rebel against my mother, so I had plenty of rebellion room, um, so me and her were like butting horns, um, and my father and I really never did through his whole life, really never did. I definitely

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got to rebel against my mother. And that was it you, um, earlier said that um you, you transformed um your uh your fear into a defensive pride out of being hurt, um, that was that hurt, um, that the sense of having been rejected, was it a

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hurt about you wanting to be like everybody else at some level. What I thought it was or think it was was heard of being rejected personally, you know, that many people wouldn't approach us uh to be friends with us because we were branded that's how, that's

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how I experienced it, um. So I felt like a lot of people closed us out and I was hurt. Um, just the neighborhood people in school, right, right, people weren't friendly to us because we were branded. Did you, were you outspoken in school politically? Yeah, I

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mean, pretty young. I guess it was probably 7th grade when I got sent home for the wearing pants over and over and over um I don't know what year it was that I was doing the Pledge of Allegiance protest and got in trouble over and over

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and over um. I think when I was young, there wasn't a lot of room for discussion, so it wasn't like I brought up issues. Only those things like not pledging, but my sense was that I was the only one and was there you created a sense

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of pride within yourself about that. Yeah, I felt hurt and pride, you know, I was trying to reinforce that it was OK even though it hurt to do these things. Um, I just tried to tell myself it was the right thing to do and it might

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be lonely and Um, you know, when I got older, I had the opportunity to go to this public preschool, so I then got to really speak, bring in, I brought in, um, Buffy Saint Marie, this one. I, there's some song that she kind of. Uses words

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from the Pledge of Allegiance. Oh yeah, oh, that's it, right, right. So I brought that in and I Xeroxed all the words and we talked about it and you know it gave me that expression. I don't think I had much room for expression earlier. I was

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also kind of shy. As a person, you know, my personality was kind of shy and fearful even as I was getting in trouble all the time. It's such an interesting, yeah, I mean that you that in the sort of in the spotlight you can stand tall

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and shrinking but I, but I wasn't very strong. I mean, I, I made myself do what I thought was right, but it wasn't my favorite, you know, getting in trouble all the time wasn't, I mean, I didn't choose that part of it. Um, do you remember

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ever wanting your parents to be like everybody else? No, when my mother always repeated this thing about I wish we were like the neighbors and I wish my daughter was like the neighbors, um. I really disagreed with her, uh, and that's a disagreement we have to

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this day. Um, I mean, I've moved here some so that I can feel more at peace with the people around me. So it's, it's not like it didn't affect me in a negative way, but it didn't affect me to the degree of wanting to give up

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those values. Never did that cross my mind really. I felt very, I think in a way being targeted. Or feeling targeted made me hold on stronger in the way that people say about Jews, you know, if they weren't persecuted for so many years, maybe they would

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have lost their culture. I don't know if that's true or not, but it was that sense where, um, we were known as Jewish communists, so I was gonna really stick to my stand. And even if it hurt I held on really hard because I thought I

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had the right to that different stand, you know, people saying you didn't have the right to that different stand made me hold on really strong and I don't think it was wrong. I, I still share that value system, but um I think it only reinforced it

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stronger. What do you think your parents' expectations were for you as a young person? And did political, what what did that factor in? Well, my parents are so different, you know, my mother really wanted me to be like the girls next door. And live, you know,

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around the corner and get married and have babies and. Cook, you know, not really have interest even though my mother worked in the business. Just as much as my father did, um. She, she didn't have any big goals, and the goals were basically to conform. My

00:32:44.859 - 00:33:01.430

father, on the other hand, told me repeatedly he would be happy to die or when his death came, he would be happy if at least one of his children carried on his values. So it was very clearly said, um, how old do you think you were

00:33:01.430 - 00:33:20.359

when he told you that? I would say for sure under 10 when he said that we would have long long talks. Part of them were about his wishes things like he wants to hop freights and travel the country he wants to sail around the world um

00:33:20.770 - 00:33:40.599

so we would share this kind of uh. Escape fantasy, which wasn't really political. But it was for a bigger life. It was for a bigger life, the dreams, it definitely encouraged dreams. Well, and, and I think the political, my sense of the of the way kids

00:33:40.599 - 00:33:56.479

heard their parents stating these political views was that it was, it was about a bigger life. It was about something bigger than your family and your neighborhood. It was about connections. So in a way all of this talk about travel, which was always very kind of

00:33:56.479 - 00:34:14.979

working class with the people travel in the fantasies. Uh, just reinforce a love of people, a love of diversity, and a broader world outlook, um, and then this thing of carrying on his values, my dad definitely clearly wanted me to become a political activist and I

00:34:14.979 - 00:34:28.679

was at a young age and I still am, um, and he loves it. I mean he's dead now, but he loved it until the time he died um. I don't feel like I did it for him. I, I know that I really did it for me,

00:34:28.770 - 00:34:46.129

but I sure don't mind that that he was pleased. Yeah, yeah. So, um, talk a little bit about the free school. It sounds as though that was an important change. Oh, it was, it was wonderful. It was very much needed in that I was very isolated

00:34:46.129 - 00:35:04.679

and lonely and shy as a result of that. Um, it gave me expression. I was part, I mean this was in the. It's probably right about 6970 where the free education movement was starting and there were troublemakers in our school in the big public school I

00:35:04.679 - 00:35:25.780

went to and the principal to silence the protest said just shut up and I'll give you some teachers and a few rooms in the same school. And you'll graduate, but get out of our hair. And I just age wise had the opportunity of going to that

00:35:25.780 - 00:35:41.899

school, being part of it. I didn't really have heard I hadn't really heard of the free education movement or whatever it was called, um, but hearing people talk about it, my hand went up, you know, first thing, and my mother and father totally disagreed my mother

00:35:41.899 - 00:35:59.750

really didn't want me to go and to this day we'll say she blames the free school for part of my. Uh, path encouraging me in my path. And I wouldn't say it encouraged me in my path, but I'd say it gave me peace, it gave me

00:35:59.750 - 00:36:16.989

solidarity, it gave me room for expression and room to explore ideas. This school was so great they had no curriculum, so every week there'd be a meeting and you'd nominate classes and topics to discuss, and I taught a whole bunch and I, you know, proposed a

00:36:16.989 - 00:36:31.989

whole bunch and I was the ideal student because I was interested in everything. I really had no uh career goals. I just wanted to learn about everything under the sun, and that's what the teachers wanted in effect and we got to work instead of go to

00:36:31.989 - 00:36:52.580

school in different interesting um fields. Oh, it was heaven and it was very hard to follow up on that. I mean, it was so great. I just had 2 years, you know, we talked about planning it in my. 10th grade and then we I was in

00:36:52.580 - 00:37:09.870

it 11th and 12th and they were right they, you know, we just got out of the public school they gave us free reign. And we graduated. And so during 11, during high school that you must graduate in '73 um and when I was in high school,

00:37:09.909 - 00:37:25.389

I finished in '71. There was, there were teachings we were organizing teachings, so you were active in anti-war. And it was perfectly appropriate in my free school to go like I went to HAP Brown's trial as part of school. I went into New York City and

00:37:25.389 - 00:37:41.060

I went every day and it was again. Very scary. I was reading um some Ho Chi Minh book or writings by Ho Chi Minh, let me, but some, you know, book that was, um. Made me feel kind of vulnerable carrying it and I went to the

00:37:41.060 - 00:37:55.810

trial and you were frisked and you went through a metal detector and I watched HR Brown on trial and and then got to talk about it at school, um. It was wonderful because I could really pursue the things I was interested in with the support of

00:37:55.810 - 00:38:19.439

the teachers and with like-minded students. There weren't a lot really. I mean, so your political interests still separated you. I didn't feel so separate because it wasn't like the other people were conservative, but I was still unusual in my broad interests. And the politics, um. I

00:38:19.439 - 00:38:31.560

didn't feel isolated in the way that I had before, but I was still kind of on the a little bit more extreme than other people. Some in that I had had a lifetime of developing talking about ideas, so it was easier for me to talk about

00:38:31.560 - 00:38:46.594

them perhaps so you may not have had a large. But you didn't feel the kind of um rejection and the kind of targeting it actually felt like a community, but I was still personally very lonely. I didn't have any friends, but in the free school I

00:38:46.594 - 00:39:03.649

felt safe and welcomed and supported. But I never formed any real bonds with people or even through political anti-war work. I formed a few. They were people outside my school. I, I did form through, uh, like the farm workers union that I was working on. I

00:39:03.649 - 00:39:22.250

made a few friends. Um, what were some of those activities you mentioned the farmers? Yeah, I worked with Eastern Farm Workers Association, uh, for years, and through that we started a class action lawsuit against the county cops which were very racist and very violent against the

00:39:22.250 - 00:39:39.879

farm workers, um, so that was the biggest political work I did as a child aside from the anti-J John Birch and um. Anti-war, you know, that kind of the stuff that people of my generation were doing in mass, but the specific stuff I did was the

00:39:39.879 - 00:40:00.340

farm worker union and the. Police brutality suit which again made me feel very scared and at that point targeted where they had our license plate numbers and with I wasn't driving I was with older people going and getting these sworn affidavits of police brutality so it

00:40:00.340 - 00:40:18.110

was very graphic um and the people who were being beat up were generally African Americans but we were clearly on their side and I felt. That the potential was that I could be targeted. I never was and obviously I had some privilege. I wasn't a farm

00:40:18.110 - 00:40:31.550

worker and I was white skinned, um, but again you're aware of the power of the state. I was very aware of the power of the state and I stuck my neck neck out and I was nervous. And what did your parents or your mother and your

00:40:31.550 - 00:40:47.129

father think? Yeah, um, I don't remember my mother speaking about this. I mean, she couldn't have loved it. Um, I think my dad was proud of me and thought it was important. Um, I mean the farm worker issue has always been such a kind of clear

00:40:47.129 - 00:41:04.209

cut example of injustice, um. That in a way it was very easy to work on, you know, no one is gonna say that the way farm workers were treated was correct or fair. And I brought it into the school and you could organize and I learned

00:41:04.209 - 00:41:23.425

a lot. I worked with people, some of whom were then into much more doctrine kind of politics and party line stuff which I still never really understood. I never really developed. um, understanding all the differences, right. So, um, but now we're, you're pretty much through high

00:41:23.425 - 00:41:40.129

school, you left home, where did you go? And then I went to World Fellowship. I lived there, no, I, I stayed, um. It was an amazing thing when I got out of high school, I went for a summer job. My dad had arranged a contact where

00:41:40.129 - 00:41:57.639

I got a summer job at World Fellowship. Which in my definition I would say was a communist conference center um though I never really understood which division of communism they they were and I know some they were arguing among themselves um but it was a wonder

00:41:57.639 - 00:42:13.360

it kind of continued that same free school you know people came from all around the world and spoke about political movements and social activism and injustice. And I was like a sponge. I took it all in and loved it. And at the end of the summer,

00:42:13.439 - 00:42:30.879

they said, we need some caretakers. The, the roofs were collapsing because the snow was too heavy and again my hand just went up. And the directors were a little upset because everyone else who volunteered was a man, a male boy, man, whatever, um, and they hadn't

00:42:30.879 - 00:42:49.010

really anticipated a woman or a girl, uh, volunteering to stay through the year and they were a little nervous about. A teenager or young adult, um, cross sex staying there in the house there was no supervision, but I stayed through the year and it was wonderful.

00:42:49.090 - 00:43:05.110

I, we started a community learning center and we work with local people and I did literacy work in classes, you know, I taught classes and discussion groups and again we were known. I mean people would say things. I mean there was a big. Sign Where you

00:43:05.110 - 00:43:25.580

turned off to get into the land that said um all races and creeds welcome and everyone knew that's where the communists were and. I would say a minority of people hated us there, but there was definitely some strong feeling against us. But there were many people

00:43:25.580 - 00:43:42.780

who didn't feel so strongly understood or uh yeah accepted us at a distance. You must have felt very much at home. Oh, I loved it. I loved it yeah it was one I mean the whole experience, the free school and the world fellowship, which was 3

00:43:42.780 - 00:44:02.489

years, 3 full years were wonderful. And um are you still having these long conversations with your father? Oh, but excuse me, then, um, yeah, pretty much through his whole life, yes, we, I would bring him new ideas and he would love it, you know, because I

00:44:02.489 - 00:44:21.600

became more involved in the feminist movement and lesbian, uh. Rights I don't know if I call it a movement, but um he always loved to get poked and prodded. I remember we had this fascinating discussion we were driving in New York we used to just drive

00:44:21.600 - 00:44:38.659

around the rich areas sometimes and look at the land and the houses, and there was some sign about plastic surgery. And he said, you know, one of the things I wish, I wish I had a nose job, OK. And you know he meant it as a

00:44:38.659 - 00:44:57.659

very kind of sharing thing and you can imagine it started quite the discussion about why we should change our bodies to meet someone else's ideal, and he had never thought of it and he was so impressed and it, it extended, you know, from Jews changing their

00:44:57.659 - 00:45:11.739

bodies to fat people feeling like they're supposed to starve. And he was so impressed with my thoughts that when I we got to some house where there were a lot of people, he said, I have to ask you all to stop talking, and I want Karen,

00:45:11.780 - 00:45:29.620

my first name is really Karen Renee is my middle name. I want Karen to tell you all what we've been talking about. You know, so we would have these thoughts forever and in a way I got to go further than him because I had the community

00:45:29.620 - 00:45:49.540

around me so that I got ideas from other people and I read books, uh, you know, anthologies, right, so he loved it. I mean he was just floored by these ideas it had never crossed his mind. So your um your sense of of what it meant

00:45:49.540 - 00:46:07.354

to be on the left was a very open one. You never felt anything, you never felt that there was a line for you, it meant an appreciation of the incredible diversity that exists and some very profound and powerful. Powerful values and and ethical standards, uh, but

00:46:07.354 - 00:46:24.475

not a sense of, um, you know, this sectarian movement is correct and that one is not. I knew they existed. I mean, the farm workers union had split from the United Farm Workers Union over politics, um, and I must have made some conscious attempt not to

00:46:24.475 - 00:46:40.610

learn too much about it even at World Fellowship. I knew they were arguing about politics. I knew it had to do with real doctrine divisions, um. And that wasn't my interest, you know, my interest, the Highlander Center came and they talked about, you know, teaching reading

00:46:40.610 - 00:46:54.550

and giving new skills to minors. That's what my interest was not the Soviet Union versus China. No, no, I mean, I knew that that. Was a debate going on around me and like the people who were kind of my mentors in the farm workers union that

00:46:54.550 - 00:47:04.580

I work with who are older I knew that they went on to be uh union organizers and I'm sure they had a very strict party line but I really never.