Transcript
Toggle Index/Transcript View Switch.
Index
Search this Index
X
00:00:00 - Start of Interview/ Arriving in Madison/ Avalon co-op

Play segment

Partial Transcript: So maybe just to start, if you want to describe where-- what you were doing at the time...

Segment Synopsis: D Allen (DA) describes her arrival in Madison in October 2010, a move from Bennington College in Vermont to Madison. She discusses looking for work and how Avalon Co-op in which she was living provided her an important sense of community. She describes Co-op meals together, the sense of camaraderie.

Keywords: 2011 Budget Repair Bill; 2011 Capitol Protests; Avalon co-op; MCC; Madison Community Cooperative; OutReach LGBT Community Center; Wisconsin State Capitol; grad student; job search; political engagement; protests; unemployment; volunteering; writers group

00:04:53 - Emotional engagement in the protests

Play segment

Partial Transcript: I hadn't thought about how physical proximity, but then also living in a co-op specifically...

Segment Synopsis: Members of the co-op offered emotional support and community during the protests and state senate hearings. Some protesters spent the night in the capitol.

Keywords: 2011 Budget Repair Bill; 2011 Capitol Protests; Avalon co-op; Senate debates; Wisconsin State Capitol; Wisconsin State Senate; poetry; political engagement; protests; sleeping in the Capitol

00:09:07 - Community inside the Capitol

Play segment

Partial Transcript: So we went up that night, and we talked with people for a while and sat and spent time...

Segment Synopsis: DA describes the experience inside the Capitol building, emphasizing the sense of community and the all-encompassing nature of the experience because her housemates in the Co-op were also so involved. Experiencing a new city.

Keywords: 2011 Budget Repair Bill; 2011 Capitol Protests; Madison WI; Wisconsin State Capitol; cold weather; political engagement; protests; sleeping in the Capitol

00:12:29 - Writing about and photographing the protests

Play segment

Partial Transcript: And I think also as a person who tends to write about my experiences and who tends to translate what I see and hear and feel...

Segment Synopsis: DA explains how comforted she was to feel connected. She talks about the experience of her first night staying over in the Capitol.

Keywords: 2011 Budget Repair Bill; 2011 Capitol Protests; Senate debates; Wisconsin State Senate; banjo; community; political engagement; protests; sharing resources; sleeping in the Capitol

00:15:02 - Reasons for protesting/ Artistic contribution

Play segment

Partial Transcript: You mentioned feeling like there were many different types of people there...

Segment Synopsis: DA discusses her motivations for attending the protests: a commitment to workers’ rights and unions, and the importance of being present. She describes the translating and transcribing role she believed she could play as an artist.

Keywords: 2011 Budget Repair Bill; 2011 Capitol Protests; Our Lives Magazine; Wisconsin State Capitol; artists; musicians; poetry; political engagement; protests; workers' rights; workers' unions

00:18:57 - Making and trading stenciled patches

Play segment

Partial Transcript: -- because I think that, especially in sort of political movements like this...

Segment Synopsis: DA discusses her belief that everyone had skills to contribute. She discusses the “Our House” patches she was printing and the informal barter system that arose. She discusses how good it felt to be able to give because she was unemployed.

Keywords: 2011 Budget Repair Bill; 2011 Capitol Protests; Avalon Co-op; Wisconsin State Capitol; donations; grassroots movement; patches; political engagement; protests; sharing resources; stenciling

00:23:51 - Visiting the Capitol today

Play segment

Partial Transcript: You said that it felt like-- that everybody made it their house inside the capitol.

Segment Synopsis: DA discusses how strange it is to return to the Capitol building today, how it had never looked the way it did in 2011 and she feels a little disoriented going back. She describes the 2011 protests as a vision of what democracy looked like.

Keywords: 2011 Budget Repair Bill; 2011 Capitol Protests; Wisconsin State Capitol; democracy; protests

00:27:28 - Symbolism of the Capitiol

Play segment

Partial Transcript: Yeah, I think it's kind of symbolic that when we were-- when we were living in the capitol...

Segment Synopsis: DA discusses the symbolic importance of the stones inside the Capitol building: cold hard surfaces, unchanging. But she and other protestors were covering them over with soft surfaces: “a crash course in belonging,” she calls it.

Keywords: 2011 Capitol protests; Avalon Co-op; Wisconsin State Capitol; artists; immigrants' rights; musicians; workers' rights; writers' group

00:31:16 - Reads her poem, "61 Hours of Debate"

Play segment

Partial Transcript: Would you read your poem?

Segment Synopsis: DA reads her poem “61 Hours of Debate,” published in the August 2011 issue Our Lives magazine from Madison.

Keywords: 2011 Budget Repair Bill; Our Lives magazine; Senate debates; Wisconsin State Capitol; Wisconsin State Senate; poem; poetry

00:33:57 - Observing the Senate budget debate

Play segment

Partial Transcript: Was that-- that when the vote was happening?

Segment Synopsis: DA discusses the legislators in the Chamber: the Democrats wore orange T-shirts to show their support for the protestors. DA expresses anger at many legislators who do not listen to the delivered testimonies, a theme that she brings up in her poem. She is surprised to see this, as someone who doesn’t frequently follow the mechanics of government

Keywords: 2011 Budget Repair Bill; 2011 Capitol Protests; Senate debates; Wisconsin State Capitol; Wisconsin State Senate; Wisconsin State legislature; governor Scott Walker; legislative process; media; news media

00:39:03 - Different shifts of protestors

Play segment

Partial Transcript: Did the crowd dynamics change from the day or the weekends to the week?

Segment Synopsis: DA discusses the changes between the weekday and weekend crowds in the Capitol building: mixed ages and families.

Keywords: 2011 Budget Repair Bill; 2011 Capitol Protests; protestors; protests

00:42:31 - Evolution of the protests over time

Play segment

Partial Transcript: I want to be mindful of time, because I know you guys have commitments.

Segment Synopsis: DA discusses her impressions of how the population of protestors changed over time: a core group willing to sleep in the Capitol throughout, a build up of numbers over time that made the community less cohesive, though more people meant more individuals among which to spread responsibility for upholding the movement.

Keywords: 2011 Budget Repair Bill; 2011 Capitol Protests; protestors; protests; sleeping in the Capitol

00:47:01 - Pulling back from the protest

Play segment

Partial Transcript: I'm trying to remember at what point I got a very part-time job.

Segment Synopsis: DA discusses the exhaustion of sustaining the movement. She also mentions that she had gotten a part-time job by several weeks into the protest: teaching drawing classes and babysitting. She says she didn’t need to be in the Capitol every day by then.

Keywords: 2011 Capitol Protests; Community Pharmacy; patches; political engagement

00:49:09 - Wrap-up/ Narrator and Interviewers' names

Play segment

Partial Transcript: D., is there anything that we haven't asked about...

00:50:36 - End of Interview