Interview with Sarah Cushing

MF: All right. We're starting our interview. My name is Megan Falater and it is January 10, 2012. I am interviewing Sarah Cushing. Could you say hello and introduce yourself please? SC: Hello my name is Sarah Cushing. I am a graduate student at U.W. Madison. MF: Great. OK. And we're just going to be talking a little bit about your experiences during the protests of the capital in early 2011 related to Scott Walker and your status as a graduate student and member of the Teaching Assistance Association. SC: Got it. MF: All right. So, if you talk a little bit first about why you were even here in Madison in 2011 that would be great. SC: Well, I at the time I was a third year graduate student in the history department. I was getting ready to finish my masters. I am in the PhD 00:01:00program in early modern European history. Originally, I started out in British studies, but I transitioned to Continental early modern religious history at the end of the spring semester 2011. I came here because I knew it was the best place that I got into and I had always considered graduate school as something that I should be doing and history was always something that played a large role in my education. I was brought up in a very history conscious family and the... when it came down to it, there's nothing ever- there's nothing that I've ever 00:02:00really wanted to do otherwise and I like the academic atmosphere. I like the idea of constantly learning. Once I get my PhD, I'd like to ideally become a professor. However, I am aware that the current job market and options are limited so I do have a plan B's in place right now. MF: Very nice. Did you have a Graduate Assistantship in spring 2011. SC: Yes, I have had the same project assistantship since I arrived at UW. I applied the summer before I got here, actually, and I got the- I got the job in the computer sciences department. I am the project assistant for what was the Condor project and has now been subsumed 00:03:00into the Center for High Throughput Computing. It is mainly administrative work. I am the assistant to Professor Miron Livny and then his staff. The, the work is like I said primarily administrative. It has very little to do with history but I do have, it has been very beneficial since it has given me funding for the last three and a half years. I am currently at seventy five percent and at the time in February of 2011, I was at seventy five percent as well.Well, I have 00:04:00been and fifty percent past. MF: And seventy five percent you're working SC: thirty- Thirty hours. Thirty hours a week. MF: Let's see. Could you tell me about your involvement in the TAA prior to spring 2011? SC: I wasn't really involved until the collective bargaining bill was introduced and passed. Everyone was a member of the Union in, in that you paid dues, but I did not really have a participatory role and I don't believe I was considered a full-fledged member have or have signed and signed the card and done all that business until the protests started. MF: OK, and so then what was your involvement with TAA during the protests. 00:05:00SC: Well, the bill was introduced on February thirteenth and it, it was... or no, February twelfth? February twelfth. Friday the thirteenth. I don't remember. MF: It was around there. SC: It was right before Valentine's Day. It was it was a Friday afternoon at four o'clock when the bill was introduced. That I remember. It was the Friday before Valentine's Day at four o'clock. The I was very disappointed I think to put it mildly that this bill had been introduced without any indication that it was coming otherwise. So I did get involved with the protests starting the day after the Valentine's Day drop off of the T.A.A. and I think on the fourteenth was 00:06:00really - or that Valentine's Day drop off really started I believe the occupation. "Occupation" in quotes. And I I began to protest the next day. I was an inhabitant of the Capitol for the rest of February. However, I do have my own apartment three blocks from the Capitol. So, what I would do, literally, was I would go to work I would go to the Capitol I would go home go to bed. And then for every day because at that time I was, I don't remember what classes I was 00:07:00taking but it wasn't... they, either I wasn't in classes, they got canceled or like they didn't take up that much of my time. I did all of my school work at the Capitol and then and then as for my role it was a jack of all trades-Jill of all trades function. I just helped wherever I could. When I got I became more involved in the specifically political aspect- Oh, I did a lot of data entry because it let me sit, talk to people while I'm typing, and doing all that and I'm not one even though I have a fairly loud voice, I'm not one for walking 00:08:00around the Capitol and yelling. I prefer being productive in a different way. So, the after, like, as the... once the occupation stopped and when we were kicked out of the Capitol at the end of February and then when that bill was passed on Ash Wednesday of 2011, March 9 I believe. It was Ash Wednesday. It was passed at like five thirty in the evening. My role shifted it to a more, to the phone banking, really in where we - that's, I, we ran the phone banking from the T.A.A. office for a couple months and basically.... when did the recall 00:09:00start? MF: Um, officially I don't know. SC: Summer. It was the summer. Yeah, yeah it was, Yeah, it was in the summer, but we we were getting out word about, about protests we would call people to see if they wanted to volunteer and then when the recall started we were or when we started collecting signatures it was also an area, a place where people could come and and help with signatures like get petitions and the like... Well, no, what did we do? SC: Oh, I was just it was a meeting place. There were there were very specific things that could and 00:10:00could not happen in the T.A.A. office like political but politically oriented things that couldn't happen. So, we... it was it was a it was a balance of what we could do and we were careful to stay within the lines and to dot our I's and cross our t's. I became involved in PEC: The Political Education Committee and by this point I was an actual member of the of the of the T.A.A. and by and during all this of course the bill was held up from going into effect and so technically everyone was still a member and still had dues taken out, but I had officially signed the card and become a member. And after, once, I think once 00:11:00the recall petitions were turned in and the elections were triggered that is when my involvement kind of petered out. There was I think by the end of March I ended up defending my Master's in the third week of May. I believe ay 20th. I I had to finish it. So I have to take a step back. But that getting everything done left me so burnt out and basically the whole semester that I never really achieved the same kind of levels of involvement since then. I I had to take a step back from PEC. and even, even this past semester. It's with prelims and 00:12:00with everything I have I don't have- I don't have time to as much time as I would like to devote to it. Personally and politically I- a long time ago I was more of a conservative. Although I would never define myself as a Republican, I have moved to the moderate and now I am a little more liberal than I was before this experience. I... but I do have issues with the way the political climate has played itself out in the last, since really, since 2008. But mainly since two thousand- since November 2010. MF: Are you referring to the 00:13:00political climate at at the state or nation or world? SC: Both. All of it. MF: OK. SC: There I personally believe that even though it has happened many times in history, politics is only being... and the democracy of the nation, whatever, has been more damaged by the intragnescence of certain members of Congress and the blatant hostility that exists in our current climate and I refuse to be part of that. I don't think politics of politics is it is, especially in today's politics is it is vital that people negotiate and talk and deal with each other 00:14:00without being insulting, which both sides are doing but I would think one side is doing more than the other and and then the other side being completely intragnescent and unwilling to negotiate has created a situation that will only hurt the people that it - that our country is designed to help the most. So, anyway I'm not really involved anymore. MF: All right. Let's see you mentioned that there's that a little bit of an evolution in your politics. Speak to what levels of involvement in politics before, during or after the protest. SC: I come from a very pol- no one in my family is an elected official. Unless you count church councils and what are those called home... home... homeowners 00:15:00associations. MF: Oh okay SC: Yeah. So, no, but beyond those none of none of my family have ever been has ever been considered an elected official in either local state or national government. However, my family is very very in tune with the political scene and therefore I have always had to have my finger on the pulse of what is happening simply to keep up. And as I came to, over the years, disagree with the more conservative members of my family because they are extremely conservative, I I had to be able to back it up. So, I've always been 00:16:00involved in the sense of, I pay attention and I do as much research as I can. But I've never taken such a proactive approach before. I'd never been to a protest before February. and although I know family and friends who had but I'd never I'd never done it personally. Like I said like I said before I find my time to be more productive doing other things involved in politics than protesting, although I think it's a very vital and necessary force I just- me personally I, I do not find as much fulfillment from it. 00:17:00MF: Okay. All right. You've mentioned this to some extent already but if you would like to speak with any more specificity about process that was involved and protest at the capital was perhaps you know what it was like to actually be there day by day. If there, and I mean if there are any impressions or particular events that you would like to share that would be great and if not we can think of something else later. SC: It was amazing walking into the Capitol, because, OK so, brief segue, my where my apartment is past the Capitol, it allows me to walk through the Capitol every day from east to west and then west to east when coming home. And I do it and I did it as a gesture of respect, I guess you can say. As I 00:18:00tell, and will tell, and have told people there's blood in the walls of the Capitol and they deserve our recognition. Those who've died, those who have fought, those who have fought you know physically, orally, you know literally or figuratively with the pen or with the sword. There's a lot of history in the building itself and therefore it deserves your respect just to walk through it and acknowledge that every day. So, walking through it when people, when it was literally stuffed to the gills with people was pure joy really and unfortunately, I know that people who didn't agree with this wouldn't agree with what I'm saying but everyone should have rejoiced in that because it was the 00:19:00ultimate sign of democracy in that we have the in the what the American ideal of our democratic republic had become because- It was the best expression of the First Amendment. It was peaceful it was peaceful the whole time. I never saw violence and when you had thousands of people in the capital. Sharing with each other and talking and you know I I met so many people but it was really nice just to be able to walk past a police officer and smile and not say thanks for what's happened. Thanks for what you're doing. Have a nice day. Police officer, state trooper Capitol Police, it didn't matter. So, what I remember the most is seeing how a community grew out of the protests but also seeing how people were 00:20:00able to come together. And I actually would assign this to a purely Midwestern ideal in and of itself. How it was able to happen and sustain itself for that long because you don't meet people like Midwesterners anywhere else in the country. No pun intended. MF: So you're saying, and you're from California, I believe. Yes. So you're saying that when I've seen this type of atmosphere had this been in California. SC: I don't think so. I mean you see protests now constantly from California because of what is happening there and California is in a lot of trouble. But, when did you see anyone be pepper sprayed in Madison? 00:21:00I think it's the best is the best example that you have when you look at the Senate multiple sit-ins happened in Madison in the capitol in well, in the Capitol building specifically. And when when we were occupied when we were locked out and there were still people in there. They were never pepper sprayed. And, and then in the event at U.C. Davis, and the violence that happened in Oakland during the Occupy movements- you just simply wouldn't, wouldn't... it wouldn't clearly wouldn't have sustained itself in anywhere else. and I speak specifically of California but I'm convinced that that is how it would be in the- on the East Coast as well. The south, maybe in the south. But maybe not, 00:22:00because they're notoriously more conservative. But anyway, that's stereotyping and that's neither here nor there. But so, no, don't think you would have seen it. But getting back to like walking, I still even when I was in the, when I was like involved in what was happening on the like third floor of the building it was so wonderful to be able to watch what was happening on the first with the drum circles and everything. and when that ended, It did feel like we lost a piece of it because I could not- when we were locked out of the Capitol building, I think I felt it more than a lot of people because no longer could I have walk through it. No longer could I just look up at the dome inside. I 00:23:00couldn't pay my daily respects to what was, what is a huge piece of American history. And I think that at that time I was only going through three times a day because or three times that week because I had class eight o'clock in the morning and the building doesn't open till eight am. but. That's not my point. I go through it every day now. But when it closed it was it was a very it was very it was again disappointing in a in the devastating kind of disappointing that you hope never happens but it did. That was not democracy. That was not, it wasn't just, and it wasn't something that happened for the people. I understand 00:24:00the argument for wanting to clear it out but keeping it closed even after all the protesters had left, that- it put a bad feeling in my stomach. The same kind of bad feeling that was in my stomach when he- when the bill was announced. When the bill was passed, nothing it seems was really done, while not fully illegal, not done with the best interest of the people at heart. Although, there are people who would argue that what... Well I don't know. Never mind. So anyway. MF: Um. What did you follow and learn about the events that were happening at 00:25:00the Capitol, you mentioned that you weren't really involved until after the Valentine's Day, pre-Valentines' Day actions began. So how did you learn of that? How do you stay connected with what was occurring with the protests. SC: I watch the news every day. Multiple times a day. So I knew what was happening and what was scheduled to happen. That weekend after the bill was announced and then there were pro- the protests started and then all of this I just was, I just said I wonder what's going on in the Capitol. I wonder what else I can do. And it kind of snowballed from there. And to the point where I 00:26:00was literally up every day until like two in the morning doing that and working with them. But, how I heard of it, had to have been just by word of mouth. I just started meeting people and I just started talking to people and I just showed up to what was the T.A.A. office at the time and I just started helping and it helped that I was, I really kind of centered myself in the heart of it all with the data entry and I am, I have a very good ability to listen. When, 00:27:00even when people don't know that I am. MF I would not disagree with that, no. SC: So, that's kind of how I got started with it. MF: Okay. SC: And then all of a sudden I was in it. MF: Particularly since you do watch the news, you should have a fairly good sense then of what some of the media depictions were of the protest. What is your opinion of the media's representation of the protests? SC: It was bipartisan. No it was partisan. It was bipartisan in that people very clearly have their agendas it was covered on the local news every day all the time, but, I'd say I think CBS had the best coverage this channel three 00:28:00thousand. They had the best coverage by far and that was because they somehow got an in in the capital and they were the only news organization inside the Capitol for the entire time that people were protesting. And two of the reporters David and they're the political reporters. The two- Jessica- Jennifer- Jessica- Jessica? Something like that. They do the political stuff and they were there as long as we were there and it really helped and of all the news organizations and... but the minute you stepped out of, and then And then of 00:29:00within like ABC and NBC and Fox local stations they did a fairly good job initially of at least trying to understand what was happening. I think a lot of them, like every media organization, a lot of them think they want to, they claim to give the most unbiased account and they're trying to give all sides. But really what they were doing is telling people what they wanted to hear about the protests. Fox news, obviously, is notorious for the protests and I, personally, take most of theirs and kind of CNN's news reporting at this point with a grain of salt because of what they did during what both of them take 00:30:00during the protests. Fox News more so. CNN didn't cover us as much so I have less issues with them. Fox News blatantly lied. And they were dishonest and I am not... I've never been more insulted by the way that we were portrayed than by how they- how Fox News portrayed us. And how they continue to portray us. And how Scott Walker continues to portray what is happening in Madison and it is a very concerted effort. There are there are many analyses of this where it's like Madison against everyone else and the people in Madison are doing this but- and 00:31:00if and if they're not from Madison, they're from out of state or out of the state and they're in there you know they're being paid by unions and they're you know they're just union thugs coming in trying to take away the poor honest working people's money. So, and and I know I know many people who watch Fox News only and to this day they still have no idea. And they don't believe me when I tell them they lie that Fox News blatantly lied about it and that again it is disappointing to put it mildly. MF: What was your family's reaction to news of the protests? SC: Um my family, well half my family is in New Jersey and 00:32:00is of a more liberal bent. They were very happy about it. They were proud of it. My family is police oriented. My uncle was a cop. my cousin is a cop. My- another cousin is a state trooper. I have many military members in my family and. So they were very supportive of what was happening and what I was doing. My parents were concerned for my safety first and foremost. My father thought that I was being brainwashed by the unions and that I had stepped in line and to follow them lock step down the path and still thinks that way. My mom told me 00:33:00often about her mother, my grandmother, who was a teacher and how she never would have had health insurance if it wasn't for my grandmother being a teacher and if it wasn't for the unions and there was one time my grandmother actually participated in a strike. She never crossed crossed the line, like she never was she never scabbed. She's never was never a scab when there is a strike but there was only one time where she actually picketed and um, during a strike. But so and then the rest of my family, it created large divisions. A cousin of mine and I are no longer friends on Facebook. Because of the things she would call me and 00:34:00the reaction she had and that was the most extreme, well that was the most extreme reaction on Facebook that I had. But my, my dad and my grandfather, my dad's father, they did not approve of what was happening. And again if I was part of it I was being brainwashed or I just was falling into line because it was something to do. But in no way was it was it right. MF: OK. Shifting gears a little bit, you had mentioned that you're part of two different departments. Computer sciences and history. One as a PA, one as a student. Do you have any 00:35:00observations to share about the reactions of different departments to the protesters in any of this news? SC: Yeah, well largely a lot of the the sign- science departments did not have as much of a response and if they did it was more subdued. The history department is a special case though, because so many professors were on the front lines and I think they I think honestly it was two extremes because I saw and I saw a lot of people and you know it really, as opposed to students versus academic staff versus administrative staff versus 00:36:00faculty. It's very different reactions no matter where you are. So, and there were many people who told me you know I support you I simply can't go out and really participate. And I know people who signed the recall petitions when it was time well the recall for Walker. Most of them were are, are Madison, Madison based. So, yes there was a difference in reaction however, I think a large portion of that is that the history in the English, the history department primarily, English and sociology, as well. Sociology, think the most. Yeah probably sociology, then history, then English, then some of the languages. they 00:37:00have the strongest and most visceral reactions to what was happening, which when you think about it makes the most sense. MF: How so? Could you say a little more? SC: Well, historically, academ- academia is considered to be more liberal, you can blame the Jesuits for that, and really European history in general. So, when you have, when and then historians have been known for being a little more liberal than others and the same with sociologists and anthropologists by the nature of their field. When you study humanity you have a more gut reaction to 00:38:00wanting to help humanity than when you are studying other things. So however, excuse me, I want to say that our history department certain aspects of it have been are very much more liberal than other than other universities. So all of that combined to The Perfect Storm of, Yes there was a huge involvement of faculty and students out of the humanities, specifically sociology and history. and I think it's the sociologists who have stayed in it, even till now. MF: Okay. What are your future plans this may be something we talk about 00:39:00academically or politically or a different direction. SC: Academically, PhD is still currently my goal. Politically things will need to change a bit. And I understand that people say well, you can be the one to help change it. I am waiting for certain things to happen before I get involved politically again. Part of it is I'm simply not in a in a position to be able to be involved politically. In the future whether I am involved locally, state, or nationally 00:40:00in politics is not something I can answer right now. I don't know. MF: Do you see all your experience with the protests, if you look at as part of your own life story is this something that is significant to you for particular reasons or with this you know, would you bracket this as perhaps just part of graduate school experience? Or how do you understand this as part of your life. SC: I think it really, it's not simply part of a grad school experience. I think that it is a defining moment in my life in that it helped me clarify certain beliefs that I had about society and government and what both society and government 00:41:00should be doing for the individual and for itself as well as certain things became more clear about the... what... what it should mean and what it does mean to be a corporation in the United States. And what it should mean and what it does mean to be a company in the United States. The... I, well much like a final thought that I would have is the protests were the first time where I actually got involved in something and where I believed that truly an injustice was happening. It wasn't that I was a Democrat. I am not part of a political party. I refused to assign myself to a political party in a two party system because 00:42:00it's ridiculous. I am more middle of the road. Even though I am more of a liberal moderate now than a conservative moderate, however my- my, what I like to say is that my vote is never guaranteed until the until I vote, until I make the vote. But this when this happened it truly felt like an injustice and it truly felt like there was an agenda being followed that didn't that did not and does not have the best interests of the people of Wisconsin at heart. You need public employees and you need public employees who are always going to be 00:43:00willing to accept less pay for the job that they do, than what they would receive in the private sector. Benefits have helped ease that burden in the past and now we are faced with and even more, an even larger detriment to being a public employee than had than it had been in the past. And to have an ideology is fine. Everyone can have an ideology. When you deliberately misguide your... your constituents and when you deliberately deceive them in order to enact that ideology, you are, you are wrong. You are you are you are just wrong and you 00:44:00don't belong in that office anymore. MF: Okay. Do you have anything else that you'd like to add to the interview? SC: I think that's it. MF: All right thank you Sarah. This was helpful. SC: Thank you.