Interview with Jillian Jacklin

MF: All right my name is Megan Falater, and I am doing an oral history interview with Jillian Marie Jacklin. Jillian, could you say your name and introduce yourself.

JJ: Yes, Hi! My name's Jillian Jacklin.

MF: Great. And we are conducting this oral history interview on August 7th 2012, and we are going to be talking about Julian's experiences as a graduate student during the 2011 protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol regarding the Budget Repair Bill. And, Jillian, to start with, could you talk a little bit about why it is that you became a graduate student?

JJ: Sure. Well I'm a graduate student in the Department of History. I study labor and working class history, and I focus on political activism and working class culture. I became a graduate student in an interesting sort of a way. I was most interested in potentially working abroad, maybe for the State Department, something like that, but my senior year of college, I went to UW-Madison as well for my undergraduate career and, I took a seminar with Camille Guerin-Gonzales about memory in place, and Chicano / Latina history, and it sparked my interest in pursuing a graduate career in history. I took a couple years off and I worked as the academic department specialist for Chicano and Latino Studies here on campus and prepared to apply for graduate school. And I started in fall 2008 in a joint M.A./Ph.D. program in history and just completed my fourth year.

MF: Great, great. So what drew you to the research interests that you have?

JJ: I grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, which is in the Fox River Valley in Northeast Wisconsin. And my mother is a domestic worker. My father is recently retired, but he was an outside salesman for a place called Contractor Supplying 00:02:00Equipment, and my stepfather is a finish carpenter and grew up in the lower echelons of the class system in the Fox River Valley and sparked my interest in labor history and wanting to learn about workers and people that are maybe less likely to be a part of history because of sources or because of interest or because of financial reasons. So I really wanted to tell the story of my family.

MF. Great. Oh so you certainty have had some labor consciousness throughout your life. Do you recall when it was that you first became involved in politics and labor activism?

JJ: Yeah, definitely. I actually remember becoming politically active as an elementary school kid. One of the first things that I remember about protesting something that I felt was completely against my understanding of social justice was when I was in fifth grade and my teacher at the time told the women in the class that women should not learn science or math. So during science and math time, we were told to sit in the hallway and read. So I recall--at least the way that I remember it--was getting more and more upset about this and talking with my fellow classmates and we went on to tell 00:04:00the guidance counselor and the school principal about what was going on and heard that he was fired because of it. I'm actually not certain that that's the reason he was let go, but that's one of the first times I remember being politically active.

MF: And that was in the1990s?

JJ: Yeah, that would have been in the early 90s.

MF: All right. When did you first associate with the TAA?

JJ: I first became a member of the TAA in my first semester of graduate school, but I was aware of the TAA. from being an undergraduate actually at UW. And I always went to my TA's offices. I think that I knew from early on that the TAA important for protecting the jobs and rights of teaching assistants across campus. It was a lot less likely that I would go to visit a professor. I felt a lot more comfortable speaking with TAs, especially on such a gigantic campus. Being a 00:05:00first generation low-income college student, I didn't have a lot of contact with people who'd been in school, especially as I became more interested in graduate school. Really sort of reaching out to T A's and learning about the lack of income and the sort of like indentured servitude that TAs experience as far as a lot of work, little pay, no vacation, not a ton of benefits, things of that nature. So when I was an undergraduate in the early 2000s.

MF: And do you recall when you first became a member of the TAA?

JJ: I became a member of the TAA in fall 2008, my first semester grad school, when I was a project assistant.

MF: Great . Have your interactions with the TAA changed at all during your years of graduate study?

JJ: Yeah, they have. My first couple years in the TAA, I wasn't very active. I didn't attend meetings. I read the emails that I received and would vote when they were electronic votes and so on. But I didn't attend a meeting until fall 2011 right before the debacle with the Budget Repair Bill because it was seeming that our rights as TAs were going to be further restricted than they already were, so I decided to become more involved and attend meetings. And just this past summer, I became even more involved. Went to a leadership retreat, and I'm going to be serving as a steward and both the Labor Solidarity and Diversity Committees this fall of 2012.

MF: Great, just to confirm the days that you were mentioning. You became more involved in the Fall 2012 semester before the protests?

JJ: Yes.

MF: And this past summer, you're thinking of summer 2012?

JJ: Yes.

MF: And let's take a look at the spring of 2011 a little more closely. Did you have an assistantship during that semester?

JJ: I was a TA that semester.

MF:And do you have an assistantship now? Or the previous spring semester or the upcoming fall semester?

JJ: Yes I was funded both in the spring 2012, and I also funded this coming fall 2012. Both TAships.

MF: What classes have you been TAing?

JJ: So, the past three--this will be the third fall semester that I was TA for Integrated Liberal Studies 209, which is Introduction to Global Cultures with Professor Joe Elders. So this will be my third time this semester teaching that and then I taught one semester History 462 History of the American West, a graduate student was lecturing at that point. And then this past spring I TAed History of American Foreign Relations 434 with a lecture as well in history department.

MF: Great. Could you describe your involvement in the protests with the TAA in the winter and spring of 2011?

JJ: Definitely. In Spring 2011, I heard about the Budget Repair Bill. I mean, I was aware that Governor Scott Walker was not 00:09:00necessarily friendly or in favor of unions and that there could be some threat to my job as a teaching assistant but also beyond just my concern for myself being concerned about the working class in the state of Wisconsin. And, so, I remember receiving a call. Was the first--do you recall the budget repair--when people were testifying--was that being in February?

MF: I believe so. Let's see. I believe the protests were going to begin in mid-February.

JJ: Oh, yes, with the I Heart Walker campaign. So I remember the TAA coming around to history department offices with the valentines for Walker about the budget repair bill and what it could mean for graduate assistantships on campus. 00:10:00And I received a call in the morning--I'm not sure which date it was exactly--from Naomi Williams who's very active in the TAA at that time saying--asking me if I would please come to the Capitol to wait in line to testify in front of the state legislature about the Budget Repair Bill to sort of like hold the TAA spot because people had to teach, people how to go to class, and I didn't--I don't believe--I may be taught in the afternoon that day, but I may have had the day off--I can't remember, but I went, got in line, took over Naomi's spot on, and sat with a couple other graduate students at the time, and ended up being the second person-- the second graduate student to testify in front of the state legislature. There were there were a couple people that were invited by some Democratic representatives, Lena Taylor. I'm trying to remember the other woman who had some people come, but there were a couple people who testified, and one of them was a young woman about my age--probably early mid to late twenty's--was a mother of two and discussed--she was a C.N.A.--discussing her job and what the 00:11:00potential increase in the cost of benefits would mean for her livelihood and the livelihood of her children. She explained what she did on a daily basis as far as her job was concerned and then went on to say that, at that present point at the beginning of February 2011, she couldn't afford to put her kids into organized sports or, you know, do some of the things that parents like to do for their kids. And I just like really hit by that because I was in a similar situation when I was a kid--my parents struggling to be able to put me in the things that I wanted to do, similarly for my brother. So she testified and a 00:12:00couple other people testified about what the Budget Repair Bill would mean for their daily life, and one graduate student testified before me-- Mike Amano--and then I testified. That's the way I remember it anyways.

JJ: And I... you don't get a whole lot of time to talk. This isn't the first time I've testified in front of the state legislature, I did as an undergraduate as well, the Budget Committee about funding for undergraduates--need-based funding. So I'd been in front of that committee before. There were a few familiar, though not so friendly faces, on the committee. So I basically testified that I was a Wisconsin resident my whole life, that I'd been an undergraduate, that I was a first-generation, low-income college student, that it was hard enough for me to be a graduate student as it was, financially speaking and also culturally and like my history speaking--it's been a challenge. And so sitting in front of the committee explaining the situation--what it was 00:13:00going to mean for me--explaining that I had only made about nine thousand dollars the year before as a teaching assistant working, supposedly, seventeen hours a week, but many many many more hours than that. And then referenced back to the woman--the C.N.A.--who had testified about her financial situation and what she did on daily basis, and I was--and I said to the committee like, basically, you know look around, the people that you're looking to cut their benefits the types of jobs they do a lot of people don't want to do. And I mentioned that, for instance, the woman who had been up--I can't remember her name--that she wiped our parents' asses, like, she worked at a nursing home, and she did a lot of things that--people in the US like to put their elderly people behind closed doors and not think about them or worry about what's going on. And when I said the word "asses" the chair of the committee--there were actually two chairs. There was a 00:14:00male and a female. However, the male did most of the talking, and he asked me to leave. My time is pretty much up anyways, but he said that what I was saying was great until I used profanity. A couple of the committee members cheered when I said that, and bunch of people in the audience did--or, the other people waiting to testify--but he was upset by that, and I remember being really struck by what I viewed as a high level of sexism on the committee, particularly the chair and 00:15:00a few other members. Like, for instance, not letting the female co-chair speak of her ever or seem to have an opinion. The two vocal people on the panel were both African-American women. I remember Lena Taylor shouting out "You go, girl!" when I said the word "asses." It wasn't why but. And leaving and then going to a conference room where there was live coverage of the testifying and going in there people cheering about my testimony and thinking that it was just all so sudden, basically. But...

JJ: Did you want me to continue to talk about what happened after that or should we stop?

MF: I certainly do want to hear a little bit more about your experiences as well. Although, I do have a question or two for you regarding your testimony. When you went up to speak, had you thought through what you wanted to say? Can you give us a sense of the level of preparation or the level of impromptu skills that were at play when you were speaking?

JJ: Sure, that's a really important question. I set in line for probably an hour or so, and so I did write a lot of stuff down about my family and my past, thinking about what I want to say, but with a limited amount of time, when you get up in front of everybody to talk, and the Committee to talk, it becomes a lot more impromptu. And so, while I had anticipated talking more about my background, I ended up talking more about the state and the people who had testified before me because I was really struck by their testimonies because I viewed--I saw my struggles as 00:17:00being a lot less profound after I heard other people testify so.

MF: Beyond...or...other than testifying before the hearing, what are your memories of the protest?

JJ: Sure. So I recall a lot of excitement. I recall a lot of stress. As TA's there was--there was basically a teach out called where it was suggested that we not teach on campus or hold office hours or anything on campus and feeling really stressed out about it. It was my first semester teaching in the history department and really wanting to do a good job and really caring about my students as well and not...you know...Having been an undergraduate at UW, just thinking, like, "wow, you know, these students are 00:18:00paying for this education" and not being there. But other people being stressed out about wanting to teach or not wanting to teach and then also...I remember a lot of like excitement and feeling of solidarity. One of the first times I went up to the Capitol after testifying, I remember the dome just being full of people and seeing so many people I knew and seeing professors I knew and then I remember seeing my advisor with a big sign, shouting and protesting, and they gave me a really big sense of solidarity and feeling of like pride that we come from a community of people that care about other people's livelihoods.

MF: Excellent. I believe you mentioned working for this professor as an undergraduate. Can you just confirm who your advisor is?

JJ: Camille Guerin-Gonzales.

MF: How frequently were you involved with the events at the Capitol?

JJ: I went up to the Capitol just about every day, and I never actually spent the night in the capital. I know a lot of people did, and there were lots of times I thought about sleeping in the Capitol. My partner--he's still my partner--he really didn't want me to stay in the capital. He was a little concerned about that. As graduate students, we're pretty busy, so I had a lot going on, but having the flexibility in my schedule to take--and being close enough to the capital, working on campus. A really good friend of mine is--I kind of consider her to be a professional activist--and she was of the Capitol just about every single day protesting. And I remember one day in particular circling around the square. I can't remember what we were shouting, but she and I and her 00:20:00younger sister, who was a teenager at the time, finding a lone drummer--or coming across him--and drumming and chanting all around the Capitol, all down State Street, all around to the union, for somewhere around three hours, and I recall not having a voice most of the time the protests were going on.

MF: Do you recall any chants in particular that you gave? I know it has been now about a year and a half.

JJ: Oh yeah. I'm not really remembering any chants off the top of my head, but I also kind of have a headache, so thinking hurts.

MF: That works. How were you made aware of the events that were transpiring at the Capitol? How is it that you were follow this news of these updates?

JJ: The TAA sent a lot of emails it was also--I walked home every day, so I would see people around the Capitol or with signs. It was kind of hard--it was pretty much 00:21:00in your face if you were on campus that protests are going on. And had a lot of other active friends in the community, and I've lived in Madison for ten years now and have a lot of friends who are state workers as well. A lot of people who are just allies for collective bargaining and union rights and working class rights in general.

MF: When the TAA was sending updates, were these coming by email or were you getting them through anything else?

JJ: E-mail, mainly. I could read them in the newspaper, but mainly through email me. And I just remembered a chant, one of my favorites: "Hey hey. Ho ho. Scott Walker has got to go. Hey hey. Ho ho. 00:22:00Scott Walker has got to go." I think that's the one that we were chanting when we were going around...

MF: That sounds familiar.

MF: Okay. So looking at the TAA protests--or the Capitol protests, rather--both at the time and also now that there has been a little more perspective of the past year and a half, do you believe that the media accurately represented the protests? JJ: I do not. We would have to say particularly whether it was local or national media. I am not a big TV watcher; I haven't owned a TV in several years. And, in fact, I don't follow the news much in general. But being on Facebook, it was almost impossible not to see media about the protest as far as people posting links to stories about the protests. And there was one inaccurate 00:23:00representation--totally inaccurate representation--that I remember. It was shown on Fox News, I believe, where it there was--the media was hyping up that there was a lot of violence involved in the protests, and even local media because family members of mine--conservative family members of mine--who live in the Fox River Valley--saying that the protests were violent and having been at the protests every day and never seeing any violence, being very disgruntled by hearing that information because the protesters were so peaceful in their demonstration. I remember this one story that Fox News ran where they showed a bunch of people getting in a fight, and things getting violent in the middle of a protest, and there were palm trees in the background. And there aren't palm 00:24:00trees in Wisconsin anywhere. Maybe some people are going to their house or something, but there aren't palm trees here generally. So as far as I'm concerned, there wasn't--I never saw any violence.

MF: Okay, great. And your answer led to something else I wanted to ask you about. Given that you grew up in Wisconsin, but perhaps not in Madison, you may have a bit of a different perspective on the protests than might some other graduate students who have only been here for the years of their study. What's your sense of the protests as a resident of Wisconsin or at least so far a long term resident here?

JJ: The area of Wisconsin that I hail from them is characterized as a rather conservative and Republican area of the state. Though, if you actually go and talk to people in the Fox River Valley the answers to your questions would not necessarily line up with a particular political agenda. 00:25:00But I never saw protests like I did in Madison ever in my life in Wisconsin. I did protest a president when I studied abroad in Ecuador, and I remember the excitement of being involved with a protest. That protest was violent. I did get injured during that protest. I was hit by a tear gas canister that was shot out of a tank, and I was asphyxiated for four hours in a Red Cross ambulance, and so I had--sort of--working class or even just like protesting in general--I'd been involved before, but I'd never seen it in Wisconsin, and I was so happy to see 00:26:00how much solidarity there was and how much respect there was for workers. And I was particularly excited when I saw police officers and firefighters and other farmers and so on and so forth. Tons of different professions coming together in solidarity for the same cause.

MF: Great. Could you say a little bit more about your protest in Ecuador? JJ: Sure.

MF: Or your work with the protests in Ecuador?

JJ: Yeah, good, that's...So in 2005--the spring of 2005--I studied abroad in Quito, Ecuador for a semester. And while I was there, I was not very familiar with Ecuadorian politics at the time. But my host father was a sociology professor and very knowledgeable, and he sort of informed me what was going on when everything was happening. But, in Quito, there was a protest to overthrow the president at the 00:27:00time. The chant then was "Fuera Lucio! Fuera Lucio!" Which means "Out with Lucio!" And Lucio was the president's last name. And a few American students were interested in participating in the protest. Protests in Quito at the time meant everything was closed. Schools closed; stores were closed. People either stayed home, or they were on the streets, and the streets were full of people protesting. And I remember being really scared because there was similarly a lot of interesting media information going around about people getting hurt, mercenaries being hired from coast to come to--Quito is in the mountains, but Ecuador as both coastal and mountainous, and people on the coast generally are not big fans of people from the mountains and vice versa. So there was news that maybe people would be coming from the coast to the city. I don't remember ever seeing that. There was some information that one person died during the 00:28:00protests. I don't know if that's accurate, but there was also information in that same article about people being asphyxiated from tear gas, and I know that to be true because I was there. I recall feeling like I was going to die when that happened.

JJ: But--so the story leading up to me being involved in actual protests where I was injured was--a number of my friends that were studying abroad--there were students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, students from the University of Michigan, Michigan State, and also Virginia Tech. And a bunch of us--well, fifteen of us--decided that we were going to go to the president's palace to protest out front of it because there was a major protests going on. And I remember being really scared about going and not wanting to go, but everybody 00:29:00was going. One of my friends is now a photojournalist, and she really wanted to go take pictures. And we all piled in cabs down to the protests. And protests in Ecuador are really different. They were loud. There were lots of fire. There was a lot of music. People were very militant, in a sense of serious, about what they were protesting, which was they wanted the president out and just walking around and feeling like I was in a war zone and then--people all of a sudden running--and trying to run and then getting hit with this tear gas shot out of a line. And then having all the tear gas come in and losing consciousness. And feeling like how people say--where everything sort of flashes before your eyes when you're going to die kind of thing. And waking up and being even more scared. And then everything just sort of cleared up and there was a new president.

MF: Wow, so this was part of your study abroad as an undergraduate?

JJ: Yes.

MF: And do you remember when this was happening?

JJ: It was in--this was in, I feel like, March or April of 2005.

MF: Great. Given what you study as a history graduate student, what would you say is the relationship between your experiences in Ecuador, perhaps also at the Wisconsin State Capitol last year and what you choose to do with your own studies?

JJ: Sure I think that the--Labor protests in general is what I study, so I think it's helpful to have first-hand experience in formulating a sense of passion for what one studies or is going to teach about or is writing about in my dissertation. I will be writing about a labor protest, working class militancy, at the turn of the twentieth century in the Fox River Valley inn Wisconsin, but part of my argument is that there's a very fine line--and maybe there isn't a line at all--between what is considered militant and what is considered conservative. That people generally are fueled by what their understanding of survival looks like or what their understanding of livelihood 00:31:00is. And so--especially getting together with a big group of people who are all fighting in solidarity for the same cause but then talking to people and seeing the multiple different reasons that people are there. I think it's really useful and connected.

MF: Great. So what are your plans academically?

JJ: At the end of August--so it's August 7 today--and on August 29, I'm preparing to defend my dissertation prospectus, and then in the fall, I will a TA again for ILS 209. And I have planned a number of different research trips to the Fox cities to start collecting research on my dissertation.

MF: Great. How about politically? What are you future plans?

JJ: So as I mentioned a bit earlier, I'm becoming more involved in the TAA. I'm really excited about being on the Labor Solidarity Committee and meeting with union activists, working class activists from around the state. Also the Diversity Committee, I have plans--I've already started to talk to different undergraduate groups as well as classified and academic staff groups across campus about creating more solidarity as far as student worker / professor administrative rights across campus as we prepare ourselves for the HR 00:33:00redesign that is about to start this fall.

MF: Do you have any final thoughts that you want to share about your experience at the Capitol or anything else we discussed?

JJ: I think the last thing that I'd like to share is that one of my preliminary exam fields was social movement history. The other was labor history. And in the social movement history essay, I wrote about the long history of protest in the US, and particularly, well--the question asked which had more longevity: movements of the political left or movements on the political right. And I argued that movements on the political 00:34:00left have been more successful and that they are really all part of the same movement, which is a struggle for freedom and social justice. And that the movement of the political left has been more successful because of its longevity, because of its mass appeal, and because of its creation and occupation of space. And so I think that these protests that we've been seeing in Wisconsin are part of that long history and that the roots are very deep. And it's a very important struggle personally as well as professionally for me. It's--I think it's brought a lot of people to consciousness about the fact that a few people--not only in this country but this globe--have control over the majority of resources. And I'm really interested in finding ways to spread out wealth so that people don't have to struggle as much.

MF: Great. Thank you, Jillian.

JJ: Thank you, Megan.

MF: This was a great interview, and I'm happy that you were able to give us some of your time to talk about this.

JJ: Thank you so much to the Oral History Project.

MF: All right. My name Megan Falater, and I'm speaking with Jillian Jacklin. Jillian, can you introduced yourself again?

JJ: Hi I'm Jillian Marie Jacklin.

MF: And it is August 7 2012. And I have just interviewed Jillian about the 2011 protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol regarding the Budget Repair Bill, and Julian would like to add a few additional comments to her interview.

JJ: Thank you, Megan, for giving me the opportunity to add a little bit. At the end of the last question that you asked me, I discussed a little bit about my preliminary examinations which I took this past spring--the spring of 2012. And one of my fields was on social movement history and the other being labor 00:36:00history, and both of them very much connected to the protest and the Budget Repair Bill that we've seen here in Wisconsin since the spring 2011. And I wanted to add something. This February--February 2012--on February tenth, a very very close friend of mine somebody who I care very deeply about. He passed away. He actually he took his own life. And he grew up in Appleton as well. He's one of my brother's closest friends and a member of our family basically. And he grew up without a lot of money and he talked a lot about and struggled a lot because of that. He actually--one of the reasons that he joined the Navy after high school was so that he could get the G.I. Bill so he could go to college. And it wasn't the only reason, but it was one of the reasons.

JJ: And the military really changed him. He went into the military feeling quasi--well, he was semi-homophobic. Pretty racist. The military opened him up in so many ways; he met so many different people. He really changed his viewpoints and became really interested in history and basically human rights, social justice, things of that nature, and started studying LGBTQ studies when he went to UW-Milwaukee after his time in service. And so he was a junior at UW-Milwaukee when he passed away in February, and he had a lot of interest in 00:38:00what I was doing as a graduate student and particularly working class history in the fact that I was going to be writing about the Fox River Valley.

JJ: I recall in October taking a long walk with him along the river--the Fox River in Appleton--and discussing--talking about building a raft like he did when he was a kid and taking it down the river and kind of made me excited to go back to Appleton to do research because when I left home I didn't really want to be journeying back much. But my research has made it so that I'm actually going to be writing about where I'm from. Anyways, his name was Zach, and he talked a lot about sort of the injustice financially. He was very class conscious, and he--when he passed away--he was--so he was an English major. Actually, it was comparative literature and that day that we took a walk by the river he was always--I was grading papers for him. Not grading papers but offering comments on papers for him, editing papers for him, and he--every time we get together, we would talk about school and history and things of that nature. And what I remembered asking him that day we took a walk by the river if--he said he wanted to minor in something. I can't remember what he was thinking of minoring in. I think English, and I said "What about history? Like what do you have against history?" And anyway, I remember on his obituary, which was only a few months 00:39:00later, it said that he was majoring in English and minoring in history, and I was really excited about that because I know that it was something that was very important to him.

JJ: And so anyways I--that same day that we were walking by the river. It's funny. We actually did have more than one encounter in our lives, we had several. We ran into some protesters that were involved with the same protests 00:40:00that we're talking about, which the attack on workers' rights in Wisconsin. And just..you know...chatting with some of the protesters. Why they there, and they were from all over the state working on the recall election for Governor Scott Walker. And, anyways, when Zack passed away--he was an amazing artist and writer. His parents found a poem entitled "Epitaph," which they think he may have written his own, but they're unsure of the details of his suicide being very sketchy to put it mildly. But I just wanted to read this as an ending because it's very much connected to social movement in labor history as well as like the long struggle that this protest in Wisconsin--the roots that it's drawing on. They run very deep, and they run as long as--since the beginning of this country, 00:41:00and so this is by Zachariah Graham Cameron.

JJ: Lay me down in the dark and deep, beneath the shade where the willows weep Rest my head on the roots to sleep and my soul to the angels to keep For my life was lived full and grand, witnessed by the work scars on my hand See me someday next to the Lord I stand; may I say farewell to the worldly land People that I love don't worry; people I've wronged I'm sorry I'm riding now on heaven's ferry; until we meet again, be merry.

JJ: Thank you.

MF: Thank you, Jillian.

JJ: Thank you.