Why We Occupy

October 22

Rafael

So if you could just, for the record, tell me your name, age—

Rafael, forty-seven years old.

Occupation?

Occupation? Occupying Wall Street—oh! [Laughs.]

Right, that’s the problem with calling it that.

Okay, okay, occupation . . . uh, computer technician.

And are you occupying?

Um, yes, I’m—yeah, I’m employed.

And how—no, are you occupying?

Am I occupying? Yes, I am occupying Wall Street. [Laughs.]

[Laughs.] I’ve got to pick a different word for that.

So you’re occupying. How long have you been here for?

Sixteen days I’ve been here today.

Sixteen days?

Yeah, but I was gone for two days.

How has your experience of the occupation been?

I absolutely love this place. There is so much love here. I’ve been able to find other people that feel and think the same way that I do. For a long time I thought I was crazy, and in my house, everybody thinks I’m crazy. Every time someone comes over and I try to start talking about it, my wife goes, “Oh, God! I’m sorry, Mary. Uh, Ralph, please stop. Come on, come on. She didn’t come over here to hear that!”

But here there’s so many people that I can talk to that it’s great. I really feel comfortable, and I think we may be able to wind up doing something, eventually. It might take some time, but . . .

What’s your average day like?

I get up probably about seven. Six thirty, seven o’clock depending on whether it rains or not, or how cold it is. [Laughs.] And, uh—

Wait, you sleep in if it’s raining, or you have to get up earlier?

No, I have to get up earlier because I don’t have a tent. We’re not allowed to put up tents, even though some people have. I don’t want to go to jail, so I’m trying to, you know, minimize. As soon as it starts raining, I’ve got to get up. Then I walk around for a little bit. I talk to people. And about one o’clock, I leave and go to work. And then I get home about maybe eight, nine o’clock in Staten Island, and I see my wife, my kids—

Take a little shit . . .

Yeah, you know, [laughs], take care of the basics. And then I come back out here about ten-thirty, eleven—come back and occupy.

And it’s been rough. I mean, the first night I didn’t plan on staying here. It was just me and what I have on. They told me, “Go to Comfort and get a blanket.” They gave me, like, a baby-sized blanket that basically could cover my chest. [Laughs.]

Oh, geez.

And I laid on the floor with it and froze and shook, but by the next day . . . I went home to get some blankets and my wife was furious. She was like, “You’re not taking anything out the house!” So I was like, “Okay.” Then I came back here and they gave me a sleeping bag. By then they had more stuff, so . . .

So you were here a little bit at the beginning?

Yeah, yeah, but it’s all right now. I have a tarp. I have a blanket, sleeping bag. I’ve made a pillow. I have a bucket to put my stuff in, nice and neat at night, and I have a spot right next to Medical there. So I’m all right, you know? Like I told them: If I freeze in my sleep, I’m right next to Medical, so I’ll be all right. [Laughs.]

[Laughs.] They can resuscitate you.

Yeah, they can bring me back.

“Um, heat up the frozen guy . . . bumsicle.” Oh, that’s not a nice term.

You have a great personality.

Oh, thanks. That’s nice.

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So the name of the book is Why We Occupy.

Right.

Can you tell me something about—

I occupy because I feel that the corporations rule the world. I feel that the corporations control everything: from the food supply, to our politics and our officials, to what jobs are going to be in what area. They decide to impoverish a community or enrich it, and that’s too much power for any one entity to have. And I feel that by being here, we can do something.

For example, the taxes. Personally, I pay so much more taxes than a corporation does. Even though they pay more, you know, they pay less percentage-wise compared to what I pay, and that’s not fair. I don’t think it’s fair that when a corporation runs out of money, they can get bailed out, but when I run out of money and I can’t pay my mortgage, the bank decides to take my house and put me and my kids out in the street. It’s so unfair!

So I feel that by my being here . . . I don’t know what it’s going to fix or whether it’s going to fix anything, but I know that I’ve been doing nothing for a long time, and I’m tired of doing nothing. I’m hoping that being here—even if it’s just sleeping here—might make a difference.

Someone was telling me last night: “It’s too cold to be sleeping here.” I said, “Well, this is a sacrifice.” I mean, we weren’t expecting room service and nice, big, fluffy down pillows. It’s a sacrifice that we’re making—hopefully, for a better future for our children. ❖

Kent

I’m Kent, from New York.

Are you occupying?

Sometimes I stay over here and sometimes I go back home. And I’m here for this cause—their movement—but I’m here with the troops. Yeah, I want to get him home.

You want to bring the troops home?

Yeah.

How long have you been involved with the movement?

Couple of weeks. On and off, you know? I’ve got to do my thing.

Okay.

So I may be not the best person to talk to.

I’m trying to hear from everybody, including visitors. Anyway, if you’re coming frequently, that counts as an occupier.

Right, right. Yeah, you could say that, yeah.

Where are you from originally?

I’m born in Sweden, but I growed up here in Manhattan.

I think the movement’s been good, you know, for the economy. I’ve been in bad situations. I’ve been homeless. I’ve done that, been there. I’ve seen how bad it is. This city is now closing down shelters—all kinds of stuff—because of economic interests.

And to try to get some money for the poor.

Is that the primary reason why you’re occupying?

Yeah, you could say that, yeah.

How did you first hear about the movement?

Well, I just turned on the T.V. at home. They were talking it over. And then it started.

What did you think when you first saw something about it?

Well, I think it was awesome. Yeah, because I’ve been follow this, with all the taxes and something like that, you know? They need to tax the wealthy people. Like Warren Buffett said: “I need to pay more taxes.” Russell Simmons was here another day and said: “I need to pay more taxes.” Warren Buffett’s secretary—he present this—pay more taxes than what he do, and he’s a fifty-five-billion-dollar man. And she have, just . . . it don’t make sense, you know?

We need to tax Wall Street. All the greed’s going on down there; set their own bonuses, and all the paychecks. They have to change.

How have you been finding the occupation itself?

When first I come here there was not that much, but it’s getting bigger and bigger, and they go for more and more. Every day it’s a new cause or something like that coming down. You can see here every day, if you walk around, a different union coming down and ask for our help here and get the boost from all this. Yeah, mm-hmm.

It does seem like it’s growing every day.

It does.

We were down here with the kids who slept over—

Oh, yeah. That corner here was a lot of kids and families. Parents and whole families . . .

Was there a lot of crying in the night?

No, no. They were sleeping. It was pretty quiet during the night. There’s nothing much happen.

And also, parents just taking their kids down here. I talked to a family yesterday who took his son down here, too. You can see because he had no idea what was going on and he had no idea why. They took him down so he could see for himself. And he was stunned. He said, “Wow.” He was about ten, eleven years old.

Just for him to see what the movement was like?

Right, right, because he had no clue what this is about.

I think it’s good, you know? Just growing and growing for every day. See how long time you can hang out.

Are you in it for the long haul?

Yeah.

Pretty much?

Yeah, until something get changed, you know? I mean, I don’t make any money. I don’t work any more, been retired. But I don’t get nothing. Everything I do is paying my rent, and then I don’t have anything else because they have taken everything from me.

But Mayor Bloomberg—he don’t like people who don’t make two hundred thousand dollars a year. They not worth nothing for him.

Yeah, he does not, it’s true.

That’s why, since he come in office, he close seven shelters, and gave that money to the wealthy.

Well, my mother-in-law goes to the senior centers, and that’s the other thing.

Right.

I mean, that’s where people go to get dinner, lunch . . .

Yeah, and the lunch and the dinner get poorer and poorer, less and less. You can see if people go to the soup kitchens. Sometimes I drop by there and see. Places that are usually really very good for you, now it’s almost nothing. They don’t have nothing.

Economy goes down, everybody goes, and that’s not good. They have to change that. ❖

Charlie

My name’s Charlie. I’m twenty, and I was a student in Little Rock, Arkansas. I’ve been following the movement very closely, and the day the first union joined—the Transport Workers Union—I dropped out and headed up here.

Really.

Yeah.

That’s fucking baller! [Laughs.]

[Laughs.]

You were in the middle of the semester?

Yeah, I was six weeks in. It was like, “Fuck it! What good is a creative writing / philosophy degree going to be?”

That’s what I have. It’s not good! [Laughs.]

[Laughs.] So I’m basically a year away from graduating, but I’m here learning much more than I ever did in college. I came for a variety of reasons. Corporate greed destroys the planet is the biggest reason, but it also has a lot to do with how we oppress other people, how we fuel wars, how we poison ourselves and other countries and the environment. There’s a lot of fucked-up shit.

How are you finding the experience?

Every day it gets better, while simultaneously I get more exhausted.

Are you getting any sleep?

I barely get any. It’s cold and I’m sleeping on the ground, but there is free coffee.

Always important.

Yeah, that helps a lot.

I love it. I’m working with the Sustainability Working Group.

What’s that?

What is it?

Yeah. What do you guys do?

We realize that the sustainability of the movement has everything to do with how “sustainable” the movement is. So we built our booth and booth chair out of up-cycled lumber that we found in dumpsters. We have a pedal-powered bike that a New York organization called Time’s Up! brought here, and we’re working on getting more. We’ve got a greywater system for removing toxins from the dishwater and mop water. We’re trying to start some gardens and green spaces in the area, with or without permission. We do recycling and compost, and we’re encouraging all the other working groups to reduce their waste or completely get rid of it.

Which means what, to completely get rid of it? All of it’s used?

Yeah, or just stop using things like Styrofoam and bleach and stuff that’s wasteful. Like, somebody from one of our groups encouraged the kitchen to get teacups instead of using Styrofoam cups.

More elegant also.

Yeah. And as soon as all the bleach is gone, we’ve already bought the apple cider vinegar to replace it, so we don’t continue to pollute the environment in the same manner that the corporations do. So yeah, that’s exciting. In the spring we’re going to go out to community gardens, but it’s almost November now; it’s not very practical.

Are you in this for the winter? You’re going to be out here?

I’m in this for . . .

Forever.

Forever, yeah.

What are your winter plans?

Uh, I live under the Sustainability Booth table.

[Laughs.]

It’s four by eight by forty inches tall, and it’s insulated with cardboard, and I’ve got a nice sleeping bag from my experiences backpacking.

What do your parents think of this?

They’re proud.

They’re old lefties?

Yeah. Not this far left, but . . .

Somewhere.

Yeah.

Do you have anything else that you would like to say, for the historical record?

I think it’s hilarious when the journalists come in and try to ask us what are our demands. They clearly just don’t get it, not even a little bit. One sign I saw put it most eloquently: “The movement is the message.” ❖

Wicked

If you would just tell me your name . . .

My name is Wicked.

And your age, profession?

Twenty-five. I’m a hair stylist but I’m currently unemployed, and I’m from Jersey.

When did you first hear about the movement?

I first heard about it a couple weeks before it started—through a Facebook invite, actually—but I didn’t know it was going to be like this. I thought it was just going to be, like, a one-day thing, because it’s New York City. You would figure they wouldn’t let anybody stay in a park. So in the beginning, I didn’t come. And then I came . . . I would say about three weeks ago, and we checked it out during the day. And we started coming every single day, me and my husband. We’re—actually, we were in a shelter. We’re homeless.

We would come every day, and we would have to leave to get back to Queens by ten o’clock. Then we ended up getting found ineligible in the shelter, and they kicked us out. We didn’t have nowhere to go, so we came here. This is actually a safe place for you to sleep. You don’t have to worry about cops yelling at you to leave and blah, blah, blah.

So that’s originally why I came, but it started to be much more than that for me. I think in the beginning, the message was that people are displeased with the bailout of the bankers while, you know, everybody else is kind of suffering. There really isn’t a middle class anymore. It’s either you got money and, you know, you’re living good, or you’re broke and you’re barely making ends meet.

As I came here, I started realizing that this is something important. This is making history. And I mean, I’m young. I’m twenty-five, so to me, this is the first time I’ve been involved in something or actually really given a shit about something. I have two kids, so I’m sitting here thinking about, like, you know what? It is about time that somebody does take a stand for stuff, because if I don’t, by the time my kids grow up and they’re my age, this world’s going to be in way worse condition.

Me personally—the reason why I’m here is because there’s no jobs. I’ve been homeless for four months. I’ve been trying to find work since January. I used to work for a corporation, so I know how corporations are. They basically treat you like a number and a statistic. I used to manage a salon. Then I got demoted only because I didn’t turn a profit. Not because my customers weren’t happy with my work, not because the staff didn’t think I treated them well, just because I didn’t bring them in money. So that’s why I’m here.

This country needs change, you know? There’s no jobs, and these bankers and all their politicians are bringing in millions of dollars a year. You know what? If every single one of you just put a hundred thousand dollars . . .

And then they complain about getting taxed more, but you guys have it to spare. You guys could go drop money on the most useless shit that’s not even necessary, while there’s people out here starving and homeless.

Like twenty-five-thousand-dollar sunglasses.

Exactly. You could buy that, but you can’t help somebody out, you know what I’m saying?

And in New York City . . . this is the best place to start the movement, because I was reading in the newspaper this is where a good chunk of this country’s rich people live. This is the one percent right here.

I think a lot of people are blaming it on Obama—that he’s not doing anything—but it’s not really him. I think he’s trying to do stuff, but he’s meeting a lot of opposition. People want to make him look bad, the same way Fox News and different people come in here and want to make us look like we’re socialists and we’re trying to destroy the country. That’s not what it is. We’re just taking a stand, same way people took a stand in the sixties, same way they took a stand in Egypt. Just showing you we’re not happy, because if we all sit on our asses and act like nothing’s wrong, then nothing is going to change.

And that’s pretty much it.

All right, what was that again?

¡Viva la Revolución! [Laughs.] ❖

Christopher

Go.

All right, my name’s Christopher. I was an industrial union painter for fifteen years. I worked on bridge contracts, mega steel structures. I worked at the Hanford Site out in Richland, Washington. I worked on missile launch towers in Lompoc, California, for the space center. And I endangered my health. I do lead abatement/removal. The stuff gets in my blood. I watch it dump into rivers all around the country, you know? Nobody cares. So I decided—after my father died—that I’m going to hit the road, and I’m going to see what the real world is like.

The last three years I’ve been riding freight trains, going around. I got forty-six states. I got thirty-one national parks. I paid to go to a lot of these places. Now I realize that, you know, being a hobo, I can actually see America for free.

I was coming out of retirement, actually, for this. I hadn’t ridden a train since, like, March earlier this year.

I have lifelong friends in Florida. I was sitting there watching the news, and . . . I’m a native New Yorker. I grew up out on Long Island. Moved to Florida as a child—my dad retired, you know? So next thing you know, I’m, like, so upset about what’s going on. Now I mean, I was doing just fine out at my friend’s property, doing some tree work. He doesn’t ask for any money, and we’re out in the country, just enjoying life. But we get cable T.V., you know, satellite . . .

So it’s, like, now I watch Robin Meade, Express in the Morning, and—

[Laughs.]

But then I started getting more into the protesting thing. Like, you know, “What’s really going on?” Well, I decided: I’m going to come out of retirement.

Last week, I jumped on a freight train. A thousand miles; I walked fifty. It cost me twenty-two dollars to get here. I got here last Saturday, and I’ve been here, and I’ve been sleeping here, and I’ve been knee-deep in the trenches with the revolutionaries. I’m totally down with it. I’m totally down with this cause. And I was sitting on the chair saying, “Can I make a difference if I come here and tell my story?”

I believe that I am a red-blooded American. I don’t believe in public transportation. I don’t think that people should pay to get on the bus. You know, I drove a taxi for three and a half years in South Florida. I used to give rides away, when I had single mothers that were coming back with all the groceries and the three screaming kids, and she’s like, “I only have seven dollars.” I ate the rest of it because I knew that I was giving something back.

But really what I was doing is: I was paying four dollars a gallon for gas—during the horrible reign of George Bush—and I’m paying into this money machine, like, you know, gas taxes and stuff. I remember when gas—when I started driving—was a dollar forty-eight. Now it’s over four dollars a gallon.

I’m sitting there, like, okay, Obama came in and he’s going to make a change. Nah, the gas went down a little bit, and then it went back up. Who’s controlling that? It definitely ain’t Obama! He’s getting his share, but it’s the bankers. I’m totally against the bankers.

We don’t make decisions to go to war and all kinds of things through the one mind of the president. You know, Congress acts on it. So when you think about it like that, everybody says, “Oh, it’s a good idea to go to war.” Yeah, that’s because they’re back-dooring the Afghan people for the lithium mines!

It was a personal thing to get Saddam Hussein. Not saying he wasn’t a terrible, terrible person, but it was all, like, a personal vendetta from family crap, as far as I’m concerned.

When Hillary was going to run for government—yeah, I think a lady should go to office, but at the same time, when you look at it, I don’t want two families in the last twenty-eight years, possibly, reigning and running this country. That’s why I didn’t go with Hillary, you know what I mean?

So looking at all the politics, sitting on the couch, my head’s going to explode, and what can I do? I walked outside. I walked down the railroad tracks and I caught a ride here, and that’s my story.

And I’m here just to make sure that . . . you know, I police myself. I don’t believe in “New York Police Department.” I think that these guys are all crooks over here. I think they’re eyeballing, they’re looking to mace people. I’m totally not for that.

If we policed ourselves and we lived in a peaceful world, we’d watch out for the other, you know what I’m saying? And I don’t see that. I see these guys; I says, “How much money do you make? My friend says you start at twenty-two thousand, and you’re getting shot at and everything. You know, that’s not a lot of money. You can’t raise a family on that.”

I think they’re tax collectors. I think they should do another job, you know what I’m saying? I don’t think that they should walk around with guns. I think that they should turn around and help the people in other ways. Not say, “Hey, you did something wrong,” and tax you. That’s really all it is, and I don’t even know where this money goes. I don’t know where the money goes.

I’m not on food stamps. I depend on my brothers and sisters to help me. I don’t believe in the government, I’m sorry.

Okay, so you’re full-on anarchist.

No, I’m not.

Oh, okay.

No. They’re more of a violent kind of group, you know? Like, throw a monkey wrench in and confuse people and stuff. I’m not about that.

Okay.

I want to hear the truth. I want you to say, you know, straightforward, so that the common American . . .

I was in Small-Town America. I woke up to a sign that had a thumb with a circle and a slash—I’ll show you a picture if you want to see.

Yeah.

You get discouraged when you wake up in the morning and you see something like that. I mean, I was in the middle of nowhere, dying of thirst. So then—get this—I walk up to a church in the middle of nowhere, and they took the faucet spindle off the spigot! So in the middle of nowhere, the church—even established religion—wasn’t worried about somebody maybe, like, needing water. Like, they were going to control how much water they’re going to give as a church!

I’m against a lot of established things, you know? Somewhere along the line, the government decided that we’re going to make up a bunch of these signs and post them around. I mean, how much you think that sign’s worth? Twenty bucks?

Yeah.

Yeah, so how many do you think there are?

Oh—it was, like, a serious sign sign? Like, a road sign?

Yeah.

That’s fucked up.

This is coming right off of I-95—where I-95 meets 301—in the middle of nowhere.

Wow.

And, like, so does that make me a criminal if I do that? Would the local sheriff show up and be like, “You can’t hitchhike?” What happened to carpooling? What happened to ride-share programs? Oh, no, I have to have my own gas, my own insurance.

Insurance companies last year profited twenty-five thousand dollars a second.

[Laughs.]

You tell me, who’s getting this money, man?

Yeah, “Where is that going?” is a good question.

It’s going to the rich people, you know? It bothered me! Yesterday, I read in an article that there’s, like, seven thousand families that are worth more than thirty million dollars right here in New York City.

Really.

Yeah, we happen to have more rich people here . . . the second runner-up was L.A. at forty-two hundred families with thirty million dollars or more. That bothers me because, like, if everybody came down here and chipped in, man, we wouldn’t have shitty tarps and tents, you know what I’m saying?

Right, absolutely.

So, uh, I broke the law, like I said, the whole way here, and I don’t feel bad about it.

[Laughs.]

Um, I’ll just give you a quick—

[Christopher brings up photographs on his cell phone.]

Oh, that’s beautiful.

Yeah, there’s me taking one step forward right there . . . small town . . . I ran into a sandblaster . . . some more trains . . . there I am hiding from the people, you know? I’ve got to hide in this dingy spot. So I mean, that’s beautiful America. Now I start coming into D.C., and you can see it in the background. See it? The monument?

Yep.

Now, if I was Al Qaeda . . . I mean, the infrastructure . . . look how close I got to that, riding through on a freight train. All I’d have to do: jump on in Richmond with a bomb, and I could take out the city! ❖

Tamber

If you could just tell me your name?

Tamber.

And for the record, you know, age, place of birth?

Uh, I am thirty-two today.

Oh, happy birthday!

[Laughs.] Thank you.

Bystander: Happy birthday!

Tamber: Thank you, sir.

I was born in Wichita, Kansas. After living other places, I live in Wichita, Kansas, again. I’m here kind of because it’s my birthday. I was like, “I’m going to get a plane ticket. I’m going to come out to Occupy.” We have an Occupy Wichita.

Oh, you do.

Yeah, we heard what was going on here, and researched, and we were like, “We’ve got to get on this, too. This is very important.” Everybody in Wichita that is doing it is like, “Finally!”

You know, there’s so many people out there that were just waiting, right under the surface, ready to go anytime anybody was willing to stand up and do something. It’s happening in Wichita; it’s happening across the world. This tugged on a lot of strings, for sure.

I’m here, also, just to get some experience—see what they’re doing so as to take it back to my community.

They’re really together here.

Yeah. I found it interesting—and this is just an outside perspective, but it happened in Wichita, too: It started very much as a communal, everybody-is-getting-together type of thing, but the General Assemblies have gotten so big that they have started taking the work groups out, just to make sure that, you know, stuff is getting done.

People have a forum. People come to General Assembly and have a forum, and they definitely discuss major issues there, but other proposals that are needing to get made? People meet and have their own general consensus before they take it to the General Assembly.

That’s interesting.

And that’s what has happened in Wichita, too. Having a democracy—a giant democracy—would be ideal, but it’s difficult, you know, to formulate. It would take forever to have everyone’s opinion. So people come together and make a proposal. If it doesn’t work, people add amendments, and then the group gets to decide. Even in the time that we’ve been in Wichita, that’s happened. It’s almost like the government that we grew up with . . . we do want to have this government. It’s starting to form on its own, naturally. Coming up with different democratic ideas and views, and everybody’s still working together but you see the different camps and groups . . . it’s very interesting to me.

The name of the book is Why We Occupy. Maybe you could talk a little bit about your reasons for doing it.

You know, I have been watching for a long time—even before 9/11—and seeing . . . like . . . things just weren’t quite right. They’re not really giving us the information. Starting back when I was a kid, I don’t even remember being as inundated with advertisements and movies and all of these things to kind of . . . dumb us down a little, I guess.

Yeah.

And it’s just really, really happened. And then after 9/11, it was just a media blitz of “Look, this is what happened. We’re going to give this report, and everything’s going to be fine.” Just washed it over, and it wasn’t the truth, you know? I don’t know what the truth is, but it definitely—what the government told us is not the truth, and with further research, you see that everything is corrupt. The war machines are funding both sides. There’s evidence that even back to World War I, America joined the war and every war after that under false pretenses.

The Gulf of Tonkin didn’t even happen. Our reason for getting into the Vietnam War didn’t even happen, you know.

And, um, I don’t even want to get into 9/11 conspiracy theory.

[Laughs.]

Trust me, I could go for days. But there’s just unrest, and you saw people getting richer and richer, and you saw other people getting poorer and poorer and having to struggle. For me, now, the time is right. Other people are standing up and saying this is not okay.

All the politicking and everything that we’ve seen in the past couple of years, where it’s just been this red herring of Democrat versus Republican and we’re supposed to focus on this side and that side . . . really it’s all the same politics. It’s all just kind of like a sham to have us not see what’s really going on.

I grew up in Kansas. The Electoral College and voting and all that stuff—I wouldn’t call myself a Democrat and I’m certainly not a Republican, but it’s a red state. So many times, in Kansas, you hear from the more left-thinking people, “Well, we’re not going to vote because it’s not even worth it. We’ve been a red state for fifty years. Why are we even going to vote?” That to me was completely flawed. There’s so many reasons, so many things that add up to “Enough is enough!”

We’re not getting a voice. I hear all the time: “Going around occupying and holding signs—that’s not going to do anything.” You know, “It’s not going to change any policies. You need to worry about changing policies,” and all this. Honestly, it is doing something, because whether this right now is changing policies or not—whether there are specific solutions or anything like that—people who have never talked about it before are talking about it. People are getting educated, where before, they just took whatever they saw in the media and believed it. They believed that their country wasn’t lying to them.

So I think that why I occupy is that I want to help bring awareness to this stuff. Do I have solutions? No. Am I, you know, a political science major? No. I don’t have any background like that, but just being here is getting people talking and wondering what’s going on.

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For the record, I just want to say: There’s this idea that everybody here is a jobless hippie, or doesn’t have anything going on. I work full-time for a social-services government agency, and I’m going to school full-time for a master’s in teaching for Early Childhood Unified Education. So I’m doing all that, and I still feel like it’s not enough. That’s all. ❖

Maria I

My name is Maria, and I am an R.N. I have been helping here at the First Aid station, delivering health care to people who otherwise would not have any other option.

Are you staying over, or do you just come in for the day?

I’m here about sixteen, eighteen hours a day, so . . . twenty years ago, I could have spent the night out here. I just can’t do that, but I am dedicated to being here for people. The medics are the ones who cover the night shift. My nurses come in and cover mostly during the day, to give them a break.

Why did you decide to help out here and work here?

Because I’m a nurse! [Laughs.] I take care of people, and there’s a great need here. Since I started here, I have come across . . . I’ve lost count of how many people who do not have health insurance, and who have not spoken to nor seen a health care professional or provider in five, six, seven years.

It’s very important that people have access to health care, and I absolutely embrace the fact that there needs to be health care for all. There needs to be a single-payer system. It works in other countries; it can work here as well.

So you’re coming in sympathy with the movement?

In sympathy? I am here to provide health care.

Okay.

Needed health care for everybody, and I guess if I’m going to stand behind anything, like I said, it’s the fact that everybody deserves to have health care.

Is this something that you have done before?

Yes I have. In my daily work; also in disaster relief.

So you basically come to these impromptu kind of situations.

Sure, sure. Wherever the greatest need is, you know? I like to be there, and like I said, everybody deserves that. I have the skills and the ability to do so, and I’d like to pay it forward.

Where are you from?

I live in Las Vegas.

Did you come out here just for this?

Yes.

You’re taking a leave from work?

Yes.

How long are you planning on staying?

A total of three weeks. ❖

Celia

Celia was accompanied by her four-year-old daughter.

So if I could just ask you your name?

Celia.

And where are you from?

We live in Central New York, outside of Ithaca.

Did you come here for this specifically?

Yeah.

So you’re planning on staying over?

We’re staying tonight. We have a ride back home tomorrow which we need to catch, but we might come back later on.

How are you finding the experience of being down here?

Well, we’ve only been here for a little while, but I’ve found it really positive. I’ve been to demonstrations before, and have always felt really comfortable and safe with the people that I was doing it with.

My husband was a little bit nervous letting us come down here. I don’t think he’s ever taken part in a big demonstration; he didn’t really know what to expect. But it feels good to me. I’m impressed. I’ve heard mixed reports, but it seems pretty organized to me.

[Celia’s daughter obtains permission to play with a dog, Calvin, who is camped nearby.]

What made you decide to come down?

Well . . . I believe that we live in a country and a world that is controlled by great powers, and that we’ve forgotten as a society how to take care of what’s important. I’m really fearful for the future of our world.

My family and I live in a really simple way. We live without electricity and we do composting toilets and all that because I feel like it’s what we can do as individuals to take personal responsibility for our lives. This [Occupy Wall Street] is a great chance to tie into something, to get to the source of it, in a way.

And I want to bring [my daughter] down to have the experience. I want her to understand that there’s other people, and I want her to understand that what we do, we do for a reason.

What I’m so scared about is nuclear energy. It’s a huge issue that people somehow made peripheral. I mean, I think that the main driving force is the strength of corporations and the reach of corporate power. Without a doubt, that’s what all of the threatening issues right now really stem from. But it’s amazing to me how nuclear energy is on the periphery of our consciousness.

I just saw Helen Caldicott speak—I don’t know if you know who she is. She’s a doctor who founded a few big organizations about doctors against nuclear energy. She was just explaining how the reactors in Fukushima are basically bombs, waiting to explode. I don’t know if you know about that, but I guess there’s something about the hydrogen mixing within them.

Or there’s another scenario in which the lava could percolate down into the water. And then the seas rise, and—we can’t take care of those freaking reactors! That’s really what’s going to change the shape of our Earth and life on Earth, and I think that’s a huge threat. ❖

Marie & Ann

This interview took place at Au Bon Pain, 222 Broadway.

Tell me a little bit about the book club.

Marie: Oh, okay. We’re a group of twelve. Well, actually, there are thirteen members, and there are eleven of us here today, right?

Ann: Yeah.

Marie: And we were celebrating our hundredth book that we’ve read together as a group.

Wow!

Marie: We’ve been together for several years, and a few years ago, we read Eleanor Roosevelt’s biography. Then we went up to Hyde Park and we did a tour.

So we recently read this book called Someone Knows My Name.

I have not read that.

Ann: It’s written by a Canadian author, and it’s the story of an African woman who’s captured as a . . . I think an eleven-year-old, and brought to South Carolina to work as a slave in an indigo plantation. And then through one of her owners, she ends up in New York City during the Revolutionary War, and manages to become free by working for the British. Then at the end of the war, she is brought with the British loyalists to Nova Scotia. I happened to to be in Nova Scotia and saw the book in a bookstore. I thought, “Wow, this sounds fascinating!” So, brought it back to the club and said, “Let’s read this!”

Marie: And so we read it, and we got fascinated with her story. During her stay in New York, the British came over, and they were actually hunting people down. She was hiding out and sleeping in a park, and also, someone at Fraunces Tavern was hiding some of these slaves.

Ann: Well, Sam Fraunces—which I didn’t know—was black.

Marie: Right.

Ann: And I never knew that.

I didn’t know that, either.

Ann: You know, I’ve lived in New York and seen Fraunces Tavern, but he was actually a black restaurateur.

Marie: So then we said, “Oh, we need an outing!” We had our hundredth book to celebrate, so we said, “Why don’t we go on a walking tour of Lower Manhattan during the Revolutionary War time, and we’ll end up at Fraunces Tavern.” So we called Patriot Tours, and they were able to arrange it. They said they’d do a private tour, whatever time we wanted. So then we thought, “Well, let’s go do Occupy Wall Street.”

Ann’s son and my son have been occupying.

Oh, they have?

Marie: Yeah. This is a very mixed group politically, although we’re very like-minded. So we have some independents, some Democrats, and maybe even some Republicans here, but we all just checked out Occupy Wall Street. Although Sue and Gloria . . . Sue is a former newspaper editor of a small-town paper in Durham, Connecticut. She just retired. And Gloria has been an elementary school teacher. So they came down a week ago and spent the entire day and evening here, and said, “You guys! You know, we all had said we wanted to go check this out, so . . .”

Actually, on the train here from Connecticut—from Durham, where we live—we met a whole group of social workers.

Ann: Students.

Marie: From the University of Connecticut. And we just met up with them at the park, too! They’re here! We didn’t know them, so we just thought, “Well, this is really interesting!” And we just can’t believe . . .

Ann: We’re just . . .

Marie: We’re all blown away at how incredibly clean, organized, civil and caring all these occupiers are toward one another. We also thought there were some Native American Indians who had a really interesting table, and we would’ve just walked by them on the street corner. But I think this movement is giving voices to so many disenfranchised.

Ann: Yeah. We were talking about the diversity of people there.

Absolutely. It’s fascinating, right? Who knew that that diverse a group could have anything in common?

Ann: Yes.

Marie: Unbelievable.

I’m not sure what Peter is doing now—is that who’s here?

Ann: Yes.

Marie: Yes, Peter is here. Ann’s son and my son met up last week at the Times Square thing. My son actually has a job on Wall Street, but he’s been occupying before and after work.

Oh, my God! Really?

Marie: And on some of the weekends, yeah.

Wow.

Marie: But you know, there’s a lot of young adults that are working, and they are just watching their bosses spend millions of dollars hiring people to get them out of paying any taxes at all. So the interesting comment that Robert made was that, you know, he can see his grandparents—in their eighties—worry about Social Security and all these things, and sort of say, “Well, if these corporations aren’t paying their fair taxes, how are my parents going to be supported?”

And they’re all trying to earn a fair wage. He’s been a freelancer and unemployed. You know, it’s just a really difficult time for a lot of young people.

It’s fascinating that both of your sons are occupying.

Marie: Yeah.

Ann: Yeah.

What’s the story with your son? How did he get involved?

Ann: Oh, well, my son was working for a corporation, and has left his job and is investigating being an artist. While he’s doing that, he’s staying with friends who live in Brooklyn. So because he’s in the city, and this is . . . you know, he’s committed to a sustainable lifestyle. Well, he studied engineering at Rensselaer, and one of the things that his professors said he worked with really emphasized sustainability in developing new products.

I was talking to another guy who was in the Sustainability Working Group. Is your son in that group?

Marie: He might be, yeah. I’m not sure.

Ann: I know he was there the Thursday night that they cleaned the park. He spent the night that night, yeah.

But they’re not sleeping there all the time?

Ann: No.

Marie: Robert’s been sleeping there a couple of times, yeah. He has a degree in neuroscience from Oberlin, but couldn’t find work. He just kept getting jobs science editing—freelance work—and finally got this offer from a friend’s father who happens to own a Wall Street firm. It was the only job he could get with benefits, so he had to take it. And he’s doing editing and stuff for them, but it’s not something that he really would love to be doing. He feels very conflicted, because he feels like this is not a corporation that works for social justice, you know?

[To Ann.] Like you’re saying, sort of having a sustainable living, and really looking out for others.

What I think is interesting is that they grew up in a small town where they saw people really looking out for each other. One of the feelings my son had when he came to New York was that you’re seeing all these people, but he found it hard to make connections with groups of people that were like-minded in terms of issues. And this [Occupy Wall Street] is something that I think is unifying a lot of people.

He had restaurant jobs, and I mean, he would . . . he’s saying that this is insane, you know? Fourteen hours a day people are chopping vegetables. They’re paying them under the table, and these restaurateurs are just . . . He’s in the restaurant union. He’s gone to Washington to represent workers’ rights.

But he’s just very conflicted about his parents’ role in this. I think these young adults—it’s a different world and we have to sort of change to that, but they can just see this incredible injustice to people that work hard and are making this economy hum for a very small group of people that are taking advantage of them. That’s how they feel.

I think a lot of people are feeling like that.

Marie: Well, this is great.

Ann: My son had been going to planning meetings since the early summer. I couldn’t believe how the national media was not . . . I mean, they were just pretending it would go away. It was just shocking to me.

Marie: Even N.P.R. took nine days.

Ann: I mean, it’s shocking. ❖

1. Parents for Occupy Wall Street hosted a family sleepover on October 21–22. ↑
2. The Transport Workers Union of America marched with Occupy Wall Street for the first time on October 5. ↑
3. Lawrence Hill, Someone Knows My Name: A Novel (New York: Norton, 2007). ↑
4. A storied march through Manhattan that took place on October 15 culminated with an assembly in Times Square. ↑