My family returned to the States in 1967 after a transformative five years in Kathmandu, Nepal, where my siblings and I attended an international school with 120 students K to 9 from 16 nationalities.
The images of the Vietnam war on our small black and white TV horrified me, and I began speaking out against the war, and in support of the civil rights movement, in a high school where most teachers prohibited any discussion of such issues. I vowed if I ever became a teacher, we would discuss controversial issues, a commitment I kept during the 30 years I taught high school social studies in Tumwater while also being active in my local, state, and national unions.
My father was hired for the planning faculty at Evergreen, prompting my family to drive to Olympia the summer of 1970 after I graduated high school. That winter I hitchhiked cross-country to rejoin my family and to register as a student at Evergreen. I went to Evergreen to organize against the Vietnam War, and for social justice more broadly. I helped start the Evergreen Political Information Center, which organized actions on campus, including an extensive film-speaker series, not an easy task given the wide divergence of political philosophies among EPIC’s members, and our exhausting, and sometimes valuable, criticism/self-criticism sessions. My evolving activism, and my teaching, emphasized the importance of learning how to have meaningful conversations with people having divergent worldviews on the controversies around us.
- Moldy Mansion: Tales of Dumpstering and Billboarding – By Regon UnsoeldThere were in fact two such households. The first, appropriately called the Moldy Mansion, was located on the water side of West Bay Drive within a few hundred feet of Harrison Avenue. It was a two-story structure with a beautiful view of Mount Tahoma (Rainier) at Steh-Chass (Budd Inlet) near the southernmost point of the Salish Sea. A jungle of dense blackberry vines wove around the house and all the way down to the water.
- EPIC Action During US Air Force Band Performance – 1972Using a PA system, we announced that we would be showing a slideshow to reveal the actual military purpose of the air force in Southeast Asia, noting that we were not attacking the individual band members, but rather bringing attention to bear on the actual role of the air force itself, especially in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
- Antiwar Action: Collecting Donations at Yard Bird’sOur action at Yard Bird’s was inspired by a project of the American Friends Service Committee. The aim was to educate people about the nature of the Vietnam War. We publicly solicited donations to help rebuild a sweater factory destroyed by US bombings in northern Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam).