Studs Terkel #2 & #3

              Oscar Heline has lived and worked on his farm in Iowa for over 78 years, during his interview, he speaks about the farmers hardships during the depression. He starts off by saying that a farmers life was hard and "desperate". During the depression, a large number of farmers were going through the same struggles and he said "the farmers were almost united". Oscar goes on with telling us how difficult it was to sell your livestock, some places even wanted you to pay them to be able to sell your food there.. Imagining the life that these farmers had to go through back then was sad. I couldn't imagine how hard it must've been when many farmers were loosing their homes and personal belongings just because of the depression. Oscar explained in detail how these farmers united and started rebelling in town together, how they destroyed and blockaded highways to get their point across, something had to be changed. He saw all of this happening, and since he worked as a lobbyist for the state cooperatives, he tried his hardest to get some legislation for these farmers. Mr.Heline goes on to say that "Wallace saved us, put us back on our feet." He had agreed to pass a law for the farmers but wanted them to write the law themselves since it was their problem. I think that was a smart thing to do because this problem was in their lives, so they were the ones who knew what would be best. He then talked about how the people can't do everything themselves, that we want that to happen but we really do need the governments help in certain situations. I agree, I think that the people should be making suggestions and then the government should be executing them. The last page of the interview was focussed on the farmers again, throughout the whole journey and depression, they stuck together and would eventually get what they wanted.
              Jane Yonder was a young girl when her father was hired through the WPA. She lived a very poor life, she tells us that her and her siblings were often cold because they had no blankets in their home. She also spoke about the very small amount of food that had at home, and the very high bill they had to pay off for groceries. I was very sympathetic to hear her talk about her family having to ration their food, their wasn't enough for everyone. In her interview, Jane tells Studs that she recalls her brother often wanting to go out and get food but he was too embarrassed of how high their grocery debt was. Another very shocking thing that Jane said was that her mother would only feed them "good" food when they threw up. She said that whenever her or her siblings were sick, they didn't even have a thermometer to check their temperatures, they'd only be taken care of if they threw up. After speaking about all of the negative things that she went through throughout her life, Jane finally told us about the day her father got a job in the WPA. She was kind of ashamed that his job was through that because one of her friends parents were doctors, and she didn't feel good enough. Then she told us that she ended up not caring what people thought because at least the job brought food to the table.  Then she I can't imagine living a life like this, and its really sad to know that this was a long time ago, but there still are families like this out there..

              I chose to read about Vine Deloria, a teacher and Native American author. Studs Terkel interviewed Vine and what he had to say influenced me to be a little more open-minded and appreciative of history, my own and the countries. Mr.Deloria is a 45 year old Sioux Indian who now teaches Political Science at the University of Arizona. His background is what caused him to speak about the issue of people not understanding and appreciating their heritage and history. During the interview, I noticed that Vine is very descriptive and gives in depth visuals on what he saw growing up. By him doing that, it helped me understand the point that he was trying to get across to the audience. He spoke about the struggles that Indians had to go through way back when, while now everyone has it so easy...and we dont appreciate or notice it. One thing he mentioned which I completely agree with was that today, people don't appreciate or even acknowledge the history of the places they travel through. There are many places that I have been, I once took a road trip to Yellowstone national park and didn't even take in the history behind all of the monuments I passed through. There were battles that were fought all around the United Sates and we don't even take the time to overview that or learn about it when we're actually there. Most of the interview was about that, appreciating and noticing the history...One thing he said was "You have to take a new look at what you thought America was before you can figure out where it's going". Translating into, before someone can look forward, they need to understand how they got there and the meaning of their background. Nowadays, people don't look into anything, their history or their thoughts and ideas, which connects back to what Vine Deloria said at the end of his interview about people not living meaningful lives anymore. If people can't appreciate their background and see the deeper meaning of their lives, then their life isn't meaningful until they can appreciate it. By the end of the interview the one thought that I had was that everyone wants the American Dream, but does that even exist anymore? If we can't appreciate our lives, live them to the fullest or live meaningful lives, then how can someone achieve the American Dream?