00:00:00TIAH EDMUNSON-MORTON: Alright. Name?
LEE HEDGMON: Lee Hedgmon.
TEM: Date of birth?
LH: January 22, '73. I'm a Roe v. Wade baby. [Laughs.]
TEM: [Laughs.] And we're in Corvallis, and today is...
LH: And today is June 9, 2016.
TEM: Excellent. 2016. So you were born in Portland?
LH: I was. I was born in Portland. Man, I basically I spent my whole life there.
Until I left to go to grad school, which was a really long time later.
TEM: What was it like growing up in Portland in the '70s?
LH: Well, I don't remember much. I was just a little kid. So, I actually
remember more in the '80s, because I went to school in downtown Portland. Went
to high school in downtown Portland. I went to grade school at a private
Catholic school. And, heh, this is what I do remember - I think it's funny
because we don't have them anymore - we used to take TriMet. I lived in
northeast [Portland] but I went to school in southeast [Portland]. So I took the
bus. So I worked on a program that had the youth tickets, that got youth bus
tickets. So we were active social activists even at the age of 14. [Laughs.] So
we're like, "TriMet! We need to have youth pass!" So those little validating
stickers that you would have that you would push into the validating machine, we
worked to get those put in for youth.
TEM: So before that, you paid?
LH: I think it was cheaper, but they didn't have the validating pass that we
wanted. They were going to probably do away with it, but I think I was working
with a group that said, "No, we really need it because we all use it."
TEM: Yeah.
LH: I worked on the Portland Youth Commission. Man, gosh, that was a long time
ago. That was a program done by the city and it worked with all the picked
topics that were important to youth.
TEM: As youth you were doing it?
LH: As youth.
TEM: Very cool.
LH: So, Thomas Lauderdale, that's how I met him. Like, years and years ago we
were all kids in this program. Which I think is quite funny that most of us
stayed here and still do stuff.
TEM: So what was it like to get on the bus as a little kid? Was that just the
way it was? Was it kind of exciting?
LH: That was the way it was. It was literally a block away from my house to hop
on, and then I got let off a block away from school. And you're just on the bus
the whole entire time.
TEM: You're commuting.
LH: Yeah, I was. Probably around the seventh and eighth grade is when I was
doing that. Before then my mom would just drop me off.
TEM: What was that grade school like?
LH: It was good. It was a K-8. Uniforms. I still have a fondness for uniforms. I
actually don't think they're a bad thing. You know, most of my formative years
were in school uniforms. Now I hate to buy clothes. [Laughs.] I buy all the same
kinds of clothes. It's nice not to have to ever worry about what you're going to
wear. Overalls or khakis, that's pretty much what I got.
TEM: [Laughs quietly.] What did you like to do when you were a little kid?
LH: I read a lot. And did a lot of writing. That's why I didn't play outside,
didn't play with the other kids. My grandmother always said that I was an old
soul because I didn't like kids when I was a kid. [Laughs.] So, I was pretty
much just by myself.
TEM: So, did your grandparents live in Portland too?
LH: Mm-hm. And my family. My grandparents lived here. Apparently, my great
grandparents lived here as well.
TEM: Deep roots.
LH: Yeah. They're buried up at Willamette Cemetery. Most of them were all in the service.
TEM: Did you have brothers and sisters?
LH: I do. I have one full sister and two, three, four, five half siblings. Yeah.
TEM: They all live in Portland too?
LH: No, no. Actually, two of my brothers and my sister live here. My mom lives
here. Most of my immediate family, nieces and nephews.
TEM: So then you transitioned from private Catholic school to school downtown.
LH: Oh my gosh. So this is the worst experience. [Laughs.] So, my my mother - I
was fine. I wanted to go to Central Catholic, which is where all my friends were
going. And my mother was like, "No, I'm gonna send you to a public school
because I want you to experience being around other people." So you go from
private Catholic school, and I laughed at this, and I said, "So you send me to
the whitest high school in Portland?", which is Lincoln. And I was like, "So not
much different from what I was actually doing before," as far as the people I
was surrounded with, except for I miss my friends.
TEM: Yeah.
LH: So I went to Lincoln. Well, she went to Lincoln. She graduated from Lincoln.
And back in the day when she was a kid, most of the African American community
was in southwest Portland. But she went to Shattuck grade school, which is
Shattuck Hall, Portland State. So, Lincoln Hall is where Lincoln High School was
named after, used to be. So Shattuck Hall was Shattuck grade school, and that's
where my mother went to school. So that area upwards, before they moved everyone
to northeast Portland, used to be predominantly African Americans lived there.
TEM: In one generation that's a pretty big change.
LH: Yup! A lot of movement.
TEM: Yeah. Did you feel like it was tough to adjust to this new school? I mean,
presumably you're not wearing a uniform anymore. [Laughs.]
LH: No, I had to think about what I have to wear all the time. Um, no, it
wasn't. It was fun. It was an IB school, international baccalaureate, it was a
magnet school at the time that Portland had magnet schools. They don't have them
anymore. But it was language focused. And because we could take classes at
Portland State as well, it was really, really nice. So my language of choice,
which I don't even know why I chose it, was Latin. I don't know why I thought
that was going to be a good idea. [Laughs.] I can translate the dollar bill and
college sweatshirts. That's pretty much as good as it gets.
TEM: [Laughs.] So not a language skill you carried with you?
LH: [Laughs.] I spent twenty years, so I actually, when I was in high school,
when I was taking Latin, I bought a copy of the Odyssey in Latin, still have it
to this day. I am 43 years old, and I still have it, but on occasion I will get
this bee in my bonnet to translate it. Twenty-some odd years later, I'm still
barely getting through this book just to kind of stay in practice. I'm rusty,
but I know enough and remember enough that I can look at something and go, Ok, I
kind of get this idea. I know the story enough to know that.
TEM: Yeah.
LH: So translating that was a hobby for really a long time. Now I just have the
bloody book and I just can't bear to get rid of it. 'cuz that was...yeah.
TEM: Meaningful.
LH: It was at the time, and now it's just a grim reminder of totally not
thinking ahead. Like, what am I going to do with Latin? Unless I was going to go
into, you know, the medical field.
TEM: Botany, maybe. You could have...become a scientist.
LH: Yeah, I didn't spend a lot of time outside, so that wasn't going to be an
interesting thing. Botany as like "ah yeah" [Laughs.]
TEM: What was it like in downtown Portland? So this would be late '80s, right?
LH: Late '80s,'87 or so. So much fun. Only place where we would skip school to
go to the library, record store, the museum. Like, who does that? But we're
right there. You just walk across the freeway overpass and you're pretty much in
downtown. I wasn't an interesting rebel in that I would go really cool places. I
would go to the library, I would go to the record store, I would hit the coffee
shops. You know, hang out at the art museum. I would go to Portland State and
run around there. My mother worked at Portland State too. As a little kid, I
spent a lot of time. She worked with the Urban League and the Urban League was
at Portland State. I spent a lot of time on that campus. So as a little kid I
spent a lot of time on that campus. So you can get from one place to the other
and never come upstairs, because you could take the tunnels before they closed a
lot of them off. And I wasn't the only kid that was just runnin' around campus.
Back then you could run around campus and it was fairly safe. Somebody stops
you, and it'd just be like, "Where do you need to be? Where are your parents?"
I'm like, "Mm, Shattuck." My mother was like, "You remember where you're
supposed to be. Shattuck Hall. You tell them that, and they'll get you there." [Laughs.]
TEM: So do you think part of that was just being on an urban campus that was
maybe more of a commuter campus where people would have families?
LH: I think because there was a daycare center there, because there was a
playground there, because there was so much there, people would drop their kids
off or they would just bring them in if they were only there for a little bit. I
think it was a lot better with just having kids roaming around. For some reason
it feels like there weren't as many people around, it wasn't as busy.
TEM: Even downtown Portland, or are you thinking more about just the campus itself?
LH: Just the campus itself. Downtown Portland was pretty busy. And really safe
and we would just roam around. Powell's was like there, we'd go there. Just as
long as we made it back in time to do something. Have enough attendance. Wasn't noted.
TEM: Sneak back into class. [Laughs.]
LH: Yeah. And it wasn't like they didn't see everybody leave at lunch. You're
leaving at lunch, but you may come back right before last period, that kind of thing.
TEM: That's a great skip story, though. That you would skip and go to a
bookstore, or skip and go to a library.
LH: Yeah. Very boring.
TEM: So what else did you guys like to do? You said there were coffee shops
around. What are some of the things that you remember about Portland, I don't
know, culturally or socially, as much as you could pay attention to those things
when you were fifteen?
LH: That there was a joint called the McSweeney's Special at Boyd's Coffee,
which was basically a triple shot of espresso back before anybody was doin' that
kind of thing. Mr. McSweeney. That's what he wanted, and that's what he drank
all the time. So that's what he asked for. Somebody would go and get him a
coffee, and we were drinking coffee because there was a coffee shop a block away
from the school. So I was drinking coffee probably when I shouldn't have been.
Caffeine is not the best thing to give to a growing teenager who really can't
pay attention anyway. [Laughs.] But, you know, three shots of espresso is a
little much. Didn't faze him, but that's what it was known as. Certainly coffee
culture was pretty big then, when I was in high school. Gosh, I can't even
remember what was there. It's weird to see pictures of old places, because you
think, I remember that. And you see it now and you can't even remember that's
what was there.
TEM Mm-hm.
LH: I spent a lot of time downtown when I lived in northeast Portland and I
think the nice weird thing was it was the transition of being on the bus and
going from downtown to the northeast. That one, that's a pretty stark
transition. And it's really interesting to hear the conversations now in
Portland about gentrification and people living places and not being able to
afford to be where you grew up. And it's hard to see that. Because people are
talking like, "You're a transplant. You're not even from here. You have no
idea." And I laugh, and I tell people, "Before, you couldn't pay white people to
be in north and northeast Portland. They didn't want to be there, they thought
it was dangerous. But then..." I swear I tell people that this is how it started
for Northeast, this was the beginning of the end. When PSU students realized
that you could rent a house in northeast Portland and live with six people in a
house and you only had to take one bus to get to Portland State - the number
eight drops you off, goes straight from Jantzen Beach straight through the heart
of northeast and let's off right at Smith Hall. You can take one bus. So if you
were anywhere close in that area...so Alberta, all those houses there, you could
rent them for super cheap and live six people in, and take one bus to go to
school. And by the time I left high school you could see that happening. Like,
in the mornings, a lot of students, college students, were taking the bus and
there were just more. And once that phase changed a whole lot of opportunities
suddenly opened up that nobody had time for before.
TEM: So, by the late '80s, you would have graduated from high school in '91, is
that right? So by the late '80s even as a high school student you were really
observing that change in north, northeast Portland?
LH: Yeah well, I was a social activist straight through from the time I was
fourteen until, honestly, well into my twenties in various organizations. So for
me, I don't know if anybody else paid attention, but those were the things that
I was looking at. "Hey, one of the ways that youth are disenfranchised..." and
then when you start looking at that, and you bring in other factors, other
things play a role.
TEM: What did your mom do at the Urban League in Portland? What was her role there?
LH: I don't remember. I was a kid and I didn't care. [Laughs.]
TEM: So the Urban League in Portland is certainly known for community, activism,
involvement, empowerment, support.
LH: Yes.
TEM: So did you feel like that was an impetus for your own involvement?
LH: No.
TEM: Where do you think your activism came from?
LH: She got me involved in this to keep me out of trouble, to give me something
to do. [Laughs.] And a friend of hers was running the program the Portland Youth
Commission and was working with them. And he suggested [I join.] She's like,
"Oh, there's a place that will take my kid once a week!" kind of thing. Downtown
Portland Building, that's where we went. It gave me something to do and I made
friends that way. And just people. And learning about, and doing research on the
ways they disenfranchise [youth], [but] you then have to look at other ways
where not just age is a factor. We talked about how race and gender and
sexuality are factors. Doing intersectionality work before I was even in
college, which strangely enough, I ended up focusing on.
TEM: So you talked about transportation, the bus pass. What were some of the
other things that you were involved in during that time, activist-wise-?
LH: So we had a citywide newspaper Youth Today. That was sponsored by the
Oregonian, and I'm pretty sure you can still find old copies of it through their archives.
TEM: So there were student-written stories, youth-written stories?
LH: Oh we did everything. We produced it, we did all the typewriting,
typesetting stuff, folks would go over to the Oregonian and work there learning
reporting, photography, all of it. All produced by youth. That's pretty cool.
TEM: Yeah!
LH: We covered issues like homelessness and...yeah. That was fun.
TEM: That's pretty incredible, as a teenager to have that level of engagement.
LH: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Working and being able to go up to City Hall,
speak in front of the City Council, we did all sorts of things. The idea was
that it was not for us, because we were going to be graduating soon and gone.
But everything we set in motion...adults don't think about youth.
TEM: So were there challenging things about it?
LH: It's like getting a pat on the head by adults. "Oh, that was so well done!"
I'm tryin' to think. The big issue for me was the transportation one. But then
there were things like healthcare, being able to access for homeless youth.
Things like that. Outside In, working with organizations that work with homeless
youth, like having to get access to healthcare or just basic supplies and bring
that to the attention of people. Like, what can we do? Before it was a big deal,
worked a lot with SMYRC, Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center. I think they're
still around. And if that's the case, that's a really long time.
TEM: Mm-hm.
LH: Wow, I haven't thought about any of this in years.
TEM: So did you think about staying in that field, becoming an adult activist?
[laughs] Eighteen, now you're an adult activist.
LH: Well, it was weird because, yeah, that would be nice, but it doesn't pay any
bills, kind of thing. I was doing that up until I graduated high school and I
was trying to figure out college. And I really wanted to go to college but I
wanted to pay my own way to college. Kind of, at that point, I wanted to put my
foot down, like, this is what I'm gonna do with my life. I wanted to leave and
go to college but I wanted it to be the college of my choice. So in that sense I
rebelled against my mom. I was gonna take care of myself, and so I got a job. I
took part time classes at Portland Community College. My first real job. Because
I didn't have to work when I was in school. My mom was like, "School's enough,
you don't have to actually have a job." So I never had a job until I got out of
high school. My very first job was See's Candies in the Lloyd Center Mall. When
it opened up after the remodel where they closed it all off, because it used to
be an open air market and dark and dank and concrete-y. [Laughs.] So when we
first opened it, that was my very first job. And I gained like thirty pounds in
three months. [Laughs.] That wasn't fun, but to this day I can name you by sight
every candy in a box.
TEM: Is See's based in Portland?
LH: No. They're out of California.
TEM: Ah. I just remember stores were in all the malls.
LH: I worked there for a couple years and then at Meier and Frank long before it
became Macy's.
TEM: Did you go straight into school? Like you graduated from high school, did
you start at PCC?
LH: I didn't even take a break. I started taking college classes my senior year.
You'd sit in because I could go, but I remember taking my first college class. I
was trying to get everything out of the way so I was taking it during the
summer. It was at Portland Community College, Writing 121. And the teacher in
that class is still to this day one of my oldest friends. Wendy Judith Cutler -
she was my instructor then, and later became one of my teachers when I went to
Portland State. It's funny because she's known me the longest, as an adult.
Since I was eighteen. So it was cool.
TEM: So you took Writing 121, which everyone...
LH: Everyone has to get it out of the way.
TEM: What did you want to study?
LH: No idea. I had no idea. You just know, I have to go to college. I don't
really know what I want to do. Maybe I want to be a writer, because I enjoyed
writing, I was good at it. I enjoy creative writing. It's that free form,
there's no rules. Once you know the proper English grammar rules and all that
stuff, you can pretty much do whatever you want. Creative license is the right.
That is not the writing I ended up doing, which might explain why I don't
necessarily like to do it as much. [Laughs.] So I was paying for myself, I was
living on my own. I got a first apartment with some friends. [Sighs.] Disaster.
Ugh. [Laughs.]
TEM: The apartment or the living with friends?
LH: Both! Oh my gosh! Ugh! [Laughs.] It was horrible! It's so gross. [Laughs.]
You never know how badly people just don't know how to take care of themselves
until you get three girls who don't really know how to take care of themselves
living together. It's like, "You mean these dishes don't just magically wash
themselves?" Well, put them in the dishwasher. There really isn't more to it
than that. Or the fact that you have a checking account. Just cause papers, see
I have checks! Oh my gosh, I don't know how we managed.
TEM: How long did you live together?
LH: Maybe nine months? And we didn't even have to search for the house. We lived
upstairs in a duplex. We rented it because it was my friend's parent's house,
and she was talking her parents into renting to three fresh-out-of-high-school
girls. [Laughs.] We were all friends. Yeah. Oh. We would never have been able to
get an apartment by ourselves. [Laughs.]
TEM: [Laughs.] So you were still at PCC then?
LH: Yeah. I actually did that and worked at Meier & Frank and I can't think of
what else I was doing. [Sighs.] Those two places for a really long time.
TEM: Did you keep up, were you still involved in community activism wise?
LH: I was. We were one of the early chapters. About this time, by eighteen or
nineteen, I came out. Not to my family, but to myself, which is most important.
And so I was doing a lot of activist work in the queer community here. Trying to
like, just be, joined the Lesbian Avengers. Good memories, good friends still to
this day. Got involved with things like In Other Words bookstore. Glad they're
still around. At the time, it was just like Amazon. There weren't a lot of
feminist bookstores. Amazon was the first in Minneapolis, the oldest. And that
whole thing with Amazon.com.
TEM: I know. When you said that I was like, Amazon? What?
LH: That's right. That's exactly what people think. They had it first, the
bookstore had it first. Ah, that's a bitter pill.
TEM: So what was the queer community like then in Portland?
LH: Fun. Always fun. We spent a lot of time in high school at The City. I don't
know if you're familiar with The City. The City was the underage gay club here.
It is no longer here, but it used to be in downtown in the Brew Blocks area,
which is now the Brew Blocks area. Right around were Pal's is. That's where you
could go. No alcohol, no drugs. Yeah right. [Laughs.] Only underage people.
Right. Yeah. So we did that. We just hung out and were social. As social as one
can be before you can drink. Like, I was all this before I was 21. So yeah, I
can't even remember.
TEM: So were there clubs and groups that were linked to the university or was it mainly...?
LH: Mainly it was just out and about. Magazines that are no longer around - I
think the Lavender Network had a magazine out, so that's how you met people. Pen
pals...people actually wrote letters to people.
TEM: Mm-hm.
LH: All the national magazines, that's pretty much the only way you could meet
people then. And then once you were out in places then it was a little bit
easier. I'm trying to think, that pretty much gets me up to nineteen, maybe
twenty. Because I think I met my first girlfriend when I was twenty because I
couldn't go into bars. Oh! No! [Laughs.] So my very first gay bar I ever got to
go into was what used to be the E Room, which before then was a strip club, and
before that it was a gay-lesbian country western bar, right there off of 37th
and Division. And now I don't know, some foo-foo thing over there. Ugh! On
Wednesday nights they had two-step dancing classes, so they'd let you in, and
I'd go in to take the classes.
TEM: As an underage person?
LH: As an underage person. They didn't check the IDs at the door. So long as I
didn't try to buy any alcohol I was fine. But I remember this because it was
through In Other Words. That was a weekly group that met, and it was the
weirdest titled [group]. So you think it might be a lesbian support group. And
they decided after this they would go - it was on Wednesday - they would go to
this bar and they'd country western dance. That was the only place that I could
get into, so that's where they took me. And so I learned how to two-step, which
I'm actually pretty good at.
TEM: That's awesome. [Laughs.]
LH: [Laughs.] So that's where I spent my nineteen and twenties. Oh my gosh,
that's so funny. To see it become later a strip club. A strip club, and us not
know. So we're walkin' in and the poor guys were shocked. And we're like, "No,
this isn't it." They were like "no", we thought it was fine! So that's a history
of Portland in really weird pockets. I'd forgotten about that.
TEM: So did it feel like a safe town? A safe city, obviously it's more than a town.
LH: Yeah.
TEM: It felt like a supportive community?
LH: It did. I mean, I think of a lot of other places where I could have grown
up, and it's easy to get around, there's lots of stuff for people to do, and it
was pretty accommodating. I was pretty much on my own a lot. I moved out when I
was eighteen anyway. I moved back in off and on with my mom and my sisters and
my niece and nephews and everything because we all lived together. It's pretty
safe. I don't think I would have changed - I don't think if I could go back
there's anything I would change. No, I would keep more pictures, I would take
more pictures. I would keep the things you throw away because you think it's
garbage. Now it's like history because you can't find those anymore and nobody
believes you when you tell them. Like, "No, I'm serious! This actually existed!"
"No!" And then I eventually went to Job Corps, that's how I actually got into
doing a whole lot of other things; I ended up going to Job Corps to take a
non-traditional job because I could make more money than working clerical stuff.
And I still, at that point, didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.
TEM: Were you still taking classes at PCC?
LH: By then I wasn't. I think when I was twenty I signed up for Job Corps
because a friend of mine had done it. And she enjoyed it because she was pretty
much in and out and got a really good job as a dental hygienist. I was like,
"Oh!" I went in and I went in for, heh, "building and apartment maintenance"
because I wanted to be well-rounded and be able to get a job anywhere. I did
Tongue Point, which is up in Astoria. A time in Astoria! I mean, to go up there
now is so weird, because when I was there, that place was, it was just like a
little sea town. It was pretty much on the verge of dying.
TEM: Mm-hm.
LH: And to see it now is amazing. But I remember when it wasn't that way.
TEM: Yeah. How long did you live there?
LH: Luckily, only a year. And technically I wasn't in town, we were on Job
Corps, which is residential. So you just live there. That was an interesting
experience, because when I was there, your options were juvie or Job Corps. It's
pretty much delinquents. Like, 98 percent of the people there. Their parents put
them there, they were given that by the legal systems. Like, this or juvie.
TEM: So were they working? Explain what Job Corps is.
LH: So, Job Corps is basically a program sponsored by the government. Basically
it is like a work program. So you go there and you learn a trade. And then they
pay you, but basically they feed and clothe you and board you and everything. We
got a clothing stipend and we got a little bit of spending money. But you're
there to learn a trade and then they do job placement. So the idea was to kind
of turn people around and get people placed in new jobs. And a lot of really
good programs, like seamanship and welders, plumbing, electrical. Trades that
are apprenticeship trades, so you could leave from there and go into an
apprenticeship. I love the idea of it. Folks went in and finished school too
because you had to have school, so you had to take a certain amount of
education. At some point, some people who were taking college classes, if they
finished with their trade, they could still stay there if they were in college.
So they could take college classes and still stay there. That was nice.
TEM: So did you all live in a house together?
LH: We had dorms.
TEM: Ok.
LH: It used to be an old naval base, so a shipyard. So part of it was Tongue
Point, but it's got literally barracks and dorms because it was a naval base.
And it's very interesting to be there. It was a very interesting experience. I
had never been around people that were pretty much convicted juvenile
delinquents. They weren't hardcore felons, but if left untended they could have
been. [Laughs.] They could have been well on their way. I think the first time I
ever learned about fermentation was there. [Laughs.] Like, prison wine.
TEM: Like, people were making it in their dorm rooms?
LH: Yeah! Because you can't have alcohol in there. That trick with the balloon,
if you don't have an air lock kind of thing, that's where I learned that trick.
It's crazy funny. The things that you pick up. And being smart, and no criminal
record, imagine like for me, I thought it was fun. It was kind of easy. I didn't
come in with a deficit, I chose to be there.
TEM: Mm-hm.
LH: Sure, I'll be the resident on our hall. Yeah sure, I'll do the student
government. This is what happens when you get someone who is totally
squeaky-clean. At that point, I'm brokering deals. It was the best time I ever had.
TEM: But you come out with skills too! But you learned lots of different skills. [Laughs.]
LH: I learned lots of different skills. I improved my skill set. I know how to
pick a lock. I learned easy ways to quickly clean pee quickly for a test. These
are the skills that they don't teach you anywhere else. [Laughs.] So I learned
some pretty interesting things. And I made some interesting friends. Some of
them I kept up with after I left. Times, you don't keep up with everybody. I
think most of us just want to forget that we were there after we're gone, get
back to our normal lives. But it was interesting. But it got me the job that I
ended up having for almost eight years.
TEM: So at what point did you decide to go to Portland State?
LH: I was back at Portland State around 2001. And I was working.
TEM: What were you doing? Sorry, I think I skipped over the nine years.
LH: I was working in the engineering department at the Double Tree - used to be
a Red Lion, and by the time I got there, first year of being a Double Tree -
Lloyd Center, and then I moved to the Double Tree downtown where I was working
in their sales and catering. So I went from doing basically painting, cleaning,
fixing things in the rooms and doing the basic engineering stuff to working in
their sales and catering to doing admin. stuff. And then gradually moved over to
doing sales and catering at a different hotel. And front desk staff. I was there
during 9/11, I was at work that day. Which is an interesting story, because that
moment is what got me a job, where I eventually moved to Minneapolis when I did
an interview at another hotel. The guy that interviewed me had also been at work
during the September 11 attacks, and we had had very similar experiences and we
kind of bonded over that and he ended up hiring me. Ah, how things come about.
Because I was so close - now that hotel Double Tree, the downtown one, has been
absorbed as a part of Portland State. So when they have a convention, they have
rooms. So it's been absorbed by Portland State, but at the time it wasn't. So I
was just there, and I would walk over, and I would take one class. I'd do an
extended lunch, I could walk over, take my class and come back to work. So I
started taking business courses because that was going to be helpful for me,
because I thought I'm going to stay in the hospitality industry. I took Intro to
Economics. Micro or macro, whatever one you had to take first. I failed that
class, twice! The second time, the instructor said to me, "Perhaps your heart
really isn't in this, and don't take my class again." And I was like, "Best
advice ever. You're right." Because at the time, I was taking that class and I
was taking a women's studies class. I obviously was more attached to the women's
studies class. And so I ended up switching my major from business to women's
studies. And that was probably around 2001 or so.
TEM: So I guess you were full-time work and in school, so full-time plus. So
what was going on with community work?
LH: Still doing it. I was volunteering at In Other Words doing writing, doing
reading, still doing activist Lesbian Avengers stuff. That was pretty much all I
was doing. Yeah.
TEM: What are the types of things, what did Lesbian Avengers do? What was the
active part of the activist there?
LH: A lot of in-your-face visibility stuff. So they used to go put on the Dyke
March that happens before Pride parade. There's that, and then there was a lot
of, what is the word I'm looking for - protests. I can't actually even remember
one such thing. I think at the time they did one conference. Oh my gosh, that
was the one and only time that the Lesbian Avengers had a national conference.
We spent I don't know how long. And there weren't a lot of chapters, so we were
trying to find all these tiny chapters and we put this together and we got like
maybe six chapters. Six chapters came, people came, and we put them up in our
houses, on our floors, we fed everybody, it was like three days. It was a lot of
fun, but it was a lot of work. Gosh, I think we still have pictures from that
too, and video. Most of that was just being social. Following the mission
statement; causing trouble, being disruptive, not working within mainstream
gay/lesbian circles. [Laughs.] Nobody really wanted us to come around. [Laughs.]
TEM: So what was that like? What was Portland like, then? Was there like a,
"Yeah, you guys stay over here, we don't want [you]."
LH: [Laughs.] It was more along the lines of [laughs] they need our bodies when
they really want shock value, that kind of thing. Because Lesbian Avengers are
known to show up and do things like eat fire, blow fire, appear topless, you
know, just kind of in-your-face, pay attention, we're here, this is an issue.
And the other groups were like, "We kind of want to seem just like everybody
else." So it's definitely that Martin Luther King / Malcom X [dichotomy.] So
it's them or us kind of deal. That's how it always felt. I'm trying to remember
one. I'm sure there were so many issues that were polarizing, but to be brutally
honest, I was in my twenties and we were pretty drunk a lot of the time. Yeah!
So I have a lot of memories that were pretty much tinged with a lot of alcohol.
[Laughs.] Crazy! Alcohol, a lot of alcohol. A lot of drinking then.
TEM: So did you ever eat fire?
LH: Yeah. I can eat fire. I can make torches. I do not know how to blow fire.
That was fun. I don't necessarily like to do it because fire scares me. Some of
the reasons why now I have an electric brewing system. I've really tried to get
away from fire and propane and all that kind of stuff. I'm not particularly fond
of it. But I did learn how to do it.
TEM: So then you're working in corporate hotels.
LH: Where I get to wear a uniform. See? It all comes back to my uniform. I love it.
TEM: [Laughs.] Then you started at Portland State. Do you ever go full-time back
to school?
LH: I do.
TEM: Majoring in women's studies.
LH: I was majoring in women's studies. I had a lot of majors before I actually
settled on that one. But I majored in women's studies, minored in black studies.
I ended up going full-time and still working full-time. So I was full-time
school, full-time at my actual job. And that was rough. But everybody was so
close. They were so close together. It was a little bit easier. At that point,
when I was at Portland State and I was in women's studies, that's when I decided
to make the jump. I found what I wanted to do, which was I wanted to go into
academia, so I was going to go on to graduate school. That was my goal. And I
graduated in 2003. I didn't even make it to my graduation because I had already
been accepted in graduate school and I was already flying out to Minneapolis to
attend a summer program at the University of Minnesota. So there was no stopping
once I made that decision.
TEM: Were you going to graduate school in women's studies? Was it a women's
studies program?
LH: Yeah. They called it feminist studies. That's the graduate end of it. So I
went there for that.
TEM: What linked you up with Minneapolis?
LH: At the time there were only like eight graduate programs in women's studies.
TEM: 2003? 2002-2003?
LH: Yeah. There weren't a lot. I think it was eight. There might have been less
than that. I applied to the one at Emory and I applied to the one at the
University of Minnesota. Oh, and I think I applied to the one at Rutgers too. It
could have gone either way. What sealed the deal for me was that I had ended up
going to a midyear meeting. I think I told this to the head of the department
after I got in; I knew that the head of the department at the University of
Minnesota, Jackie, was going to be at this meeting. So I made the point to spend
my money to go out to this midyear meeting that nobody goes out to in the hopes
that I would run into her, and casually, basically, plead my case. And we ended
up chatting for a long time. And I told her that that was my choice, I would
totally want to go there if they had a position and they offered it. And then I
think I heard from her a couple weeks later. She was like, "You still interested
in coming?" And I'm like, "Yes." So she was like, "You're in."
TEM: So you got a graduate teaching assistantship as part of the acceptance?
LH: Yeah. So that was why a lot of the numbers were lower - they don't accept
anyone they can't support. So you might get only four people in a class, but
that's because they can support you. So yeah, I packed it up and, heh, moved to
Minneapolis. I count it as an official moving away because I actually left the
state and I couldn't easily come back home. [Laughs.] And I was in this crappy
apartment. This'll tell you just how sheltered - I moved and I sublet this
apartment. I basically had what we call the body bag. It was this huge bag, all
of my belongings were in it. And a friend of mine picked me up because she was
teaching, I think in Wisconsin, so she picked me up in Minneapolis and took me
to this place. And I just had one bag and I think I had a couple of boxes that I
shipped. I was in this apartment, and they have tornado warnings every first
Wednesday of the month at about 1:00 o'clock. [Laughs.] And I had no idea what
the hell that was. Tornado warnings. I would sleep with my boxes and things that
I had packed around me on the bed, because I had no idea what you're supposed to do.
TEM: If there was a tornado?
LH: That's not gonna help you, just so you know. [Laughs.] Creating a cocoon of
crap around yourself does not save you. [Laughs.]
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: I was in this crazy apartment. I also don't cook. This has held true over
the years. I didn't cook, so I never turned on my oven or my stove because I had
a microwave. So, the first time I made friends and invited somebody over,
they're like, "Oh my God! Your apartment smells like gas! What's goin' on?" And
I'm like, "Gas? What are you talkin' about?" And they open up my oven, and
they're like, "The pilot light isn't lit!" And I'm like, "What's a pilot light?"
I had been living in this apartment with gas because I didn't know that you were
supposed to light the pilot light. I didn't even know that! [Laughs!]
TEM: That's why you're scared of gas now.
LH: [Laughs.] I should have been dead! But I was so hot, so I always had the
windows open or the air conditioner going. And I was like, "Well that explains
why I always had a headache." I totally didn't realize that this was the case.
So they lit my pilot light for me. But what's funny is that moving to
Minneapolis is what clued me into beer, because I didn't know how good I had it
until I left Portland. McMenamins was the very first beer I ever had. It was a
Ruby. And coincidentally, twenty-some odd years later, that was the very first
beer my nephew had.
TEM: On purpose?
LH: I don't know. It was weird. And so that was craft beer. That was it. There
was the Ruby from McMenamins, and I thought that was funny because that was the
very first beer for me too. So McMenamins was here, Widmer was here, all these
places were here, and I just was getting into home brewing before I left
Portland in about 2002 or so with a friend whose husband home brewed. He brewed
beer. He sold his equipment, I helped him sell his equipment some odd years
later. It's kind of crazy. And so I had inklings but had never done it, and was
just beer-drinking. I was really earning my keep on that beer-drinking thing.
Plus liquor, but more beer now.
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: But when I moved to Minneapolis I couldn't get beer, like good beer that I
was used to. Because I never drank Bud, Coors, Miller, I never drank any of
that. I always drank the good stuff, like for us It was craft, the early stuff.
And so I was like, "Alright." So I move here to Minneapolis, and all they have
is Bud, Miller, Pabst. Grain Belt was the big one there. And so for me, it
wasn't until I had to literally like [laughs] New Belgium's Flat Tire finally,
literally made it to Minneapolis weeks before I had and like it was all the rage
and I was like, "Finally, something decent! Like I was like oh my gosh" Rogue
Dead Guy Ale is what I could get that, gosh it reminds me of home, and then New
Belgiums and Flat Tire. Those were my staples for really the first year, because
that was really the only good stuff. Until I started branching out, and then I
found they had some pretty decent things there. Nothing like I was used to, but
there was like Leinenkugel's which had been around for a long time, so I was
drinking that. And I was in grad school. We spent a lot of time in bars because
I could study better in bars. And that was a habit that I developed in Portland
at Portland State. Because who goes into a bar at like 8:00 o'clock in the
morning? So I would go in in the morning and study because it's quiet, and the
only people there are not interested in talking like they are at a coffee shop.
If they're there at 11:00 o'clock in the mornin', they don't want to have
anything to do with you. [Laughs.]
TEM: Yeah.
LH: They're there for a reason. And it was funny, because I used to go to my
favorite bars, and the bartenders would know not to offer me anything until
after I'd been there for at least an hour. And I had been working for an hour.
And then they would offer me a beer. And I would always make myself work for an
hour before I actually got a beer or anything. So they'd just leave you alone
for that first hour of working, and then ask if you wanted something. So I got
into the habit of working in bars because it was so much quieter at 11:00
0'clock in the morning.
TEM: What was it like to move to Minneapolis?
LH: Minneapolis was awesome. So for me, Minneapolis is what people think a bad
neighborhood in Portland is like. Minneapolis really was that. They had hit,
they were considered the murder capital of the United States at a point, because
there were just people being killed everywhere. Yeah! Crazy, isn't it? It was
just weird. It was very cyclic. There would just be a time when crime would just
spike. I think it was the heat. I really do. But, the nightlife was happening,
so much arts and culture, and all sorts of stuff. And it was just busy. It was
fun. The sucky thing is, when I moved there they were just on the point of
Ok-ing bar closures at 2:00 AM. So before that, everything closed at 1:00, which
was really kind of a weird shock for me. Because I'm like, 1:00 o'clock? I'm
used to having a bar close at 2:00.
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: [Laughs.] So, when I moved there, Minneapolis bars would close at 2:00, but
St. Paul bars would close at 1:00. So there was that, what I would dub the
"danger hour," where we would dash from St. Paul over the river to Minneapolis,
drink, and then drive back home. I was like, if you just made it 2 0'clock in
both places...That just didn't make sense to me. And transportation was crappy.
Public transportation was crappy. And I had never had to deal with snow. And I
like to say that snow is for recreational purposes only here. We drive to get to
snow. We don't have to live in it, never had to live in it. So the first thing I
did when I got there towards the end of summer, was go out and buy a parka. And
I kid you not, a parka, parka. Like, came down to your wrists and nearly down to
the ground. And you literally were like no exposed - like axs hood, I could
reach things because they were inside pockets, and it was like, puffy. And I
bought it, and the woman behind the counter said, "You're not from here, are
you?" [Laughs.] And I was like, "No." And she just chuckled and laughed and sold
me my coat. And I had that coat for a number of years. And I made the mistake of
asking, before taking our campus tour, "So, how often do you close when the
weather gets bad?" And the woman in the admissions office just laughed. And then
she laughed and turned around and told the people behind her what I had said,
and they laughed at me!
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: She's like, "In the history of the university, we've closed three times."
150 years, three times.
TEM: That had to be a rocky first winter.
LH: Oh my goodness! So, my roommate and I, we lived in a house, we could take a
bus to get to campus. And she was coming in from India. So she was from India
and hadn't had to deal with snow like that. I was from Portland, and hadn't had
to deal with snow. We were living together, and we were really not sure. She had
really long hair, and I had dreads, so basically we had the same hair routine.
So we'd pick one day where we'd stay in the house and watch Criminal Minds,
Special Victims Unit, but we'd do our hair. It would take us all day for our
hair to dry and we would just watch TV all day and hang out. So one day I was
late and didn't wash my hair that day, that Saturday. So it was Monday and I had
to get to class. It was a history class, I remember because I dropped it. It was
a horrible history class, hated the teacher, can't even remember who it was. But
I was late. So I washed my hair real quick, and it was winter. And I stuffed it
under a hat. It was January. Get to school, get out and go into the building.
And some of my hair had come out from underneath my hat, not a big deal. But I
get in, I take my hat off, and my hair is still wet underneath the hat. And I
hear this, click click. My hair had frozen. That which was exposed to the
elements had frozen. I think I lost my mind in the entryway of the building.
When I looked down and saw that some of my locks had broken off and fallen to
the ground, I was like, "Oh. No. Never again." [Laughs.] It was so funny. But
that was my first winter.
TEM: [Laughs.] Your hair broke.
LH: My hair broke. I did not know that hair would freeze if it was wet. Yeah,
that was fun. [Laughs.] It's Minneapolis, and I can't think of any other
amazing, just great things to say about it.
TEM: So, was there a homebrewing scene there?
LH: So there are actually two major online homebrewing clubs, home brewing
stores, that are based out of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Northern Brewer and
Midwest Supplies. And I would say my third year in, I had a friend who had a
roommate who wanted to learn how to home brew. And I was like, Oh, me too! I had
been thinking I wanted to do this again. I walked away, I was doing other stuff,
but I always had an interest in it. And so we bought a kit from Midwest
Supplies. There was actually a store you could drive to - I didn't know this.
Drove there, got it, got the kit, went, planned a day. We had our first beer kit
with these other guys, and figured out how we were going to split it up. And it
made the whole house stink - like the hop smell. And then it reminded me that I
remember that smell from being a kid in downtown Portland going to high school,
because my high school and Portland Brewing, they were all downtown. And that
smell of cooked green beans, that's what it always reminded me of. It stank. Oh,
I hated it. And the same moment I was like, that's that smell! I remember that
smell! And we could only brew one batch in somebody's house before they would
kick us out and be like, "You can't make another batch of beer." Because that
smell would just linger. And if you weren't used it, it was gross. [Laughs.] So
we made one batch of beer there, and then we'd go to somebody else's house and
make another batch of beer and be kicked out. By that time I was actually kind
of interested in brewing, and was dating somebody who actually made beer in
college. So it was like, Let's make beer. So we were making beer together and,
[sighs], he wasn't brewing enough for me, so I bought my own kit and equipment
and started the downward spiral that led me to where I am now. I was fermenting everything.
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: The rule was, if you came to my house and it was in a to-go container, it
was probably safe to eat. But anything else, you had to ask, because you didn't
know. Fruits, vegetables, I think I did something with bacon and a chicken once.
TEM: You fermented a chicken?
LH: Ok, so I put it...
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: Ok, I wanted to see if - [Laughs]. I read it in a book, they did chicken and
duck. It was in Papazian, one of his books. And I was like, I'm gonna try this.
So I did it with bacon, and I learned two things with bacon and chicken. Fat is
not your friend when it comes to beer. But it was a really interesting gross
experiment. Knowing what I know now, I probably would not do it the same way.
I've done it differently since. But you couldn't even guarantee that the chicken
was safe. "What are you doin'? You don't eat that!"
TEM: For somebody, though, who doesn't like to cook...
LH: Oh, this doesn't count as cooking.
TEM: It doesn't count as cooking? [Laughs.]
LH: This doesn't count as cooking. Oh my goodness. I would ferment teas, fruits
and vegetables, and anything that I could make into liquid form. I came upon a
style for braggot, which is a blend of mead and ale. Actually, we're going back
this fall to Minneapolis, and I still have bottles of my very first braggot
there. It was like 14% then, so it was hot. Like, a 12-ounce could get you
really messed up. So it's been a few years, so I think it's probably mellowed.
And I think my old landlord probably still has a box of it in his basement. But
yeah, I had an awesome two-bedroom apartment, and my landlord lived above me, he
and his wife. And he used to home-brew back in the '60s and the '70s, so he
still had a lot of his old equipment in the garage, in the basement. And he's
like, "You can have some of these bottles!" And behind him his wife would be
like, "Don't take those."
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: She's like, "It's too much work to clean those." She knew. But the old style
grolsch bottles, the flip-tops - you see them now, but they're new. He had the
old stuff. And just things in them, like it's been thirty years! Is there still
beer in there? Ugh. But yeah. I think when I started brewing, I started making
wine and mead first because it was easier. And then I moved into doing beer once
I left everybody else behind. People stopped, but I kept going. And then I
really think that it got out of control when I passed my prelim exams and I had
to start doing research and writing for my dissertation. And then brewing became
escape for me.
TEM: Mm-hm.
LH: So, I was probably brewing more than I was researching, writing. And I laugh
because my advisor - I'd always bring bottles of wine or some beer to meetings,
and she'd be like, "That's great. I kinda want to see, do you have a chapter?"
[Laughs.] Maybe not the alcohol? But when I decided to move back to Portland, it
was to finish writing my dissertation and to look for a job. At that point, I
was still looking for a job in academia. So I came back, got a temporary
teaching position at Portland State through Women's Studies. I was actually
teaching university studies. And I said that was what I was gonna do. So I came
back and I'm like, Oh, well I'll join a home brew club and I'll improve my
brewing even more so. And that was back in 2010, when I joined my home brew club
that I'm with now, Oregon Brew Crew. And it took about two years to finally give
up on finishing my dissertation. So I'm technically ABD.
TEM: Why did you leave? Did you think that the change of scenery would
kick-start you?
LH: I wanted to come back to this coast. That's why I left, and I went away to
go to school. Because there were graduate programs I could have done on this
coast. But you don't find a job on the coast where you go to school. You always
end up opposite. They don't want - it's harder. And so I left so I could come
back. I knew I wanted to come back. I just wasn't expecting to come back and
not...finish. And not get a job in teaching. It was hard to give up teaching
more because I didn't want to seem like a failure, and everybody else in my
cohort finished. Got jobs, they're happy. I wasn't happy by the time I left, but
I was gonna do it.
TEM: You weren't happy with being in the academic world, the teaching world?
LH: So...no. Mostly because my research was on teaching. So my research looked
at emotional labor, it looked at how faculty of color utilize emotional labor as
a teaching tool.
TEM: Can you talk about what emotional labor is?
LH: So, emotional labor is basically the idea that you hide what you are feeling
for the benefit of others. Traditionally, Alan Hochschild's work looked at bill
collectors and flight attendants. So the idea is that flight attendants never
show irritation, their goal is to, they never show that they're hurt, that
they're upset, that basically passengers are assholes, kind of thing. They hide
what they're feeling in order to portray an emotion that they think is
comforting for you, and how that physically and emotionally and psychologically
takes its toll on them. I took that idea and looked at how faculty of color, in
particular women faculty of color, have to often hide their responses and their
reactions to racist, sexist student behavior in order to facilitate learning for
everybody. And the strategy they use to create teachable moments at the expense
of their own emotional and psychological well-being. And how that kind of helps
them deal with that. Because my work was so very specific, I would have been
better off in an education department and not in the department I was in.
Because I did a lot of pedagogical theory, so feminist pedagogy, culture
pedagogy, all of these things. And I worked with faculty, because I used to work
at the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Minnesota. My goal
was to look at how to create strategies. Like, how to help faculty create
teaching strategies based off what's going on in their classroom. Because that's
what I was good at, problem solving. So I would look and observe, and I could
see what was going on. I see you doing this, how about tailoring these kinds of
lesson plans in this particular way to address these issues to either minimize
or confront students in certain ways. So that's what I was doing. And if I had
stayed and finished, I would never, unless I was teaching graduate level, be
able to teach my own research.
TEM: Mm. So were you studying yourself in the classroom? Was your research
personal in that way?
LH: Well yeah. It always comes out. But actually, one of the faculty you have
here at Oregon State was instrumental in sparking that and getting me to where
I'm at now. And I ended up interviewing her for my dissertation and we talked a
lot about this and what we do in the classroom because I used to TA for her when
I was at Portland State. And it was very, very telling how people responded to
me and how they responded to her. Equally telling, I have another friend, she's
white and she teaches in sociology, but we both have very prominent tattoos. And
it's interesting how students respond to us.
TEM: As people with tattoos?
LH: As people with tattoos, as things that we can and can't get away with and
what that says about us. I actually got my sleeves done when I was teaching
during the fall semester. So I get one arm done, an outline or something. But I
would be swollen and bloody for a week or so. So my arm was always wrapped, but
I'd show up to class with a wrapped arm. And you could see I was bleeding, I was
oozing, it was like a healed fresh tattoo. Also because it hurt, that was the
one semester where no one ever turned in anything late, I never had a whole lot
of backtalk. It was great. I was really focusing on the differences in history
in race, class, gender, sexuality and talking about hard subjects. And I really
believe that pretty much the fact that I showed up bleeding and with saran wrap
covered arms was pretty much a "you guys really don't want to mess with me."
[Laughs.] I just sat through six hours worth of work. The last thing I want to
hear in the world is your excuses. And at one point I was in so much pain I
think I said something of the sort to them. I was like, "Listen. I don't have
time for this." [Laughs.] And so it was the best nonconfrontational...and
apparently it was the tattoos and the fact that a lot of my clothing at the time
had skulls on it, but I didn't realize this. [Laughs.] So the fear factor and
the tattoos kind of had something to with it too.
TEM: Oh, so much there. So what was it like being a woman of color in the
brewing community? Did you take some of the things that you were observing in
the classroom, did you carry that with you, did you see that in the brewing community?
LH: Always. I will say this. There weren't a lot of women in my home brew club.
And there weren't a lot of women brewing professionally that you'd see. There
were a couple of them and they were pretty well known. But they were like one,
one or two. It was one of those things where you show up to this and - I will
say this: the brewing community is probably one of the better communities. You
hand your beer to somebody, it's good, sometimes you just have to let the beer
speak for itself. I'm not gonna say that there haven't been moments where people
are complete jerks and assholes, because they have been. I've had events where
I've had beer there and people won't know that I made it, especially if it's
from other brewers there. And they'll be like, "Oh, I totally love this beer, I
love this, and there's a lot of good aromas and all that." I once had a friend
of mine, he and I both had beers, and some guy comes up and was chatting with
me. The beer that he liked, he thought it was his. So the friend goes, "No, no,
that's not mine, that belongs to her." And I had been listening to what they
were saying. And when he says that, the guy looks at him and says, "Well you
know, um, you could have done, you know..." and then he wants to give me a list
of critiques. And I was like, "Yeah, when you thought he made it, you thought it
was fine." There are some things I just don't tolerate well, and that is one of
those ones. They just assume that you don't know what you're talking about. And
that happens a lot. Going places, and asking somebody to tell you about the
beer, and they're like, "Well, it's this really golden color," that's the first
thing they tell you. "Not too hoppy." Or it's very minimizing in how they want
to describe things to you. And so I understand that's how they approach it for
women in general. But having people not take me seriously - that's pretty
standard. I assume that that's going to happen. Not necessarily brewers, as much
as people who don't make beer just don't know any better. So they just make
assumptions until somebody says, "Yeah, do you know who she is?"
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: [Laughs.] I was really laughing because I had that happen to me once. It was
almost like, "Yeah, do you know who she is?" I stand out here in Portland in
general. The funny thing is when I first moved here, I was always mistaken for
another black woman who happens to be a home brewer. And it took us awhile,
because we had never met. And they're like, "Oh, I totally love it, I totally
loved your beer, this IPA." Well I don't really brew IPAs. And so it was like,
"Uh, I've never been to Hop Madness." Turns out they were talking about Annie
Johnson. At the time she was living down in California but she'd come up this
way. And now she lives in Seattle but she'd go to Hop Madness, and she won. And
eventually she did win Home Brewer of the Year at the National Home Brewers
Conference. But I was always being mistaken for her. We look nothing alike.
Like, absolutely nothing alike. And it turns out later, we find out, she had
been mistaken for me as well.
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: [Laughs.] And finally one day I just told 'em, "Nope, sorry. I'm the other
black woman that home brews." And there was that moment. You pretty much have to
put in their face. How do you not? There's a picture of her in Zymurgy, you can
see her online. We look nothing alike. How are you still mistaking us for each
other? Now she is really well established, she works for a really great company.
And her name was out there constantly, her picture was up there constantly. So
now I don't mind. We met and we're friends, so we basically just say thank you.
Because it's always really complimentary, so we just say thank you for each
other if that happens. I get to say thank you for her a lot. I do correct them,
but I do say thank you. Pass it on. But until, she and I had never met. And she
had this funny story, she goes, "I was down doing the judging, and I kept
hearing some people go, 'Hi Lee! Hi Lee!' And she kind of ignored it, and it
wasn't until we met that she goes, "Now I know what they were doing."
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: [Laughs.]
TEM: There's like a whole group of people now that thinks that you ignored them.
LH: [Laughs.]
TEM: I don't know who that lady was, but she was really rude! [Laughs.]
LH: She didn't even say anything to us.
TEM: So you come back here, and you worked on your dissertation for maybe...
LH: A couple years. I finally let it go. At the time I was no longer teaching at
Portland State. I decided I really wanted to make a go of getting into the
brewing industry here. And I got a couple of great breaks that I'm super
thankful for. Because at the time I was like 40. Like 39 or so. And I got a
break at Coalition Brewing. I joined them making a beer in the Coalator Program,
which is a little pilot system. And they let home brewers come in and do a batch
of beer and they would sell it in the tavern and you'd have this big premier and
you'd invite all your friends to it because it's like, "Yay, I made a beer in a
brewery and they're selling it!" So it was a big deal. So I did that. And then
they were looking for someone to kind of take over for it, and strictly
volunteer. And at the time I was between jobs living at home trying to figure
out my next move. So started doing that. I got to work with some great home
brewers and I got to facilitate getting beer to the public, other people's beer.
And my very first paying job that allowed me to join Pink Boots Society was the
Coalition sponsored Pink Boots Brew Day. We did a raspberry chocolate stout,
awesome recipe I put together. And I got paid a hundred bucks. She handed me a
hundred bucks, and she's like, "Now you've been paid to brew beer." And I was
able to join Pink Boots. And then when I stopped doing that and I was between
work, I still stayed a member of Pink Boots. Teri let me. And that was probably
the kindest I'll-forever-be-in-your-debt...and then I ended up getting a job at
Portland U-Brew in their home brew shop. At the same time I was also a member of
LOLA, Ladies of Lagers and Ales. So we would go and we would brew at breweries.
We would pair up and we would do this brew day, and we would release this logoed
beer in collaboration. And that was my introduction to meeting brewers. We did a
couple of beers and a lot of recipes that we did that were logoed beers were
recipes that I helped develop and brew. And so that kind of got me in to meet
people. So between working at Portland U-Brew and making a strawberry lemonade
beer for one of the logo members - it was going to be for her wedding but it was
also for the Pro/Am at Willamette Week. It was a special Pro/Am beer, it wasn't
an official beer. That's how I got my real first job working in a brewery. I
worked at Old Town cleaning kegs. It was backbreaking. [Laughs.] Oh! My
goodness. At the end of the day, I would maybe get twelve kegs cleaned. Because
it was an archaic system. And I would be so sore because I was so out of shape.
Because, you know, I need a desk job!
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: I would come home, and my boyfriend at the time would have to take off my
shoes, help me take off my clothes. I was so sore. Not the case now. Now twelve
kegs is nothing. When I moved to working at PINTS, urban brewering in downtown
Portland, I was doing keg washing there. It wouldn't be anything to do twenty
kegs in a day. That would take a few hours. I was still sore, but it wasn't a
bad sore. So eventually I left Portland U-Brew. I was working at PINTS and I was
working at F. H. Steinbart's, where I'm still am. Working my way up to doing
cellar work and brewing, finishing up brewing. And I was at PINTS until just the
beginning of this month. And I left there and I do some part-time work now at
Ground Breaker.
TEM: Are you still involved with Steinbarts?
LH: Yep! I work two or three days a week there. I love it. I love being able to
talk about home brewing. I brew at home a lot. I built a brewery there at the
house. Bought a house with a garage. I don't think I ever looked at the house.
He says, "Oh it has a garage and it has electricity!" And I'm like, "Oh, let's
go look at it!" And I'm like, "I love it." My, was like, "Did you look at the
house?" "The house? Oh, I guess we should look at the house, huh?"
TEM: A floor drain in the garage. [Laughs.]
LH: It's pretty bad. I was like, "Oh yeah, I guess we should look at the house
where we'd actually be spending our time." And so my garage, where I spend a lot
of my time. I'm lucky enough to work with a lot of cool people. And there are
way more women now. At the time that I was here, there weren't. But now there
are a lot more. Amazing women are out there making amazing beers, and getting
the recognition.
TEM: Why do you think that is? Not the recognition, I mean the recognition is obvious.
LH: It's interest. And there are so many qualified people out there. Like here,
it's a really interesting community, but here you start off with some of the
most crappy work there is to do. Cleaning kegs and doing cellar work, cleaning,
a lot of cleaning. Brewery work is like 95% of it is cleaning. And it's hard to
break into especially when you're in a community where a lot of people know
people, so a lot of people find jobs via word-of-mouth.
TEM: This community?
LH: This community. But then you know, it can be a little physically taxing, and
I think people don't realize it until they get into it. But at the same time,
what I tell people is, "You work smart, not hard." And there are so many guys
who are like, "I'm gonna lift this keg and move this over," and I'm like, "I
have no problems asking somebody to give me a hand with this." Because that's a
hundred and some pounds deadlifting, and then lifting it up. And to do twenty of
those, it's hard on your back, it's hard on your body. It doesn't make sense to
do that kind of thing, but you still have to be able to do it. And sometimes
that's a part of the job requirement safety-wise. I don't think it's right, but
that's just me. And then interest. I think part of it, like with anything, like
being a faculty person of color, like when I was teaching, so many people don't
realize it's possible because they don't see anybody doing the work. It wasn't
until students of color saw me up in front of a classroom that they thought that
was a possibility. And that totally changed their way of thinking. And I think
the same thing holds true in this job. That's why I made such an effort when I
was part of my home brew club to go to festivals to work the booth. Because
people see you there, they talk to you. And then it becomes a possibility that
[they find] something they thought wouldn't be interesting to them and that
there really is a place for them. Sometimes you just have to put yourself out
there in order to have more people.
TEM: And so you started your officer-ship - that's probably not the right word -
in the Oregon Brew Crew doing festival coordination, doing volunteer coordination?
LH: Yeah. I was their festival coordinator. I was the official cat-herder. That
is exactly what that person does, because that job is just getting volunteers to
sit for four hours in the booth and talk about home brewing. I'm like, "You get
free beer, free entry and you don't have to do anything but sit and talk about
what you already love to do." You'd think it would be much easier to get people
to do that, but it's not. [Laughs.] Not always. I'm like, "You get to drink and
talk about beer. For free."
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: But that's what I did. I led for two years and then I ran for president. The
club - they're almost 30 years old - has never had a female president. So that
was me. Yay! But also in the first time in its history it actually had a board
that was a majority of women. We had five board members that were women, and
that had never happened before either. Just the influx of women in the club who
were brewing and winning competitions. My goal this year is to get more women
entered into competitions and then claiming their wins. That's the other thing
that doesn't happen a lot.
TEM: Oh, interesting. So, how would you not claim your win?
LH: So, we have a particular thing called the Home Brewer's Cup. So when you win
in a competition, if you place, you submit your points, and these points get
tallied and they're like a running tally on our website. Granted, I'm not gonna
win this year. But I'm on the board, and my name is on the board showing how
many points I've got. And I know there are a lot of women in the club who won
competitions. And I was like, "So why didn't you register your points?" "Well,
it's only six." That's six more than say, somebody else, and your name is up
there. That's the important thing. Your name has got to be up there. People see
that you are entering and you are winning. Then maybe they will claim their
points too and submit them. It gets us raffle tickets at the end of the year.
That's fun, but for me it's mostly...why are you not entering competitions? It's
a good way to get feedback and there are smart ways to go about doing it. It's a
good way to improve your brewing and, honestly, I'm kind of competitive. That's
why I do it. But I encourage people. I'm like, "Hey, you should enter." One of
my friends, she entered, she won. The first competition she ever entered she
won. I'm not bitter...completely. [Laughs.]
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: I've entered that bloody competition for years and I still haven't won!
[Laughs.] But I was like, "You won!" And she's like, "Oh!" And I'm like, "So
start entering more." And so I'm actually going to do a workshop for folks to do
that. I like doing that, I like entering, I like winning, I like getting
feedback. I've taken this kind of academic approach to it, spreadsheets,
databases, and everything.
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: Tracking and batch numbers and wins and points and averages. Yeah!
TEM: What has the role of Pink Boots been? I'm sort of curious. We started this
interview talking about activism and community involvement and I'm curious how
you see that coming out now in the work that you do. And I would think that Pink
Boots would be one avenue for that.
LH: I think it's the professional arm for women in brewing. And I think for a
lot of people, it's not just working in a brewery, it's any place, from sales
and marketing to being in a lab. If you work in that area, this is your
professional area. And it is what we make it. There are so few of us, you don't
see people. And this is a way to bring people together, share jobs and advice
and things that other people may not think to be important. You know how hard it
is to find a woman's cut shirt, a brewer's shirt, that will fit? Ugh. You know,
that seems really trivial, but you're out there, sometimes you're the face of
the brewery, and if you have ill-fitting clothes, who's gonna take you
seriously? They're already probably not going to take you seriously because
you're walking in sales and you're going to try to sell them beer. And you're a
woman and they may not think you drink beer, if it's not a fruit beer.
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: Which are really hard to make. I don't care what anybody says, you never
know what fruit is going to do in your beer. To people who diss it, I'm like,
"You have no idea how hard it is." Things go south quick. That kind of idea. How
do you deal with coworkers who...For example: I was taking two kegs into the
brewery. They were empty. I was carrying them. I see a friend of mine over there
brewing and I was like, "Oh! Hey!" And he comes over and he's like, "Hey!" and
we're chatting, he comes over and the first thing he does when he says hi is
grab a keg from me. And I don't let go. And we're standing on the street, and
he's like, "I got this!" And I'm like, "Nah, I got it." I said, "I have to walk
in and then I'll come back out with a hand truck because I've got one more." And
he's like, "Oh." I'm like, "Jason, let go of the keg." [Laughs.] And we're
standing there, I'm not letting go.
TEM: Yeah.
LH: And then he stops and he says, "I would have helped anybody." And I got to
the entrance and I stopped and I blocked the door and I said, "So if you had
seen Matt or Alan coming up with the kegs, you would have walked right up to
them and tooken them out of his hands?" And he looked, and he goes, "Well..."
And I looked at him, and he stopped and he goes, "Nah, I probably wouldn't. I
was just trying to be polite."
TEM: Do you think that other female brewers have conversations like that with people?
LH: [Laughs.] Yeah! I posted that on our Facebook, over Pink Boots, our
interaction. And I was like, that hasn't been the first time that somebody comes
up and assumes you can't.
TEM: But do you think that other people can say, "Dude, why are you taking the
keg out of my hand?" Do you think that having a community then empowers the
other women to say that?
LH: What's a better way to say this, or this happens, what should I do? And that
happens. I think that's the place. And we all agree, it doesn't come from a bad
place. If I don't ask for help, then I think I've got it. You could just come up
and say, "Hey, you got this?" If you would have come up and said, "You got it,
you need a hand or something?" I would have been like, "Dude, here, take this."
But he didn't, he came up and grabbed it, and therefore I held on. And so,
completely different. So later, I had him help give me a hand with a keg return.
Someone was like, "It's really heavy." And I hate moving full kegs and I don't
want to have to lift them into the back of my car. So I had him come with me.
And we get 'em in the car and we're coming back - and it wasn't heavy at all, I
could have done it - and we're coming back and he goes, "You know you could have
done that yourself, right?" [Laughs.] And I started laughing. And I said, "I
know." And he goes, "Well, thanks for asking."
TEM: Sometimes you don't want to lift.
LH: Yeah, and that was how I was. But literally that same day, later, he was
like, "You could have gotten that." And I was like, "Yeah, but she said it was
heavy." And he's like, "I don't really want to lift a full keg either." And I
was like, "Me either, that's why I brought you along."
TEM: Yeah.
LH: Because we were going to have to take a bunch of stuff down. But that was
that funny moment, and we still laugh. I still go, "You gonna give me a hand
with these kegs or anything?" Especially if I'm carrying a little one. And he
takes it in good fun because he realizes that if you ask ahead of time it's a
different story, too, because then he would have been helpful to me.
TEM: Mm-hm. Assumptions.
LH: And I don't think folks mean to. I think some just assume that you'll do the
work until you ask for help. But I think a better practice is to put practices
in place that, regardless of whether or not you are a man or a woman, people
shouldn't feel that they can't ask for help. Make it be a two-person job. Those
kinds of things. I think these moments highlight things that structurally and
strategically work environment-wise need to change.
TEM: Mm-hm.
LH: Because there are folks that are wirier and skinnier and smaller than me,
and I'm just like, "You need a hand with that?" Someone has to climb up onto
something to do this. I have a job now where we load sixty-pound buckets of
things up onto a deck, and I figured out a way to do it but the guy who normally
was doing the job didn't do it. He got somebody else to come in and help him
with that. He was like, "Ugh, trying to haul these things up the stairs, up a
ladder." I'm just like, "I don't blame you."
TEM: Well, physical difference is regardless of gender differences.
LH: It is. I think I've experienced less, I would say, sexist actions and less
negative sexual or racial actions in this industry than I have in any other
industry. Professional. Customer side is a little different. But I work with
really great people who are quick to have my back. They're like, "Yeah, I don't
know anything about that, but you really need to talk to her. She's the person
that can answer that question for you." I appreciate that. Because it highlights
that I offered to help them, they didn't want my help, but they still have to
come back for my help.
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: So, I love those moments! "Hey, can I give you a hand?" "No, I'm alright."
And then two minutes later they wait until the guy comes around. "Can you answer
a question?" "Well no, but she can." And then I just look. "So what can I help
you with?" that I had offered to help you with before.
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: That's part of the issue. I think about how much I can get away with and
say. You can say a lot of crazy off-the-wall stuff if you smile and look them
dead in their face. And be like, you know you were wrong, right?
TEM: [Laughs.] That goes back to that teaching. So what are you proud of? What
is the thing that sort of makes you brim with pride? Whether it's thinking about
your career, professional [life], community? What is it that really makes you
want to pat yourself on the back?
LH: Just the fact that I decided to do it, so late in life. So late in life.
[Laughs.] It's a hard thing, all your life just to just be like, "I'm going to
throw everything else away, and start over and do this." And there's no
guarantee, because I've...got a talent. There are things that I'm really good
at, and I'm good at this.
TEM: Mm-hm.
LH: I was good at teaching. But the things you're good at and the things you
really enjoy doing...luckily I'm good at this and I really enjoy it. So I'm
super proud of just overcoming that fear of not being able to do the work. I'm
super proud that I'm able to do the work. It's scary, having no formal
education, and translating just a hobby into a career. There's not a lot of
places you can do that. I don't have a fermentation science background. But I do
have a lot of different kinds of fermentation - I'm glad I went through all that
weird fermentation of using spices and herbs and, you know,
TEM: Poultry
LH: poultry, and doing all that stuff on the cheap. You know, my cure-all for
not having yeast nutrient is I always have bread yeast on hand. It's the little
things that work really well that you wouldn't know if you hadn't been doing it.
And being able to take that, and translate that into beer, then, is quite
interesting. I think I'm most proud of the fact that a person...I don't cook,
but I'm really good at making beers that taste like foods. So yeah, those two
things. Man, if I could do it all over again I totally would have done
fermentation science!
TEM: It's not too late!
LH: No, it is. I think it is. It's hard to sit in a classroom where you know
what's happening in one way and they want to teach you the structure from the
base up. But you know what's going on, but you may not necessarily know the
scientific reason behind it.
TEM: Mm-hm. That makes sense.
LH: I almost feel like I don't need to know the science behind it. Because
there's book learning and then there's the art. There's a science and there's an
art, and I think that I have enough of a mix of both. And I think sometimes
people who learn the science don't necessarily get the art.
TEM: Mm-hm. Yeah. Did we not talk about anything that you thought we would?
LH: I was not expecting to tell you my whole life history from when I was a kid.
TEM: [Laughs.]
LH: That was not expected. I think that's probably more than anybody ever needed
or wanted to know about me. [Laughs.] Gosh! I guess having the option to talk
about something other than beer was nice. And I think that's really funny
because all of those things informed me getting to this point. But most people
don't know that I have a masters. I'm so close, I'm like three chapters away
from getting my PhD. Hardly anybody knows that about me. But all of that informs
the way I think about making beer and being involved in communities and doing
activist work and why it's important. Why I think certain things are worth doing
and why I constantly am challenging people about racist or sexist assumptions if
they're making them about beer. In some ways, why it's really easy for me to
pick and choose my battles, what I'm going to walk away from and what I'm going
to address. That's a hard thing to do, picking and choosing those battles. Did I
cover everything on your notes?
TEM: You did, you did. Awesome! Thank you very much.
LH: Thanks.
