Legacies Project Oral History: Lana Pollack

Mon, 08/29/2022 - 12:03pm

When: 2022

Transcript

[00:00:00] Interviewer: Remember, you can call for a break anytime that you want. Remember, you can decline to answer any question or should I need to interview at any time for any reason. Today, we'll discuss your time as a young person from about the time the school attendance typically begins in the United States up until you began your professional career or work life. Did you go to preschool? If so where and what do you remember about it?
[00:00:39] Lana Pollack: I did not. I don't think preschool existed in the '40s. Most women didn't work unless they were quite poor and in which case they would probably have had a relative help them with their child, but preschool didn't exist.
[00:01:02] Interviewer: Did you go to kindergarten? If so, where and what do you remember about it?
[00:01:06] Lana Pollack: Oh, I remember that I did go to kindergarten. I went to foster school. It was just across the street and down the block from where I live. I went in the morning. Did I have Mrs. Wilson? I think Mrs. Wilson loved school. I always loved school. I had an older brother and sister, and I thought I was catching up when I got to go to school with them. It was a happy experience.
[00:01:37] Interviewer: Did you go to elementary school, if so, where and what do you remember about it?
[00:01:40] Lana Pollack: I went to elementary school at the same place I went to kindergarten. I remember it was a comfortable place with good friends. I remember being a good student, but in the fifth grade, a boy moved in from a different country. I thought it was Russia, I think now it was probably Latvia. We were doing our math when he first arrived and we were supposed to turn on our papers when we finished and I had like two problems done and he stood up and gave the paper in and I thought, how could that be? He couldn't be that smart. I learned I wasn't so smart, but there were people who were better students than I. The competition there was not really great so it was a little bit easier to excel. But generally, I was confident, I had a lot of friends. It was a good time of life.
[00:02:45] Interviewer: Did you go to high school, if so, where and what do you remember about it?
[00:02:48] Lana Pollack: I remember it being exciting. I was in the marching band as well as the concert band. I was going to say, we didn't have AP classes then. Although, I looked back at the school and I realized that it served me well. It was like grade school and middle school because I went to, we call it junior high in-between. It really wasn't as academically challenging as I would find life to be once I got to the University of Michigan. As I said, we didn't have AP classes. But I also didn't focus much on science and math largely because the culture then didn't encourage girls to do so. In fact, I took algebra in the freshman year and geometry in my sophomore year and I really liked it. Wasn't that difficult, but I really liked it. The next class would have been in my junior year, advanced algebra, but Mr. Dewey didn't like girls in his class. You could go, but almost no one did. He just didn't like girls. Well, I think I know two girls who took that class. At the time, we didn't even think to protest. We didn't have any sensibility about what that was doing to limiting our capacity moving forward in many fields. It just was the way it was. It was very different in the '50s then it became later in the '60s. That was the math situation. Once again, I think I've mentioned three times already, I don't think I was challenged academically, and I think that was a loss. On the other hand, I learned to write well, and that has served me very well. I had confidence, I had friends, I loved Friday nights, I liked boys, I liked social life that was part of high school. I was always expected in my family to either work or be studying in the summer. So I had to do something, I couldn't just hang out at the beach, which is what was the best thing about growing up in Ludington. In the summer, sometimes, once I hit 16, I had jobs as a waitress. I also several times went to Interlocking music camp and that was very intense. That was a really different experience than my high school, which as I said, it was more relaxed, less competitive, and it was much easier for me to excel at home in Ludington. When I got to interlock I thought, oh, there's a lot of people who play the violin better, play the flute better, they're better dancers. I learned that it's okay to hit in the middle when you're in a place that has so many people who excel. But all of it gave me experience. All of it was part of my learning process. Learning and studying and working were fundamental values in my family. We were not allowed to just lay about. But there's still plenty of room for fun.
[00:07:01] Interviewer: I have a question.
[00:07:02] Lana Pollack: Sure.
[00:07:04] Interviewer: I've also been to Interlocking and it's a great place. I want to ask, how do you think your work ethic and how you are now would have been changed if you hadn't gone to Interlocking?
[00:07:17] Lana Pollack: I think for one thing I would have had a more difficult time entering the University of Michigan. I came from a relatively small school where I excelled to a place where everybody came from that cut of the academic world. Interlocking helped me prepare in many ways and to adjust to a different kind of situation. I also learned good music. I learned a lot. I learned to listen to music as well as play. I was exposed to kids from different environments, different places around the country. It was really an expanding world experience. Although people there were privileged, in terms of diversity, you were dealing with people who were privileged. It was still a different world for me. I'll go back and very briefly tell you a couple of stories that these questions didn't quite hit. Let me go to a grade school story, then I'm going to go to one on high school. Grade school stories that in first grade maybe it was even in kindergarten, we were approaching Christmas and I asked my mother if we could have a Christmas tree. I didn't tell the story earlier, did I? I know I didn't tell it earlier today. My short-term memory is not that bad, but in our first meeting, we had time for stories. Christmas was approaching, and I asked my mother for a Christmas tree and I knew we didn't have Christmas trees, but she said, No, Christmas trees are part of Christmas. Christmas is a Christian holiday, we're Jewish, we don't celebrate that holiday so we don't have Christmas trees. I just begged her and I used all my grade five or six-year-old reasoning. I argued that, well, they're so pretty and she said, of course, they're beautiful and that's why we enjoy them, but they belong to other people and not to us. Well, I like to decorate it. She said you can go to your best friend Paul, as I know, you're welcome there and you can decorate the Christmas tree there. She understood and I understood actually, even at that age, I didn't want to be different. I didn't want to stand out. I didn't want anybody to notice that I was different. But she very gently and very firmly said this is who we are and this is the way we do it and there's no reason to be embarrassed. If you fast forward one year, I was now seven and I remember distinctly standing in the playground. I was just there like this and I remember, wasn't I silly when I was little to be worried about being different? We are who we are. My mother had taught me a lesson without putting anybody else down. But she taught me a lesson to be proud of whomever we are. That has stuck with me my entire life and it's given me confidence and encourage throughout my political life that others haven't had because I see people who will cast a vote because that's the way the vote is going. If you have confidence in yourself, you cast a vote that you think is right, and you're prepared to take the pressure. I learned that when I was six, my mother did me a big favor. I also learned to accept pressure, to perhaps be different, and still get along. I learned that also at interlocking.
[00:11:43] Interviewer: If you should not attend any level school, why not? and what did you do?
[00:11:49] Lana Pollack: Repeat that please.
[00:11:50] Interviewer: If you did not attend any level of school, why not? and what did you do?
[00:11:54] Lana Pollack: If I did not attend any level of school.
[00:11:57] FEMALE_1: Skip that one she did go to school [inaudible 00:12:00] questions just because people.
[00:12:08] Lana Pollack: Let me answer one thing. I'll tell you why I didn't go to law school. I didn't go to law school because they didn't have the imagination that it took to break out of the limitations that were there for girls as we were all called them, and so the schooling I did and the patterns I took going forward were very much influenced by the fact that I was female, and then in those days, females had restrictions. Now, there were contemporaries who did go to engineering school, law school, medical school. There may be two or three. I just didn't have that imagination. I didn't have the role models and I didn't have the imagination, and so I limited myself to certain experiences and directions that were effectively imposed by society. Although some people could break out of it, I did not. That all changed about 1960s and within a couple of years, around 1968 to '72. Although of course there are still restrictions on women that are unstated, but there are pressures that hold them back. However, there are many more role models now. For females, for women, for people of color, none of those role models existed then enrollments make a big difference.
[00:13:41] Interviewer: Did you go to school or high school there and what do you remember about it?
[00:13:46] Lana Pollack: I kept mentioned I went to Michigan. I was a freshman in 1960. That was before the social revolution and the social revolution that happened later in the '60s believed me is extremely important to anybody's life experience, certainly mine. The fact that I got there when the girls all lived up on what we call the hill, housing was segregated. We had ours. The guys didn't have ours. We have all restrictions that didn't apply to our contemporary male friends. At that time, with few exceptions. Women came in and they studied be a teacher, to be a social worker, or to be a nurse. It was very limiting. There were exceptions. But that was essentially if you were looking at a professional life, you did that. I remember loving school. I love school every time I went to any school, and I met my husband when I was 17 before classes started. I got married in the middle of my junior year because he had finished his PhD and he was moving to Harvard for a postdoc, and in those days, you certainly didn't go along unless you were married, and so we got married, moved to Boston, and my finished my schooling in pieces. Over the next few years, some in Boston, someone we came back to Ann Arbor at Michigan and eventually I also got a master's degree in education and plan to be a high school social studies teacher.
[00:15:42] Interviewer: Did you play any sports or engaging in any extra curricular activities?
[00:15:47] Lana Pollack: Extra curricular activities, yes. Sports were not available. The girls in high school. We could be a cheerleader. There were no female teams. I'm pausing to make sure that I'm correct, but there's not one. In grade school, we had a field day twice a year. I never learned it. I played baseball when it was very young, and the neighborhood lot with the guys, we had a basketball on the side of her house, but those all geared towards my brother, and by the time I was in the fifth grade, there was nothing and girls, no matter how talented and I know there were some talented girls. Athletically talented. I wasn't so talented, but they had no opportunities to develop. That didn't change until title 9, which was part of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, and never doubt that laws that require non-discrimination are important. Because that changed everything. I studied dance, which was to say ballet, modern jazz, tap. I taught those things. If you look at my yearbook, there was lots of things listed for activities. I was always engaged and I always had a good time, and I really didn't at that time question the limitations that were drawn around the what a young woman could do.
[00:17:36] Interviewer: What about your school experience is different from school as you know it today?
[00:17:40] Lana Pollack: Well, I've just touched on some of that. The gender differences are enormous. As we know today, it's not as if people don't notice gender and they're still aren't stressors that are particular to women. It was a white middle class experience. I mean, school is different because the environment is different and the expectations are different. On the other hand, still have to learn to be a good critical thinker. You still have to turn in your papers. The fundamentals are still the same, and of course, the lack of modern technology meant that there weren't any computers. You showed up and you typed your papers, and if you made a mistake, you had he used the little white something called the little whiteout. But basically through the page your way and you had to start all over again. Didn't have worked processing.
[00:18:57] Interviewer: Please describe the popular music.
[00:19:04] Lana Pollack: Yeah. I should be able to, Kingston Trio and Harry Belafonte, and that was less the music I really loved. Because I'm forgetting the more popular ones, and can't forget Elvis. Elvis came out when I was in seventh grade, and I remember there was amuse, a show, and I played a teeny bopper screaming after Elvis. The music I love best though then was jazz. I still like it was Art Blakey, and in there's a lot of names that wouldn't really be so well known. I'm always been a little weak on pop culture and pop me. I just like I can barely identify people's music that other people could identify like that. Beatles came a little later. Beatles came to this country when I was in my mid '20s. A month ago, I went to see Paul McCartney in Detroit because I thought I missed him the first time around. I'm not going to miss it this time, and that was exciting. It was great. In his voice. Isn't that great? But he performed for three straight hours. Just enormous amount of output of energy for a guy. Hello.
[00:20:51] FEMALE_2: [inaudible 00:20:51] need to get something for students.
[00:21:02] Interviewer: That was particular have any particular dances? [NOISE]
[00:21:05] Lana Pollack: Dances? Yeah. In high school, it was all slow dancing. Which was very convenient because, I wasn't getting close to somebody. Because there was lots of restrictions on us then. I don't want to shock you, but I want to say that a woman's virginity was like the most important thing in the world. We were led to believe that all life would end if you lost your virginity. There were lots of restrictions. But that's a longer subject. With Twist. I think Twist was 1960. I was just getting out of high school into college. The Twist was the first freestanding thing. I was really good jitter book dancer and we did that.
[00:22:15] Interviewer: What were the popular clothing or hairstyles at this time?
[00:22:18] Lana Pollack: Well, I remember. In high school when I was graduating high school, the skirts were below the knee there was a teacher who would go around and check whether it was three inches below the knee as it had to be or something like that. But I think in retrospect, he was probably a guy who just like to look down at young girls' legs. I don't think we were or maybe we were not allowed to wear pants to school. We wore skirts, plaid, pleaded, pendleton was like really a big thing. Then in college course, I went through the skirts kept getting shorter. That was a period of the miniskirts. I still have a few things from that time.
[00:23:28] Interviewer: Can you describe any other facts or styles from this era?
[00:23:32] Lana Pollack: For a period of time boys wore pink shoes. That was a big thing. That was maybe when I was in junior high. White buck shoes were also but the guys wore pink shoes and pink shirts. It was a guy pink thing then. There's a period of time where there was a DA. That was a Elvis and James Dean thing. You switched your hair back. That was pretty radical. What else? I can't remember. I do remember some of my favorite outfits. They come to me right now and they make me feel good just remembering them.
[00:24:28] Interviewer: Do you wear some of those outfits?
[00:24:31] Lana Pollack: There were things partly that my sister had worn or did wear. My sister was three years older and I really looked up to her and she was really beautiful and she really styled. There was a two-piece plaid red long-sleeved wall top and a matching skirt that flowed. When you danced it really moved. It was good.
[00:25:08] Interviewer: Were there any slang, terms or phrases or words you used that aren't in common use today?
[00:25:13] Lana Pollack: Man. I'm sure there were. I'm trying to think what what they were and how it's changed. I'm going to pass.
[00:25:33] Interviewer: What was the typical day like for you during this time period?
[00:25:37] Lana Pollack: In high school or in college?
[00:25:39] Interviewer: High School.
[00:25:40] Lana Pollack: High School? I get up at six. My senior year, I very frequently but not always worked at a ballet bar. I was dancing. I was working on my practicing dance and we had a dance studio. We lived in an old house that had a carriage house, and my mother had turned the top floor of the carriage house into a dance studio. I could go up there and I practice. Or I'd start with practicing my flute. But I would get up and I would do something, and then I would leave for school. Remarkably enough we could come home for lunch. It was fast, it was quick, but I lived like a five-minute drive. My brother was in high school with me most of the time and he would drive me home. After school, I'd eat, first of all. Then there was homework activities, homework. We didn't get a television until I was in the seventh grade. I don't remember watching much television. I remember studying at night. I keep saying the school wasn't very demanding, but what comes to mind is starting practicing. I practiced my flute, I dropped the violin by then, and so I do flute and I do dance. I hung out with friends. But I remember often doing that around unless it was the weekend, we'd be studying. I worked on the annual, the yearbook. I was the business manager for that, which meant I had to sell all the ads and during the school day off and I'd go around to the big businesses and have appointments with people and ask the companies to support the yearbook. I drove, you got your license the day you turned 16, never a day later. Let's take the next question.
[00:28:31] Interviewer: What did you do for fun?
[00:28:33] Lana Pollack: Everything was fun. I can't remember what I did that wasn't fun.
[00:28:42] Lana Pollack: It was fun to see my friends. I can remember the excitement of just going in. I hope there's suddenly some days like this for you. I go into the school, I'd go to my locker and who's wearing what? Who's dating so and so and what was going on? It was just all fun. I don't remember feeling terrible pressure, so it was fun. On the weekends, I teach dance. I did some skiing. There was a little skiing place. Not too far from where I lived. When I say little it was little. But that was fun as I've said. Boys were fun, school dances was fun, football games. Basketball was was huge in my school and we went to all the games and we got to the quarter finals. Visiting on occasion I visited my sister and my brother and my senior year who had gone on to be at Michigan, I'd go down for the weekend, that was really exciting. Occasionally we take a family trip. I loved going to interlock and I don't know, it was good.
[00:30:24] Interviewer: Were there any special days, events or family traditions you remember from last time?
[00:30:32] Lana Pollack: Birthdays were always nice because whatever you did was just special because you knew it was your day. I like Hanukkah, that was a Jewish festival, more than a holiday. We lit the candles, open presents, that was good. I love Saturday night. My father would work really hard. He had a grocery store and he worked incredibly long hours. But he would come home Saturday night it's maybe it was late as 11:00 and my mother would cook a big deal. He was a butcher, so we had a lot of meat, so she put on a big platter of like stakes, like lots of women and we'd all be crowded into the kitchen. We had a very big house, but we have very little kitchen and we'd all be crowded into the kitchen and it would be late at night. Sometimes they'd have a friend or two there, just Saturday nights and Sundays especially when I was younger we'd go on Sunday rides and we look for the eagle, there was one eagle before, the eagles were disappearing because of and we didn't understand it because of the pesticides. But we'd gone rides with my just being in the car with my family. Now, my father would be smoking, but we didn't think then of choking. I mean, there were things about it that you look today and say, agh. But at that time, the special days were on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was definitely my favorite holiday. We'd get aunts and uncles and there was just a festive feeling to it. That was nice.
[00:32:24] Interviewer: Did your family have any special sayings or expressions during this time?
[00:32:31] Lana Pollack: My father had sayings that I won't repeat. I already used the v-word here, is probably going to have to be edited out. One thing I can say, my father used to say, "If you tell the truth, it's easier to remember what you've said." He had a lot of sayings my father more than my mother. I very often recall them in conversations, but I'm not recalling them now that you're asking me to. My father was a very honest man. Honesty above all else was important and integrity. He used to be behind meat counter at their little grocery store and my mother would be at the checkout counter, and if somebody was kind of neat place where you'd beat ordered the meat and it would get wrapped up and instead of coming all in plastic and Styrofoam. My father would put a little note. Sometimes we put the amount on it so that my mother could ring it up. But he would sometimes write on the package words in Yiddish, which is the blank Jewish language, European language. That was like a little note, if he really didn't like somebody and the person couldn't read what it said but my mother would just be smiling. But my father, like most people and most of what I learned from them as positive, but I can't remember saying so other than what I've just offered right now.
[00:34:21] Interviewer: Were there any changes in your family life during your school years?
[00:34:29] Lana Pollack: In high school, except my brother and sister were moving out of the house, there weren't. I didn't suffer anybody who died. Well, I'll say this. My father got sick, but that was when I was younger. He had a heart attack and after that, he continued to work hard. But there was something different. We worried about him. He kept on smoking and eventually this smoking killed him, sadly. But in high school, nothing really bad happened and I know that makes me very fortunate.
[00:35:21] Interviewer: Were there any specific special days, events or family traditions you remember for this time?
[00:35:25] Lana Pollack: I think we covered that. No. Maybe it was slightly different. Let's move on.
[00:35:37] Interviewer: Which holidays did your family celebrate and how our holidays traditionally celebrated new family? Family created its own traditions and celebrations.
[00:35:45] Lana Pollack: I think it's sort of covered that. Thanks. I've already said we didn't celebrate Christmas, which always is very quiet time for me. I've enjoyed it because while other people rush around and are under a lot of stress to do everything they have to do to meet their family obligations and get prepared for this really wonderful holiday. I have very little preparation, and so it's a quiet time for me. Thanksgiving, 4th of July and the lemonade stands. When we were little, we had lemonade stands when my kids grew up. My parents home was on Lexington Avenue, so the parade came by, and then there were games that at the park, 4th of July is fabulous.
[00:36:42] Interviewer: When thinking back to your school years, what important social or historical events were taking place at a time, and how did they personally affect you and your family?
[00:36:52] Lana Pollack: I remember Sputnik going up. I remember I was at interlocking Sputnik, the first satellite. The Russians beat us into space. That was drama and trauma and I remember frightened over possibility of nuclear war. At interlocking once when I was there and I was like in the seventh grade, letter came in the state postage stamp had on it, pray for peace. I recognize now by reading history that there was a great movement at that time to try and frankly Christianized and the America to link capitalism with Christianity, to promote capitalism. It was a pressure against the kind of social values that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had started. Anyway, there is pray for peace and I thought, oh my God, that must mean that we're on the edge of catastrophe and nuclear war and it was terribly frightening. Those are the things that I grew up after World War II, but in the Cold War. That was predominant sense of danger that I grew up with. That's it. Thank you.
[00:38:32] Interviewer: [NOISE]
[00:38:46] Interviewer: After you're finished high school where did you live?
[00:38:48] Lana Pollack: I came to Ann Arbor. I was a freshman. I lived in Alice Lloyd Hall up on the hill as we call it, because that was where all the girls lived in 1960. I lived there one year, and after that, I lived in an apartment with my sister, my sophomore in the first half of my junior year, after which I got married at Christmas time and moved to Boston, Cambridge with my husband, who is doing a post-doc at Harvard.
[00:39:21] Interviewer: How did you come to live very, already answered that but?
[00:39:24] Lana Pollack: I did answer it. We lived in Boston for a year-and-a-half. Our daughter was born there and then we moved back to Ann Arbor.
[00:39:38] Interviewer: Did you remain there or did you move around through your working adult life and what reasons for your loose?
[00:39:46] Lana Pollack: We have lived in Ann Arbor since 1960. There have been some breaks. As I mentioned, the first one was in Boston when my husband was at Harvard and I was taking some classes. I had not yet finished my undergraduate work, so I had that yet to do after my first child was born and before the second child was born, we were back here and then I could finish at Michigan while I was pregnant with our son in 1965. Where else did we live? This is a good time to answer that in all the years. Lived in Boston for a year-and-a-half. We lived in Zambia for a year, that was 1970 and 71. That was a sabbatical year. We had two little kids. It was fabulous. I can tell me more about that if you want to know. Then in 70 and 78, we had another sabbatical year and that was in Northern England, in Durham, England, North East England. Then the only other time I lived away for any period is I went back to Harvard myself in the '90s. I was invited to be a fellow at the Kennedy School, which means you present and work with students, present a seminar, and it was an honor, it was great experience. It was back to Boston then or Cambridge. Other than that, it's been Ann Arbor all the way.
[00:41:27] Interviewer: Could you describe your living in Zambia?
[00:41:31] Lana Pollack: Yes, I can because it's an immensely interesting. My husband is an academic. A sabbatical year means that every seven years, if you're in good standing, at least in some schools, you can have a half a year or a year off and he chose to teach and do research in Zambia. Zambia is in Central Africa. It was just five years after independence, which for Zambia came in 1965, is previously known as Northern Rhodesia. At the time of independence, there were only 500 high school graduates in the whole country. Then you can see that the British did a lousy job of promoting education for the people who lived in Zambia. Yet at Independence, they were led by a man named Kenneth Copeland who was like the Mandela of Zambia. They made commitment to educate everybody. But of course, they didn't have an infrastructure, didn't have schools, they didn't have teachers and they had a lot of expatriate teachers, people from everywhere. That was how they were, of course, staffing the university and my husband was a professor there. Early in our very early in our state. I was looking for something to do because we had a house servant, which of course they did not have here. I had two little children, but I have plenty of time and wanted to do something interesting and useful. I learned of a school that had been started, not an official school, but a pickup school in a shanty town that had been started by an English woman. But the English woman who had started it a few years earlier didn't believe in taking inoculations and so she died, unfortunately. Her nanny, her Zambia nanny continued to go through that school and she had about his fifth grade education and she was trying to work with these kids, but clearly there were way too many kids for any one person, even for Bernadette who was a fabulous person. My friend and I heard about the school and we drove out there and we got out of the car and there were about 100 kids who just swarmed the car and they were from like about 5-15 years old. They said, well, abuela, which in Nyanja, the local language means she's coming. They had thought that if they, some teacher would come back and teach them. For that year, my friend and I picked up that school, got some other teachers. I went out and got books and a little bit of money. It really didn't have a building. We just had a place. At first we had a place with some thatched roofs over, but they were going to fall down, so we took that down so in the rainy season it wasn't so good. It was fabulous. It was wonderful. What we did is decide among, besides trying to teach you everybody who came. We looked for the brightest kids who were the most promising and then we went out and we were their advocates to get them into the proper public schools so that they could get a whole education through the system. Our kids were little, they were four and five and then six and seven, I mean, four turning five and six turning seven. Our older child, our daughter was in school. The white kid in the school that didn't have enough for all the native kids to go to headroom for the expatriate kids. I mean, there was a lot that was wrong, but it was a very hopeful time. It was before AIDS. AIDS was just starting Illinois and knew what it was started in that region of Africa actually. The last thing I'll say is that on school breaks and because I had a friend who is co-director of the school with me, I could get away. We took our kids. We were in a Land Rover that my husband had from the university and he went out and we went into into the bush, into the field, into the layout where there's no hotels, no motels. There wasn't that infrastructure. The custom was to knock on the door. You'd know where the secondary schools were, which were started now by missionaries, Peace Corps, Cusco, which is the Canadian Peace Corps and we'd know where they were so we can plan the field trip so we end up at the end of the afternoon at someplace and we also had to know whether you can buy petrol, gasoline for your land drove over because you had habit to keep going. I knocked on the door and I introduced myself and says my husband from the University of Zambia and then our two small children and would like to stay with you tonight. Can we do that? That was the customs. They would all say yes, except one day I got a brand new Peace Corps young woman and she said, 'Am I supposed to say yes?" I said, "That's right." Then when people we were back in Lusaka, the capital, and then people would come to our house and knock on the door, say, well, I met two girls out in the Western province that said we could stay with you. Sure. It was a really interesting here.
[00:47:18] Interviewer: I'd like you to tell me a little bit about your family life. First, tell me about your spouse. Where and when did you met?
[00:47:24] Lana Pollack: We met at Alice Lloyd. I was the week I was an incoming freshmen, my husband was coming to Michigan. He already had his masters, he was working on his PhD, and he could support himself in part. He was an RA residents advisor. He brought his freshman boys from South Quad over to meet the freshmen girls at Alice Lloyd, and we met.
[00:47:51] Interviewer: What was it like when you were dating?
[00:47:55] Lana Pollack: Nice. How was like when we were dating?
[00:48:04] Lana Pollack: It's very much like dating now. It's getting to know somebody. I thought he was old, I mean he was he was 24 when we met. He'd had his 20s. He had just turned 24. I was still 17 but soon to be 18. It wasn't illegal. I didn't date him exclusively the first year, but by the second year, I did. We went to wick in a common interests. We actually met in two ways. We met at Alice Lloyd. We also met because he had purchased concert series tickets at Hill Auditorium and I had purchased concert series tickets at Hill Auditorium in the mail before we came to Ann Arbor. I met him that one night and then we dance. He's only danced with me like three times; then, at our wedding and I don't know at our son's wedding. It was not reflecting who he really was because he doesn't dance. But we danced, we talked and then when I got to the first concert in the series, he was sitting behind me and that's really why I think we got to know each other well enough to like each other because I don't think it was love at first sight. What did we do? We went to movies, we went to concerts. I don't remember going out to eat that much. People went out to eat that much at that time. He built a boat out of planks and barrels and headed on a lake nearby and when the weather was good we'd go there, and we did what people do.
[00:50:04] Interviewer: Tell me about your engagement and wedding.
[00:50:08] Lana Pollack: My engagement and my wedding. Well, we were engaged because we decided to get married then because he was living in Ann Arbor and he said, will stay a couple and I said, I'm 19 years old, I'm not going to stop dating. Either we get married now or we take our chances, but I'm not going to commit. He said, okay, let's get married. That's how romantic it was. We planned, we got married. We met with my parents to plan the wedding in Muskegon. We met because they were Laddington we are in Ann Arbor. We met in Muskegon because I was going to get my picture taken there. That's where the photographer was and my parents medicine. We went to had lunch in this hotel and started talking to about the wedding. I don't remember what I said, but apparently, I said something that was sharp or rude to my mother. I never sas my parents. I mean, you didn't do that. But apparently I said something that my father thought was inappropriate and he kicked me under the table and I can still feel that. He was saying, I will not embarrass you in front of your husband to be, but you will not speak to your mother that way. Like you maybe grownup but you're not that growing up. I remember that. I remember our wedding. It was fabulous. At first, it was stressful planning wedding. But once my husband and I both agreed that my my sister and my mother were going to plan the wedding and we really didn't have a say in it. It got a lot better because we just let them do it the way they wanted. I still have my wedding dress, which was a short white cocktail dress. It was in our home. I was lucky I lived in a really nice old home in Laddington. Big stairway and I came down the stairway. In a Jewish wedding you have a hopper. A hopper, it's to symbolize the home. It's usually can be made up just flowers, simple or little umbrella like thing. We had a hopper in their living room and came down the steps with my father and stood under the hopper and we borrowed a rabbi from Muskegon because there were no rabbis in Laddington. That was great and then we went off to Boston. I was lonely then. It was a hard transition because I was 20. But my husband went off to work and had everything else set up and I was like, figuring out what to do and where I could get some classes to make thing. I had gone from being a college co-ed to being something quite different. That was not easy, but it was still great.
[00:53:25] Interviewer: Tell me about your children and what life was like when they were young and living in your house?
[00:53:30] Lana Pollack: Well, my son will still recall in Zambia bodo bashing and bodo bashing was the word for going off road really with a Land Rover. He would sit where it was safe and we were not going. He would sit on the hood of the car, which was called the bonnet because it was using English language to sit on the bonnet of the car and we'd say, you watch out for the crocodiles. We're pretty careful. But there were crocodiles. It was great. I loved being a mother. I thought there was no company that I enjoyed more than my children. I just did. It was great, it was wonderful. I will say, young mothers get stir crazy, we get isolated. There was no childcare then. That's not true. When my son went to preschool when at the University, the School of Education had a preschool there that help training teachers in early childhood education. When he was four, he went there for a year. Other than that, there was no preschool. I used to trade babysitting with a friend. I was going back to school to finish so she would babysit Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for me and I would babysit for her two children, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and that way, I could go back to school and I could finish. When my son started preschool at the School of Education that was in the late '60s. It was 68, 69 and it was the time of the social revolution. There was anti-war marches and protests and university shutting down and the kids were in the mix with that. They started violin at a very young age Suzuki violin was brand-new then. They were among the earliest Suzuki people in this country, just because there was a program here. Music and violin was a big part of our lives. The friendships that they develop them still lasted. When we moved to England for a year and my husband's second sabbatical towards the end of the year it was when my daughter died in an accident. That created a very different world for me. But raising children, if you can afford it, if you've got a partner, that's really fun. I hope your parents tell you how much fun they've had or your grandparents. Because believe me, they are living through you in ways that it's great. I loved Halloween. You asked last time about my holidays. Halloween was a great holiday growing up. We invested a lot. I don't mean a lot of money, a lot of thought and time in our costumes. I remember still myself, my sister and I won the best costume. We had pajamas that were black and white, like prisoner customs. Then we had a big metal ball and chains and we were chained and we walked. For my kids, Halloween was just fabulous. Birthday parties we always made pinatas and I made our pinatas for the kid's birthday parties. I don't think you did it then. But, we would never think of like going out to a place where you bounce on things and whatever, where you take kids now. It was always wherever we were living, wherever we were in that's where the party was and that's where the games where. It's exhausting, but it was wonderful.
[00:58:09] Interviewer: Tell me about your working days.
[00:58:12] Lana Pollack: Well, as I said, I didn't finish college right away, although I did quite soon and then I went back and got a master's degree because I was going to be a high-school teacher, social studies teacher. Actually thought for a period of time that I would get a PhD in history. I loved history. I had a professor who was very encouraging, but it was very influenced by then still expectations for women. I didn't bust through those expectations. I thought, well, if I'm a high school teacher, it'll fit with the family's needs I put that first and I forgot about being able to forget about, but I didn't do pursue the PhD. Instead, I pursued a master's degree in education and I got in. It's okay.
[00:59:06] Lana Pollack: It's not like we're alive but this time. I pursued a master's degree in education. I was doing two things I wanted professionally besides children and besides the volunteer work. I was teaching dance. I was finishing my Master's Degree thinking and I was starting to volunteer and getting more responsibility as a volunteer in politics. If you count the various things I was doing I did those three things until I was 39.5 years old and I had never had a full-time job in my life or one that paid very much. I taught dance. I volunteered. I was being a mother but at some point and there's a story that goes with it, I decided I would run for the state senate, and I did and by the time I sworn in, I was just turning 40. That was my first full-time job and that was like the end if you're writing a book that would be the end of one section and then you would open up the next section.
[01:00:32] Interviewer: What was a typical day like during the working years of your adult life? Before you run for state senate.
[01:00:39] Lana Pollack: Before I read for State Senate I was definitely juggling different opportunities and different responsibilities so if I were teaching that day, I would get into my linting you know, my work clothes, my linting and I have a very heavy bag because now if you're bringing your music, you bring your phone. That's right and you can have any music you want on it at that time, I had to have the music on 33.5 you know, long-playing records. They were heavy. I had that. I had what's called a Weidner drum, which is flat drum beat for the modern dance classes. I would have my tap shoes. I have all these things and we had one car, very often take the bus to the where I was teaching. I would take the bus to there was a rec center near Burns Park, that's now a senior center. Later on, I taught at Washington Community College. We must have had two cars by then. I'd go off, I do my classes, I'd come back, I'd be there for my kids coming in and out of the house. They would came home for lunch and then I had to be there for lunch. For them I'd work around that. I might teach in the evenings after dinner or have a democratic work to do at a meeting in the evening so it was a lot of running, a lot of moving. On the other hand, I had some independence. I never had a clock that, I mean I never as they used to say punch a time clock, I didn't have an eight to five job and I never had childcare because I would either trade the childcare with a friend or just be there for the kids. When I was 40, everything changed and then I would go to Lansing on Monday afternoon. I had a place to stay in Lansing and I'd stay over which is rented a room in a house with a couple and so then Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and I come back on Thursday usually. My husband and son would be of course here he was in junior in high school then. But I worked as a politician, I worked seven days a week. I mean, there's been other works, Saturday is expected to go and go to school program, cut a ribbon at some, you know, something was being built, give a talk, the end of LACP or even into church or something and it was a lot of work and it was very exciting and exhausting and I loved it.
[01:04:02] Interviewer: What did your family enjoy doing together when your kids were still at home?
[01:04:08] Lana Pollack: We did a lot of the Suzuki violin stuff going into the programs and the classes. You know, bedtime was always reading. I mean, reading to each other. They built stuff. I built a two different times. We get refrigerator boxes and that became a rocket ship in the basement with all sorts of knobs and everything was pulled from. It was all found material. There were projects like that. We liked traveling to Nebraska. We'd drive to Nebraska where my husband's parents were. The grandparents. We loved going to Lavinton with where my parents lived. They lived still in the house that I had grown up in. They had lemonade stands and they organized parades in the neighborhood. It was a slow day in the summer. Well, I didn't let the kids ever use the word bored or boring. I'd say that is an obscene word and you may not use it. Because you can't be bored. You have a mind, you have freedom. You have things to do. Use your imagination, figure it out and never say, you're bored because that's a reflection on you. Make yourself an bored. There's always lots of friends. Friends were important. Having friends over, having sleepovers. There's lots to do.
[01:06:06] Interviewer: What were your personal favorite things to do?
[01:06:10] Lana Pollack: My personal favorite things were definitely I've already mentioned, doing some of these things with my children. Still with my husband we still enjoyed listening to music like we did when we first met. Visiting our families, holidays, reading and the other thing is working. Our son said when he was like way growing up, he said you know, I just figure out that in this house you can't tell the difference between work and play. It wasn't as if work ended at five and then you started doing something that was fun. I'm jumping around a little bit but for instance, going to my son's track meets or his wrestling matches or swimming. You know just that kind of thing was great. But there wasn't any, any division between work and play because work was both purposeful and fun and we were doing what we wanted to do and so that was like play.
[01:07:26] Interviewer: Are there any special days, events or family traditions you practice that different from your childhood traditions?
[01:07:34] Lana Pollack: Really good question. That come to mind right now. I think my husband and I were both influenced by the way that we grew up and we carry them forward. Yeah.
[01:07:54] Interviewer: Please describe the popular music of your adult life?
[01:07:59] Lana Pollack: I always forget. I loved and was influenced by Motown. I still love Stevie Wonder, I think it's a wonder and great talent. I like traditional jazz Thelonious Monk. People who were in my years as youngsters, but I also love and my husband more so, not more than I but, a good Symphony Orchestra. I love watching dance. It's not music, but it's the music that goes with the dance. To me, if I see a great dance concert, I think of dying and going to heaven. They dance in ways I was never able to, people who will be professionals dancer way better than I ever did, but I love to watch it. Classical jazz, Motown, I just heard him the other day. You asked me and I freeze on the names, but I'll move on the music. Let's move on and I'm going to, wow, how do I forget his name? Anyway, go ahead.
[01:09:42] Interviewer: Sorry. Did this music have any particular dances associated with them?
[01:09:46] Lana Pollack: A lot of what I've mentioned is no, it was not dance music, but the Motown stuff certainly could be. Tina Turner was again, the disco years and I remember teaching to Oz which was a remake of The Wizard of Oz and I should know whose music that was. I like musical theater stuff and my husband didn't dance so that killed a lot of the opportunities for dance, that kind of dance, social dance as opposed to the other dance which I did until I was 40 after which I stopped dancing.
[01:10:35] Interviewer: What were the popular clothing or hairstyles at this time?
[01:10:39] Lana Pollack: Which time? We've got five-and-a-half decades, 55 years, pick your decade.
[01:10:43] Interviewer: The '60s.
[01:10:46] Lana Pollack: Sixties of course when I was getting married. We teased our hair. It was bouffant. If you can picture Jackie Kennedy and her clothes and very elegant. At the end of the '60s, we were love children with the beads and the short skirts and maybe long skirts. But at the beginning of the '60s it was all very trim and neat. I wear my hair in braids for a long time, not in the '60s, but I didn't have great hair [LAUGHTER] like Arie over there. My hair would get about as long as yours and I wore it in braids when I went to the Senate and everybody thought that was unusual. I liked my braids
[01:11:44] Interviewer: Can you describe any other fads or styles from this era?
[01:11:49] Lana Pollack: Well of course on the men in the '70s there was plaids and on the men and the women there were the white pants and then had all these called mutton chops with hair that grew down on their side of the face. At every period I dressed and we thought it was really cool. What it was, was what looked good to us and you can look back at it now and think that's pretty weird, but at the time it was it was styling.
[01:12:36] Interviewer: Were there any slang terms, phrases or words that are in common use today?
[01:12:41] Lana Pollack: I got to asked that last week and I can't remember.
[01:12:44] Interviewer: That's fine.
[01:12:45] Lana Pollack: I just claim cognitive loss here.
[01:12:50] Interviewer: When thinking back on your working life, what important social or historical events were taking place at this time and how did they personally affect you or your family?
[01:12:59] Lana Pollack: Well the Vietnam War created a whole sense of protest. The whole social revolution that I've talked about where women were much more restricted and then afterwards they had more opportunity. That was probably the most. Then then the '70s turned conservative. Last night I was with some people and we all said that in the '60s you thought things would always get better and we've seen them in some ways get better and some ways get worse. Our country is in a bad place right now with racism and nationalism, white nationalism ascended and in the White House. There's a lot of things that impact. Every period has its issues and I was intensely involved in every one of them or interested.
[01:14:05] Interviewer: Do you want to switch [inaudible 01:14:05].
[01:14:05] Lana Pollack: How much time to?
[01:14:09] MALE_1: [inaudible 01:14:09]
[01:14:15] Interviewer: How's your family life change for you when you and your spouse retired?
[01:14:21] Lana Pollack: Well, I'm not really retired. In fact I'm definitely not retired although I just heard that the White House is close to appointing my successor, so I might get to be retired, but I will have to come back next year and answer that.
[01:14:39] Interviewer: What is the typical day in your life currently?
[01:14:42] Lana Pollack: Typical day in my life currently is if I'm not traveling for work, I work at home, I'm sitting in front of my computer, I've got my phone, I have phone meetings scheduled often, but not always, I'm reading material, preparing for the next meeting, I am writing, I do a lot of writing in my job. I will get up from my computer about 6:30 and prepare dinner. I start the morning going to the gym.
[01:15:19] Interviewer: What does your family enjoy doing together now?
[01:15:24] Lana Pollack: Seeing friends. We've always enjoyed and I haven't talked about this much. We've always enjoyed good food, eating together, we still enjoy traveling together, we enjoy talking with each other, listening to each other. I mentioned reading. My husband enjoys pro football on TV which he is kind to put on silent, on mute because I don't enjoy pro football.
[01:16:01] Lana Pollack: We talked to each other. I guess. I have friends and I go to ladies lunches. Meaning my friends are retired, I'm not, but I can get out and have a lunch with them.
[01:16:19] Interviewer: What are your personal favorite things to do now?
[01:16:23] Lana Pollack: I suppose to spend time with my grandson and my son, and my niece and her children and other nieces and nephews and my husband. It's family time. It's still good, but I also enjoy my work.
[01:16:42] Interviewer: Are there any special days, events or family traditions you especially enjoy at this time in your life?
[01:16:47] Lana Pollack: Well, I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. We'll have some relatives. My son and his family are going to be home. I like going to the big house. I like to go to football games and a lot of other things that I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention. We have a place on Lake Michigan. I love nothing more than to just be on the lake and read and use my computer. I can work from up there. I looked at that lake and I think I'm the luckiest person in the world.
[01:17:24] Interviewer: When thinking about your life after your kids have time up to the present, what important social or historical events were taking place and how did they personally affect you and your family?
[01:17:37] Lana Pollack: I covered that for an earlier period. Historic, I think what we're going through right now is historic because we have an historically under qualified president in the United States. Therefore, I'm re-engaging as much as possible. There are some restrictions on me as long as I'm working. But as soon as I'm not working full-time in the position and holding a position that prevents me from being re-engaged in politics, I will re-engage in politics, and I've already been able to re-engage in the anti gerrymandering campaign that is underway to try and redraw the lines that would create a more fair representation so your votes will count more. I hope it's something you've talked about in some of your classes. I hope you are too young to vote, but you're not too young to volunteer. To me, that's the most important thing. Our democracy is under threat. This is historic time of threat and don't underestimate it. There's nothing that says you can slide off the edge and that America will always be great as in terms of its democratic values. It's historic, it's important and it's ongoing and it's right now. It's your life and my life and were 60 years different apart from each other in age but we're living in the same world, we're living through the same stuff and we can both and all contribute to shaping this period of history.
[01:19:33] Interviewer: Thinking back on your entire life, what important social historical events had the greatest impact?
[01:19:40] Lana Pollack: It's a good question. Probably still the '60s with the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the anti war movement. That was true social revolution that changed this country for many people and changed my understanding of what I could do.
[01:20:08] Interviewer: What family heirlooms or keepsakes and mementos do you possess? What's their story and why are they valuable to you?
[01:20:16] Lana Pollack: I possess way too many. I'm trying to figure out what to do with all this stuff. If you come from a family and they're six kids and your parents has passed things down, you get a manageable amount. But if you don't have so many people, you have too much stuff. A lot of it means a lot. This is not a family or a little bit, I would say that if you come to my house, maybe we should get together at my house sometimes. You would see a lot of artifacts and my drum collection from Africa. You see things from Africa, you see things from other parts of the world where we have traveled because I haven't talked, but we've been to a lot of places in the world and those things have meaning. There are some rugs that I grew up with. I have the bed I slept in as a child. I have stuff and I don't know what's going to happen to all this stuff, but I'm trying to figure it out.
[01:21:19] Interviewer: Thinking back over your entire life, what are you most proud of?
[01:21:24] Lana Pollack: My children. That I've been able to have a 55 year marriage because I will say that even married to the best person, like I tell my husband, he's practically perfect. There's always room for improvement. It's not easy to create and maintain a long-term relationship. It really says you're committed. Let me take one thing I did politically. I worked seven years in pushing and developing some new law called the polluter pay law and we created the best law the country arguably of any state that held polluters accountable. If you polluted something, you couldn't walk away from it and leave that as it is or ask the taxpayers to clean it up. That passed after seven years of effort, and it wasn't enforced for five years and in that five years, the state collected $100 million of money to clean up in polluted areas. Then the polluters got the upper hand politically. Mostly the Republicans, put a name to it, say it as it is and they gutted that bill. But I'm proud of what we were able to do for a period. One other thing I'm proud of. I'm proud that I've been able to work with young people over the years. One of them, I hadn't heard from in a long time, Kendra. I got a call from Kendra yesterday. She's running for Congress in West Virginia. She said, "You know, you inspired me", that I'm proud of. I'm proud of a lot of the people that have worked with and watch grow up.
[01:23:15] Interviewer: What would you say has changed the most from the time you're my age to now.
[01:23:20] Lana Pollack: The role of women. For me, the role of women African-Americans, gays, who had to be in the closet and even threatened or thought they had to kill themselves if they were outed. Those of social changes are the most important. Also technology, I don't know where Facebook and there interference in Russian interference and the government of the United States. Technology is making a difference, but I don't fully understand it. I will say, I'll stick with my first answer.
[01:24:00] Interviewer: What advice would you give to my generation?
[01:24:05] Lana Pollack: Believe in yourself. Define yourself. Look for people that you admire, whether they're your age, that could even be younger or older, are much older. Hang with people that you admire. But mainly define yourself and to define yourself large.
[01:24:37] Interviewer: Is there anything you'd like to add I have not asked about?
[01:24:43] Lana Pollack: What have you learned in this project? Start with you, Eric. What?
[01:24:57] Speaker 3: We're actually answering it. I thought that was just rhetorical question.
[01:25:01] Lana Pollack: No, I want you to answer. If we have time. If not, you can answer. But when I come back, we're going to answer. If you don't answer it today. Yeah, is that good?
[01:25:18] Speaker 3: Thank you. [NOISE]
[01:25:27] Lana Pollack: Sorry, can you speak. People don't hear [inaudible 01:25:31] .
[01:25:33] Interviewer: Questions covers a relatively long period of your life from the time you entered the labor force or started a family up to present time, what was your primary field of employment? How did you first get started for this particular tradition scalar job? What got you interested?
[01:25:49] Lana Pollack: Well, as I've mentioned, I have the first period where my professional life was focused on dance and teaching. I had intended to be a school teacher, a high school teacher, and I tried to get a job for two years in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, they did not have a single opening for a social studies or history teacher, and so I at that point ran for the school board. That led me into politics. I did 15 years in elected office before I then moved into the environmental advocacy, that was another phase of my professional life. For another 12 years, I ran the Michigan Environmental Council, which is a coalition of 60 different environmental and public health organizations, and I was an environmental advocate promoting better environmental protections throughout Michigan and the Great Lakes.
[01:27:06] Interviewer: Describe the steps of the process and work [inaudible 01:27:09] from start to finish, what's involved? What raw materials are used? Where did you get your materials and how are they prepared? How they change over time, how and why?
[01:27:21] Lana Pollack: Well, in all my jobs including the one I have now, which is different again, it would fall under the umbrella of diplomacy, can we ignore that? Because now I work with the International Joint Commission, which is a half Canadian, half US organization responsible for helping to prevent and resolve disputes on the waters that are shared by Canada and the United States. If you look over my whole career, all the jobs I've had, at least the technology has changed things. Excuse me. In dance, remember I said I had to carry that really big heavy bag with records. Well, now technology is method. You can carry your music in five ounces. The technology has also changed the advocacy work, the political work in the way we communicate. We communicate instantly. There's a 24-hour news cycle. All of that has put more pressure to be responsive instantly in the work that I do. People want their answers right now. Other than the technology, which is not insubstantial, nothing has changed. The raw materials are in our head. It's what we know. It's the information and the analysis that we do. It's the communications. It's all about understanding, having information and having relationships, and that doesn't change.
[01:29:17] Interviewer: What was the typical day during the working years of your adult life?
[01:29:21] Lana Pollack: Well, I've described the early period. I think I've covered pretty well. Let's move on to something else, the second one.
[01:29:30] Interviewer: What specific training or skills were required for your job?
[01:29:36] Lana Pollack: Well, in dance, of course, one had to have a background in dance, so those were physical as well as musical, lyrical. Also I was teaching. In teaching and in everything else I've done, it's about communications. If you can't help people understand what it is you're trying to convey, if you can't do that well, and if you can't make them feel good about themselves, if you intimidate somebody or alienate somebody when you're teaching, whether it's dance or anything else, you're going to fail and you're going to fail your students. It's the same in politics. You have the information, you have the ideas, you have the values that you want to convey and you have to have relationships. If you fail in your relationships, you will fail in your programs.
[01:30:32] Interviewer: What is the biggest difference in your primary field of employment from the time you started until now?
[01:30:40] Lana Pollack: Well, if I get to count the fact that I was once a dance teacher wore Leotards and now I'm going to meetings and wouldn't show up in Leotards to meet in the State Department. I've changed careers. I would say this. I'm more confident. Actually there's not too many good things about getting old, but there are some good things about getting old, and you often get more confident and less worried about peer pressure.
[01:31:18] Interviewer: How do you judge excellence in your field? What makes someone respected in that field?
[01:31:23] Lana Pollack: Wonderful question. To me, it's all about integrity. Well, first of all you have to know what you're trying to achieve. You have to have the communication skills, you have to build the trust. Trust is about integrity. I've worked with people that I don't trust because you can't count on them to do what they say they do, or they'll deny that they said what they committed to do. That's failure. Trust is a big part of success. Knowledge, do they know what they're talking about? Do they have enough information? So it's both information and then its values. I also considered people successful if they're ambitious in their visions. A lot of people will just settle for doing the minimum. That is not success in my opinion.
[01:32:39] Interviewer: What do you value most about what you did for a living in life?
[01:32:46] Lana Pollack: I've tried to live a life of purpose. That makes some small part of the world better, more decent, more fair, more comfortable for people. That's been the most important part. You live with purpose and integrity and have fun.
[01:33:17] Interviewer: Tell me about any moves you made during your working years and retirement prior to your decision to move to your current residence?
[01:33:25] Lana Pollack: We're covering that. I lived in this home for almost 30 years and I lived in another home in Andover for 25 years. I don't move much.
[01:33:37] Interviewer: How did you come to live your current residence?
[01:33:41] Lana Pollack: That's not so interesting. It's nice. I wanted a house that had some woods around it. Anyway, let's move on.
[01:33:54] Interviewer: How do you feel about your current living situation?
[01:34:02] Lana Pollack: Fine. I have a lot of good things in my life and I still have my health. I have my health, my husband, grandson.
[01:34:36] Interviewer: Answer the questions we can schedule if possible.
[01:34:40] Interviewer: Well, hopefully it won't be that Verbose.
[01:34:45] Interviewer: You can stop at anytime for your break.
[01:34:47] Lana Pollack: Okay.
[01:34:48] Interviewer: Just look at me when you're answering instead of [inaudible 01:34:50] shoulder. Yes. Each video will be about 60 minutes long.
[01:34:59] Lana Pollack: Okay.
[01:35:01] Interviewer: Crew all your cell phones silence and everything. You can also decline to answer a question or say you don't remember.
[01:35:10] Lana Pollack: Okay.
[01:35:14] Interviewer: I'm first going to ask you some simple demographic questions. Well these questions may jog memories, please keep your answers brief and to the point for now. We can elaborate later in the interview. Please say and spell your name.
[01:35:29] Lana Pollack: Lana Pollack, L-A-N-A P-O-L-L-A-C-K.
[01:35:36] Interviewer: What is your birth date including the year?
[01:35:39] Lana Pollack: 10/11/1942, which means my birthday is next week, the big 75.
[01:35:50] Interviewer: Seventy five. How would you describe your ethnic background?
[01:35:52] Lana Pollack: I'm Jewish.
[01:35:55] Interviewer: What are your religious affiliations if any?
[01:35:57] Lana Pollack: I'm Jewish.
[01:35:59] Interviewer: What is the highest level of formal education you have completed? Did you attend any additional schools or formal career training beyond what you completed?
[01:36:07] Lana Pollack: Well, I have a master's degree and formal education. Beyond that as a student, no, as teacher, yes. I did a fellowship at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. But in that role, I was a mentor and I offered a seminar for students. But at the same time, for that semester, I was free to take any course on the Harvard campus that I wished, and I did.
[01:36:43] Interviewer: What is your martial sex?
[01:36:45] Lana Pollack: I've been married for almost 55 years to Henry Pollack.
[01:36:50] Interviewer: Is your spouse still living.
[01:36:51] Lana Pollack: He is fortunately.
[01:36:54] Interviewer: How many children do you have?
[01:36:56] Lana Pollack: I have a son who is 51 years old, and we had a daughter, Sarah, who died when she was 14.
[01:37:07] Interviewer: How many siblings do you have?
[01:37:10] Lana Pollack: Well, I started with two. My sister is deceased. She died at 62 of a brain tumor. But my brother happily is alive and well in Lansing, Michigan and he is 76.
[01:37:29] Interviewer: What would you consider your primary occupation to be?
[01:37:34] Lana Pollack: Currently, I'm a commissioner on the International Joint Commission. And you could probably categorize that as a diplomat and a problem solver in an international treaty organization.
[01:37:52] Interviewer: You haven't retired, correct?
[01:37:53] Lana Pollack: I have not.
[01:37:57] Interviewer: Now we can begin the first partner interview beginning with some of the things you can recall about your family history. We're beginning with family naming history. By this we mean any story about your last or family name or family traditions in selecting first or middle name. Do you read stories about your family name.
[01:38:17] Lana Pollack: Well, in the Jewish tradition, first names are selected to remember somebody who has died. We wouldn't have a name of our own father unless sadly that person died before the birth of his baby. I have a Jewish name but it's just registered somewhere but my name, Lana, I believe reflects my mother's love of the movies. My mother loved the movies which were very new when she was a young woman. She named her three children Lana, Marlene, and Morris or Maurice. If you look at the movies of that time, Lana would be Lana Turner. Marlene would be Marlene Dietrich, and Morris would be Maurice Chevalier. But actually, Morris was also associated with my grandfather, spelled differently, but as I said my mother loved the movies since that she changed M-O-R-R-I-S to M-A-U-R-I-C-E, again an attraction to the people on the big silver screen.
[01:39:45] Interviewer: Are there any naming traditions in your family?
[01:39:49] Lana Pollack: None other than the ones I've mentioned.
[01:39:55] Interviewer: Why did your ancestors leave to come to the United States?
[01:39:58] Lana Pollack: Because of the pogroms against the Jews. Pogroms are outbreaks of violence against the Jewish populations in Eastern Europe. My family and my husband's families as well we're in the Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia area some of which was under the Russian authorities. I only had one grandparent that I really knew and she told me stories I used to crawl in bed with her in the morning. She told me stories and she would recall the programs and the Russian Cossacks would come through and they would burn the Jewish homes and they would murder and terrorize Jewish people. They hid and I heard this story also from my husband's family. They hide the girls in the closets so they wouldn't be raped. The conditions for the Jews were horrible and those who could left. There is a story about my grandfather. Again, a man I really can barely remember he died when I was three. But he was the first on that side of the family to come. He had been drafted into the Czar's army. That was during the Russia-Japanese war and they knew that if you get sent to the Far East to fight in the war, especially if you're rich, you never came back. He was able to escape and the way he was able to escape, because unlike many Jews of that period in that place, he spoke good Russian. He didn't just speak Yiddish, the Jewish language and he could dress like a Gentile, and he could pass. He pretended to be a Gentile and was able to walk out of his immediate community disguised as a Gentile. Then he went across the continent staying and sleeping in barns and walking at night and hiding in the day. He made it to Michigan. He came to Grand Rapids, Michigan because there was an uncle who was a watchmaker there. He became a watchmaker and there were jewelers in the family after that. So then other people came and on the other side of the family, I think there was less education but the same motivation.
[01:43:12] Interviewer: You can answer this question. But do you know any stories about how your family first came to United States and where did they stay?
[01:43:21] Lana Pollack: Yes. My mother's side it was Grand Rapids, as I've mentioned. On my father's side, it was in Ludington, Michigan if you know where Ludington it is on the lake. People ask how did this Jewish family end up in Ludington because it's a Gentile community. We were very much minorities. The answer is that Ludington was cross select from Milwaukee, which was a much larger city and in those days, which is saying from the turn of the last century certainly into the '50s, there was a lot of boat traffic, big boats; the car fairies, the train fairies. And every day there are multiple big boat. So Ludington was almost like a suburb of Milwaukee. It was 40 miles away across the lake. But there was a great deal of traffic and commerce and travel back and forth. It was an unusual for people from Milwaukee to settle in the suburb on the other side of the lake and my father's family settled there and my father went into business there and my mother came to visit an uncle there and my parents met.
[01:44:51] Interviewer: How did they make a living even in the old country or in the United States?
[01:44:55] Lana Pollack: I don't know very much about the old country and that's an interesting story in itself. My family spoke of Europe only reluctantly, and my father always said that was then, this is now. He said, we are the people that we make ourselves. It doesn't matter where we come from. Now, I don't entirely agree with that today because I wish I'd known the stories. But he was very much a person who talked about being a self made person. I really sadly don't know what they did. I do know that Jews were prohibited from doing many things in many positions they couldn't do by law many things. In this country I know what they did. Are we on. Do you know what we did?
[01:45:59] Lana Pollack: You have sound?
[01:46:00] MALE_2: Yes.
[01:46:05] Interviewer: How did they make a living either in the old country or in the United States?
[01:46:09] Lana Pollack: Well, I know very little about how they made a living in the old country. Generally speaking, they actually refused to talk about the old country. That was a sense of that was then and this is now. We left there because it was a very bad situation. We are here in America, and let's talk about today. I'm not sure that I agree with that in retrospect, but it's the way it was and so very little was shared and I didn't push through that when I was young. Here, my grand father had started a very small business where he would buy one cow. He'd go out to the farms. He knew all the farms in the county as did my father, every firm and there were many small firms in those days. He would find a cow that was ready to be sold or a steer. He would butcher it with his brother or his cousin, and then sell the meat to the grocery stores. That was not much of a business for my grandfather who remained poor, but it was the business that my father picked up and develop. My father dropped out of high school when he was 15 for financial reasons and supported the family, and did so by developing a butcher business and a grocery business. He had what today would be considered a very small mom and pop store, but then it was a modern supermarket with two check out places and a couple of other smaller stores. My parents were in business together and that my mother, who is not there full-time, worked at the store as a cashier and that was the family business.
[01:48:17] Interviewer: Describe any family migration once they arrived in the United States and how they came to live in this area?
[01:48:24] Lana Pollack: They came to Michigan and they stayed in Michigan, although I said there was a connection to Wisconsin. Some of my father's family came originally to Milwaukee, and very quickly that branch moved over to Michigan, Ludington, on the lake. On my mother's side they went directly to Grand Rapids. Years ago, shortly after Ellis Island was open to the public, which is a fabulous place to visit if you haven't, I hope we get a chance to. That was the, of course, the port of entry for many European immigrants to this country between, I think the late 19th century and the early 20th century. I should know that history better. But we went there with my mother, and they had a display, among other things, of the travel trunks that people have brought their goods in, their items from the day. There was one travel trunk there and it had the address and the destination of a family in Grand Rapids, and my mother said, "I knew those people." I will tell one story. My grandmother, on my mother's side was about 12 when she came. She came with her younger siblings and her mother. She talks about the passage as being really rotten. But they got there, got to New York, they entered through Ellis Island, and there was somebody who was selling tomatoes. Sounds strange. But if I have recall this right, anyway, she got a tomato and she thought she was getting an apple. She thought she was getting a very red apple. She was so excited about this red apple. She bit into it. It was a shock and it wasn't an apple. She told stories about her adjustment to this country. But she did indeed go to Grand Rapids, as did her future husband. He was the man who had escaped by passing as a Gentile. Anyway, everybody went to Grand Rapids on that side of the family. Everybody was in Western Michigan and over the years, there were cousins who went to California and stories about somebody who was in the movies, but I don't know, they may have just been stories.
[01:51:17] Interviewer: What possessions do they bring with them to the United States and why?
[01:51:23] Lana Pollack: Well, I don't know what they brought and I assume they brought very little. I know they were not people of wealth, I know that even the passage was a struggle. I don't have any memory of any item belong to them in Europe. There are things that I have now that belong to them from the early 1900s, but that was when they were very young in this country.
[01:51:58] Interviewer: Which family members came along or stayed behind?
[01:52:05] Lana Pollack: Again, they didn't talk a lot about the people who stayed behind. I know there were certainly cousins. I know there was a branch who went to South Africa rather than this country. But by the time of the Holocaust, there weren't family members that I knew of that my family was in contact. Perhaps cousins who no doubt died in the Holocaust. But the connections had been severed by then were just lost. There isn't any close connections back to Europe. In fact, I know very little bit about the family tree. I know there are people who can trace their family tree back to the 1600s or earlier. Believe me, we can't. A lot of that is because as Jews we were displaced. If you'd like a story about a brief search for family roots, I will tell it or it will save it.
[01:53:19] Lana Pollack: About 20 years ago, my husband was given a birth certificate of his grand uncle and my husband's family, again, Jewish. Again his family would have immigrated from the same part of Europe, but they immigrated to Nebraska. Above that time, a few decades back my husband, who likewise knew nothing of his family in Europe, his family history as I know, nothing for many of the same reasons, he got this birth certificate and he'd always had his family who's from Hungary. He asked the Hungarian friend of ours, could he translate this and the guy said well, I could pretty much translate it, but it's really in check. Close but different language. My husband took it to a Czech friend and the Czech guy said, well, yeah, I can translate this, but it's really in Slovak. All of these countries are very close all part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The borders would change. There'd be a war, there'd be a shift. You might have been in the same community in Hungary, but that might become Slovakia. Because the boundaries change those where all those countries had come together. My husband had a meeting in Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic, but it was just before the breakup. I went with him and we took this document. I also had a request from a friend and mentor an older woman, Olga Madar. Her family had come from the same region and I said, would you like me to see if I can find your family gravesite and that was very important to her and she said yes. While we went there we had no problem finding the Madar's, which is common name or where she came from. The cemeteries are generally right next to the church. You go to the North community and you find the church, you go to the grave site. After the meeting, which was in Prague, we asked and hired a young graduate student would he be our driver and would he be our translator because we were driving across the country actually into what is now Slovakia? With pleasure on both sides, it was a deal and he took us and we got to the town where birth certificate indicated that my husband's family had come from this little tiny place, but very beautiful, very picturesque postcard. We could not find the Jewish cemetery because human nature being what it is, people separate even in death, which is just too bad and foolish. The Jewish cemeteries, never near the other cemetery or with the other cemetery. But we met a man there who had invited us and for slim of its or strong drink at eleven o'clock in the morning, he was very hospitable. We absolutely needed the translator, but we had a very nice conversation and he told us where the Jewish cemetery had been. He also said that there were no Jews in town since the Holocaust. That one person had come back after the war and he was apparently the only survivor he looked around and 24 hours later he left for Israel. There was no one else from his family, his friends or his community had survived. The man told us where to go to find the Jewish cemetery and we needed help because we would never have found it. You drive out of town and there were very huge communal farms, but he told us where to look and what the landmarks were and we found the cemetery by walking through these fields. Then you came across a place with the growth of the woods around it and you saw the cemetery walls but it was walls around the cemetery and we walked in. But the overgrowth was up to your chest because no one had cared for it or seen it. Because I couldn't move forward to see any of the gravestones because there was so much growth, I backed out. No one was there except my husband and the young man who was helping us. I walked around the side of the perimeter on the outside of the wall and I found a break in the wall and I stepped in back into the cemetery through this break and in its wall and my husband had done the same thing and he was already in that particular spot. He'd found that spot and he was staring down. There was a pretty fresh grave robbery. People had dug it up and put swastikas and killed the Jews and the local language. I thought they killed everybody 50 years ago. Isn't that enough? The heat goes on and then we still wanted to find the record. After the cemetery, we went to the community of the regional capital or the county capital and with the help of the young man who could speak the local language we asked about could we see the birth records. They showed us the birth records for that period. But the Jewish records were in a different place. We went to another city, another library, another archive and here they found some of the family names on my husband's side. That night, I just saw clear, I remember falling into bed in this little Ponzi on this little bed and breakfast that we were staying in. I just said, my God, our families emigrated or we would not have ever been born.
[02:00:48] Lana Pollack: It's a very ugly history. That's the family history I know. Please go ahead.
[02:00:57] Interviewer: To your knowledge, do they make an effort to preserve any traditions or customs from their country of origin?
[02:01:04] Lana Pollack: It's a good question with again, a Jewish answer. Their traditions and customs they preserved which were important to them. They would've said we're, well, they're Jewish customs, they're not, Hungarian customs are not Slovakian, they're not Latvian customs. Of course, that's not exactly true. Because if communities have been living together even in a segregated fashion, for decades or centuries. Of course, some of those customs are, I mean, it's like the food, the Jewish food of Spain is different than the Jewish food of Russia. Jews eat like Spanish food and vice versa. Everything I always heard, they didn't want us, we didn't belong, we weren't part of them, we just lived in that place as Jews in what were called shtetls. Shtetls were in, like more rural or ghettos. A ghetto, but Shtetls was not in a big city.
[02:02:22] Interviewer: Are there any traditions that your family has never changed and why?
[02:02:28] Lana Pollack: Obvious. My grandmother both of them were more observant of Jewish religious tradition. They kept kosher, if you want me to explain what keeping kosher is, it's keeping the dietary laws. Which means you only eat, it's kind of like Halal. If some people are more familiar now with Halal, which is the Muslim dietary tradition. You don't eat certain cuts of meat. The meat that you eat must have been butchered in a certain way. You don't eat milk and milk dishes, dairy dishes, and meat at the same time. During the Passover holiday period, you have a totally different set of dishes. My grandmother had four sets of dishes. One for meat, one for milk, and then the same thing for dishes that only got used during Passover. We don't do that. Although I know family members who do, but on my husband's side, but we don't observe those things.
[02:03:50] Interviewer: What stories have come down to you about your parents or grandparents or more just ancestors?
[02:03:58] Lana Pollack: My parents, the stories are, of course, near in time and richer in detail. I know they struggled hard. I knew they worked hard. I could tell any number of stories. A lot of the stories from my parent's generations that I was told, relate to the depression. My parents were young adults during the Depression. My father had started a business. I'll tell you just one thing and it very much influences the political values and my approach and commitment to progressive democratic values in this country. My father started his business in Scottville Michigan, even smaller than Waddington, a thousand people, but a thriving little farming community in Western Michigan. He was a grocer and a butcher and in the depression, people were hungry. I mean, they were hungry and he tried to feed as many of them as possible. My father was an exceptionally kind and good man, and he fed them in many different ways. It's one man who told me the story years later. He said, you know, I used to do some work in some space up above your father's store. When I would come down and pass through the store on my way home, my father would say, you know, George I got this hamburger that really needs to, I didn't sell and it really needs a home. Could you possibly use it? He would never, George said, offer it in a way that made it seem like he was giving charity, but oh, could you do me a favor and take this? But there were so many ways that he helped people and what my father said, is that he was so relieved when FDR President Roosevelt was elected. Because immediately there were soup lines and the government began to help. He said because I couldn't feed everybody who needed to be fed and I recognize them that if the government is not there to underpin the safety net when it's needed, then people are going to fail because there's never quite enough charity. I have a friend who's Republican and he says that I like very much a guy I went to high school with. He said he said that's interesting. My first memory as my father hated the government because he thought they were wasting all this money. Sixty,70 years later, you've got two people with two sets of views. Jack's come from his father who impressed upon him and maybe with good reason, maybe saw a program that he wasn't good. But his impression was government just as wasting this money and my father said, Oh thank goodness, the government can help me help other people. Our values come often from stories that go way back.
[02:07:16] Interviewer: We've got one last question before we wrap up.
[02:07:18] Lana Pollack: Okay.
[02:07:20] Interviewer: Do you know any courtship stories? How did your parents, grandparents, and other relatives come to meet?
[02:07:26] Lana Pollack: I only know my parent's story. My father was in business in Scottville, Michigan. This tiny little town, wonderful town with a scalpel clone band. If you ever get the chance to listen to them, you'll want to. My mother had an uncle who had the dry goods store. A dry goods store, does that word mean anything to you? I mean, it's a it would be the incy teeniest, tiniest little part of a Walmart clothes and fabric store that you could see. But anyways, the dry goods store. The uncle had the dry goods store across the street from my father's store and my mother came to visit her uncle and aunt and went to the store. My father said he saw her across the street. He knew who she was though and again, I think the Jewish identity played a role because I think he probably thought he would, if he married, he'd marry somebody Jewish, strong identity. He saw her and my mother was really a beautiful woman. Oh my goodness and he said, I'm going to marry her. He pursued her for three years and I mean, they dated and they wrote letters and I have some of the letters because people wrote letters then. I have some of the letters and she always had a reason that she had to take care of her family. Her family was poor and she was a schoolteacher. But making it work for her younger, parents were divorced, unusual, but it worked and she was paying for everything for the family. My father said I will take it over. I mean, my father was determined to marry the woman he saw across the street and they were married until my father died. I think it was a good marriage.
[02:09:44] Interviewer: Alright, and that's it for today.
[02:09:46] Lana Pollack: Okay. Thank you.
[02:09:48] Interviewer: Thank you.
[02:09:51] FEMALE_3: Great story.
[02:09:54] Lana Pollack: I say I don't have any, but when you get me started, I guess will be with you. [LAUGHTER] In both generations, I think good marriages are part determination, but part luck. I think there's a huge element of luck in life. I think there's a huge element of belief in yourself. I think it's important to wake up every day and believe that you're going to have a good day and that you're going to make other people's day a little bit better too and that if you believe it you can get through the hard times, and then it happens. Here is the other thing, we all owe our best effort to make this world better, fair, greater opportunities for everybody else. In this country, as much as it's flawed, as much as we can roll our eyes and hold our nose, much of the politics that we see, politics matters and the people who are selected to serve makes a difference in absolutely every American's life and frankly to the larger world. Minus a life of engagement, because I think engagement is our obligation engagement is the great opportunity we have as Americans.
[02:11:38] Interviewer: I agree. Moving into this next question, in the midst of the controversy, hate, and fake news, what direction do you believe this country should take politically and socially?
[02:11:51] Lana Pollack: Well, I think truth counts. I think one of the most disturbing elements that we see now is that there is so much that is said that's clearly not true. I think that it's truth and engagement by a broad group of people. American citizens need to have a concern for their own rights and for the rights of other people. But then they need to recognize we have everything within our reach to make a difference. We just have to grab hold and use it. I think rather than respond to that question saying, you've got to have this tax planner, that foreign policy, what I'm saying is we have to have engagement. People have to engage and that means starting at a very young age, even before you can vote, you can engage. People need to be informed and they need to be critically aware so that when they take in information, they neither say they're all liars because they are not all liars or that's a lie because they're lies and people have a responsibility for sorting out truth. Truth matters, truth counts. Virtually everybody if they engage, has the capacity to sort out reasonable truth from blatant lies or information that clearly doesn't align with what people know to be reality.
[02:13:42] Interviewer: What are your hopes for the future of politics in relation to women and other representative groups?
[02:13:50] Lana Pollack: Well, of course, I hope for more fairness, more inclusivity, a more engagement. A lot of that though, depends on those groups that you've just identified. If women don't engage if Latinos don't engage, if the African-American people don't engage, if Muslim people don't engage and frankly they are all engaging. But the more engagement, the higher rate of engagement, and the focus intensity and commitment will make a difference. The options to make change, the means of making change are available. No one's going to hand it over. There's a great deal of unease in America because America is changing, because young America already in grade school. I believe the population of kids in grade school today is not a majority white and it's not just race, it's not just white and black. The women's movement is threatening to people. It's different. It's anytime you up and or change in any significant way, what people are born into and are used to. It puts people at disease, they're not comfortable. Once again, we have to recognize what people are feeling. If they're not comfortable with these changes, it's always important to try and understand the thought process of somebody who's disagreeing with you is. Don't just dismiss them as stupid or worthless or something. Try and understand it. Then if you think they're wrong, they're wrong. But at least try and understand it because they might have something that we want to better understand. Because they have a right to say what they have to say and because the American polity has to include everybody, that doesn't mean that if women get stronger, what have been minority populations get larger that we're going to exclude the more traditional white guy. That white guy has not only right, but we have a need for the voices of everybody, and doing a better job trying to understand each other is really basic to a successful America.
[02:16:57] Interviewer: That's the end of our questions. Do you guys have anything to ask? No.
[02:17:05] MALE_3: I don't.
[02:17:05] Lana Pollack: Sure. [LAUGHTER] Did you know?
[02:17:11] MALE_3: No, I don't.
[02:17:15] Lana Pollack: What about you? Anything else you want to say?
[02:17:17] Lana Pollack: No you guys are great. You rock. [LAUGHTER] You do and it's good to, let's say this. We talked about different groups by race, by ethnicity, by language, by gender. But it's also by age. This is a really great project bringing different generations together.
[02:17:54] Lana Pollack: I think I got something done.
[02:17:56] Interviewer: What were you working on?
[02:18:02] Lana Pollack: [inaudible 02:18:02]
[02:18:02] Interviewer: [LAUGHTER]
[02:18:02] Lana Pollack: What we're working on? Well, I worked with Canadians and twice a year we met with the Department of State for the United States and the foreign affairs for Canada. I've been trying to get them to give us authority to work on water quality issues outside of the Great Lakes. We have authority to work in water quality issues in the Great Lakes. But there are so many basins that are suffering. For various reasons, tradition, it's never been done. Tough, the EPA and the counterpart and County, so if they work on it, what do we do? Which is foolish, we help them. We had a breakthrough and might get some authority to do that. We also might get some new funding to work on climate change, adaptation issues in the Great Lakes, so overall, good week.
[02:19:12] Interviewer: We should do your name first.
[02:19:17] Lana Pollack: My name is Lana Pollack. What else would you like me to say?
[02:19:23] Interviewer: The first thing questions focuses on your childhood and its impact on your worldview.
[02:19:28] Lana Pollack: Okay.
[02:19:29] Interviewer: Where did you grow up?
[02:19:30] Lana Pollack: I grew up in Lexington, Michigan, a small town on Lake Michigan.
[02:19:36] Interviewer: What was the time period in decades that you grew up in?
[02:19:39] Lana Pollack: I was born in 1942 and a graduated high school in 1960. It was really the '40s, which I don't remember quite so well and the '50s, which I remember quite well.
[02:19:50] Interviewer: Describe the demographics of your hometown in terms of ethnic groups.
[02:19:54] Lana Pollack: White, Christian. There must have been two dozen different Christian denominations, from Catholic to Evangelicals and everything in-between. We were the only Jewish family. I don't think there was more than maybe there was one Hispanic family. There were no Black people.
[02:20:19] Interviewer: Growing up, did you feel I'm a minority and did you ever feel like an outsider in your own town?
[02:20:24] Lana Pollack: Definitely knew I was a minority. I was thought it belonged and Lexington. I was very comfortable in Lexington. I knew I was different, but in some ways, and very much the same in other ways. I have lifelong friends that I have kept from those days.
[02:20:42] Interviewer: How did your family preserve its Jewish traditions in that primarily Christian town?
[02:20:48] Lana Pollack: Gentile town, yes. It was within the family. There was no synagogue or a temple. My religious education came primarily from my mother. That was just an awareness and a pride in who we were and respect for people who had different traditions.
[02:21:14] Interviewer: How did growing up in this environment influence your worldview at this time in your life?
[02:21:22] Lana Pollack: It made me very secure. I had a a very easy childhood, a very secure childhood. Childhood that that gave me confidence. I never felt threatened. I always felt that I could achieve. I was given that from my family and also from my teachers. I will also say this. I was not unaware of the rest of the world. I remember being at camp one time at interlocking I was just after the sixth grade and we received a man and the male was post stamped. Pray for peace. I thought I'd never seen that before. Does that mean we're going to have nuclear war? It was very frightening to see that. Later on, I came to realize, actually quite recently, that the pray for peace was part of a moreover Christianization of the messages that were being promoted in the country at that time. The association of the need for prayer in order to be safe. Which is an important perspective for many people, but not the perspective of everybody. But I remember the time being very frightened. That was an early awareness of the larger world. Although I definitely remember reading the papers even as a child and being aware of the world. I don't remember World War II, I'm not quite that old. My husband remembers World War II, but I certainly remember. I remember the Korean War. I remember having Japanese guests in our home. It must have been the late '40s, which is really right after the war. I didn't realize it was an exchange program. It was typical of my mother to be reaching out early on, embracing people, bringing people to our home at a time when I realized in retrospect that there weren't very many programs like that so close after the war.
[02:23:48] Interviewer: The second set of questions focuses on being a minority in colleges, a Jewish woman, and the effects of the civil rights movement. Where did you attend college?
[02:23:59] Lana Pollack: University of Michigan, Go Blue.
[02:24:02] Interviewer: What was the time period.
[02:24:04] Lana Pollack: I started in 1960, I finished in 1965 with my undergraduate degree. Then later in the '60s for my master's.
[02:24:16] Interviewer: Describe demographics in your college in terms of ethnic groups.
[02:24:20] Lana Pollack: Well, it's very different from Lexington. But it was still white. Mostly, not obviously, not entirely. The campus in the '60s was which a wider less Brown, less Black than it is today. But there were Jewish people, there were some Asian people. But it was clearly more diverse.
[02:24:52] Interviewer: Did you feel underrepresented as a woman in your classes?
[02:24:57] Lana Pollack: No. Because I didn't take the classes where women were rarely seen. I was not in the engineering school, I was not in the law school, I was not in pre-med. I was in the Alison classes that I took, I did not feel underrepresented.
[02:25:21] Interviewer: Were women still going out this time?
[02:25:23] Lana Pollack: Well, it was the beginning of the '60s and it was very different than the end of the '60s. When it came, all of the women lived up on what we saw, it says the hill. The women's dorms were segregated from the men's. There certainly were no co-ed dorms. There was something called panty raids where the boys from the fraternities or wherever would come up and then, I don't know if bang pots and pants or stand outside and yell or something, then some of the girls we called ourselves girls rather than women, would throw out their underwear. I didn't get it then. I don't get it now. Panty raids, it was something that you don't find anymore. Thank God. But in the '50s, there were panty raids. I came in the period where there were panty raids, they were housemothers, that is to say the dorm mothers were responsible to make sure that the young women were in on time. Now the young men had no hours. They could stay out all night, but the girls had to be in, it was 10:00 and they stand with a stop watch to make sure how many minutes we were late and if we were late, so many late minutes then we'd be grounded in some way. All of that was gone within four years. But that came out of the women's movement and the women's, I would say liberation, came out of the other earlier period.
[02:27:06] Lana Pollack: Movements. Civil rights in the South grew into anti-war, grew into the women's, the environment. All of those movements were part of a social revolution. I was right there.
[02:27:23] Interviewer: How are you involved in this social revolution?
[02:27:25] Lana Pollack: Not so much at the beginning because I think it took time for my own social consciousness to ripen. I was already interested in politics. I remember John Kennedy coming in my freshman year and he was campaign for the president in 1916, October, very late one night, actually early one morning, he arrived and spoke with steps of the union. I was there till a certain hour and then I get worried about my late minutes. This is to say I was really a child of the earlier period. I went back to the dorm so I wouldn't get any late minutes and wouldn't get crowded. But I got up. I missed his speech on the steps of the Union where he announced the Peace Corps, which was a big historic moment. There's a plaque on the steps of the Union where he did that. But the next morning, early I came back down to the Union and I stood there. When he came out to get into his car, I shook his hand. I didn't entirely miss that. But to return to the question of how did it impact me? I had contemporaries who went south who were host and put it in by fire hoses, beat up by the police. Really to an inch of their lives. I didn't do that in part because I wasn't quite ready. I was supportive, but I didn't recognize the power of protest right away, took me a few years, and then I got married young in the middle of my junior year. I had a baby and then I had another baby. I was generally focused on finishing school, raising children, being a mother, being a wife. That didn't make me free to go South, to go to Washington to do all the marches. Took me a little while to, unless I said to really engage. But by 1970, I remember my children were already in either preschool or kindergarten. I used to pick them up from preschool. We go to the anti-war rallies on campus. I remember my son then very little. Ms. Mama, are we going to another angry rally today? Because we went frequently so that my evolution was in the 60's along with many other people.
[02:30:06] Interviewer: Do you think that evolution affects your worldview today and how?
[02:30:10] Lana Pollack: Absolutely. My worldview today and my engagement in the world and the way I do it, is a combination of the values I learned as a child, which was Justice now, justice for everybody. That our obligation was to build a fairer world, a world without discrimination. I always recognize and was taught that I had privileged that others didn't have. I had a conscious awareness of that. Then when the social revolution took hold, I learned new ways and saw new ways of engaging those values. That's the combination of those two things that created who I am.
[02:31:06] Interviewer: The last set of questions focuses on your success in a male-dominated field politics. What inspired you to run for elected office? I know you had a couple of occupations before.
[02:31:19] Lana Pollack: I was always interested in politics. I recall arguing with my high-school government teacher about it, and he was conservative guy. I had different views. I don't know that I could even have articulated that he was conservative and I was liberal. I don't know that I would have thought it through in those terms. But remember arguing with him about things that I now see have different frameworks. He had one frame, I had another friend. He was a good teacher because he allowed the argument. He encouraged the argument. They were respectful and appropriate but useful. I always had that interest. I majored in political science. I volunteered first in politics one day. In the mid 60's I was at my neighbor's house having what we call a coffee catch, which is to say you go over here and just tap coffee, coffee clash. A third woman came in and I was introduced to her. She almost immediately said to me that this new woman, are you a Democrat or Republican? I was surprised. People didn't really ask your politics, your religion. I was surprised and I said, well, Democratic I think. She said, good. Well, your husband be the precinct captain? Now I didn't stop and say, I don't see my husband here. I said, I don't know. I'll go home and ask him. Again the evolution of my consciousness and awareness was not immediate. It took time so I went home. I asked my husband would he be the precinct captain. He said, yes, I did all the work. After a year, we decided that I should be the precinct captain entitled as well as in reality. I did a lot of volunteer. I was a precinct captain and then I was the part of the party apparatus for the Democratic Party in Ann Arbor. I was a vice chair and then it became the Chair of the Ann Arbor party and then I helped people run their campaigns and then I ran campaigns. If you get to the early 80's and I'd had years of experience, volunteer experience, a little bit was paid, but almost all volunteer. One day in May of 1980 to a friend asked me if I would run his campaign, that he was going to run for the State Senate. He said to me, you have credibility with women. I need that credibility. You have credibility with teachers because she'd been on the school board, they like you. I need that credibility. You have credibility with the party because you the chair of the party and I need that credibility. I said, "I don't want to run another campaign." I'm going to go out and get a real job. I'm going to get one that pays something in get a real job. I said he just wait, think it over the weekend so that we can I was driving up from Ann Arbor to [inaudible 02:34:31] in the car, my son asleep in the back seat thinking, I've got this credibility. Why don't I run. I came back at the end of the weekend and I said, can't do it, nothing to run your campaign. He said why? I said because I'm in right. I did. I went but my point of the story is I was 39, was 40 by the time he went to the State Senate. It took me a long time. It took me an extra 20, 30 years to actually even have aspirations. That if I'd had a role model earlier, somebody who looked like me, and I saw that person in various roles. I would've had ambitions earlier. I didn't have those ambitions because they didn't have that much imagination. But once I caught it, I knew I could do it.
[02:35:30] Interviewer: You wish you would've had that inspiration earlier?
[02:35:33] Lana Pollack: Yeah, for sure. I try and help young women and help young people of both genders and every race think through what their own aspirations are. Use my imagination. Think big, and think realistically too about what it takes to get from here to there. I do wish I had. On the other hand, I've had a terrific life and I had the early years where I was more focused on raising the children, being in the family, supporting my husband. That wasn't that because we had a fabulous family. It's stressful to be outside the family in ways that politics demands and try and be as supportive and engaged in your family. I think no family can take more than one politician at a time because it's just sucks the oxygen out and somebody else has to be with the bellows putting the oxygen back into the family. My husband did that after I get the political bug.
[02:36:44] Interviewer: Describe the trajectory of your political career. In what Awesome. Since you've helped me.
[02:36:50] Lana Pollack: Well, it ran for the school board first. He did that because I trained to be a teacher, but the schools were hiring in that period of time, at least not social studies teachers. I was doing a lot of substitute teaching. I had strong opinions and concerns about the schools. I ran for the school board. That school board then, and now is a non-partisan thing. But I had the political partisan experience in the Democratic Party as a volunteer. I had the school board experience and Iran and served what was then a three-year term for the school board that I ran for the State Senate. I won that election. That's a four-year term. I served three, four-year terms, that's 12 years. Good math. During that period of time though, I ran for Congress and I lost. But it didn't mean the end of my state senate two terms because I was in the middle of a term when I ran, but I ran a good race around a strong race. I ran stronger than any of the other Democrats in the district stronger than the presidential candidate that year.
[02:38:03] Lana Pollack: I knew there'd be another race. Then in 1994, I ran in a primary for the United States Senate, which was really my dream job. I lost in the primary, I lost by less than one percent, less than one voter precinct. Every vote does count. But I lost because, clause only counts in horseshoes and not in politics. After that, I decided the cost to my family was great. I'd given it my best shot. I was ready to do something else. It wasn't going to be the United States Senate, and so I essentially got out of that. But I started a magazine, which was a very interesting project. I was the publisher of a new magazine called Michigan Monthly, which I did in conjunction with two other partners. The magazine was excellent. The partners knew what they were doing. We did not have the same vision. I learned something about being careful who you go into partnership with. I wanted one set of values to be expressed in this magazine. They had a different view and so that was while it was starting to be financially successful, it wasn't tenable between the relationship that we had. Then after that, I spent 12 years building and running the Michigan Environmental Council, which is an NGO non-profit organization that represents about 60 different environmental and public health, some religious focus, but always focused on the environment. Those organizations are represented in Lansing, so we were a strong lobby in Lansing for the environment, which was an issue I'd focused on a great deal when I was in the Senate. Following 12 years of that, I became the US chair of the International Joint Commission, which is a US Canada Treaty Organization. We're focusing on the waters that the two countries share from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Extends beyond the Great Lakes. Our job is to help prevent and resolve disputes between the two countries, especially as it relates to the shared waters.
[02:40:43] Interviewer: What do you feel are the most impactful accomplishments of your time as an elected official?
[02:40:52] Lana Pollack: I'll mention two pieces of legislation and one more general value. I think perhaps starting with the non-legislative accomplishments, I think the importance of having a confident, outspoken, but hopefully effective female senator when there hadn't been was important. I think that in terms of role models, that I did serve as a role model that I never had. At least I didn't have when I was young. There were older women that I'd met along the way after I got in the Senate. Some wonderful older women who were generation older than I. They were important to me, but I didn't know them early. I think I tried to spend a great deal of time with students and schools. That was the whole role model thing. The other apart is that I did focus on women, children, and the environment. The environment I worked seven years pass and was the author of something called polluter pay legislation, which required a proven polluters to pay for the cleanup rather than asking the taxpayer to clean it up. In just five years, between 1995, that law collected from the polluters $100 million for cleanup. Then the politics shifted in Lansing. Governor Engler who had been supportive when it passed, was under pressure from some industries that were being required to pay for their own pollution cleanup. They essentially gutted the bill. We hear today that how are we going to pay for cleanup and people are talking about it again today currently. I'm thinking, hey, we had the source. The source is still there. You could reinstate that legislation and relieve the taxpayers of cleaning up something that they didn't create. It wasn't even created in their generation, but it was created mostly by corporations. If you can track that responsibility under a different law, you could collect. That's not what we have, but that was something that I enjoyed, I felt good about. The other legislation was a little more fun. We passed legislation that didn't allow discrimination at country clubs and private golf clubs. Bigender, primarily also race, but there was a very obvious discrimination. Women couldn't tee off at the golf clubs. They still can't in some places like the masters, they can't. If a couple was member of a country club, the husband died, the woman couldn't be the member, but if they had a young son, he could be the member. All of this was in Michigan until, when did we do that? The early '90s. That was definitely bipartisan female lead. There were enough Republican women who were members of country clubs who were not pleased with the discrimination that they were suffering, and so even though we had a Republican legislature and a Republican governor at that time, we were able to pass the legislation because women got together and they said enough of this. The way we did it was so we said that if a club acclaimed that they were private and therefore beyond the reach of the law, so then they wouldn't have a liquor license and they couldn't sell or serve alcohol. Well there isn't a club that's going to survive without serving alcohol. They had to choose that has been tested in court and on two occasions in the law.

Media

2022

Length: 02:45:16

Copyright: Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)

Rights Held by: Ann Arbor District Library

Downloads

Video - 3.3GB

Subjects
Legacies Project