Raised in the Capitol's Shadow
By Sally Kitch
For as long as I can remember, our dinner table was awash in political discussions—although my parents, both civil servants with long careers in the federal government, scrupulously followed the Hatch Act, which prevented them from publicly supporting political candidates or causes. Right after “How was your day?” the questions at our table might refer to the doings on the Hill that afternoon or a case before the D.C. District Court. When their friends visited, the air in our living room grew thick with conversation about congressional hearings, good or bad bills about to pass, better and worse Senators or Representatives and, of course, the foibles of Presidents.
Among the most memorable stories were those told by the Grahams, a colorful Texas couple who were good friends of my parents and had been workers’ rights activists in the South before moving to Washington to work for the AFL-CIO. I would sit in their suburban living room, often thick with cigarette smoke, completely mesmerized by their tales of freezing or sweltering in picket lines for weeks, enduring police raids and watching workers get beaten or shot just for asserting their rights. The two of them had suffered their own scrapes and bruises along the way, which made them heroes in my childhood book.
I could name current Cabinet members and justices of the Supreme Court from the age of nine, but it wasn’t until the seventh grade that I graduated from spectator to budding political agent. In my school system, that was the year for civics class. Because our suburban school was a 30-minute train ride from the Capitol building, we took several field trips to watch congressional sessions from the visitors’ balconies.
On one of those trips, I became riveted by a discussion in the Senate about an issue I had never heard or thought of: conditions for migrant workers. Listening, I learned that, even after decades of alleged reforms, regulations about pay and sanitary conditions were erratic and lax, workers’ children could not consistently attend school, and many families lived in their cars between jobs picking fruit or vegetables around the country.
At dinner that night, I asked my parents about this travesty. Had they known? “Of course.” Why hadn’t they told me? “It must have slipped our minds.” Unsatisfied by their dismissal, I finally asked, “What can I do?”
“Write a letter,” they said. That’s what I could do. And that’s what I did. I wrote to Senator Harrison Williams of New Jersey, who had been working for years to pass federal regulations to protect migrant workers. I wrote in support of his efforts and to let him know that a local kid was moved by his leadership and the discussions I had witnessed that day. I asked him—perhaps naively—what I could do for his cause.
It would be many years before I learned the long history of migrant work in the United States, the conflicting regional interests in federal legislation to benefit those workers, the ricocheting support of the two major parties as circumstances and issues changed, and even the opposition of some labor unions (my heroes?!) to federal programs for such workers. But I will never forget that Senator Williams personally answered my earnest letter. He encouraged me to vote faithfully and work for worthy causes as I grew up. I wasn’t quite ready for active citizenship, but Williams’ words launched me in that direction.
It wasn’t too long before I was protesting the Viet Nam war, marching for racial equality and women’s rights, and choosing women’s studies as my academic field. As a professor in that field, I count on the books and articles I write to help carry on my personal legacy of active citizenship on behalf of social justice.
This essay is part of our Political Awakening series this month.
Sally Kitch is University and Regents' Professor of Women and Gender Studies in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. She is founding director of ASU’s Institute for Humanities Research and of the Humanities Lab.