Transcript of Interview with Jackie Nese

00:00:00 Hi, my name’s Jackie Nese. I’m from Deer Park, NY, and I’m a theater major, sophomore year.
00:00:08 Interviewer: What did you do last summer for a summer job?
00:00:11 I worked for citizen’s campaign for the environment, which is a grassroots organization that focuses on environmental issues on a local and national level. Specifically Long Island, though.
00:00:22 In what capacity did you work for them?
00:00:25 I worked for them for the whole summer from May to August and what we did was we went, we were canvassers grassroots, and we went door to door educating people, educating local citizens on campaigns that we’re working on. We did the global warming campaign and we also did a very important campaign to Long Island called Broadwater. It’s a nuclear gas plant that they want to put in the middle—it’s like a barge—in the middle of the LI Sound. So we were fighting against that.
00:00:56 And what kind of response did you generally get from people? Overwhelmingly positive or negative?
00:01:02 It depended. There’s no way to say it was overwhelmingly positive or negative because it could have been split depending on where you went. If you were living on the sound you’re most likely going to get positive reactions–to get that out of their backyard. But if you’re on the south shore people don’t really respond to it, they don’t really care about it. So, again, it was mixed and depending on what time of day you go it really can be mixed.
00:01:29 What was your, sort of, pitch? What was the big thing you led off with? Just in general, not so much focusing on Broadwater, but the biggest message you would want to convey to people when you spoke with them?
00:01:44 About the specific campaign? Because when we were talking to people it was generally very specific. We just kind of got to the point. We made sure to hit it home with them. They’re called raps, is what we call them, how we talk to them. So, we had different raps for different locations. If you were in Western Nassau you kind of have to have it speedy. Because Western Nassau is a lot different than if you’re out in Montoq. The pace is completely different. Also location-wise, if you’re in Western Nassau on the sound, as opposed to WN on the ocean, the south shore, its going to be completely different raps. For North shore you kind of just want to remind them of why they love to live on the sound you know? You live on the sound because you have this beautiful water. Do you want this huge thing a. filling up and taking control of your ports and your waterways, water activities. You’re paying your taxes so that you can have this beautiful sound. You’re living on the water for it and you pay more for that. If you’re on the south shore, you’re saying if they can do it there, then they can do it in your waters. I’m pretty sure you guys don’t want it to be right in your backyard, so think about how they’re feeling up north.
00:03:00 We didn’t go to Hempstead for security reasons, but we went to surrounding areas like East Meadow, we went to Levittown. They go to every—I was only there for the summer and the summer they usually tend to go out east more just cause you can walk around easier there—and they stay close to the main office during the winter. So I didn’t get to really canvas Western Nassau too often. But East Meadow, Levittown, those kinds of areas we definitely did.
00:03:32 What was the message that you were sending in those areas specifically?
00:03:36 Specifically, to oppose Broadwater, sign petitions. We asked for donations because we came around once a year. We don’t get money from the government, we’re only run on what our supporters will give us. So, we like to break it down like, hey, if you could give us a $52 donation that’s a dollar a week. Break it down for them so that they know we only come around once a year. So that’s how we would get donations. And then most importantly though, we would have them write letters to Senator Clinton, and a couple of other people that we were targeting. Spitzer, Velasquez, well not Spitzer anymore, and one other person. And we would have everybody in the family, even if their kids were three years old we’d have them write these letters, and they tape it to their door and then at the end of our night we would stop canvassing and we’d have a sheet of all the houses that promised us letters. We’d go back and check, we’d take the letters they just taped to their door, take all the letters, and we’d mail them out for them.
00:04:41 That’s our job when we come back to the office. To sit there and write down—I would be getting, I was the letter Queen. I got like, some nights I would have 60 letters from families that I would have to send out. So I would be sitting there writing out 60 envelopes to Hillary Clinton. We would give them a sheet of what to say, but most importantly is we would have them write the letters.
00:05:10 Why did you choose to work for them over the summer?
00:05:15 It was very spontaneous and very, not last minute, but unexpected. My friend of a friend said there was this great job that pays well, pays, they said something like 200 to 300 up to 500 a week that you’d be making. So I was like, oh okay, that’s really cool, that’ll attract me to it. And then once I got there they interviewed me and told me more about it. And it was definitely something that I was interested in because the winter break right before the summer I had just watched Al Gore’s environmental movie. I don’t remember the name of it.
00:05:55 An Inconvenient Truth.
00:05:57 Inconvenient Truth. There you go. I just watched that and it really showed me that this isn’t a joke. That global warming is here and its not something you can mess around with. And after watching that it was basically like the golden opportunity to help out. So I went to interview and after that it kind of just fell into place. I set up a time when I could start training, start working, and it just went from there.
00:06:29 Ok, and do you feel like your experience helped you make a difference?
00:06:33 Yeah. Absolutely because we were constantly getting correspondence from Hillary Clinton herself and from her offices saying like hey guys, so, uh, we have a thousand letters from you guys. We get the point. And getting their support, just opening their eyes. As much as I really want to believe that I helped, and I think that without the canvassers—someone said to me this summer that canvassers are the unspoken heroes of democracy. And it kind of like, made the job easier because like it’s where it starts. You’re getting the closest to the voters. You’re getting closest to the people that are going to make the difference and inspiring them to do so. Just like watching a movie does, but this is even more personal and more interacting. I want to say that as many people as I spoke to ad as many people who were like wow its really great that you’re doing this, even if it’s one or two people, it’s one or two people more than we had before. And as many doors as were slammed in my face, there’s another one down the road that’s going to be congratulating me and really bringing my hopes up for the cause. So, I think that it helps, and even if it didn’t help them I learned more. About it, about people about how they act and about how they view different issues.