Nancy Shia Interview, October 10, 2021

Start this. Alright, and let's begin. So, this is Evan Michales on the 10th of October, 2021. Interviewing - may you introduce yourself?

Nancy Shia.

All right. Do I have your permission to record this interview?

Yes.

Excellent, so I could go over the release form but we could probably do that at the end.

Yeah, that'd be good.

Okay. So, let's start this off. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

A mother of two: a boy and a girl, who are now in their 40s. Grandmother of one. Writer, a poet, an activist, artist. That's enough.

And which of those labels? Do you think you --

Oh, I forgot to mention photographer!

Yeah. And which of those labels do you think you identify most with?

Well, I think I spend most of my time being a mother. So maybe that, I mean, I identify with being a bunch of things.

All right, and you've said you've participated in oral history projects before.

Yeah, I think Marin did one. I got one done by someone at the Washington Post at one point. It's kind of a blur. I can't remember all of them.

Do you remember what they were about?

Mostly about me being a photographer.

Okay. So in your, I guess you're very well known in this area for being a photographer.

I suppose. I guess so.

Have you had your work published?

Yeah. Well, there was a bunch of community newspapers, probably in the 80s: The Rock Creek Monitor, there was one called Columbia Road. Forget the others. But yeah, I published in those. I mean, I published in a lot of places. You're not going according to your questions - so I have to search.

It's a rough guideline.

A bunch of, I mean, I was published in the Washington Post. Okay, here! New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, DC History Magazine, Rock Creek Monitor. And I had a job for a few years at the Washington Informer. Those were all freelance - pretty much all of those - but the Washington Informer I was on staff for them.

All right. I think I'll go back to the question list.

To the beginning?

Yeah, I may as well.

It would make it easier.

Probably. All right, so then how long have you lived in DC?

49 - more than 49 years - going on 50. Next year will be 50 years.

Were you, where were you before?

I moved from New York City. I went to school in New York City and I grew up in Connecticut, outside in New Haven, in the suburbs of New Haven.

Have you found DC to be a totally different climate or atmosphere than New Haven or New York?

Well, the climates better. Yeah, New Haven in New York were a little colder in the wintertime. New Haven especially because it did get New England winters. And DC's more like springtime a lot of the winter. So yeah, definitely. I mean, I found DC as a home. And, New York was very diverse. I lived in a Dominican neighborhood in New York, and there were a lot of Cubans there, too. But DC is way more diverse. You have way more. I mean, to me, it is; New York is, I'm sure some would argue with. The Latin culture here is a mix of many different cultures from Latin America, like Puerto Ricans. DC had Puerto Ricans and Dominicans and some Cubans. And when I came to DC and met some Costa Ricans, I thought huh, there's more than just Puerto Ricans. And then during the 70's, when Pinochet took over Chile, a lot of Chileans came and in the Seventies also Argentina and Venezuela also were in wars against the leftists. So a lot of leftists came to DC. So yeah, this is a home because I really feel at home with a diverse group of people. If it was just one group of people, it would feel weird.

All right. So then in which sections of DC, have you found yourself? As you always find yourself in Adams Morgan?

Most of the time, but I came here - first I lived in Mount Pleasant for a couple of years, and I liked Mount Pleasant too. And then I moved out of Mount Pleasant to Capitol Hill for a year. And that was different.

Different how so?

Well, it just, I lived in a house, the top floor of a house. And my landlords lived in the bottom part and they were both US attorneys. And it just felt like a stodgier place to live then Adams Morgan. And I lived near U Street for a few months in a group house, and then from there I moved to the building I'm living in now. In 1975 I moved here. So I basically lived in Adams Morgan for the last 45 years. 46 years.

All right, and as someone who doesn't really know DC or Adams Morgan all that much, how would you describe this area?

Well Adams Morgan has always been pretty vibrant, and, something going on all the time. 7-Eleven's open 24/7. In mean, 18th Street was very different in the 80s. There weren't a lot of bars; there may have been two or three bars. And there were, there were houses, people lived in the houses on 18th Street. Adams Morgan is, people are really friendly. I got to know a lot of people. There was a lot of activism especially when gentrification started, a lot of demonstrations going on. And, Columbia Road, I live right in the first floor in the front and there was very often a parade or a protest march going down Columbia Road. And being right in the front, it was like, jump and run.

So you've always partook in those sorts of demonstrations.

Well, you know, I always was a photographer and I always wanted to document what's happening and so those - so I would jump and run just to be in the middle of the action and get the best pictures. So I was just lucky to be living in the first floor front, to be able to hear it. If I was in the building living in the back, I wouldn't have known, you know, there was a domestic violence demonstration every year in October. Other. And there were many in the 70s and 80s. There was a lot with Central Americans: Nicaraguans protesting the Contras, El Salvador protesting the Civil War and the US involvement in the Civil War.

All right, and so you said earlier that you always want to jump into the action as a photographer. Has that been your guiding philosophy?

I suppose. I mean just - sometimes not, sometimes I'll step back and photograph from afar wherever the action is. But yeah, it's kind of a tendency to, when I hear something happen, happening, wonder what it is and if it's worth documenting.

How would you determine if it's worth documenting?

Well, by what place in history it would have if it's seen? In the beginning of the Trump Administration, I did a lot of pro-Trump demonstrations, and I really wanted to document who are those people who support that person. And because that was so foreign to the kind of people I know, that I wanted to be able to understand who they are and why they support him. And of course, being the activist what it would take to change their minds.

Did you ever try to change people's minds? Or did you always try to stay back and photograph?

No. I have a good friend, who's a videographer. His name is Eddie Becker. And he might be an interesting one to for you too. Eddie's lived in the neighborhood longer than me. And he, he has a YouTube channel and he gets in the middle of those people too. It's funny that very often we'll see each other in these right-wing places, knowing both of us are like nowhere near their theology or philosophy, and Eddie being the videographer will ask them questions and probe. And not in an obnoxious way. He's just probes to bring out what they're thinking, how they're thinking, and I don't have the urge to jump in and ask any questions. I have the urge to bring out a person who they are by what they look like. I sometimes found it very amusing how they love to use the American flag in their dress and what they wear. I just think that says as much as what Eddie gets them to say, is how they're dressed.

I think we should probably mention that how you're dressed.

Oh, well, I just, you know, pull this one out today because I was - I've been to Cuba. And it's not like I'm a communist or anything, I've never been a communist, but if you've ever been to Cuba the people are incredibly happy, in many ways. I mean, they're pissed off and angry and they show all that too. So communism is not suppressing them other than economically. It's probably really suppressing them economically, but I mean I'm not trying to make a political statement. I think it's more of a fashion statement.

Well, I would create it as quite the statement, as a fashion statement. All right, so moving back to my question set, about your parents and family - did they support your choice to be a photographer and be here.

No, but I had an aunt who was an artist, a really good artist and her her family suppressed that. And she made me, I mean, seeing her, I wanted to be an artist too, but I could not draw. So, I had the idea to become a photographer, I guess in high school, when I went to a high school art show and I saw an image, it was an ink drawing, but it was a copy of a photograph Dorothea Lange, took during the Depression. Are you familiar with Dorothea Lange?

I believe so.

She - There was an iconic photograph that she took that became a postage stamp, and it was taken during the Depression. And it was called the Pea Pickers Wife. It was an Oklahoma person in California in one of the agriculture camps. Anyway, I saw this image as ink drawing. That was a really good copy of it, and I thought maybe I could make pictures like that. And from a very early age, I was aware of poverty. I think in nursery school, when I was in nursery school with very poor children in New Haven and the nursery school was run by the Yale Child Development Center or something like that. It was run by a Yale psychologist. They just made it a point to get kids from, the poor kids of New Haven in the school. So I was impressed by that. One of your questions, oh, your most impactful childhood memory. It was, my grandparents lived in the middle of, in the center of New Haven, and they had a house and right next to the house was a tenement building with poor people living in it And there was a fence between the buildings, and on the other side of the fence, every Sunday, the family would gather at the grandparents house and all the cousins were there and, there were a bunch of cousins, and on the other side of the fence were about three kids who had extended bellies. And I wondered about it, wanted to know, know about it, and it just - it was different from our side of the fence and my aunties told me, don't go over there And I ended up figuring out how to get there and was hanging with these kids for a while and then got into trouble. But that was probably the most impactful event of my childhood. That kind of, you know, triggered my mind into wondering why they're like that and we're like this. And, like I said, I wanted to be an artist but I didn't have any talent and when I saw that one picture of poverty and how much it said, I believed that if I could take pictures of poverty it would change things, that there would be no more poverty. You're a kid thinking that way, right, but I think it does work to a degree. Change is slow. But it'd be slower without showing the evils of society if everyone went along thinking that there was nothing wrong with it.

Has that been your main subject, poverty?

I've had a million subjects, really, but I think it's maybe been not necessarily poverty, but people And some people live in poverty and some don't. A couple of my favorite-ist places to photograph or my best memories are in Cuba and in Honduras. And the kids were - so many kids, running around barefoot, and I would even see adults running around barefoot. I mean, do we ever see that here? Only, if somebody's barefoot, you think they're crazy. And I would take their picture as if nothing was wrong, and it was actually - nothing was wrong to them. That was the norm. So, I don't know what your question was but those were my two favorite-ist places to photograph. I suspect this was 2 something years ago, 22 years ago. 21 years ago for, wait, 23 years ago for Honduras and 23 years ago for Cuba. And I suspect Cuba's very much the same. But Honduras is way dangerous. And, I mean, I don't know if the people would be as happy.

Have you tried going back?

I mean, I would like to. I have a granddaughter who's half Honduran. In Cuba, I mean, what's the point If it hasn't changed? I don't know. I mean, I would love to go back and see people in Cuba but like, and you know, I don't do the touristy thing. I don't go to the hotels. I stay stay with the people which makes the photographs so much better. So, I suppose I'm still drawn to exposing poverty. Things change though, I think even poverty is different, because everyone has a cell phone. And technology is different and poor people keep up, some poor people do. My daughter lives in West Virginia, Martinsburg, West Virginia. So, I spend a lot of time there, and I think there's probably a whole lot more poverty in West Virginia than there is in DC. At least it's more open, it's more visible. But it's real different too, the people are really different. It's like a different country. And, but it's in so many ways so refreshing because, there they're at least 10 or 20 years behind. So when I was getting rid of all my CDs, I would send them to Martinsburg because who in DC still has a CD player, but in Martinsburg, probably everyone does.

So you said the poverty is sort of different in West Virginia and DC, can you explain that a bit more and how it's different. Or is it something that you just need to experience?

You may need to just experience it but it's more white poverty in West Virginia. You know, they're very open to me now, as photographing. I'll ask someone before, you know, if they mind me to photograph because across the street from the house we live in is a mission. It's called The Harvest Lighthouse Mission. They give away free food, and my daughter and I went for their Easter Sunday breakfast. And I went around for, we wanted to, I wanted to go to an African-American church in Martinsburg. But this was right across the street and I was really disappointed because there were no African-Americans who came to the Missions' Easter Sunday breakfast. It's about twenty percent African-American in the city. Is someone coming in?

Yeah.

Hey. We're trying to do an interview. So can you guys kind of not? I don't know. What is it for?

This is American University, oral history.

I don't mean to leave. I mean just - Did you call me obnoxious. Did she? I think she did but that's okay. That's fair. I mean didn't I ask nicely? I didn't say please.

All right, to explain Martinsburg, are there other places that you've lived throughout the years beyond Martinsburg and DC?

Well, New York. I lived in New York for five years. The city. I was going to school.

Where exactly, did you go to school?

I graduated from CCNY. And then I went to Columbia for a master's. I got a masters in social work at Columbia, and at the time you had a choice of three things: clinical individual work, group work, or community organizing And I got it in community work. So I studied under some professors that these days some far-right-wing people will bring them up as being horrible thinkers or whatever. Frances Fox Piven was one, and Cloward, I forget his first name, was the other. Then I left New York and came to DC. So basically, New York, New Haven. When I graduated from high school, I lived in New Haven for a couple years. New York, New Haven and DC. And then recently, last year and a half Martinsburg.

It's on a, very centered on the East Coast.

Totally.

All right, I see. So you've said you've traveled to Honduras and Cuba, have been able to go elsewhere?

I've been to Mexico and France. That's it. I don't travel much. I really don't like to travel and I feel like, you know, being in DC I met someone from at least 50 countries, maybe more, just because they're all in DC: diplomacy's here. I worked for 15 years as a reporter for a news service, and my job was to audio record, which at the time when I left, I left in 2005. It was 20 years. Did I see 15? It was 20 years. Anyway, I left in 2005, and they were still using cassette tapes.

Really.

Right, so, you know, trying to pick up how to deal with audio these days is like not easy for me. So anyway, that job, I was all over DC. I was at embassies, organizations, right wing, left wing, everything, and just audio taping whatever was going on. And that put me in the middle of stuff. Every day. I leave my place in Adams Morgan and ride my bike downtown to the National Press Building and then I would get sent out two or three times a day. Sometimes even to different events. A lot of them were Capitol Hill hearings, State Department briefings. But then a lot of them somewhere at embassies some were at hotels, where secretaries of whatever would be speaking. And then being in the National Press Building, the Press Club would also attract people from all over the world to speak. So, I got to photograph when they were speaking there and often would meet their staff. So I felt like the world has more come to me than travel and I don't specially drink kofu. And I flew out in August to see my son, he's in Oakland, California. And when I got off the plane in Oakland, I had a total meltdown from the experience of going from DC in the middle of a pandemic to Oakland and seeing all these people and being around, it just was awful. It was okay coming home, so, yeah

So, as your work as an audio technician, have you thought about incorporating audio into your photography or has it always been an extremely thin focus, a visual medium for you?

Yeah, I mean, I could. You know, since I quit that job in 200, I've been working on archiving my photos which means scanning negatives. And I mean, it's taking me up to this time to scan through probably 1989 and it's, you know, the first time going through so a lot has been left out and stuff. So I spent a lot of time dealing with just the image and putting together stuff like that, I would do it. But I want to get through the scans before I, you know, I do stop and do shows and stuff like that too. I would totally include audio. I remember I'm doing something, putting some music to a bunch of pictures and then Facebook said that I was violating copyrights. Enough of that.

How much more scanning do you have to do?

Well, I'm at a point now, my pictures, all the hard copy pictures I have are in the Washingtoniana collection at the Martin Luther King library, which I scanned before they got the pictures, and when they closed, I think they closed in two thousand seventeen or eighteen, eighteen. I gave them about 45 boxes of pictures. But what I have been scanning are the negatives. So the hard copy pictures are what I had printed. And the negatives is everything I've shot. Which I don't scan everything if it's out of focus or it's blurred or anything. No problem. No skin. So it, I probably have from 1990 up through 2005 still to scan But I had a good meeting with my friend who works at Washingtoniana. And I think they're going to end up doing the rest of the scanning because they want me to just work on identifying what they are. I mean, I kind of like scanning because it's mindless and I could watch movies. But for - they want me to caption all the pictures that I've given them because they're going through and doing all the archive and they're going to eventually it's all going to be online. And so whatever they put online, I have to save what it is. So, I think at some point soon the scanning is going to end. Unfortunately. It's great going through all those negatives. It just seems to me, it's so much easier to scan it and then identify it. They're going to give me all these scans back. I don't know. I always see - but it's kind of cool too because then the work is going to get done. So what's left is 15 more years, I guess, because I stopped shooting negatives in 2005. Unfortunately. I worked at, I did everything in the dark room. It was mostly black and white.

Do you have a preference for film cameras?

Why use a - oh, film cameras.

Or taking photos on film, rather than digital.

The first camera I had was an Asahi Pentax. Pentax is, has been a good camera. I don't know what they do now. And then I went from Pentax to Nikon. And I think my last film camera was a Nikon but in looking back, you know, the Pentax gave me a lot of my best pictures. And I didn't get the Nikon probably until I got the job working as a reporter; reporter meaning, really an audio technician, where I would audio record. I audio recorded for transcription. So all of the Audio, I would take back to the office and it would be divided into four minute segments or three minute segments, and the transcribers were there waiting to transcribe it and then it got put on The Wire. And before it got put on The Wire the company in the early 80s, would hand-deliver transcriptions of the White House briefings to different news organizations in DC. So, it was a news organization I worked for because we would do Capitol Hill hearings. And all the time I was being the audio transcript - audio technician / reporter. I was photographing. So I was very fortunate to be in the same room when Anita Hill testified at the Supreme Court hearings on Clarence Thomas. I was there for that, and, I forget, I'm sure there's a couple others that I'm not remembering, but historical events that were going on. So, that's I think that's why I stayed on that job is because it was for the photo ops. And the benefits. And I had two kids I was raising so I needed to make sure that they were taken care of.

And so was that like your favorite moment of history or was there - were there other moments of history that you can.

The one moment that gives me the most glee is - I was on the back of the Press truck. Like sitting on the what's it called? The thing that goes down.

The flat bed of the truck?

It was - it was kind of a flatbed truck. And the Press was, you know, there were News Channel 7 and 9 and probably Fox was on the truck and, the word is escaping me, but it's like they have those kind of parties at ball games. You don't know what I'm talking about? And when I say, it's not a fender, It's the you know the parties they have it football games and stuff. You know what I'm talking about, right?

The tailgate.

Tailgate! So I was on the tailgate with a couple other photographers of this truck and it was, it had, it was following Marion Barry's body to the church for a funeral. So it was being taken from the district building and driven all over DC before it went across the bridge into Ward 8, where he was council member for the people in Ward 8. And before it got to Ward 8, occasionally people would yell some derogatory remarks as it went by, but when it got to War 8, it was a big celebration and there people were out there just waiting on it and the Ballou High School marching band was there. It was just an amazing moment in history and it, I think it was raining a little bit and I had a cold, or I was I was sick. But I don't even remember sickness interfering with the joy that it brought. So that was one of my most memorable moments - being in the room with Anita Hill was another.

Were you photographing that, the funeral or was that an audio?

Oh, no, I didn't go to the funeral. It was -

Just the procession?

I was photographing for the Washington Informer at the time and I was just photographing the who, you know, the procession as it went from the district building to the church in Southeast. And the photographs, I think they ran were probably the ones of the people in Ward 8 celebrating.

That seems understandable.

Yeah. It was kind of a real gloomy day, drizzle. It was in seem like the winter, maybe like November.

Okay. Okay, we can move on. Let's see. So, have you been a photographer for your entire life as is or did that start?

Since I was 18.

Do you expect to be a photographer? Well, you said you were an artist but as you said that like photography would be the medium of choice.

Well, you know, I mean, I felt like when I started it that this is what I wanted to do. It wasn't a matter of if am I going to be a photographer for a living. It was, I felt like that's what I wanted to do. And it gave me a lot of satisfaction. Doing it. And I would give my pictures away.

Could you imagine doing anything other than photography?

Yeah, I went to law school. I finished law school so I could have been an attorney if I took a bar, but I wondered, there was no reason to. And a social worker. I went to social work school too. So I was, I wanted to be a social worker and then I thought the law would help with that. And I finished both, and then I had kids. And throughout the whole time I was a photographer and had to get a job, but I kept shooting whenever I could. From the time I was 18, I think. That's what I wanted to do. As far as what I wanted to be. I suppose what you do is who you are.

All right. So then I presume would presume that you are a professional photographer.

Yeah, it's kind of a question. I was wondering after reading these are - at what point did I assume I was not immature and started being professional. I suppose it was pretty late. I mean, I was always, or tried to be a perfectionist. I didn't associate that with professionalism. But I think when my pictures were put in the Smithsonian is when I started to think I might be professional.

What were they put in the Smithsonian for?

There's a show, it's an ongoing show. I'm amazed it's still up. I think it's been up for like 2018 in Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum and the show is called A Right to the City. And it's about five neighborhoods in Washington and how they've changed. You should go see it. It's a pretty good show. And one of my images became the iconic image of the show, although the only part I have is the Adams Morgan part. It's a picture of bunch of neighbors marching up Columbia Road with a big sign that says We Are Not Moving Out. And, the guy who was doing it, the curator, Samir Mughelli, I think Samir is actually on the Humanities Truck board. He's one of the curators in Anacostia at the Smithsonian, is just amazing. He's so detailed. He must have come three or four times and stayed at least two or three or four hours to talk to me about the pictures and get the right ones and stuff. So yeah, you should go see that show and when it went - so that was 2018, like three years ago. I'm embarrassed. I mean, I knew I was professional because I'd been published all over the place, but but that was freelance. I suppose also when I was working for the Informer, when I started working for them around, maybe 2012. Something like that. It was funny when I worked for them it was the first time I had ever actually worked as a working photographer for a publication. So, I learned so much about what to shoot and even how to shoot, And that was like nine years ago. That wasn't that far back.

So then would you consider yourself to have formal training for photography or?

Yeah, when I was in college at city college, I took every class I could in photography. And then I took a class at the Corcoran on photojournalism in the early 90s. And it was really taxing and I learned a lot from that too, there's just so much you can learn from people that that are really brilliant in their jobs. My teacher was.

Okay, let's see. So then would you say, like, which photograph you've taken has been your absolute favorite or can you even choose one?

I don't think I could choose one. I don't have any, I mean there's a lot of them I like but I can't choose one that I would say is the best. There's one that probably got published more than any and it went around the world and that was a picture of a guy named Norman Mayer. Norman Mayer drove, he, the picture I took of him is him sitting in front of the White House with these huge signs against nuclear weapons and nuclear war. And I remember walking by, it was right before Halloween, and I see these huge signs and this is like right up against the White House fence. And I took a picture of the signs and then I took a picture of him next to the signs. One of the signs said Don't Be A Lemming. And I said, what's a lemming? And he said, oh, it's a little animal that runs into the sea and commits suicide. And I said, okay, and it was all about nuclear weapons. So I think I took one or two pictures of him at the most, because I thought I'm using color film and it's more expensive. And then about a month and a half later, Norman Mayer drove a truck up to the Washington Monument and threatened to blow up the monument because he said he had explosives in the truck and, because unless the country stop making nuclear weapons, or something - I don't know what - you could go to the newspapers and find out what it was for. But so, and he held Washington at bay for a whole day or practically. Yeah, I think was a whole day because in the end he got shot and killed. And, Thomas used to have a vigil in front of the White House from the early 80s. This was, no. Yeah. Thomas was like, from 1980, Norman Mayer, did it I believe in 82. And, Thomas knew Norman Mayer. And so he told Secret Service, he knew him, let me go up and talk to him. Thomas went up and talked to him and found out from Norman Mayer he didn't have any explosives. And so, Thomas came down and then they moved in on him and killed him. But they didn't, they said they didn't believe Thomas but Thomas isn't going to lie to Secret Service. Anyway, so that picture. So it turned out I was pretty much the only person in the world who had a picture of Norman Mayer sitting in front of the White House with his big signs. And I brought it to AP and AP bought it for about $350. This was in the early 80s. So that's not too bad and they ran it. Ran on the front page of USA Today. And the Fort Lauderdale Times and I don't know around the world. Europe, it ran in some front pages. About who was the guy that did that. And then the next day I brought it to UPI. The negative. UPI said they needed to make a slide of it. And so they needed the negative to send to New York and I would get it back. Well, they ended up losing the negative Fortunately, AP gave me a 8 by 10, of what they did. And I also have the picture when I had the originals printed. I still have the little three and a half by five, wasn't even four by six. So that picture had probably a great impact. And then UPI paid me I think a thousand dollars for the lost negative.

Did you try to make sure that you don't lose pictures after that? Like have your own copy of it?

Well, yeah, I mean I learned my lesson. You never give your negatives to anyone. Especially anyone you don't know. Yeah, so, I mean I have a good scan of it. I'm sure I scanned the AP photo they gave me.

And then, let's see. The battery still seems to be hanging on so I think we'd be good for a while. But do you have a least favorite experience that you got some good photos out of?

Yeah, I was arrested on 18th Street one time. By a very corrupt sergeant at three in the morning. And then locked up. Spent all day Sunday in jail. And then got charged, and so I had to go to court.

What was this about?

I was an AMC commissioner. This was in 2008. And 18th Street was a big mess at three in the morning because people were getting let out of bars drunk. The cops were not being helpful. They were being abusive. So I was out there photographing. There was one sergeant who was notorious for being abuse, but I never really knew who he was and they would write on the Adams Morgan list-serve the abuse, his abuse. And I wrote, Well, how soon will we see Sergeant Tubbs taking off of and out of our fair neighborhood or something like that. And then it some point I was on 18th Street, and it was Sergeant Tubbs I was photographing and then he put the handcuffs on. And I said, are you Sergeant Tubbs? He said, Yeah, I know who you are. That was my least favorite experience photographing. And I didn't even, I didn't get out until probably seven o'clock the following evening. And I was told that the chief heard about it and wanted her out.

Well, I mean, that's excellent advocacy for - on your behalf.

Right. When I got - it's kind of a long story, but when I got the handcuffs put on, there were two other young women. And we were sitting on 18th Street on the street for a good 45 minutes, oh no, for a few minutes, and then they put us in the car. And when they put us in the car, I was able to get out of my handcuffs, and so I had a telephone and I first called the Chairman of the AMC, of the Adams Morgan Advisory Neighborhood Commission, and he came right away and witnessed us being in the car and being on this side on the street and stuff. So he witnessed the whole thing and I was with a friend and he witnessed - Eddie Becker. The guy who's the videographer. We were out there together. He witnessed the whole thing, too. And it just was an eye-opening moment where I mean, so I was able to get to my phone and I let these girls call their parents and I called Brian. And then we got into the station, when we went into the station my phone rang. And the little stupid-ass broad who was the cop she came in, lied about everything. She grabbed my phone and said, That's your one call, and grabbed it from me. So I'm sure the Chairman of the AMC was the one that called the chief of police to say. It was a bad experience, I could write about it. And I photographed I mean pretty much the whole thing up until the time I got locked up.

And were you able to keep your camera?

I could not. They took the camera from me. And they took my purse from me. I must have had, well, I had all of that probably in the police car, but then when you get into the station, I think they take everything from you. But I don't think I took any more pictures. I didn't take any more pictures after I got in the police car. And they took the camera and it took a long time to get it. But I had a lawyer, who was awful, but he made sure that they didn't do anything like erase the photos and I was able to use them in court.

That's useful. So, do you generally use an actual camera or do you use your phone now that phones have cameras?

I use both now. Yeah, I think I'm going to look for a really good phone camera for my next camera purchase. Because one of your questions, what do you look for in a camera? And it's mostly, hopefully it doesn't weigh much. Because things get heavier when you get older. So yeah, I use them both but nowadays I carry my Canon with the long lens on. And I'll use the phone when I need something like close and a wider angle. I'm not that much of a perfectionist.

So you found technology advances have been really helpful for you?

Oh, totally, yeah. Yeah, on the phone, especially. Yeah, I mean in it's also a lot easier because you more surreptitious with the telephone than you are with your long lens and camera.

So do you think the proliferation of cameras on phones have been, has that been helpful for you or for as you've noticed photography around?

I think the proliferation of phones has done stuff like exposed what happened with George Floyd. And I think it's great. I think if there are citizen journalists, that's great. So it's pushing the police in the right direction. The proliferation of security cameras makes me feel sad for the children of today. Because you can't be a kid. If you're a kid, you pay a price even when you're a kid. I don't know. There's just probably so many things I could do as an activist that I couldn't do today. Or if I do, I just have to acknowledge that I'm probably being photographed or videotaped. But for the most part, I think it's great that everybody has a camera and they can expose evil when it happens. It's almost like where would we be if we didn't have it? We'd probably still be back - I was just looking to see if they were still there.

So then I think I had a question but I don't - but I have a list.

You have a bunch of them here.

Let's see. Actually, have there been things that you've, you wish you could have taken a picture of but you didn't have a camera available.

Oh. Probably, but I can't remember. Like, you know, if someone's being abused that kind of. But for the most part, I always have a camera.

That's useful.

Yeah. When I read that question, I thought it was: Do you wish you could have taken a picture of something, and the only thing I could think of is an active volcano.

Yeah, those are pretty spectacular.

Or the Aurora Borealis, that would be nice. I mean, I'd have to travel.

That's fair. So then, all right- what memories have you been able to preserve with your photographs? And what photos do you think don't quite serve that particular memory total justice?

I didn't quite get that question. I mean, you know, I've been able to preserve a lot of memories when I've been scanning, as part of the fun of scanning as you're kind of going down memory lane every day. What happened, where you were, stuff like that. I don't know. Next.

All right, and this one wasn't on the list but I thought of it today, but do you have any particular photographic heroes?

Oh, yeah, Dorothea Lange first. Eddie the videographer I mentioned because his face is in their face. Christy Bow. Christy Bow is a colleague who's a member of the Press Club and she has always had White House credentials and she also did the January 6th Uprising and she was in the face of all the Proud Boys and all those people. So I like, she's my hero because I didn't have the guts to go out there during COVID to shoot those right-wing guys.

So, where were you during January 6th?

I was in my house Actually, my son called me from California and said, Are you seeing this? I said, Seeing what? And I turned on the television and there it was, like it was - you couldn't believe it. What was going on.

Do you wish you could have been there and photographed? Or would you like to have remained?

A lot of times I think, now, with what's going on, I think it's time for the young-uns to take over and for me to just focus on the history that I've created. And yeah, of course, I wished I could have been there but - and I probably would have been there if it hadn't been for COVID and I would have been marching with the Black Lives Matter people, if it hadn't been for COVID But, you know, I was able to photograph the pro-Trumper early in his administration and Black Lives Matter people march right by my front window. So I was able to photograph them from the window. So that's just a whole different perspective than the people that are there in the middle of it. I think that, you know, it's their thing to shine on now. I'm still living in the 80s.

Yeah, that's definitely fair. Let's see, I've got to think of more. I have more. You said you were your work has been placed in archives, like the Washingtonian, are there other places that you're work is exhibited in?

Washingtoniana. Well I did a project - this was an answer to one of your questions. Okay, what has been the most impactful photographic project you've done? So, I worked with a group called Teaching For Change. And they do projects for teachers all over the country, it's a national organization. And they do books to teach indigenous history or to teach black history or Latinx history. So I did a project with them during the pandemic last year, all last summer. And they made me select four subjects. The subjects were: gentrification, the Latin Festival, homelessness, and the riots - the riots of 1991. And so, I focused on those four subjects and they created a website, called Out My Window by Nancy Shia, I think I told you about that.

I don't think so.

You should look it up.

I will.

Because it's probably, it's had a lot of impact on me because it goes out, what they do goes out to teachers all over the country. And from that project, I've gotten a few phone calls from different parts of the country from people who want to use my photographs or my knowledge or whatever on books or movies or stuff like that. So that's been pretty impactful nationally. And I think that's kind of made me feel like I'm getting to be a little famous because teachers all over the country have seen my work now. And the other project that I've worked on it's with an organization called The Story of Our Schools. And the woman who runs it, this is just her love of telling the history of a school because DC has a lot of schools that have a deep history. Some of it's racial, some of it's other things. So she worked on Marie Reed which is an elementary school down this - down 18th Street. And what they do is they teach the kids, so she works with teachers. So they teach the kids the history of the school and the history of the neighborhood that they live in, and I think Marie Reed is probably mostly Latinx children, even though the neighborhood is now not. And also HD Cook, which you can see right over there. They got renovated too. Anyways, so The Story of Our Schools teaches the kids the history of the neighborhood and the school and does a permanent installation about that history. So not only do they learn it, but they get to see it and the history doesn't get lost. So that's just DC. But I really find that my pictures can be very impactful with young minds. Now she's working on Adams, Adams Elementary. Well, it was Adams Elementary. Now, it's called Adams Oyster, which is a bilingual school and a middle school. As an elementary school, my children went there. And at the time they went it was probably half African-American and half Latinx and then a few white kids and now it's bilingual teaching kids Spanish, anyway, so it's been like two schools. So they're doing the history, the bilingual, the yeah, the kind of a Latinx history of the neighborhood. And, another project I worked on was at Martin Luther King Library. Have you been to the library? Have you been down there?

I don't think so.

You should go. It's just amazing after the renovation. Oh man, I use it a lot. They have a thing called the memory lab, and the memory lab will, helps you transfer what media you have into digital. So, I use it for mini DV video and for audio. It'll turn it digital. So anyway, that's just one thing they do. Washingtoniana is the DC history division of Martin Luther King Library. And that's where all my photos are and apparently, they're changing the name to the People's Archive. Or maybe the People's Archive is a subset of Washingtoniana. I don't know. But so, before the library opened, there's an organization - well, I think it's called the DC Public Library Foundation. So it's a foundation. So the foundation created, the permanent installation to the new library. So, it's an exhibit on - the fourth floor is mostly exhibits. And I think Washingtoniana is also on the fourth floor. On one half of the exhibits go through 1968, when King was killed. And the other half goes from 68 to the future. And so I worked with a woman who was working on the installation on the whole exhibit for a long time. Like I worked with Samir Mughelli at Anacostia. These are, I mean, these people know what they're doing as far as shows and exhibits. So for a long time, I worked with this woman and then they opened last month and I went to the opening and I was looking at the permanent installation and on the side before 1969, I didn't see any of my pictures and I thought, well, that makes sense because I wasn't here before 1969. And then I was looking on the other side and there was - I went through like two rows and I didn't see anything, but then I turned the corner and there was - in my memory, it's like 10 feet by 10 feet picture of Marion Barry marching In the Hispanic parade or the Latino parade with the Latin leadership at the time. It was probably maybe five or six feet by six feet, but it was huge. And I go, woah, that's amazing. And then I walked around and then I saw another one that was the same size of Walter Pierce. Walter Pierce was a community leader in the 70s and 80s - late 60s, 70s, 80s, and early 90s, and he died I think in 91. And he - in Adams Morgan, he started an organization for the youth and then started inter-neighborhood basketball tournaments, and he was, you know, an activist. And then there's a park in Adams Morgan called Pierce Park, and it's named after Walter Pierce, but the majority of the people who go there today think Pierce is an old white guy, the same as Pierce Mill in Rock Creek from the eighteen hundreds. And that the history of Walter Pierce - I was so glad to see his big picture up in Martin Luther King because - so when I was there, I saw young man with the video. And I asked who you shooting for. He said for the library and I told him, well, that's my picture, do you want an interview? And so I gave him this interview. All I talked about was Walter Pierce and the history of Walter Pierce. It's because it's so important for people who come here to know the struggles that people of color made for this neighborhood. There's still some, but like, the building right there is a jubilee building. Jubilee. Do you know what Jubilee is? Jubilee is, there's a thing called Jubilee housing. It started in the 70s and it was some rich developer guy. I think he developed Columbia, Maryland in Reston, Virginia and his name was Rouse. I don't know his first his first name, but Rouse had a company and Rouse with the Church of the Savior started buying up properties in Adams Morgan so that low-income people can stay. And that, I think that building there is a Jubilee housing building too - the tall brown one.

Oh, yes.

And this one and there's one on 18th Street there, there are a bunch of them. There's one on Euclid Street. And that's basically how Adams Morgan has maintained a lot of its diversity. I don't know what question I'm answering.

Well I think that actually leads into an excellent question of how has Adams Morgan changed while you've been here?

Well, I mean, there's been a lot of changes from gentrification, is basically the biggest change. You know, when I moved in here, buildings were run down. And in the 80s a lot of them got it, became abandoned, people were forced out and there were a lot of abandoned buildings around and now all those abandoned buildings are gentrified into people that have a lot of money. So that's a big difference. You know, my son came back from Oklahoma and said - from Oakland - and said, What happened to all the black people? Because there were a lot more black people, and Latinx people too. It seems like there's still a bunch of Latinx people, but I don't know how many are still living here. So the economics of change. We've got a lot more grocery stores. A lot more options.

It's probably a change for the better.

Well, I suppose. We have Harris Teeter. When I was on the AMC Harris Teeter was trying to get the approval to build and they were building on Kalorama Road, real narrow street, and their trucks were going to come up 18th - 17th Street, which is a real narrow street. So, I was really against Harris Teeter moving in and then I was against them getting a liquor license. But then once I went to Harris Teeter, I wasn't against it anymore. And now it's my favorite store. I love going to Harris Teeter because every Thursday they have a senior day and you get some percentage of discount and their stuff is like way better than Safeway and cheaper than Safeway. The Safeway people are unionized and Harris Teeter people are not. But they treat them well, you know. So, just getting treated well is better than being part of a union.

And generally, how do you think DC has a whole has changed over the years? Has it sort of followed the same patterns that Adams Morgan has gone through?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think Adams Morgan is still fighting gentrification and development. I don't know. They're probably a lot of neighborhoods that didn't have the wherewithal to fight, Like H Street. I mean, H Street was traditionally all African American. Like The Wharf, Southwest. It's just money is such a bully. There are a lot of them, probably Fort Totten. Rhode Island Avenue near the Metro over there probably just bullied a lot of people out of their housing. We have a - I don't know if you saw the plaza. The plaza is right at 18th and Columbia.

Yeah.

You saw how it's painted up and stuff. So in 1960, 76, the community fought against having a gas station with there. And then a bank wanted to get -

Okay. Continue on.

I was talking about the history of the Adams Morgan Plaza. So the bank formed an agreement with the community so that the farmers market can continue to operate in the plaza. And the plaza's an important struggle. So the bank made an agreement with the community so that the community can have an easement in the plaza. and we could continue to cut across the plaza walking from Columbia Road to 18th Street. And maybe about four years ago or so the bank wanted to sell the property and they're trying to sell the property without the easement and so the community has been in court with the bank since I think 2017 to assert our right to the easement so they can't build over it. And, we won our first round, I think a lot because that part of the case was showing the photographs of how the community has used the easement through the years. Then it got appealed or put into federal court or whatever and the judge threw it out. Now it's on appeal and while it's been on appeal, a group of community residents have been having events in the plaza to show we still need it, we still want it. And one of the events I organized back in March was to show the history or to talk about the history of the women in Adams Morgan because it was Women's History Month, and I had a photo show of a bunch of women's marches for the ERA and stuff like that. And we had women who had been in Adams Morgan for a long time, talking about the history, how the Black Panthers were here and the women of the Black Panthers and a lot of that stuff. So we - and then on Adams Morgan day, we had, they had music. All these programs have a loudspeaker and we have usually live music. So Adams Morgan day we had a really good turnout and I did a show on, I picked 17 different places in Adams Morgan. The show was called once and now, and they were pictures of what the place was like in the 70s or 80s, and what it looks now. I went back the week before the show and I photographed every one of those places from his close to the angle as the original photograph. So, everyone loved that show. It showed - I found, actually it's funny that Harris Teeter used to be a skating rink. And I found the exact column in - its where the parking lot is now Harris Teeter, but when before I have a picture of these two people skating by the column, and the column is still in the parking lot now, and there are a whole bunch of other places. One was the plaza. One was the Imperial. There's an apartment - that brown apartment building now has a big sign in front of it that is getting redeveloped into something like a, WeWork. And back in the 80s, there was a demonstration in front of it, with signs of people saying We Don't Need Offices. So I did that on my own and then I have a mentor. My mentor is a professor at Maryland University, University of Maryland, and she liked that idea and I said, you know, we really should turn this into a book of what it used to be. So now I'm working on a book on what it used to be and what is now with Nancy Mirabal, the professor at Maryland. And then there's a professor at UDC, Amanda Huron, and we're all working on that book together. And then there's also a guy working on it who's Manuel Lopez, he works at the Mount Pleasant Library, but he's very big into the Afro-Latinx people, and the history that they've had in the neighborhood. So, and I don't quite get all the intellect intellectual thinking about what's going into the book, but I get what the pictures are. So anyway, the plaza's been a very important struggle. And we've been waiting for the court of appeals to put it on the record, on its docket and Truist is the bank. Truist about a week and a half or two weeks ago they got, it was a, the 22nd of last month was the day they had, they said they had a permit to put up fences around the plaza. And so a lot of people spent the night in the plaza, not me. And then real early in the morning, they came with four or five semi-trucks, full of fences and Jersey barriers to block off the plaza, but the people that were there were able to stop it by wanting to see it, a permit, a legitimate permit. They didn't have a legitimate permit. Then they came two days later to do the same thing and they were able to stop it. And they haven't come. I'm sure they're spending their time now trying to get a legitimate permit. And then, you know, there's a lot of homeless people that are living down there too. So it was the second time when they didn't spend the night in the plaza, the homeless people were there, one of them had a cellphone and called the one of the main organizers and within half an hour, it was like so many people blocking off the fences and Jersey barriers. So we were able to push that back. Who knows how much longer and if it gets through appeals court, if we're going to win. I don't know. But you know, if they build over that plaza up to their property line, it's going to change this neighborhood forever. It won't feel the same. That's such a great gathering spot. So I guess that's enough.

I guess we can get the final questions of, is there anything that I have missed that I should have asked?

No, we covered it though. I said, was I ever assaulted or locked up? That's it. So we covered it.

All right. Excellent. I'm fairly certain that we've reached a hour and a half. So thank you very much for spending your time.

90 minutes and 49 seconds.

Excellent. All right.

You had to do 90 minutes, right?

Between an hour and 90 minutes.

Oh, okay, then you did the max.

All right, then I'll pause, stop the recording.