Social Problems
August 28, 2012
# 23

Individual change from time to time. As the age of a person increase, emotions and other aspects of life change too. To know the change and the emotions that a person goes through as time pass by from childhood to adult stage, an interview was conducted. I interviewed my grandmother, Arlene Wims, A 72 year old African American Female from Ijamsville, Maryland; who was raised by her mother who was a teacher and her father who fought in the Vietnam War and then was a steel worker. She has 4 sisters and 1 brother.
Her childhood consists of segregation and racism still being a part of life and although there were major changes when the U.S. supreme court ruled segregation in public schools. During her childhood, television was becoming more popular and sock hops were the thing to go to for entertainment and dances.
A period of time that Arlene has experienced is in 1963, when the civil rights march on Washington DC for jobs and freedom is attended by 250,00 people where Martin Luther King delivers his famous Martin Luther King speech from the steps of the Lincoln memorial. On February 21st, 1965, Malcolm X who was a black nationalist and the organization of afro American unity was assassinated. In 1966, the Black Panthers were founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. In 1967, Thurgood Marshall was appointed by President Johnson to the Supreme Court; he became the first black Supreme Court justice. In 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1992, she remembers everything that had happen from the Rodney king beatings and the reason why the Los Angeles riots began. To her beliefs if the 4 police officers were not acquitted from the trial dealing with Rodney king those 6 days of rioting wouldn’t have happen. In 2008, Senator Barack Obama becomes the first African American to be elected president of the United States.
As Arlene career history goes she worked at the Maryland Vehicle Association from 1958 to 2003 where she retired from there. With her family history she is married to Earl Wims Jr. they have 5 kids, 9 grandkids and 3 great grandkids. Her father died at the age of 60.
Her current family situation, she has 3 sisters and her mother who are still living in the Maryland area. Her brother and step sister died few years ago from health complications. She has 4 kids that are still living in the Maryland area also. She lost her Daughter 6 years ago to cancer.
Her views on values such as work ethic is that many kids don’t know how to work because they’re so used to everything being given to them instead of working for what they want. Her view on family value is that many kids take their friends side instead of their family’s side. Many kids are really disrespectful to their parents and don’t value what they have done for them with allowing them to still live under their roof and give them a place to live during the school year and helping them with the payments that need to be done, with them being in college or in high school. The morality she has on life is that how you act in public is a reflection of how the person raised you and what they have taught you. How you act isn’t just a reflection of yourself. It affects everyone you associate yourself with. So if you act a fool, it’s portraying that the person who raised you is a fool.
When I asked Arlene what made it hard for her being her age, she answered, "People's attitude about older people. People tend to be a little skeptical about your ability. I don't like it when at gatherings, young people are always so courteous, and for some reason think they have to help you with everything you do.
The interview that we conducted was really great; it took place in Ijamsville, Maryland on August 26, 2012. The interview was done because we are studying aging in our social problems class. What we spoke about was where she was raised and what she went through from when she was born until now, the things she saw and encountered while growing up in Maryland.
What I’ve learned from this interview with my grandmother is that she has gone through many things and still is standing strong as a successful black woman. Every decade she went through she has encountered a different problem she had to overcome. The insights I have gained from this interview is that people change over time, No person is the same person they were a day ago, no matter what way you look at it. Every person grows differently but they will never stay the same. What surprised me about the interview that she lived through segregation and heard the “I have a dream” speech by Martin Luther King. She went to sock hops and didn’t have television until like the 1950’s and there were no cell phones thought of anytime soon. She heard about when Malcolm X was assassinated. I felt as if I lived in any decade as she did especially during racism I wouldn’t have been able to do it because many times she had to turn her cheek to the other side so she went have to encounter any problems. I know with her living during the sock hops I really think that would have been really fun to be a part of that. I always wanted to live during the 50’s and seen how different it was then from now. I also think that her being alive when Barack Obama was sworn into office is great because many people never thought we would have an African- American president anytime soon.