Audio Interview transcription

Interview part 1

[00:00:04.26]

K: State your name, where you're from.

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My name is Rebecca Collier, and I go by Becky.

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I am originally from Seattle, washington, which is ALL the way across the country.

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K: Okay so tell me about your first time going to college. Where did you go to school for your undergrad?

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So I was looking to go to the Univeristy of washington, it's in my hometown. And most of my friends were going there.

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And I did a lot of theater in high school. I was a performer and I thought I would be a theater major. Because it would be kind of fun. But I wasnt really srs about what I was going to do.

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And then I was working at my summer job. And I was googling diff things and I came across this school, when I googled "muscial theater bachelors degree" and the school was columbia school of chicago.

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And I remember looking at this website and it was the first college I ahd seen that offered a degree in musical theater. which is v sort of a specialized degree in a specialized thing.

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And I thought how fun, all my classes coul be dancing and singing and acting.

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the science {classes} were the science of theater and set design. the math classes had to do with our art.

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I thought to myself, "this could be cool!" I've never been to Chicago, but I told my parents I wanted to do this

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and I applied and I did a late admissions thing and I had to get a lot of stuff together pretty quick, but I got it all in on time and they got back to me I think at the beg. of July and they said I was in.

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I was enrolled. So I paid my deposit and I started to looka round for apartments.

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K: Before you were looking for apartments, had you visited that school, that area at all?

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I had never been to Chicago. I didn't know anything about it. I hadn't even seen the mocie Chicago. I just knew some songs from the musical.

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But seattle was sort of my big city, and i was pretty comfortable there. and I thought it {chicago} would be a new experience. something different.

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I was the first person in my fam to go to college. and to me it seemed like this great adventure to go somewhere exciting like Chicago.

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K: So explain to me how you found your aprtment, and how it was like mocing in for the first time... in Chicago.

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So it was like finding my school, I did a lot of online research. and I belive, im sure, i looked at craigs list and a bunch of other things and I findally found an apartment in downtown chicago, a studio aprtment for $480 a month.

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It was a bargain. even back then, this was back in 1999, it was still a great deal. I was even scared I wouldnt get it.

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I faxed them the application, I sent them some stuff. and they gave me this apartment, and it olooked beautiful on the website

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but when we finally got there, i think they had done some creative photoshop bc the building was def a lot more run down.

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my father and i actually drove three days across the country, from seattle to chicago, and when we pulled up to this building,

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and when we pulled up we saw someone approach the car in front of us

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open the door with a "slimjim" hotwire the car and drive off in it

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so i thought wow they are stealing the car right in front of our own building

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so my dad said he would watch my stuff and i went in and signed the paper work and then i moved in.

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K: so what were ur initial thoughts, seeing someone steal that car, and how did u feel living in that neighborhood after experiencing that when u first moved in.

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Well, I was pretty optimistic when I first moved to chicago. i didnt really know anything about teh neighborhood I moved into but

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the neighborhood, for those of you who are familiar with it: 79th and south chicago is..

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a notorious cripts gang territory and my particular buiilding was right in the heat of things

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i wasn't scared at first tho, I got in and I thought okay I locked my car, but i had a secured parking lot in the building so i wasnt worried about that

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i moved in my things and my dad stayed  for a couple days to help me get situated

Interview part 2

[00:00:32.21]

and then he took off, and there i was in this city in a studio apartment ready to start school

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K: what was your first few weeks living in that apartment and neighborhood like? describe that for us

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so it was a lil bit tricky at first. so I do remember that the aprtment didnt have a stove or a fridge installed when i moved in

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although a week later I got one, and then the superintendent quit as well, so there was no sort of back up person that had copies of the door keys and things and

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school hadn;t started yet. I had still had two weeks before school started to do orientation and enrolling

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and i think it was my second week there, i was driving home, i think i had gone to a lil church service, and as i was driving i heard this loud "pop!"

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and my windshield shattered. and i mean i was 19, i was pretty young but i had the presence of mind not to pull over

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I actually hit the gass and i could kind of see if i put my head a lil to the side, so i drove to the building and i parked my car in the lot and i went inside

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i was really shaken, i thought "ugh," and so when i went downstairs to check on it, they had taken the battery out of the car

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so i realized that they followed me home and knew where my car was parked and knew i was there.

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K: so put us in your shoes, in that moment how did u feel for your safetey, what did u feel like were your next steps?

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I would sometimes hear shooting at night, and so i knew that ethere was shooting in the neighborhood but i didnt think they were shooting at me

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i felt like that was sort of its won thing, like it was background noise in a big city

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but when i was driving home and my windshield shattered, i thought "oh, i could be a target"

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and a week prior to this, i had locked myself out of the apartment and im an idiot, it was my first apartment

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and the super had quit, there is no one to let me in and im gonna have to spend the night in the lobby of this building

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and i was a lil nervous bc there is gunfire, u know this is sort of a dangerous spot

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and i thought "what am i going to do??" and i had to get in in the morning and get my books and my school supplies

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but thankfully, later on someone else came downstairs bc he had locked himself out of his building {apartment} and he left a pan on teh stove

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uh! my guardian angel, right? so if u leave a pan on teh stove and ur locked out of the apartment, they will call the police bc it could be a potential fire hazard.

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we have gas stoves in this building, and so the fire dept came and i kind of followed them like a creeper up the stairs

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and they chopped down the guys door and when theyr were done i asked them

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u guys did such a good job chopping down his door, could u chop down mine? and they did!

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so i was then living in this lil apartment in this gang infested neighborhood, with no door and that was sort of a low point

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K: how long did you have no door on ur apt?

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until i moved out actually. the door actuallynever got put back on, it was leaning against the door frame, but it wasnt secure

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so i was livng in this apt without the door, i i mean they never put the door back on, i would push it back up against the building so it was flush  against the wall, so it was secure against the wall, but it was never secure after that pt

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K: how did u feel every night sleeping that apt, knwoing that it wasnt a safe neighborhood, you had experinced a shooting and you thought they were shooting after u, what was it like sleeping there knowing that you werent 100% safe bc the door wasnt on?

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so i was pretty scared, after i lost my door and i heard the shooting, and i would actually cry myself to sleep at night, i was afraid to tell my parents bc i didnt want them to be worried about me and i knew there was nothing that they could do

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i was there, at this pt i was enrolled in classes, i was committed to this but i also hadnt really made any friends yet

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i was still kind of getting to know ppl, as a freshman, and i didnt really know where to turn

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there did come a point, okay so after they shot my car windshield out, i went to class

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so in my neighborhood the train conductors would wear bullet proof vests bc a train conductor had been killed in cross-fire a few months prior

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the condcutor's name was dave, he would kind of keep an eye on me a lil bit

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and i remember him telling me, he told me "you gotta get out of here"

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so i had a sense things were going wrong.

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at the point when i knew they were shooting after me i went to school that day, just kind of in shock and i didnt know what to do

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i got on the train, and i was heading to the train stop and i saw one of the guys in blue running up to the train stop after me

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and i see him running so i start running and he's running, and im running and i see the train is coming and so im just booking it for this train and so as the train pulls up and im about to get on

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he jumps up on the train tracks and he says "why are you still alive?! why are u still alive? tony said he killed you."

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and then i got on the train, and i just sat there and i just thought "u know ive lived a good life"

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i mean u start thiking about the things u've done and what's gone on and i thought they would be waiting for me when i got back home and so i went to class

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i had a tap dance class. i went to class. so im there and im in the back of the class and im doing my lil routine with the girls

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and one of the girls she def noticed soemthing was off and she was kind of whispering "whats wrong"

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and i was kind of trying to tell her a lil bit whats going on and she was a freshman too, nobody knows what to do but i remember she gave me a hug and

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she said "listen, i think there are ppl who can help u. there is a housing dept. there is this guy and he helps ppl if ur in that situation that is not good for u. u should tallk to him."

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and i thought ok u are right, and this is the era before smart phone but i remember seeing a flyer at some pt and so i figured i would make one more stop

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so i go to this guy, tom haphen(?), i go to his office, it was one more stop before i went home and when i went to his office i almost started crying

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and i told him kind of what was going on, what was happening and, sweet man, he actually said something to me that hadnt really occured to me before

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he sta and looked at me and said, "becky u cant go the whole semester being shot at" and i just (laughs)

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and i thought wow he's right. so we actually went around campus and i think he pulled like 5 diff flyers and he said we are gonna call these ppl rn, they are all looking for a rommate and u gotta get out of there

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and so i called a bunch of them, called some guys and my conservatove parents would not have loved that, but tom was like "listen we're talking about life or death here, u cannot go back to that apartment.

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and we eventually found an apartment with a super nice girl and we packed up my stuff and they werent there {the gang ppl} thank heavens, and i moved out and

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in chicago, the way the neighborhoods are set up, i moved from 79th to 58th and night and day. and in fact if u cross the street from 59th to 60th u will feel the tension in the air, it is an entirely diff place

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and so i moved up a lil bit , found this nice girl, another college girl to live with, and i had an amazing experience

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i loved my undergad [ experience} it was the best, fun, program to study for me

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K: so describe the process of that day, after u left class, u were talking to this person who helped u find a new apt, how did u feel going bakc to the apt that night

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i was scared to go back to my apt, i knew for sure that they had targeted me but tom said that he would go with me and we drove up and there was a lot of foot traffic around the trains, but we drove up and i had ppl with me, i felt kind of calm at that point

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i knew that ppl , i knew that i wasnt alone anymore. ppl were in it to help me.

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and so once we got my stuff, i didnt have much stuff, everything i ahd prob fit in two suitcases, and once we got the stuff packed up i was out of there

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we found, there was a law student that helped me break my lease, i lost the deposit, but i wasnt expecting that back, $480  what can u do?

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K: so reflecting back on that experience, whats one thing you would tell freshman you?

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if i could look back at that time and see my lil freshman self again, i would say "dont think u have to do this on your own. " i mean i felt so independent at 18 and grown up and ready to face the world but i wasnt

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and i would say reach out, there are services tehre for a reason, and if u r struggling, find  ppl who can help u, ppl want to help u, and now that i am older, i obviously, if someone came to me, if a student came to me, i would help them, i would be grateful for the chance to do that

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so i would encourage ppl dont be afraid to reach out

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K: so u said briefly before u didnt make a lot of friends at that pt {of the shooting] and u didnt talk to your parents, but u did  have the train conductor, describe the relationship with him a lil bit more

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so when i would take the train to school, i was only there for a few weeks, there was a conductor who would always seemed to be on the train most of the time

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his name was dave, and we would chat for a sec, he would go up and down on the train itwas kind of like a metro north train, he would always take a sec to check in and he would say im glad to see that youre still here and i never saw him again when i moved out from that neighborhood

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but i appreciated just knowing that even this stranger would take the time to talk to me