#InaugurationStories2017 is a series of interviews conducted on Inauguration Day and the day after (during the Women’s March) in Washington, DC. Through this project, we hope to have captured a snapshot of our democracy in the midst of this historic weekend.
The inspiration for these interviews was our feeling that one of the factors fueling division in America is that so little dialogue occurs between people who think differently politically, socially, or economically in this country. As we surround ourselves online and off with like-minded individuals and news sources, we rarely hear directly from people with contrasting opinions.
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In his farewell address, President Obama advised, “If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the internet, try talking with one of them in real life." So we did! We interviewed 68 strangers, actually, who had traveled to DC from around the country to celebrate, protest, and witness the start of a new political era.
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With each person, regardless of political affiliation, we tried to keep our questions more or less the same.
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What’s your first name and where are you coming from today?
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What’s the number one reason you came out today?
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What is the first major policy action that you think the administration will undertake?
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What do you think the country will look like after four years as a result of this administration?
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Felicia Alfieri is a user experience designer that recently moved to DC after 5 years at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She loves using technology to solve unexplored problems through research-based design, and she usually takes up side-projects to learn new things.
Jonathan David Martin is DC/NYC based theater maker. He is the Co-Artistic Director of Smoke & Mirrors Collaborative, a theater and new media production company focused on addressing socially relevant themes with an ambitious, multi-disciplinary approach to storytelling.
The answers we received from the generous interviewees who spoke with us provide perspectives from across the political and geographic landscape of America. Whether they spoke of hopes, fears, or ambivalence about the next four years, we found incredible value in hearing about the state of our country from real people. Listening to first-hand points of view, we uncovered a more nuanced picture of how these people felt about the issues, and why they felt that way.
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We hope that by listening to these excerpts from our conversations it will help you to empathize with people you disagree with and rally for those who share your beliefs. Most importantly, we hope to help build a more open dialogue between two Americas who hold different visions but both passionately care about the future our nation.