Street roots., February 28, 2014, Page 8, Image 8

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street roots
Feb. 28, 2014
resources for that or didn’t allocate the ,
resources for that. I was also a political
child anti really into Communism,
particularly. I dhded up being pretty
disillusioned by the Communism of Cold
War China. I t was pre-Tiananmen Square,
but not by much. It was a couple of years
before that. I was coming out of this
California thing, where you can do whatever
you want, into a situation where, at least for
my Chinese peers, there would be severe
consequences if I did whatever I wanted to
do.
I worked some. I smuggled things,to j ;
Korea from Hong Kong. That was
something a lot of travelers did at the time.
Ariel Gore returns to Portland
fo r a relaunch o f her zine H ip
M am a and to showcase her
new memoir, “The E n d o f E ve”
H
....... .........
create th e original alternative-nare.nt.ing.------
magazine, Hip Mama.
Through the years, her truthful,
politically fueled, punk rock writing style
brought Gore, her mothering books and Hip
Mapia much deserved attention and a
national readership. She was the first “real
welfare” mom to confront the (then) newly
seated speaker of thé* house, Newt Gingrich,
on MTV.
Five years ago, Ariel Gore walked away
from her position as editor of Hip Mama to
care for her mother who was diâgnosed with
stage four lung cancer. Gore recounts her
experience ofcaregiving for both her
toddler son and her dying mother in her
new book, “The End of Eve.” The book was
' published by Hawthorne Books in Portland,
Oregon.
Gore, who called Portland her home for
about ten ÿears, will have â dual celebration
in Stumptown: her book tour and the 20
year anniversary relaunch of Hip Mama
magazine. Gore will be at the new Reading
Frenzy on Mississippi on Sunday; March 2
at 4 p.m. for the relaunch of Hip Mama and
then at Powell’s on Burnside on Monday,
March 3 at 7:30 p.m. to promote her latest
memoir, “The End of Eve.”
Sue Zalokar: You left home when you were
16 and spent more than 3 years traveling
around China and Europe. What motivates a
teenager to do that and how did you have the
resources to go?
Ariel Gore: I had been working and
7 saving money. I had about $3,000.1 bought
a ticket for $600.1 was sick of school. My
i friends were killing themselves. I wasn’t on
that many drugs, but that seemed like the
only other fun thing to do. I wrote a memoir
about it, “Atlas of the Aching Heart.” I’d
been studying Chinese since I was a little
kid, S I had this interest in travel,
specifically to Asia.
S.Z.: Did you work? You had some Chinese
language skills...
A.G.: I had this fantasy of being more of
àn exchange student. I went to a high school
with a lot of rich kids and they would do a
year abroad. My parents didn’t have the -
S.Z.: You were a welfare mom in college ¿u
with an infant baby girl when yoU debated
Newt Gingrich, the newly seated speaker of the
house, on MTV. .
A.G.: I was “the first welfare mom to
confront Newt Gingrich.” That was how
MTV billed it.
S.Z.: What was that like?
S.Z.: What kinds of things would you
smuggle?
A.Gi: Well, they toldus we were
smuggling clothing. They really needed new
clothes in South Korea and they couldn’t
afford the tax, or something like that. I
don’t really think that it was drugs, but
maybe it was drugs. You know, you’re 16
you’re invincible; if doesn’t occur to you p
BY SUE ZALOKAR
that people get the death penalty for that.
STAFF WRITER
That was simply how people who stayedjn
riel Gore is as raw and honest in her
the youth hostels that I was staying in made
writing, as she is in her life, earning
a living without consciously dealing drugs.
her the moniker of thé hippest mama
around. But the backstory is a long way A lotofpeople went to Japan to do sex
work. I didn’t do that. Not for me. ",
from Ozzie and Harriet.
.Gore, spurred#by a resilience born of
S.Z.: Did, you plan to be pregnant?
_ childhood trauma, dropped out of high
school and traveled throughout China and
A.G.: No. I got pregnant when I was in
y Europe, most often generating revenue by f
Europe.
Fwas a very bad smuggler. I ended
smuggling goods from Hong Kong to Korea.
up broke in Europe and living in squats and
At 19,,she was in Spain, pregnant and
living in squats. Gore decided to bècome a ; that’s where I met my daughter’s father.
It wasn’t planned. Once I was pregnant, I
mother, After making her way back toV
decided
to have my daughter andhave that
Northern California, with her baby girl in
be the next chapter of my life.
her arms, she enrolled in college, got on
public assistance and starting building a life’
S.Z.: You came back to the United
for her budding family. She would gó on to
-
junior in college, just as a formality, I guess.
At the hippie school, I was studying
economics and at Mills I studied
communication. I ended up going to grad
school at/University of California Berkeley
and got a graduate degree in journalism.
Stakes and got into school and
"sfjfnecF'up fo r welfare?*"*
A.G.: Yeah. I had my
daughter in Italy and came
back when She was about 3
months old. When she was
about 6 months old, I
started an undeigrad
program at this hippie
school in Northern
California. I didn’t have a
GED or anything, so it was
kind of the only place that
Would have me.
S.Z.: Did you ever get your
GED?
A.G.: I did. I transferred to
Mills (College), because the g
hippie school went
bankrupt, and (Mills)
made me take my GED
when I was basically a
A.G.: It was horrible! Tm a writer, I
couldn’t talk very well at that time. I. was
really introverted. It seemed like a good
thing, I get this free trip to D.C. and stay in
a hotel." It seemed like a fine idea. I didn’t,
really think about the fact that he is a
debater, like, that’s his line of work.
S.Z.:' What were your impressions of him
then?
A.G.: I think he ended up sounding like
ah idiot. * I
At 2 5 ,1 guess I was still kind of naive. S
Some part of me still believed that people,
even if they were politicians, thought about
the things that you asked them and
answered in a genuine way. He just had
these canned answers.,
See GORE, p a g e 9