Being raised in a hamlet (<100 people) by business owning parents led to a conservative, republican upbringing. Before Mrs. Hawley’s birth, her newly married father served abroad during World War 2, originally as a soldier until an injury confined him to working as a butcher in the military hospital, this military experience caused her father to remain conservative as most veterans do. When she was a young child, Mrs. Hawley’s family became the first in her area to get a TV; this new technology opened her eyes to many political happenings. She vividly remembers John F. Kennedy’s presidency first introducing her to politics, seeing the first man step foot on the moon, her community living in fear of nuclear war after the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, and she remembers the hippie movement encouraging her generation to push the boundaries of acceptance. Now sixty-seven, Mrs. Hawley has seen and been shaped by the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, desegregation, and John F. Kennedy’s assassination; like most in her generation, she can recall where she was when the news of the president’s death broke. When referring to televised news, “we would see pictures of things like the race riots and anti-war …show more content…
With a working father and a homemaker mother, she recounts hearing about the catholic-protestant disagreements in Ireland, plane bombers in the world, the IRA, and the war in Iraq and Iran and resulting hostage situation; when asked about what she recalls specifically about the gulf war, “it felt, as a child, there had always been war in the Middle East.” Circumstances like being raised in a community where very few people owned handguns, being taught to accept other cultures and races despite a close-minded community, and the life-long aversion to religion caused Mrs. Jones to grow into a moderate liberal. Although she disagrees with overtly large federal government, her views on social issues and government assistance are much more liberal. Like people on both sides of the party spectrum, she does feel unimpressed with the government and believes it is “inept,” Mrs. Jones believes the candidates of the 2016 election are “deplorable.” She would like to see “more accountability of representatives to their constituents” and to “abolish the electoral college” in order to gain “equal rights for all demographics.” She would also like the United States to adopt a federal health care system similar to the United Kingdom and Canada in place of Medicare/Medicaid and Obamacare. Like the generations preceding her, Mrs. Jones