Jessica: Where and how did you grow up, Linda?
Linda: In suburban Houston, it was a planned community, and they had within biking distance just about everything you needed. We could bike to elementary school, we could bike to the rec center, we could bike to the library, bike to a little shopping center with a grocery store, and everybody living there was pretty much coming from educated families and working at NASA or one of its contractors. My folks both worked. Mom went back to medical school. She had four kids in five years. I know it was crazy. And dad worked for NASA. He was one of the senior scientists, mechanical engineer, metallurgist. How did you grow up?
Jessica: Mid-Michigan was, I guess, home where we always came back to, but we moved around a lot. And my mom raised me essentially alone. I don't know my biological father, but there was somebody that I called dad, who I thought was my dad until I was 16. I found out he wasn't. And so, he was in the picture supporting sometimes, but he wasn't legally obligated, there wasn't child support. You know, it was, he showed up, I think when it was convenient. And so, my mom was in the military part-time and then she had a civilian job for the state of Michigan. So, with the military, we moved around a lot, especially as she went Officer Candidate School and kept going up in the ranks and finishing her degree. I was also born in the Houston area. I was born in Pasadena. Oh, I grew up in Pasadena. We lived there for just a couple of years. I don't really remember it but then came back to mid-Michigan. And to be frank, it was a kind of an environment of fear, constant insecurity. The person who I called dad, who I thought was my father was incredibly violent. And so of course we had the financial insecurity and then there was just our livelihood or physical security and the fears around that. He had kidnapped me a few times. He would use me as leverage against my mom and just to control her. You know, that's the abuse mentality, I suppose. I was very polite. I was very quiet, but that probably was because I was always in fear of doing something wrong and then getting hit for it or something. I did very well in school, up until middle school, and then everything sort of came to a head in high school and I was really rebellious, and I made some really terrible decisions. I lived out of my car the last couple years of high school and I look back and I'm like, I don't even recognize that person sometimes. some of the decisions I did.
Linda: Wow! That's a lot. When do you feel like there was a turning point that you knew you were going to make it in the world rather than succumb to a similar lifestyle to what you grew up in?
Jessica: That is a question I've contemplated many times. I think it's a combination of divine intervention and people being put in my place who just saw something in me and knew I could be greater and better. I don't know if I was born with it or not, but just this sheer determination to not repeat any of the things that I really didn't like about what I grew up in. I knew that money was going to be how I got out and how I lived a different life. When I was living out of my car, I was working as much as I could legally. I had some little entrepreneurial side hustles that I was doing too in high school. Grades were not important because at the end of the day, my dream was going to work at Meijer, Target warehouse and making $13 an hour, and that was big money to me. My grandpa had passed away and he was a Michigan State grad. When he passed away, I just said, you know what? I want to make education my priority. I want to look at things differently. And so, I continued to work through it, but I ended up getting my bachelor's from Michigan State. So, for me, it was this series of people, neighbors, people in some of work environments. who just taught me things and I just listened, and I absorbed and I then had this very different dream, I think, culminating with the passing of my grandpa. Oh, I can see a different path now. I can see one where education matters and where I could actually make a difference in the world and not just collect money to dig out of my circumstances, I guess. And my faith, my faith really turned things around in my mid-20s. I was still really struggling with things. I was making a lot of bad decisions still, working hard, play hard, that whole thing. And then in my mid-20s was introduced somebody who brought me back to the church. And I had never stopped believing in God, but I thought that I was too far gone to be forgiven. I had made too many bad decisions and I was too broken. Going to this church and talking to the pastor and being welcomed in, it chipped away at the walls for so long that it actually became easier to give in than it was to fight against it. I have a different look on faith. I have a different look on like who I am as a human and in God's eyes. And so that is like a key piece that I have to tie to who I am today is definitely part of that.
Linda: Pretty amazing how the divine does enter in. For me, it was interesting. My parents raised me to not be racist, but I had racist grandparents. This was in the South. The more money they got, the more conservative they got, especially my father. My father, I don't think he ever was able to tell a charlatan, and he got totally sucked into Rush Limbaugh and listened to him religiously. And mom got so fed up with it, she made him get headphones because she could not stand that yelling. And I asked him, why do you listen to this guy? He's yelling all the time. And he goes, whoa. But he has good information. And this is a PhD Rice University graduate who couldn't even tell this guy was full of it. He just got sucked into that emotion. And I think my dad never figured out his emotional intelligence. And I don't know what all went on with that. I know his childhood was poverty. It was during the depression. His father was a plumber. His family moved every year during the depression to stay ahead of the rent. So, I don't know what juggled his emotions because of that. I took a survey once and it was four quadrants and it was liberal, conservative. socially and then liberal conservative economically. I was so liberal over here I was worse than Gandhi. And I think we sort of come down on the same page because I don't think it's the government's role to tell people how to live their lives. If you love someone you should be able to marry that someone and if you cannot support having a baby right now in your life that's your decision, not the government's. I think it is important to have a safety net. And I think that if we had a stronger safety net, your mother may not have had to be with that guy who was abusive. She could have made her life more easily with you. I just think that is an important part for government to do. Also, I don't think that we should have billionaires. If you're making so incredible much money, there's no way you could ever use it for your existence. There should be a better way. I don't know what it is. Ha ha. But if it's tying their pay to the lowest paid worker in their company, I know some countries do this, they can only make a percentage more than their lowest paid workers. Well, then that would raise the lower paid workers because those billionaires could share with the people who are helping them make the billions. I'm all for thinking outside the box, trying stuff, seeing if it works, if it doesn't. So, what got you really involved in politics? Getting to see the sausage being made.
Jessica: I work for the state of Michigan. This is when I was still going to Lansing Community College part time. I got this job when I was 20. It was unionized. So, I was part of this union. And again, I was just like, okay, unions are the right way to go. And I remember I kept running into issues because the leadership there I would get talked to if I wasn't taking my breaks. This was the department of agriculture, and we would do all sorts of testing. We do the drug testing for racehorses would be processed there. We'd take the blood for equine of infectious anemia, like all sorts of things. So, somebody needed to drop off this blood sample. The office closed at five, but they needed to get it in a day in order for the processing time. And so, they called, and they said, I'm on my way. I'm almost there. And they were driving from hours away because that's the office in like the whole lower peninsula to drop it off in. So, I said, I'll wait, I'll wait for you. And the director of the laboratory walked by and he said, what, you know, what are you standing out here for? And I said, oh, I'm just waiting for somebody to drop off a sample. They're going to be a few minutes late. So, I'm waiting. I'll bring it in. I'll lock up. And he said, you're not allowed to do that. And I said, well, why not? He said, you are allowed to in on time. How does that make sense? This person's going to be a few minutes late and I'm not allowed to help. And he's like this one time but never do this again. So then I'm like okay I need to understand the history of unions. I need to understand like why these things exist. And so that is really what inspired me to get involved in politics because I'm like this exists from something that I think was valid at the time. What's the use today? What's the proper application today? How can I influence that? And it kept coming back to being involved in government. And so, then I was like, well, I'm going to be governor of Michigan someday. So let me just march down that path like law school and check all the boxes and stuff.
Linda: Wow. Interesting.
Jessica: Yeah, never thought I'd be into politics a year before that.
Linda: What's something you'll take with you from this experience?
Jessica: Well, I think if we had more time together, we would confirm that we differ and disagree on quite a lot, but also agree on some things, or we at least want some of the same outcomes, but maybe would go about it differently. Neither of us stopped appreciating each other as humans and enjoying each other's humor and laughing with each other and smiling, even though I think there was that maybe we weren't aligned on.
Linda: We both did a good job of staying curious and open-minded and seeing the connections. I think we've got a lot of things in common. And like you said, we may have different ways to reach the end goal, but we have a similar end goal.