Dayce

Columbia INCITE | Oral History_David Castillo_Dayce Woodward-3-6-19

Q:

Let's start. Oh, it was already recording, little did I know. Today's date is March the 6th. This is David Emmanuelle Castillo. I'm the planning assistant for the Department of Black and Latino Male Achievement. I am interviewing Dayce Woodward. Dayce, do I have your permission to record this interview for the 2019 Art Start Portrait Project?

WOODWARD:

You do.

Q:

Perfect. So just to provide some context, the Art Start Portrait Project started out of a partnership between the Department of Black and Latino Male Achievement, Art Start, and Turnaround Arts Milwaukee through creative workshops, where we have students exploring their identity as well as capturing their stories through oral histories. We will eventually create a composite image that will allow students to share how they want to be seen with the world and provides them a platform of self-determination. That's it.

Tell me about the most memorable childhood experience you can recall.

WOODWARD:

That I can't recall?

Q:

You can recall.

WOODWARD:

Oh, OK.

Q:

Most memorable childhood experience you can recall.

WOODWARD:

(SIGHING) So back in seventh grade, I took a trip with my classmates. And we went to Colorado. And that had to have been one of my most memorable experiences. And I really enjoyed that.

It was $400 per student for the trip. And we were in Nebraska, Iowa, and Colorado. And we were there for a week. And it was just amazing.

Q:

Well, what about that trip made it amazing? Or, what about the specific places you just mentioned stood out?

WOODWARD:

All right. So I don't really know exactly where those places were. But one thing that made it really amazing was the people who did go on the trip with me were really close friends. Like two of them I've known for years and years. So when they went on the trip with me, it was just

the same things we've always been, just having as much fun as possible, just a different scale considering we were going someplace new, somewhere we've never been before.

And when we were in Nebraska, we slept in cabins in the woods. And that was a new experience for us. But it was extremely fun. And we really enjoyed it. And then-Q:

That's awesome.

WOODWARD:

Sorry. Go ahead.

Q:

No, go ahead. Go ahead.

WOODWARD:

So then when we were in Colorado, we slept in tents. And we were-- we stayed up late at night making s'mores over the campfire. And there was wild deer running through our camp.

And then the porta potties were just like-- it was a wooden porta potty with a hole straight down in the ground. And it was just something we'd never seen before. It was just funny to us.

And it was weird. And it was just exciting just because it was new.

Q:

Mm-hmm. Was that your first time being in the woods like that?

WOODWARD:

Yeah, that camping and stuff. It was my first time.

Q:

What ran through your mind, being out there?

WOODWARD:

Well at first, I was thinking, someone from the ghettos. Nah, it was smooth, I liked it.

Q:

OK. What had been the most important people in your life?

WOODWARD:

The most important people would have to be my tiny family. Which would include me, my mom, my older brother, and my little brother. We don't always see eye to eye, but they're hands down the closest people to me.

Q:

OK. Why are they important to you?

WOODWARD:

Because--

Q:

If you want do as a whole, or if you'll want to go through each of them individually.

WOODWARD:

I think I'll do them each of them individually.

Q:

Perfect.

WOODWARD:

All right, so my mom, she's a single mom. And there's three of us. My dad was leaving and coming back around here and there. But then we told our mom, yo, we're sick of him leaving and just coming back whenever he wants like we're toys he could just take on and off the shelf. And we were just sick of it. So we told him that we didn't want to see him anymore.

And then we moved, so he had no idea where we were, how to contact us. And it was just me and my older brother. And my mom was struggling. And me and my brother did the best we could to help. And we had other family that were trying to help. And then even though we're struggling that bad, my mom adopted my little brother and took him in, because he had nowhere to go. And his mom was doing homemade acid and just real strong drugs.

So she took him in, and she helped him. And we've had him since he was three months. So he's just like my little brother, like I don't look at him any differently. She struggles handling him, because when me and my older brother were younger, we were really calm kids. And he's different, he's real wild and stuff.

So she struggles, but just cause she's not used to it. But me and my older brother try to help as much as we can. And we both have jobs, so if she needs money, we offer it without hesitation, because we know she's by herself. She's doing this alone. So we help her as much as possible.

Then my brother, my older brother. We were split up, he lived in Racine with my great grandma. And I lived with my mom and my grandma on my dad's side when we were really young. Because mom couldn't handle both of us. Cause she just couldn't afford it with what she was doing at the time. So my great grandmother happily took in my older brother. And he was in Racine, and I was in Milwaukee, so we were split up for a while.

Until I moved out to Racine as well. And my mom was getting her life together and just getting money in, trying to stack it up for me and my brother. And my great grandma took us in. And since we were apart and we visit each other here and there, we were not really that close. But then once I moved in with him, we grew closer than ever. And we always had each other's back.

There was never a time when we didn't have each other's back. We could argue and fight, but as soon as there is something unfamiliar that came at me, he was right there behind me to

help me. Or I knew I was right about something and somebody was saying I was wrong, he was right there to back me up every time, no matter what. So we were just close at a young age. Growing up, we had our fights and arguments, but it just made us closer.

Q:

OK.

WOODWARD:

Then my little brother, like I said--

Q:

And that's the one that was adopted?

WOODWARD:

Yeah, like I said, he's adopted. So he wasn't always there, but we've had him since he was three months. And now he's five years old. So he was there when I was around the age of like 10, 11. So around that time, I was young myself, but we were always babysitting him, because mom had to go to work and stuff. So I've been watching kids since I was nine, I've been babysitting.

Just because my mom's friend's daughter had to go to work. And mom had to go to work, so we were babysitting them. But once we got our little brother, we were babysitting him so much, you just like-- since we adopted him, he's our little brother. If he were to be taken away from us, I wouldn't know what to do. Because it'd be just like taking my older brother. He's a part of the family now.

I have no idea what I would do if they were to take him. Because he gets on my nerves, but it's still my little brother. You know what I mean?

Q:

I feel you, I feel you man. I got a older brother, he gets on my nerves to this day. How do you think each of them would describe you?

WOODWARD:

Mom calls me a politician, because I guess I debate a lot. But I'd say, describe me mature.

Like I said, my mom calls me a politician. My older brother, he would never admit it to me, but he knows I'm doing stuff to move forward with my life. With the We Energies and stuff. And I know he's proud of me.

He's only a year older than me. But even so, I would never admit to him it means a lot, him backing me up. So I think he knows I'm achieving stuff. I don't know what word I would use for that.

Q:

Proud, maybe?

WOODWARD:

Yeah, proud, I guess. If it's just us family, then goofy. So immature, goofy, proud, politician.

Q:

So your mom calls you a politician. What is the stuff you to debate about? Is there specific topics? Or just--

WOODWARD:

Just little ideas. A bunch of little stuff like-- I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but just anything. When I want to mess with her, she says something, I'll just debate. Even if I'm wrong, I just keep debating with her just to mess with her.

Q:

All right. So how do you think-- how do you think people perceive youth?

WOODWARD:

Can you elaborate a little bit?

Q:

Youth, I want to keep that general. That's however you want to define that. So that could be youth at Tech, that could be youth in general, youth in Milwaukee.

WOODWARD:

How do I think people perceive youth?

Q:

Yeah, how do you think people perceive young people?

WOODWARD:

I'm not really sure what perceive means, like--

Q:

How they see them.

WOODWARD:

OK.

Q:

How do you think they see them?

WOODWARD:

Well, if you're saying Tech, then not very good. The way people look at us when we should up to like-- when the debate team goes to a tournament at a suburban school--

Q:

You're on the debate team?

WOODWARD:

No, but I know people that are.

Q:

OK.

WOODWARD:

When they go to debate tournaments and stuff, I guess they're like, oh there's Tech. Like we're bad, like we're a terrible school. Or that Field Cafe came out on the news a couple years back saying that female Bradley Tech students are highly likely to get pregnant in an alley, or something like that. It was on the news. And they get in trouble for that, I guess. And now we

get 10% discount over there.

Q:

Yeah, well I hope they get in trouble for that.

WOODWARD:

Yeah. But yeah, so they said that. Just people look at Bradley Tech and the youth here as the worst we can be. And then they set it up to where-- I don't know if your familiar with the school prison pipeline?

Q:

I'm very familiar with it, man.

WOODWARD:

Yeah. So the morning scans every morning. They pat us down, they wand us down. And we go through the metal detector. Our bags go through the metal detector. All of that. And then the lunches we eat. All of that. And they just look at us like we're not good enough to eat real food. Or they don't trust us enough to the point where they're literally patting us down. And we can't even have our phones. And it's just I hate that.

It's not really the phone thing, it's just the way they go about it. And I can't stand it. Or like the way we have to stand outside forever. Like why wouldn't they put us in the gym and take us through the scans in the gym? We have to wait outside so we can get in the gym and go to the scans.

But it's so irritating. Like one time, it was freezing outside. And once the security guard at the door who's letting us in and checking our IDs was like, hey, can I just let a few in? Because it's really cold out here. And the other security was like, don't worry about it, they're used to it.

They don't have heat at home. Just assuming that we don't have heat at home, why would you assume that?

Q:

Yeah man, that's problematic. So I guess if you had a chance to talk to a person that says, wow we need to do those things. What would you say to that person to convince them?

WOODWARD:

Just--

Q:

Like we need to move in this way. Cause you say, it's not that they do it, it's you don't like how they go about it. So if you had opportunity to talk to someone who made that decision. What would you tell them?

WOODWARD:

I'd tell them that if you guys want us to stop-- because they shut the doors down if we start pushing-- if you guys want us to stop pushing and shoving through the doors, get us inside

and take us through scans that way, through the gym. Because it's cold outside. You're not the ones out there standing in the freezing cold. And some of them can't afford coats, can't afford warm jackets or thick socks to keep their feet warm. Or shoes without holes in them and stuff like that.

So you have no idea what they're going through. So for you to have them standing outside in the cold, it's idiotic. Bring them through-- bring them in the gym, and then if you want to get out of the gym, you have to go through the scans. And if someone refuses to go through the scan, give him a bus ticket, send them home because they refused.

But otherwise, bring us inside and take us through the scans that way. Why would you have us standing outside in the cold if you want our, what's the word. If you want us to be smooth about it and help you get what you have to get done, like the morning scans so we can all get the class.

Then bring us out the cold. Because when we're standing in the cold and you're not letting us in. What do you think we're going to do? We're not just going to stand there and freeze. We're going to start pushing, we want to get inside. It's cold out here, you know what I'm saying?

So that's something they definitely need to think about changing. Because that's probably the most idiotic thing that we've done so far at this school.

Q:

OK. Bring it back to the youth, so you said you started with Tech youth. I don't know if you want to expand outside of Tech youth.

WOODWARD:

Well, people are saying our generation is really bad. Especially here in Milwaukee. Like with all the stolen cars and-- honestly I don't know how to go about that. I don't know what goes on in those people's heads or in their household that makes them think that's OK to do that or whatever. They have no idea how to go about the way that people look at those specific youths. But I know that's not everybody.

So for them to stereotype everybody saying that we're going to steal cars and do drugs and gamble. That's not all the youth. So I don't know how else to-- I don't know how to convince them that it's not all youth. I feel that something they should know. When I say that dude's In jail for killing somebody, I'm not going to be like, OK, now that guy is going to go kill somebody.

Everybody is not the same.

Q:

Yeah why do you think that happens though? I can sense that you don't like that. I don't like it

either. But why do you think that happens? And I hate it-- I hate to use this analogy, but you already brought up the listening sessions, right? But we were at a school in our listening session. A kid, to the point of anger, was talking about the detectors and how he hates it.

And he just went off on a sick rant, was mad and pounding the table. And I was just like, all right cool. I get all that. I get the prison to school pipeline. But like yo, I was like, I'm being real.

I feel like there's something-- it hit you so personally. Like there's something you ain't sharing with the group. He was like, look man, I'm going to be honest, I went to a suburban school.

And he was like, I've been at a suburban school where I've seen white kids that have come to my school with firearms. You know, showing off because it's their dads or whatever. And he's like, and then you hear about school shootings.

He's like, I ain't never seen a black person shoot up a school. He's like, but I can honestly say, right-- he gave me the whole point. He's like, I can honestly say that all these school shootings have happened in predominately white schools. And he's like, they will never put a metal detector in any of those schools. And he's like, but they go put it in ours. And he's like, our community, the violence happens in our neighborhood.

It don't happen in our schools. And I don't know, I just thought it was interesting that he said that. So I guess tying it back, what makes you-- that was his answer, right, that he gave. What makes you say, yeah, you feel so confident that's people's perception.

WOODWARD:

I agree with him. And I agree with him very strongly. And for them-- I'm not saying that the scanners are a bad idea. It's just, to be outside in the cold waiting to get through the scanners.

And the way that they go about the scanners, they're too pushy with them. We will go through scanners, but you don't have to force us, pat us down, and wand us. That's extreme.

If you want to wand us after we come through the scanner, OK, but you're patting me down for what? Anything that's metal is going to be go off with the wand. Why are you patting me down? It doesn't make any sense. So if you're going to have that at our school, I expect you have it at the other schools, too. Why's it just our schools?

It doesn't make any sense for it to be ours, because like he said, predominantly white people that have school shootings. Why are there not scanners at their schools? Why is it just ours? It doesn't even happen in schools like ours.

Q:

All right. When I say the word community, what comes to mind for you?

WOODWARD:

So in the last group, we had a big discussion about community.

Q:

What do you mean the last group? Where you just came out of?

WOODWARD:

Yeah.

Q:

OK, OK.

WOODWARD:

So we had a big discussion on community. And there was a lot of different things. Saying our schools is a community, or when you go home, it's just you and your family that's your small community. And if we're going about it like that, then my house would be my safest community. Because that's where my family is and my loved ones.

So when I think for me, I think the people closest to me. But then I also think people who share similar interests. Like you're down at CLC, which is the Boys and Girls Club After School.

There is all the wrestlers sitting at one table, all the basketball players sitting at one table. Now all the wrestlers sit at this table, because they have similar interests. They all are on the wrestling team.

So if they want to talk about wrestling, of course they're going to sit there where all the wrestlers are. Or the basketball players all sit at the basketball table. That's their communities, that's their groups. So they have those similarly interests, that's where they're going to be in those communities. They share the similar interests.

Q:

Mhm, OK. What has stood out to you about yourself throughout your life?

WOODWARD:

What has stood out to me about what?

Q:

About yourself.

WOODWARD:

About myself. Probably my maturity.

Q:

OK.

WOODWARD:

That's probably what stood out to me most, because like I said earlier, when I was living here in Milwaukee with my mom and my grandma on my dad's side. And then it was my dad and my uncles. I didn't have any friends around my age living where we lived, because I was never allowed outside. Because the neighborhood we lived in because I was little.

So I was always around my uncles. And my uncles were older than me. So I grew up with an older crowd. I never had friends outside of school that were around my age. So when I was not at school, I was always at home with my uncles. So they're always older than me. And just adapting to their maturity level and growing up thinking with a higher maturity level.

Q:

OK. What are your dreams for the future? I know you kind of brought up the We Energies thing, how that's kind of like you getting your foot in the door.

WOODWARD:

So first getting into high school, they had us take all these shop classes. Welding and software application.

[INTERCOM]

WOODWARD:

So they put us through all these shop classes to see which one we liked the most. Then we'd go talk to your counselor. And tell them what class you want to be in for the next few years.

And mind was carpentry. I really liked carpentry. The measurements, the using the power tools, and just all of it, putting something together.

So that's what I went into. And I've been in carpentry since freshman year, and now I'm a junior. And I was going to continue taking it, because that's I I wanted to be my career for life.

But then the opportunity came along for We Energies. And at first, I was like, nah, I kind of know what I want to do. And then Mr. Summers was like, well, we need students to attend this.

And you might like it. So I was like, get out of school, OK, I'll go.

So then I went, and I really did like it. The way they were talking about it, and I really enjoyed it when I was there. So I was like, OK, I'll do it. And then I had to do an interview and make a resume. And like I said, me my brother always had each other's backs. And he came on We Energies thing. Now, his attendance was bad, really bad. My attendance was pretty bad too, but it wasn't as horrible as his was.

And he wanted to do it too, just to see how it is. So we both went on the trip, and he liked it. So then I did my resume and I did the interview. He did his interview. I made his resume for him, because he needed help with it. And with working and stuff, because I didn't have a job at the time, he was working, and I wasn't. So I just did his resume for him.

And we got all that out the way. And they didn't end up choosing him, because of how bad his

attendance was. And his grades-- but they chose me. And my attendance was really bad. And there was a lady from MPS who told me, she was like, I struck my neck out for you. And I really wanted to do this. So I was extremely grateful.

Because she was like, I stuck my neck out for you. You really need to pick your grades up and your attendance. So since then, I had a 3.6 GPA, I've been attending school every day. And if I didn't, I had an excuse for why I wasn't. And I've just been picking up everything as much as possible, because that is something I really want to do for my life career. We Energies, when I went, it was just something I really liked. So this is what I want to do.

Q:

So what do you do there?

WOODWARD:

For We Energies, I'd be a lineman mechanic. Or at least that's what I'd be training to be.

Because that's the job I chose. And so far, they didn't-- they told us a little bit about what I'd be doing. So when I get further into the job after I'm done training and stuff, I'd be working on the lines outside. The electrical wires and stuff.

Obviously I'm not allowed yet, because that's really dangerous. Me up in the bucket lifts and stuff. And on the training day, they put you in MUD, which is Milwaukee Underground. So if you go downtown, you won't see no electrical lines, they're all underground. So they put you through all the different stations to see what you would like more.

And when they put me in the lineman mechanic position for above ground, they take you in a 80 foot bucket lift and see how you react to heights. And I didn't have any problem with it. And yeah, it was fine. I enjoyed it. And they take you by electrical wire and have you put on a rubber cover to see how you can do. And I did all of that, and I was good at it.

And I'm like, yo, I want to do this. I have no problem with heights, I'm good at this, this is what I want to do. And when they were talking about it, first, I'll probably just be learning all the tools.

And when they give me a compression wrench, I'll just go get the compression wrench and give it to them.

I'll be just helping them with that stuff, and they'll be showing me stuff and teaching me for the first, probably first couple months. And then I'll finally get to start doing stuff more. And then we'll go from there, and I'll just keep moving higher and higher and closer to the actual lineman mechanic work.

Q:

OK. So with that said, right? Have you thought about what your portrait might look like for this

project?

WOODWARD:

For this project--

Q:

So kind of share what you were thinking about that.

WOODWARD:

Yeah, so for this project, I think my portrait would be like a tool belt. I just I look like a We Energies worker. I have the hard hat on, safety glasses, a tool belt. And just looking like a lineman mechanic, you know what I'm saying? Maybe have some power lines in the back and stuff like that.

Q:

Power lines, are those things in the--

WOODWARD:

Yeah, like the big lines, the big black lines--

Q:

Yeah, yeah, OK. I don't know that stuff, bro, so I'm asking. All right. We're going to be almost wrapping up. I just want to ask this question, what do you think people need to make their lives better?

WOODWARD:

Support.

Q:

Support.

WOODWARD:

I think that's key. I think everybody needs at least one person to support them. Maybe they don't have to support them to the max where they're there for everything they do and hold their hand, but--