The Incredible, Winding Path of a Working-Class Nurse in Wisconsin
A conversation with long-time artist, activist, and registered nurse Susan Simensky Bietila in Milwaukee.
Maximillian Alvarez
To commemorate Working People’s 200th episode, we have a special installment of our series of conversations with teachers, organizers, scholars, and activists in Wisconsin that TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez, Cameron Granadino (TRNN), and Hannah Faris (In These Times) recorded in the summer of 2021 as part of a special collaboration between The Real News Network and In These Times magazine for “The Wisconsin Idea.” In this episode, Alvarez talks with longtime artist, activist, and registered nurse Susan Simensky Bietila in Milwaukee. Hearkening back to the episodes we published in the first season of Working People, this is an extended conversation that traces the incredible, winding path that Simensky Bietila has taken in life, from growing up in the projects in New York to drawing and collaging for The Guardian, the radical US newsweekly, during the height of the Vietnam War, to protesting at the Wisconsin State Capitol in 2011 during the Wisconsin Uprising.
Additional links/info below…
- Susan Simensky Bietila’s website and art archives
- Susan Simensky Bietila, “Wisconsin: Walk Like an Egyptian“
- Susan Simensky Bietila’s Facebook page
- Paul Buhle & Nicole Schulman (eds.), Verso, Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World
- Maximillian Alvarez, Current Affairs, “Can the Working Class Speak?“
- In These Times investigative series: The Wisconsin Idea
- The Jacobin Show, “The Democratic Coalition after Trump and the Fall of Wisconsin“
- Dan Kaufman, Norton Books, The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics
- Michael D. Yates, Monthly Review Press, Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights Back
- John Nichols, Bold Type Books, Uprising: How Scott Walker Betrayed Wisconsin and Inspired a New Politics of Protest
Permanent links below…
- Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
- Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive at freemusicarchive.org):
- Jules Taylor, “Working People Theme Song”
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Maximillian Alvarez is editor-in-chief at the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People, available at InTheseTimes.com. He is also the author of The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke.
