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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we continue the oral history call-in series that we're doing on the most defining news event of your lifetime. As many of you know we've been taking this decade-by-decade. We started last week with callers in your 90s, 80s, and 70s. We've continued this week with people in your 60s, 50s, and 40s. Now, this call-in is for you today if you are in your 30s, 212-433-WNYC (212) 433-9692. What was the most defining news event of your lifetime at least so far? For a little extra fun, you can mention the most memorable concert you've seen so far in your life. 212-433-WNYC 433-9692.

In this series, we've heard how people have felt defined by everything from Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, and the Holocaust through the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the assassinations of the 60s, the Civil Rights Movement, and acts of the 60s. The elections of Reagan and Bush [unintelligible 00:01:15] and so much more from older generations. How about for you in your 30s? Plus your most memorable concert so far in your life? 212-433-WNYC 433-9692.

As your calls are coming in, I'll try to ground this in recent history a little bit. If you're turning 35 this year let's say, midpoint of the cohort turning 35, you were born in 1988. You were five when Bill Clinton became president, and Rudy Giuliani was elected mayor, so if you're from New York, you grew up with the two of them for the next eight years. You were 10 when Clinton was impeached. You were 12 for Bush versus Gore. 13 when we were attacked on 911, and I assume that's the most defining news event for many of you, but the Iraq war debate and the war itself came right after that. Obviously a big thing. You were just becoming an adult 20 years old when the financial crisis and great recession with so much unemployment hit.

I wonder if that became financially defining for some of you, and maybe culturally as a secondary result. President Obama was elected that same year. Also, so so memorable. The Tea Party got going in when you were 21, the Occupy movement when you were 23. Trump was elected, or as two of our callers from yesterday framed it. Hillary Clinton lost when you were 26. You would've been 28 for the Parkland shooting. You sort did and sort of didn't grow up in the modern mass shooting era. Got worse after you-- at school that is.

When you were 32 came the big lie, and January 6th and the pandemic, and the murder of George Floyd, all those happened within one year around when you turned 32 if you're turning 35 this year. In fact, I could make a case, that for anyone in your 30s or younger, there have been more ginormously defining news events more closely bunched together than for any other living generation that as epic as the Great Depression and World War II obviously were 15 years of nonstop intensity there, and the 1960s and everything that implies.

Then in 1989, maybe our second most defining year for anyone living today next to 2020, the Cold War ended, Mayor Dinkins was elected, Tiananmen Square, the beginning of global warming awareness, The Central Park Five. They all happened in 1989. Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February 1990, the beginning of the end of Apartheid. All those things within a year's time, what a year that was for those who lived through it.

Even with all those things from the depression on up, I can make a case that for anyone in your 30s or younger there have been more ginormously defining news events more closely bunched together than for any other living generation. Given 911, the Great Recession, mass shootings, Trump, the pandemic, the Me Too Movement, the murder of George Floyd, the movement that began. Callers in your 30s does it feel like that to you? If you're in your 30s what's the most defining news event of your lifetime so far, and how has it shaped you? 212-433 WNYC or tweet @BrianLehrer, and name the most memorable concert of your life so far if you'd like to throw one in. We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your most defining news events and most memorable concerts if you're in your 30s. Our lines are full. You can get in as people finish up at 212-433 WNYC or tweet @BrianLehrer. Kristen in Pleasantville, you're on WNYC. Hi Kristen?

Kristen: Hi Brian, longtime listener. I listen to you every day. Thanks for having me on. I'm first-time caller, so I told your screener I was a freshman in college, moved into New York City. Was there for about, I don't know, two weeks, and then 911 happened. That was a crazy life-changing event. I spent the first year of college sick from coughing, from breathing in dust. I heard it. When I woke me up in the morning, we didn't know what was going on. I've listened to your 911 episodes, so I'm sure your listeners have heard it all, but it was a pretty life-changing event.

Brian: Are there ways in which you [crosstalk] Yes, how did it get you political? In what direction?

Kristen: Well, I was in art school. I was at the School of Visual Arts and a lot of my professors were really political against the war and everything that was going on. As you can imagine, I transitioned to becoming a crazy liberal [chuckles] going to college which I think a lot of college students maybe experience.

You're at home and your parents maybe are not as that way. Then you go to college and it's eye-opening, especially when you're in an art school. Probably a lot of liberal arts schools too. Yes, it was scary, but also extremely impactful in my life.

Brian: Do you have the most memorable concert?

Kristen: I told the screener also, and anything at Roseland was my favorite venue. I got to see Hole there which was very special for me because I was a huge Nirvana fan in middle school, but I never got to see Nirvana, so seeing Hole was second-best to seeing Nirvana. Yes, great.

Brian: Kristen, thank you. Thank you so much for starting us off. Nicole in Centerport, you're on WNYC. Hi Nicole.

Nicole: Hi Brian. How are you?

Brian: Good, thanks. What was your most memorable news event?

Nicole: My most memorable news event probably like most people my age was September 11th, but it wasn't really for the same reason as a lot of other people. I remember I was in high school and most of the people in my area had family that worked in the city. I remember everybody being sent home and just feeling completely confused. Then a few hours later after arriving home, I heard someone knock at the door and I opened it up, and there were two FBI agents there asking for my father. I was severely confused, and I got him and they brought him outside.

They took him out in their car and they left. They came back four hours later. My father had immigrated here from Iran in the 60s, and they made him go over all of his work. He veneers antiques and he has a shop. They made him go all around his shop. They went through all of his stuff. They asked him a whole bunch of questions about who he talks to, and then they left. It was such a weird feeling, because it was almost like a double shock, like the attack on our country. Then it was just like the attack on my family at the same time. It just really stuck with me.

Brian: Has it changed your relationship as I guess an Iranian American, or at least by dissent ever since, in terms of the way you feel you have to navigate your way through American society?

Nicole: Yes. I notice a lot more things. A lot of my family still only speaks Farsi. After that I feel like I could see the way that they were treated with things that I just never really noticed before. Like extra long looks, someone mentioning something, it just completely changed how I felt about everything.

Brian: Do you have the most memorable concert?

Nicole: Outside Lands music festival in California. It was just a nice eclectic venue and you got to see all different kinds of people and all different sorts of musicians.

Brian: Was it outside? I don't know it.

Nicole: Yes, it was in Golden Gate Park, I believe it was.

Brian: In San Francisco?

Nicole: Yes.

Brian: Sounds like a great place to see a lot of music. Nicole, thank you so much. Holly in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Holly.

Holly: Is that for me?

Brian: It is for you.

Holly: Okay, great. April 19th, 1995. Do you know the date?

Brian: I do know that that was the Oklahoma City bombing.

Holly: Yes. I was in sixth grade. I absolutely remember where I was when it happened, where I was when I found out about it, which was about an hour later. I grew up in the suburbs of Oklahoma, or Oklahoma City rather. Collectively, everyone in that time can pinpoint-- I remember my mom thought that the water heater had exploded, and we live about 20 miles away from where the actual explosion happened.

Brian: Wow. You heard it is what you're saying, 20 miles away?

Holly: Yes.

Brian: I'm curious, having lived through that, how you view the era that we're in right now, including January 6th with right-wing radicals attacking a federal building known as the US Capitol because that was right-wing radicals blowing up a federal building. That was the target, the federal building in an anti-government action in 1995.

Holly: I was in sixth grade. I think that my most recent reaction was 911. April 19th was considered terrorist attack. 911 was just a bigger terrorist attack. When my freshman year in college, just having gone through a terrorist attack in my home state, almost my hometown, and having that happen again made it scary for me.

Because I was so young when it happened, I was 11 or 12, I don't think I really understood the David Koresh correlations and all of that other stuff. You're not that savvy with those things. Your question actually makes a lot of sense. [chuckles]

Brian: How did it affect you locally? People who lived through it around the country thought of the Oklahoma City bombing as this big national thing, and the alarm was sounded about right-wing radicals, domestic terrorism, militia groups, but growing up in Oklahoma City, in the suburbs there did it have local, cultural or lifestyle ramifications?

Holly: I think the way it was always portrayed and how I felt about it is this was a very bad thing and we are obviously supportive of the victims. Luckily, I didn't know anyone, or unfortunately, and it was just this-- you're from Oklahoma and there's not a lot of things that you can say about Oklahoma. It's like we are a place of Native Americans and exacerbations. Then that's where you stopped.

Brian: I see you have a concert that you went to instead of your junior prom. What? You cut your junior prom to go to a concert?

Holly: Yes, we got free tickets, the radio station, to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, and it opened by the Foo Fighters which they did a better performance than the Chili Peppers

Brian: That's one of the themes of our memorable concert call-ins, is these couple of weeks have been people citing the opening acts. There's another one. Holly, thank you so much. Max in Bonham Hill. You're on WNYC. Hi, Max.

Max: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I'm such a huge fan. For me, I think the biggest and most influential news story is the Citizens United decision in 2010, especially right on the heels of the financial crisis that just crystallized how this country, in saying that corporations are people and that money is speech. That capitalism is to some degree a corrupting fundamental influence in this country. It has definitely pushed me-- I come from a very lefty family to begin with, but it has pushed me much further towards thinking about socialist solutions to systemic problems.

Brian: Interesting. Radicalized by Citizens United. Max, thank you very much. Eli in Bedford Hills, you're on WNYC. Hi, Eli.

Eli: Brian, I am definitely a longtime fan and listener. My biggest news article that I think-- I guess it's not necessarily an article, but commercially available internet became a thing, I guess in 2003 from AOL. I would say that is a huge ground-shifting thing for society that not many people have talked about in this discussion.

Brian: Maybe even before that, but you would've been around 15 then. How do you think it affected you?

Eli: [Crosstalk] 15 or 16 range. I think that there's much more freedom of communication between people and I think there weren't necessarily as many social mores established on the ethernet that hopefully now we can have a little bit more control over for teenagers as they go and experience that vast resource for themselves.

Brian: You have a concert to name I see.

Eli: Yes, the Dave Matthews Band concert in 2003 in Central Park. Me and my mom got free tickets outside of the gates, I think of Central Park's House, and it was a perfect, awesome night.

Brian: Eli, thank you very much. Sergey in West Hempstead, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sergey.

Sergey: Hi. I know you listed so many events and I did go to high school in Manhattan on 911, but in my life, the collapse of the Soviet Union is the reason why I'm here in America, and seeing communism collapse so quickly. I was 8 years old when I left Latvia in 1992. Even before that, my grandfather loved watching the news. He listened to Radio Free Europe. To hear one country after another becoming free was very inspiring, and that's why I vote in every election, I write to newspapers, I participate in demonstrations. Even though I was a small child, it really empowered me.

Brian: 1989, you would've been 3 years old?

Sergey: Four. I was born 1984, but again, I left 1992 to come to New York.

Brian: Do you have a concert, most memorable concert?

Sergey: Yes. About a decade ago I went to a Bruce Springsteen concert, and his message resonates with my views. Even though his family has been here for generations and I'm new, I feel like I can connect to his message.

Brian: Sergey, thank you so much, and thanks to all of you for your calls today. Tomorrow, we will complete the set inviting callers in your 20s or younger. Then on Monday, Martin Luther King Day, we'll do another oral history call in. That one will be for anyone old enough to remember the civil rights era, let's say anytime when Dr. King was active or anytime from the end of World War II to the assassination of Dr. King in '68. Memories from the movement, an oral history call in on Monday, centering Black Voices, and we've got a follow-up idea in the works to this whole series for later next week. We'll tell you about that. Thanks so much to all our callers in your 30s today.

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