ABSTRACT
Kate grew up in a liberal Democratic household. Her parents protested the Vietnam War when they were in college, and regaled her with stories of solidarity at anti-war demonstrations, sometimes set off by the firing of tear gas canisters when the protests became violent. (Over the years, Kate began to ritualistically roll her eyes when her parents began nostalgically spinning the tales, retold every Thanksgiving after they listened to the endless Arlo Guthrie ballad, “Alice’s Restaurant.”) Clearly influenced by her parents’ activism, she helped organize an Occupy Wall Street protest near her campus, and she posted blistering blogs berating capitalists, typing furiously on her laptop at the protest site. Pro-union and critical of anything that smacked of Republican politics, she could not believe it when the university dorm lottery system paired her with Olivia.
