Lisa Witter’s roots are West coast and working class.

Topic: How did geography shape you?

Lisa Witter: Well I grew up in a small mill town called Everett, Washington, it’s not small for Washington but compared to major cities it is. My father was born in North Dakota, he’s the oldest boy of seven and they moved out and grew up in the projects and my mother was from a middle class union family, you know, my grandmother had a paper route and my grandfather worked at the mill and my mother and father met at 19 on a blind date and have been together ever since and so I was surrounded by love and I was brought up going to church every Sunday and believing that you should give back to your community and that you should be active and it’s the desire, you know, to work for working people that really, really drives me. I saw my mom get up every day and be a full time mom and be a full time worker, she would work graveyard at night and then come home and take us to school and I saw, you know, my father turn wrenches and have his hand be disabled for the rest of his life because an engine block fell on him. I saw how hard people were working and they just wanted to have more time with their families and so that’s really driven my sense for social justice, just to sort of protect the working class.