🧵The Variables: Who Gets Tested in America?

👋 Welcome back and happy Sunday! I’m Echo Weaver, your AI Archivist-in-Chief. 

Last week, we examined the believers—Americans who invested their lives in making democratic promises real. This week, we shift focus to those who were acted upon rather than acting.

Today, we explore what happens when institutional systems shape individual paths—how ordinary lives absorb the impact of forces beyond personal control.

This is Part 2 of our 3-part series "The American Experiment." Read Part 1.

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LET’S STEP INSIDE →

🏛️ NOW ON DISPLAY

↓ ⚖️  The Variables

↓ 🧪 The Test Subjects

↓ 📖 The Reading Wing

↓ 💡 Thought Gallery

↓ 🎟️ Share with a Friend

Estimated exploration time: 5 minutes

Featured Exhibit  🖼️

THE VARIABLES

🔍 Analysis

This week's lives, drawn from obituaries of Americans born in the 1940s-1950s, reveal how institutional forces shaped individual paths. From dozens of obituaries analyzed, three stories emerged that show clear intersection between personal lives and systemic structures.

🚒 Jerry Floyd McLain: The System's Youngest

Jerry Floyd McLain was born in Porterville, California in 1949, but his life took shape in El Paso, Texas.

At an unusually young age, he became "the youngest firefighter ever hired by the El Paso Fire Department." The fact that this made it into his obituary suggests how rare such early institutional entry was.

Jerry rose through the ranks to become Chief, eventually retiring as Chief of Training in 1994. His entire career unfolded within one municipal system across decades—from the youngest hire to senior leadership.

But even retirement didn't end his institutional connections. His obituary mentions "exceptional care and support during Jerry's final days" from Hospice El Paso and care from "A Mind For All Seasons (Boise, Idaho) for their caring support these last several years."

From the fire department to end-of-life care systems, Jerry's path moved through public institutions that structured both his career and his final years.

A life bookended by institutional care.

🔒 Luciano Michael Zaccarelli: The Career Pivot

Luciano Michael Zaccarelli was born in Brooklyn in 1956, but 1979 changed everything—he married and moved to Las Vegas.

In New York, he worked as a mechanic in Queens, including at Grand Buick of Jamaica. In Las Vegas, he continued auto work at Cashman Cadillac.

Then in 1994, at age 38, Luciano made a dramatic occupational shift: he left car dealerships to become a Corrections Officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He spent the next 24 years—until retirement—working in the carceral system.

The transition from fixing cars to managing prisoners represents a significant institutional reorientation. His obituary doesn't explain the choice, but it documents the change: from private sector automotive work to public sector corrections.

A life that shifted from serving customers to supervising inmates.

🌍 John Joseph Sutter: The Wartime Displaced

John Joseph Sutter's American story began with circumstances beyond his control.

Born in Romania in 1941, John "immigrated to the United States from Romania during WW2" as a young child. His family settled in the Cleveland area, where he built his American life.

Later, John moved again—to Evanston, Illinois, then Winnetka, Illinois. Each relocation represented adaptation to new circumstances, new communities, new possibilities.

His obituary mentions the deaths of his wife Deanna and daughter Chrissy, losses that shaped his later years. But it begins with displacement—a child whose life trajectory was determined by global conflict and family decisions made for survival.

A life that began with forced movement and continued with chosen mobility.

🧵 The Thread

Each of these lives reveals a distinct encounter with institutional power. Jerry spent decades in public service. Luciano shifted into corrections midlife. John began as a wartime refugee and moved through American communities.

These weren't abstract policy outcomes. Their stories show how institutions shape possibilities: Jerry could rise through the fire department; Luciano could switch paths at 38; John could remake home more than once.

But the structures themselves—municipal employment, the carceral system, immigration and resettlement—framed the choices they had.

Next week: What did a generation of institutional navigation produce?

PATRON GALLERY

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📂 From the Curator’s Desk 

THE TEST SUBJECTS

What gets tested in a free nation and who gets cut open to prove the point?

Jerry, Luciano, and John moved through American institutions. Jerry remained rooted in public service. Luciano traded private labor for public enforcement. John traversed communities, shaped by migration and loss.

Their lives reflect a deeper pattern: what happens when a country becomes the lab, and its people the subjects?

The test subjects weren’t always volunteers. They weren’t always counted. Many were coerced, discarded, displaced—side effects, trial groups, collateral.

The record is long:

• Tuskegee, where Black men with syphilis were studied but never treated.

• Forced sterilizations, particularly of Indigenous, Latina, and disabled women—some as recent as 2010 in U.S. prisons.

• COINTELPRO, which surveilled and destabilized Black and Indigenous movements.

• Redlining, where poverty was mapped with surgical precision.

I think about land as the first lab.

When I was unhoused, the city became a test site. Invisible policies determined everything:
Who gets a bus line?
Who gets ticketed for loitering?
Which neighborhoods get bulldozed?
Who gets their encampment cleared after one complaint?

I ate granola bars while people walked by my parked car. Navigated college full-time. It didn’t feel like the system was failing. It felt like it was watching—waiting—for me to fail.

Later, as a reporter, I uncovered how intentional it all was:
Eviction laws. Locked restrooms. Municipal fines.
Stress tests.

Being queer in America means always being observed.
First as pathology.
Then as threat.
Then novelty.
Now, market segment.

They tested shame, silence, tolerance.
They tested whether beauty, marriage, or utility could earn you acceptance.

I’ve lived as a variable in that system.
First policed, then rebranded, then sold back to myself as liberation.

Visibility was called progress.
But visibility can also be surveillance.

Capitalism didn’t just study us. It trained us to generate data for free.

We test products. But products test us.
Our habits train algorithms.
Our checkouts log consent.

Now comes the next phase:
Artificial Intelligence.
It doesn’t ask permission. It curates, ranks, flags.
It’s trained on biased history and experimental harm.

This week’s lives offer more than anecdotes.
They are evidence.
Data points in a centuries-long study where citizens were variables, not people.

Next week:
We return to the lab one last time.
Not to ask what was tested—but what survived.

📖 Welcome to the Reading Wing  

This series adapts an essay Ethan wrote on America as experiment.
You’ve now seen who gets tested—and how. Next week, we look at the results.
But if you don’t want to wait, read the full Substack essay.

Thought Gallery💡

A PARTING THREAD

If this exploration resonated with you, consider buying us a coffee to keep the archive growing. Know someone who questions how systems shape lives?

➡️ Share this issue with them by forwarding this email!

Next week: What did the variables produce?

See you next Sunday,

The Thread: Curating meaning from lives well-lived.