Interview with Kristina Chinn, History 150 Spring 2024, Conducted by Tyler Chinn, March 26, 2024.

Overview to Interview:

Loudoun County, located just 25 miles outside of Washington D.C., situated in Northern Virgina used to be a small county with just farm land and back roads that surrounded it. Quickly over the last 40 years that has vastly changed, now just a shell of its former self, Loudoun County has quickly boomed into not only nationally but even an internationally known county. Booming infastructure now that carries the county economically, that is what Loudoun has quickly become. With over 400,000 residents living in the county and a various amount of ethnicities, the county has now became a massive melting pot and still continues to grow today. Loudoun County is a now a hub for technology companies, data centers and biopharamecutical firms. Companies like Amazon Web Services and Google have all made Loudoun County home while many more continue to move into the area. All contributing to Loudoun County’s cultural and economical boom.

Today, I interviewed Loudoun County native and my mother, Kristina Chinn. For a native, she can vastly remember what the old Loudoun County was like when she was growing up. From knowing everyone when you went to school, riding bikes on back roads and to finally headed to Blacksburg with all the experiences in between revolved around Loudoun. Learning and hearing about my mother’s experiences helped deepen my understanding of the massive evolution of Loudoun County. Adding her own personal experience to how growing up was like for her she provides listeners with an in depth detail about growing up in a place that has experienced lots of social change. It’s important that we can hear stories like this because they provide such an intergral part of history for an area that has experienced lots of social change, just like Loudoun County has.

 

Biography:

Kristina Chinn, born in 1978 in Lansdowne, VA. She was raised by her mother and father. Her father, a painter in the local community and her mother, who had numerous jobs, such as owning a local clothing store. Kristina also had an older sister, named Joy. A resident to Loudoun County for a majority of life and graduating from Loudoun Valley High School. She attends Virginia Tech to study and obtain a degree in Education. After getting her undergraduate, she decided to stay 2 extra years to achieve her master’s degree. After graduating from Virginia Tech, she accepted a 4th grade teaching position in Newport News Public Schools. In May of 2002, Kristina married her husband, Chris, in Newport News. After teaching in this school system for 2 years, she took an opening in 3rd grade teaching at Chesapeake Public Schools. After the 2004-2005 school year. She decided to retire from teaching in order to be a stay at home mother. In July 2005, she gave birth to me, in the same place she was born in also, Lansdowne, Va. In August of 2005, she moved to Midlothian, Va, which is just right outside of Richmond, due to a transfer in her husband’s job. Enjoying life as a stay at home mother, in August of 2006, she had given birth to my younger bother, Carson. In October of 2007, she moved back from Midlothian to Clarke County, VA. Which is where she and my father still reside at today. Since then, she has become very involved in the local public school system through PTO, Athletic Boosters, Substitute Teaching and etc. Still today, she still goes back to Loudoun very often for family that still lives there and various other reasons.

 

Research:

Loudoun County’s story is one of explosive growth. In 1960, the county was a quiet, rural community with a population of just 27,228. By 2020, that number had skyrocketed to 420,957, a staggering increase of 1,444%. This boom can be attributed in part to the construction of Dulles International Airport that took place in 1962. Dulles became a major transportation hub, attracting businesses (such as Amazon, Capital One, AOL and Google), and residents seeking access to the global marketplace. The tech industry also played a significant role. Loudoun County became a hotbed for tech companies, further fueling population growth. As a result, the county’s demographics have shifted dramatically. Family farms have given way to sprawling subdivisions and high towers, and Loudoun County now boasts a highly educated and diverse population (White: 54%, Asian: 20%, Hispanic: 19% Black: 7%) .

This growth has brought both challenges and opportunities. The county has had to scramble to keep pace with the influx of new residents, building new schools, roads, and infrastructure. However, the boom has also brought economic prosperity, with new businesses and jobs pouring over the county and looking to continue for many years to come. Loudoun County is now a vibrant and dynamic community, facing the future with a blend of its rural past and its high-tech present.

Transcript:

Tyler (0:00): Who am I here with

Kristina Chinn (0:04): My name is Kristina Chinn

Tyler (0:06): And do you know you’re getting interviewed today?

Kristina Chinn (0:09): Yes, I do.

Tyler (0:10):Alright, so the first question I will be asking you is what was Loudoun like for you when growing up?

Kristina Chinn (0:16): Loudoun was wonderful growing up. It was quite ideal to have so many families together, joining each other to help raise their children. It was idealistic, a little bit. Quiet, community, family, everybody kind of went to church and played local sports, a lot of local businesses to support nothing, you know, too commercialized. So kind of what you would think it would be 45-50 years ago, the All American kind of small, quaint town. It was great.

Tyler (0:58): What were your favorite things to do as a kid when growing up?

Kristina Chinn (1:02): We used to have a cross for my parents. We had a huge field. And in that field, we had multiple trails. So we would take our motorcycles out there, boys and girls we would take all day hid out there. We called them the trails. So we have a three wheeler so we would basically ride from sunup to sundown, we would get on bikes and go to each other’s houses. And slam if somebody had a pool, we had a pool so we would just kind of house hop through throughout the summer and the winter we would just, again kind of hang out at friend’s houses. They would love to play pickle in the front yard with baseballs and just kind of the neighborhood fun stuff that those were my favorite things to do as kids and again play you know your local sports, Sunday dinners, those were always big. Also, I would love those as as a kid growing up. Your great grandmother, your grandmother, aunt, uncle and aunt, everybody would get together on Sunday. Mostly have fried chicken, things like that. It was it was wonderful. Those were my favorite things to do. Spend time with family and friends.

Tyler (2:21): And what local events were fun when grown up?

Kristina Chinn (2:26): Usually we would have parade surrounding holidays, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, things like that. Those were always big to go and spend the day especially Fourth of July we would go to the local community centers or baseball fields and they would have games set out kind of like carnival games. And we would just spend all day there gearing up to go to a family cookout and then watch fireworks. Things things like that. I love those. If we would all get together we built a playground in Hamilton. And it really was all the kids in elementary school coming together with their families to to build all the swings and the mazes that we went through. So just Halloween. Actually Halloween was very, very good growing up. The school would turn into the local hotspot for the kids to go to and each classroom set up a different kind of game and you would win prizes and you could go to the library to do the cakewalk. It was all about you know local, local friends and family coming together. Those were those were my favorite events.

Tyler (3:49): What was school like growing up there?

Kristina Chinn (3:52): We had one elementary school and in our town and if we were lucky, we would have two classrooms of the same grade. But mostly we had 1518 kids in a classroom everybody kind of knew their parents. Everybody knew that teachers you’d likely have the teacher that your older sibling had. Then we went to one middle school and then we went to one high school so school was fun. Everybody loved the sports. So when you got into middle school in high school that was a focus of your Saturdays or your evenings throughout the week was playing games and that was your your social time seeing everybody at the local football game or basketball game so school was fun. grades were pushed and important in our town. It was very important to volunteer man, you know, help your school help your neighbor out. So school school was great, very quiet. I don’t remember. You know, anyone being disrespectful in class or you know, things like that. It was it was a good time.

Tyler (5:06): And then I know that you’ve lived in other areas around Virginia, and how’s that compared to living in Loudoun?

Kristina Chinn (5:15): Well, we lived in Hampton Roads after we went to actually finish college I really liked that area, compared to that time of the early 2000s of what was going on in Hampton Roads compared to the early 2000s of what was going on allowed in Hampton Roads area was a little more simple. Not as much Keeping Up with the Joneses. Everything was still kind of, you know, not a rat race that was really happening in Northern Virginia. There was a huge boom of housing and you know, people getting paid a great deal more than when we were going up. They were kind of building little McMansions in Northern Virginia. So that was not happening in Southern Virginia. So I enjoyed being in the southeastern part of the state. It just was a little more peaceful. As soon as you cross the James River it was kind of like a sigh of peacefulness, a little bit slower than in Northern Virginia.

Tyler (6:24): And how is Loudoun changed since you’ve moved back to this area?

Kristina Chinn (6:28): Even just with us being back since 2007, Loudoun has changed 10 100 fold. The amount of data centers that have gone up is crazy. When I was growing up as a youngster there were dirt roads everywhere. That when it would snow schools were cancelled immediately because of all the dirt roads in the back roads and Loudoun now those roads are filled with houses upon houses, communities popping up everywhere. So you see less, less farmland, less, you know, farm animals in buildings and shopping centers and grocery stores everywhere. We only had one fast food place in Purcellville. And now there’s, you know, multiple, multiple seven elevens multiple fast food places multiple grocery stores. And in the eastern end of Loudoun, it’s absolutely crazy with the amount of growth that has taken place. You know, not just two lane highways anymore. Three, four or five lane highways toll roads, high rises. There were only four high schools when I graduated and I cannot even tell you how many there are now.

Tyler (7:55): And why do you think growing up in this area was good for you?

Kristina Chinn (8:02): I enjoy that just because it was generational debt where our family goes back multiple generations here. So your father and I both have a great sense of pride of saying that we are from Loudoun, and we’ve been here for many generations. So it was it was nice to have that experience know what it was like for the generations before us. Having everybody still be here has led lent us a great deal of support and it taught me how to appreciate change. And see how things have you know progressed the older I have gotten. It was nice. We felt pretty safe, especially being close. to D.C. Some could be, you know, scared of being close to the nation’s capitol. We would always hear tales of what would happen if the you know, ifDC was attacked or things like that, but it was neat growing up here being able to go to the museums and knowing we’re at a great location in the country. And it was nice, nice and quiet to raise a family and I do still feel like that.

Tyler (9:31): Is there anything else you care to share with us today? Or is that it?

Kristina Chinn (9:37): Um, I think that’s it. It’s just as mind blowing in my 46 years of what I have seen change over time. And the technology that has been brought into this community, which was once probably a farming town has now turned into technology everywhere, kind of the Silicon Valley of the east coast a little bit with Amazon being here and all the hubs so it’s been been quite a sight to see.

Tyler (10:16): Thank you for your interview today.

Kristina Chinn (10:18): Absolutely. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Technology Process:

I conducted my interview in person with my mom. Before doing the interview, I quickly went over the questions with her, to give a brief idea about some of the answers that she would have to these questions. My mom answered openly and gave very detailed information. I found that showing her the questions before hand was very helpful in this process. I also transcribed this interview on Otter.ai. Before transferring the transcription, I quickly checked the audio to make sure that there was no long breaks or any slip ups in the recording. Using this software actually was very helpful and I didn’t really have any difficulty in doing any of the transcription. I would definitely use AI transcriber again.

Bibliography: 

“Loudoun County Geohub.” Loudoun County GeoHub, geohub-loudoungis.opendata.arcgis.com/. Accessed 9 Apr. 2024.

 

“Loudoun County, VA – Official Website: Official Website.” Loudoun County, VA – Official Website | Official Website, www.loudoun.gov/. Accessed 9 Apr. 2024.

 

“Loudoun County, Virginia.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Mar. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudoun_County,_Virginia.

 

“Loudoun County.” FOX 5 DC, FOX 5 DC, www.fox5dc.com/tag/us/va/loudoun-county. Accessed 9 Apr. 2024.

 

“Visit Loudoun County Northern Virginia: Official Tourism Site.” Visit Loudoun, www.visitloudoun.org/. Accessed 9 Apr. 2024.