Category: Projects Spring 2017

Ethnography Summary

Victoria Velasquez interviewed Diana Hess of Neighborhood Resources Connection.

Date: 4/4/17

Type: Expert

Location: Diana’s office in Downtown South Bend

Team participants: Conducted interview alone

User Characteristics:

Female, age 50s

Director of South Bend non-profit Neighborhood Resources Connection; member of the St. Joseph County Council

Sits on various committees in the South Bend community, including the committee for homelessness

Victoria met her when working on a project for NRC in her Project Management class

What is this person about – what drives him/her? Diana is driven by her selflessness and her desire to make this city a better place to live. She is very involved in the community and wants to empower people to better their neighborhoods that they call home.

What is this person’s biggest point of pain? She has a hard time convincing people in the community that the work that she does with her non-profit is valuable and worthy of their donations.

Memorable quote from interview: “Most neighbors want protection in their neighborhoods.” “Housing is a big issue for everybody.” “Some landlords are purely horrible.” “It’s always the same neighborhoods that end up with the short end of the stick.” “People get used to not being heard, so they have trouble trusting people who want to help.” “Most people end up doing petty crimes as a way to belong.”

Top 3 Learnings:

1. No matter who you are, you want to live in a safe community.
2. There’s a lack of affordable housing in the South Bend community.
3. Community members use neighborhood associations to discuss and address problems of homelessness and crime.

Key Insight – (1) Community members in low-income neighborhoods are discouraged and aren’t optimistic about improving their communities. (2) Young people living in at-risk communities need to be busy and involved in their communities so that they don’t resort to committing crimes and doing things that will land them behind bars.

Activities:

• Arrived at the Downtown South Bend offices
• Walked upstairs to Diana’s office
• Entered her office after knocking and hearing her say, “Come in!”
• Sat around her desk and asked questions about NRC
• Shifted the conversation to NRC’s Tapas and Tango fundraiser
• Exchanged goodbyes and headed out of the building

Environment

• Afternoon on a Thursday
• Downtown South Bend offices, which are located upstairs above the Pigeon and the Hen Pottery
• The Downtown South Bend offices were a bit busier than they normally are with almost all of the offices being occupied with someone working at a computer
• The environment was a bit tense as Diana was stressed with all that she had going on

Interactions:

• Victoria arrived at Diana’s office and knocked on her door to her office
• Diana cleared off her desk a little so that Diana and Victoria could sit down
• Diana answered Victoria’s questions about NRC and its role in promoting neighborhood safety
• Diana and Victoria concluded by talking about another project that Victoria is helping Diana with—Tapas and Tango, a fundraising event for NRC that Victoria and her team were developing marketing materials for

Objects:

• Diana’s computer
• Pictures of neighborhood associations
• Stacks of papers, folders, and binders scattered across Diana’s desk

Users:

• Diana
• Victoria
• Other people working in their offices in the Downtown South Bend building

Ethnography Summary

Victoria Velasquez immersed herself in the life of a guy named T’Andre whom she met at a Peer2Peer Group meeting at Imani Unidad.

Date: 3/8/17

Type: Immersion

Location: Imani Unidad office space downtown

Team participants: Grace, Wen Cong, and Wendy were also in attendance but Victoria talked to T’Andre alone

User Characteristics:

Male, age 20

Released from incarceration four weeks ago

He was locked up for committing an armed robbery

He was 14 years old when he first got locked up

He has friends who have also been sent to jail and some friends who have died from gang violence

He faces some uncertainty in his life as this girl he was seeing is pregnant but she’s not sure if he’s the father

What is this person about – what drives him/her? T’Andre is driven by his younger brothers. He didn’t have a fatherly figure growing up or a good role model from his older cousins, so he wants to be that figure for his siblings. He makes sure they do their homework and makes sure they are getting to sports practice after school.

What is this person’s biggest point of pain? He has a history of incarceration and cannot secure a job. He has applied everyday for the past two weeks and has not heard any positive news back.

Memorable quote from interview: “I was never good at sports so I wasn’t interested in any of that.” “I couldn’t get home at 3:00 am so I just stayed out and walked the streets.” “I know this sounds weird, but I’m glad I went away for four years. I needed that.” “I have plans A, B, and C and when they don’t work out I just try again.” When told that he should be proud of the way he is trying to turn his life around he replied, “Thank you. Ain’t nobody ever told me that before.”

Top 3 Learnings:

1. He’s the oldest sibling and wants to be a role model for his younger siblings to give them someone to look up to, which is something he never had.
2. Because he didn’t think he was good at sports he quit and got involved in bad activities on the street (drugs and crime).
3. He has been in and out of jail since we has 14 years old.

Key Insight – (1) People get involved in bad things because they don’t know any different and they don’t have good role models to look up to and see the way a teenager should really be behaving. (2) Had he not gone to jail for four years, he would’ve had no motivation to change his life around.

Activities:

• Got to Imani Unidad in Downtown South Bend
• Looked around for Debra and found her in the basement
• Went upstairs and found the Peer2Peer group meeting
• Joined them for dinner but didn’t eat
• Started talking to two young men but one wasn’t very interested in talking, so only carried out the conversation with one of them
• Talked with T’Andre for 30 minutes
• Transitioned into group circle
• Shared with the group something that I had accomplished in the week and something that was holding me back

Environment

• Wednesday evening
• Room had chairs and tables, which were then moved to form a circle of chairs
• The room was loud during dinner and conversations
• The room had an uncomfortable feeling because there were a lot of new members to the Peer2Peer group and there were some obvious outsiders
• The meeting was a safe space, which made people more comfortable sharing details about their lives

Interactions:

• At first I was only talking to the other members of my team (Wen Cong and Grace)
• Then I started talking to another familiar face—intern Andy
• I walked around and tried to listen in on some people’s conversations amongst themselves
• Eventually I introduced myself to two young men
• I sat down at a table to the left of their seats
• One of the guys was much more open to talking than the other one, so I carried on a conversation with that one
• Debra came in and got the group meeting started
• Each person in the circle had to speak in front of the group
• After each person spoke the group clapped for them

Objects:

• Tables and chairs
• Notepad and pen

Users:

• Debra, Baye, Andy
• Some other counselors
• Peer2Peer group members spanning a lot of different ages and a mix of men and women
• Another ND group with about four students
• Grace, Wen Cong, Wendy, and Victoria

With the direct immersion experience dealing with the actual struggles faced by the individuals of whom our project is directed towards, this analogous immersion serves as a parallel to the similar struggles faced but with more relevance to peers. As explained in the immersion work, individuals are faced with the hardships of not being able to achieve certain things that may better their lives. Something analogous to this might be the school experience. Many children start school but many with different backgrounds. To parallel the situation of the individuals for our project, let us assume that we can experience the struggles of a child from a poor background in a public school.

No matter how hard the effort put in is, classwork may still and the teachers aren’t necessarily of the highest caliber to help me achieve. As a result, school might not be the biggest focal point, especially with the economic struggles of the family. As a result, activities that are easy to make quick cash might be an option to help out the family to even eat, as the direct benefits of school are hard to quantify or even see at this point. This could happen to many good kids, as they aren’t given many options to achieve highly if it is not in sports. So, selling drugs might be the quickest and easiest option to help out.

The school or police might find out and catch me. Being a child of low economic backgrounds, the penalty would be high. Expulsion from school might be a real threat and criminal charges might also be brought to the table. With this, how can one achieve? It’s not like selling drugs is where a kid like this wanted to start doing, but there aren’t many other routes or options. As a result, any goal to go to college is thrashed and even getting a job might prove very difficult. It is this cycle that can be closely mirrored to what is happening to the individuals that our project strives to help: dealing with hardships leading to dangerous options that are hard to arise from due to the economic standing.

With the nature of our project, it would be very difficult to imagine the actual struggles that previously incarcerated individuals with AIDS through on a day to day basis. However, with the interviews and insights I was able to gain from professionals working with those individuals and the actual individuals themselves.

Growing up, the society in which I would live would tend not to be the best and most economically strong place. After a negative upbringing, drug use and crime tends to be imminent. After possession and use, Incarceration would be a given for possibly up to many years. Family would disappear and friends would fade, as this struggle of life would be dealt with.

Coming out of prison, there is ultimately nowhere to stay. There is no family, no friends (who have such a place to stay). There is no guaranteed medicine anymore as that was only in prison and there is a criminal record looming. Employers say no when jobs are sought after and landlords can’t provide housing because there is no collateral and no fixed cash flow incomes.

With this in mind, what even are the options for help? AIDS ministries only provide medicine for a certain period of time and temporary housing and Imani Unidad only provides group meeting and counseling. What is needed is a change in lifestyle that can only be accomplished by getting a job and housing. Without, the viscous cycle of committing the same crimes and spirilling back to prison is almost a guarantee, if not sought after completely (permanent housing, medical care, food).

This, as explained to me, is really the immersion experience that these individuals go through. Our project seeks to highlight these individuals and try to bring about a product that can be implemented so that these people may become their own best self-advocates. A change that can fight the systematic discrimination brought on by people who are actually trying to bring about a meaningful difference to their life and for the better.