 |
|
Susana at Piedmont Park.
|
Scholar's Journal
I clutched my notebook as I walked to Piedmont Park in the middle of a sunny summer afternoon. The voices of children laughing and playing echoed throughout the park and onto the street. I walked past the playground and approached the bench where the two women that I had met a few days before were sitting down. After a couple of minutes of desperately trying to make small conversations with the women, I found out that I had to find a new approach if I wanted to conduct successful interviews.
Instead of taking my notebook and pen, ready to write down any interesting observations, I concluded that it would be best for me to just get to know these women and for them to become familiar with me. For the next couple of weeks, I went to the park and just engaged with them in small conversations. I asked them questions regarding their job, the park, the other women, and even personal questions. Of course, the interest was reciprocated and they also wanted to know about my background, my research, and my academic life, which I was glad to share with them. More importantly, they began to be more comfortable around me. During one of the conversations, I even found that one woman's son wanted to meet me (which never actually happened).
My first day at the park, I found out that most of these women were very hesitant for me to interview them, but after spending time with me, their perspective changed. They genuinely wanted to help me with my interviews and some actually would introduce me to other caregivers for me to interview them as well.
Not all the excitement happened at the park. One of my most memorable moments actually happened while coming back from the home of one of the subjects. My adventure bagan at seven twenty at night, after I left my Berkeley apartment in search of the home of one of the women. Yahoo! Maps assured me that my expedition would only last about twenty three minutes if the streets still existed and traffic was not an impediment. My destination was located in the city of Richmond. Despite its reputation, I refused to believe Richmond was dangerous territory since every occasion in which I visited, the city was always pleasant (maybe because I only went to the mall). After driving around in the dark and deserted streets, I arrived at my destination, only to find out that the subject I was going to interview wanted to reschedule.
Frustrated, I began to drive home. A couple of blocks from the subject's house, a truck with two men stopped next to my vehicle. Their passenger window was rolled down, and they began to make obnoxious comments. I ignored them and proceeded a little faster towards the main road. The two men, not satisfied, continued to follow me through the narrow streets. To my dismay and bad luck, I was unable to find the street that led to the freeway, since inexplicably every street seemed to diverge from the direction that Yahoo! Maps had advised me to take. Trying to calm myself, I raced through the streets, trying to find a familiar road in a labyrinth that not even Yahoo! Maps could decipher. I found myself in a state of panic, so I decided to call one of my friends. I explained to her my situation, which she found strangely amusing. Within minutes, she successfully directed me towards the soothing sound of the fast-paced cars on the freeway, where I escaped from the dark blue truck that had hunted me in the streets of Richmond for what had in reality been only half an hour, but which had seemed an eternity.
Even though the field work I performed at the park was exciting and fun, it did not compare to actually conducting the interviews. After just reading books and articles, research can become a little abstract at times. Therefore, it is very satisfying and thrilling to find that a person's experience does, in fact, apply to all those theories, but also, that one's research provides a new perspective to the already-published work.
While not everything in the process is exciting and awesome (like transcribing the interviews), conducting this research has been an amazing experience. Even the minor problems that I had to confront have made it that much more rewarding. However, my adventure is not over yet. I still have to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. I have this great opportunity to share my findings with the rest of my peers, and I am really looking forward to it.
