This week we will read about research as poetry. Be sure to read all of chapter 3, pp. 63-99. It has appendices and an extended example that looks like it could be another chapter. I think that you will find the example very helpful.
I'd like to start with a warning. There are some excellent writers whose poetry enacts a form of qualitative research. They are considered poets, not researchers in the academic sense. As poets, they really know what they're doing. I would second Leavy that not everyone can write poetry. It is a form of writing that requires a great deal of serious preparation and study. For this reason, I would not recommend poetry as a form research unless one is already a poet. The book we will be reading next, Sabor a Mi, was written by an accomplished poet and international art star.
Still, Leavy shows us a way to organize research data from interviews and field notes into small nuggets of language that can be quite effective. This is not the way poets write poetry, but it's an interesting strategy that could strengthen one's research (by providing variety) if used sparsely.
It is crucial to include participants in the editing process. Poindexter highlights this in her piece (pp. 92-99). Much as we may think editing is innocuous, it isn't when we're working with other people's words. Without consulting the speakers, we could leave out the parts that are most meaningful to them. We could get caught up in crafting a "condensed, magnified, emotionally heightened" message or "third space" that has little to do with what the speakers were actually thinking and feeling when the words were spoken.
As you can see, I'm issuing a lot of warnings. That's because poetry is generally not well understood in our society. It should not be confused with song lyrics or the release of personal emotion. Poetry actually has more in common with calculous than any of those things (I'm serious about that).
This chapter mentions "coding" a number of times, so I want to make sure you know what that is. If you have collected a hundred pages of interview material (as the authors of The Quilters undoubtedly did), then you need some way to organize it. Cooper & Allen organized, categorized or CODED their material into phases of the life cycle: i.e., childhood, youth, middle years, etc. They organized their entire text into chapters based on these codes. (Post continued - click "comments").
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ReplyDeleteLet's go to the discussion questions and activities in the grey box on p. 85. Question #2 identifies a particular population of people and asks how poetry might be useful in a research context. Don't be thrown by the term, "identity management." All it means is the manner in which one presents oneself as a certain kind of person. As you know, this can change over time. I'll provide an example from my own life. When I was married, I presented myself as a feminine, delicate woman because, to be honest, that's what my husband expected of me. Then one day I cut my hair off. He interpreted that to mean that I had "become" a lesbian, i.e., that I was managing my identity to communicate lesbian-ness. In fact, I was refusing to accept the role he had designated for me. Since to him I was no longer the person he married - my identity had changed - he felt the relationship had to end. I have worn my hair short ever since, although I think I've shared with A-Ta that I'm growing it long again so I can dye it blonde and test how men respond to me with long, blonde hair. This is an example of "identity management."
I'd like you to answer Question #2 in the grey box, supplying your own example of identity management. The example may be from your own life or something you have observed in another person. We all modify our behavior based on context. I may act more spiritual, using words like "blessed" and "faith," in the the company of people I know to be religious. I also act more "queer" when I'm around GLBTI people! Question #2 asks us to condense, magnify and retain the sound of the speaker's voice (our own or someone else's) with a minimum of words and well-placed pauses.
After this, go on to Question #3 and see where it takes you. Now, this will require you to do exactly what I warned against, which is to edit without the input of the speaker. When each of you come up with a different version, it will prove that the editing process is somewhat random and dependent on the editor's choices. The result is a mixture of voices - the editor's and the speaker's - which may or may not ring true for you.
As always, let me know if you have questions, complaints, compliments or comments or any kind. Happy reading!
SHORT HAIR ROCKS!!! I love going to the restroom and women double-take me to make sure I'm not lost. I say to them, "It's okay, I get it all the time." They laugh and try to apologize. I say, "It's okay that your ignorant, you have to live with yourself." I say it so fast they don't know what to say. I get stereotyped ALL the time. I was called Liz the Lez in middle school and eLEZabeth in highscool. People stare at me all the time, my professor admitted to me once that for the first 3 weeks of school she didn't know what I was. Sweet huh? She said that I'm androgynous. Funny, she had short hair too. Maybe there's some manual I'm missing that woman can't have short hair.
DeleteHair is a funny thing. I have had mine very short and kind of long.
DeleteMy ex-husband and I were getting our hair cut in the same salon shortly after we married. I had longish hair. As a reference for those of my generation, it was just like Farrah Fawcett's hair. I decided while in the chair I wanted it all off. So I went very short without my ex-husband's knowledge. I walked up to him afterwards and he walked right on past me without a second glance. He didn't recognize me.
That incident really hurt my feelings. I didn't realize until that moment how shallow he was and how my looks, i.e., hair had played such a large role in our relationship.
Liz, I know exactly what you're saying! I'm not sure, but I think it might have something to do with the "big hair" thing in Texas.
ReplyDeleteI've also been presumed to be a lesbian all my life, even when my hair was long. If I had been born a man, I surely would have been gay. This is where the "queer vibe" comes from, but of course I'm not a guy.
ReplyDeleteIn our culture, long hair signifies femininity and sexual availability, and I don't think this is gender specific. But the U.S., like everywhere else, is full of sub-cultures. I know that in northern cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis, short hair on a woman does not mean she's a lesbian or butch in any way. To make a gross generalization, I've found that the further south one goes, the bigger the hair.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I think you are right about the big hair thing...and it doesn't make sense when you consider that it gets hotter as you go South, but there it is! Of course, when did fashion ever make sense, anyway!? I let the fashion train chug on by many years ago! One of the perks of being an art teacher is that you can have your own style.
ReplyDeleteI have another "hairy" thought: when I was a small girl, I always wanted to have long hair like my grand-mother did. She could sit on her hair! But, since she was in her 80's I didn't really see it as sexually attractive. I think it was more an attraction to another time. I wanted to learn about her intricate handwork, too; she could make lace and quilt. I think that when I was a little girl I felt a connection (identity) to "old fashioned" ways if my hair was long. I liked it long when I was a young mother because I didn't have to fix it much, just braid it and go! Sort of a simple solution for a busy day. Now, I have chin length hair and my grand-daughter (who is twelve) wants me to grow it long, again.
Other hair identity: why do people dye their hair when it goes gray? My (own, personal) teenage children, who are now in their thirties, would offer to pull out my gray hairs when they first started coming in! Ouch! Soon I would be bald! Also, I actually like my gray hair! I have thought about dyeing it pink and purple or maybe orange and blue, once it gets really white. Don't you think that an art teacher could have an entire palette of hair colors?
ReplyDeleteGray hair and aging...My mother, who is eighty-three, tells me that when she looks in the mirror she is always shocked to see how old she is. She says, "I feel the same inside, I feel the same as I did when I was a teenager, I'm just trapped in this old body." Sometimes she gets down about this, but I feel it is because, sadly, our culture is so impressed with surface values: what you look like, how much money you have, what kind of car you drive, etc.
ReplyDeleteMother has really soft skin, it is wrinkly, but pretty with the little webs of texture on her hands. She has a beautiful smile and eyes that twinkle with humor. She is a beautiful lady, even at eighty three because of her wonderful spirit. She is a rebel at heart and when she was a young girl in Richmond, Virginia she got thrown off a bus because she wanted to sit in the back with her black friends. When she was a fashion illustrator in Little Rock, Arkansas, she talked Dillard's into letting her draw the first black fashion model in a newspaper ad in the 1960's. A woman from the South by birth, she never let the subjugating culture form her into its mold. She is still growing and learning as a person and as an artist. She is my inspiration.
Suzanne, my 87-year old mom says the same thing about feeling trapped in an old person's body. She says that sometimes she looks in the mirror and thinks: "Who's that old lady?" Old age upsets her. She wants to be able to whip around like she always did, but her body won't let her.
ReplyDeleteYour mother sounds like a wonderful person through and through. She stood up for what she believed was right, and I think there were probably many people like her who just didn't have the courage to speak out and take action. Like the people in the lynching photos I posted (have you seen them?) I think probably represented a small minority of very scary (and scared) people. Unfortunately, as we know from the events of 9/11, a small group of scary people can do a lot of harm. Your mom was an important person because the Civil Rights Movement needed white people on their side - and not just white northerners. I bet many white southerners who sympathized with black southerners were afraid to speak out, for fear of getting lynched themselves. This kind of thing did happen.
More about hair: the feminist theorist Luce Irigaray (pronounced Lucy Irig - array) had an interesting theory about female identity & femininity. She said that the category of "woman" only applies to women of childbearing age. Before and after menarche, women disappear from visibility (and the general social order constructed throughout history by males). This is an extension of Simone de Beauvoir's idea that socially and legally, women only exist in relation to men as daughters, sisters, wives, mothers and grandmothers. This would be why women traditionally take the man's name upon marriage (ensuring that progeny bear his name), and why in many states it was against the law for an unmarried woman to own property until about 1900. And of course, we know that women were not allowed to vote in our great democracy until 1920.
The idea that women who are either too young or too old to bear children are invisible sounds extreme, but there is something to it. Maybe I'm more sensitive because of my age and unpartnered status. I've found that many (most?) men my age and older prefer to date "fertile" women - just in case he decides to unleash the fruit of his loins? Non-human male animals exhibit the same behavior, so it must be a basic drive.
One must consider, also, that human females generally did not live past child-bearing age in earlier times. I imagine the physical toll of continuous pregnancies and childbirth was too much. We know from The Quilters book that women were also expected to build the house, tend the garden, feed their families and who knows what else. Men lived hard lives and died young too, of course. Maybe the entire human race is having to adjust to the idea of old age.
The biological fact remains that males remain fertile throughout their lives while females do not. The power to pass on one's genes is power at the fundamental level. This sets up a social dynamic that privileges males, which has been in place for a very long time and isn't likely to go away soon. It's deeply programmed in the psyche and in the social orders created by the psyche.
Dr. Erler, I agree with all the warnings your issued in your post. Poetry is a beautiful form of writing and can be the most confusing when mismanaged. I am not a poet yet, I do like the condensation of verbose text. In the advertising world, we condense phrases not in the same way as the examples in Levy's chapter about poetry, but for simplication. Phrases that stick with us, for example, "Just Do It" are not easy to achieve even though they look so easy.
ReplyDeletePoetry and the condensing of enormous volumes of interviews is a good tool for a researcher interested in groups and identity management. Everyone manages their identity everyday. We generally pay attention to personal hygiene and make sure our shoes match so that our peers don't whisper behind our backs.
The groups Levy mentioned in question 2 are more difficult to get real answers from because they are more guarded. I think the examples from the girls and body image illustrate this very well. There were lots of giggles and "like"(s) in the interviews. I am sure the subjects were uncomfortable and the truths were such small nuggets in the midst of extra verbiage they used to manage their perceived identities. Poetry is an ideal way to glean the truths and present them leaving all the extra aside.
ReplyDeleteI tried my hand at using poetry to express the research interview from Appendix 3.1.
ReplyDeleteThis is a difficult exercise. It is very easy to take the words out of context and change the meaning. I know that I am guilty of this in the 'poem' below. With that said, it was also very fun to do this dissection of an interview. It felt somewhat manipulative, but I still enjoyed it.
B E I N G thin
One thing that makes me unattractive
focus on becoming, small.
In the long run it's just to be healthy,
when you are happy with the way you look, it's easy to be confident.
People saying it's nice, you start to feel like its true,
still, you like being thin.
Everyone wants to look hot,
feel wanted and stuff.
A pretty distinct clique of other cute girls,
it's like a phenomenon of youth that did make you cool.
I didn't want to pretend to ever,
I like to feel like I can keep my body in check.
It's more important for me, to myself to be thin,
and to look good than to eat.
I don't like the way they said: "to look good than to eat." Sad but true.
DeleteI LOVED "Research as Poetry" (Patricia Leavy PhD. Method Meets Art: Arts-Based Research Practice (Kindle Location 1301). Kindle Edition.)
ReplyDeleteI found Poindexter's writing style to be much easier to read than Leavy's style. There is a human quality that is comfortable. I am willing to bet that she is just like that in person and as an interviewer. I am also willing to bet that this is the reason her subjects open so wide for her, expressing such deep feelings that perhaps they had not shared with each other before the interview.
The resulting poems have so much emotion. Even the tabbing of the lines capture the writhing, tormental feelings in the words. The title is inspiring, "I've been knocked down, but I haven't been knocked out." and "Lessons learned hard are best learned." Such sage advice!
I would also like to make a comparison about coding. Dividing information into neat categories, for example, a time line is a useful thing. However, I think Leavy is referring to coding with much more depth. In the management of digital images, there is a set information that is embedded into the file that goes with it forever called metadata.
ReplyDeleteSome of the information it retains is when the file was created, modified, what kind of camera, lens and exposure settings were used. Some cameras are gps enabled so the geographic location of the file creation is included in the metadata. In certain software, you can add a host of metadata to the file like keywords and etc. to make it easier to search for photos with a set of criteria.
That is how I view coding. In order to really glean the information from our research, we need to add so much metadata.
#3
ReplyDeleteUmm... I think like, I don’t know
I think like I could think that, I think that
everyone wants to look hot and everyone wants to like,
yeah, like go out.
Um, it’s important, because first of all, someone who’s put together, like a pretty clique, a phenomenon
small stomach, like, be complimented on by people and like long slender legs.
Oh um, like to keep the body image looking good, like it’s easy to be confident. [Giggle]
Second, um, I don’t know, because body image, I mean no, I think it’s power like, some level be seen as attractive to guys.
Um, I don’t know. That’s a good question! [Giggle]I don’t know, it’s more important for me to look good than to be confident, um…like, I guess?
Jenise, I enjoyed reading your response. I'm glad you commented on the arbitrariness of the editing process when condensing data into a poem. Ultimately it's up to the researcher to decide what's important in an interview and to select the parts that for them, get at the heart of the matter. However, what the researcher decides is important may (and probably will) differ from interviewee. This difference has the effect of elevating the researcher's position above that of the people being researched, which raises issues of privilege and power and the inherently unequal relations that exist between researcher/researched. I'm surprised that in a book about feminist research methods, Leavy doesn't discuss this in more depth. Matters of power and privilege are at the heart of feminism and have long been a topic of concern, especially in connection to academic research.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comments about coding, and I'm glad that you found a correlation between it and the visual data you work with, which allowed you to understand the complexity of coding in actual practice. My explanation (above) was oversimplified for the sake of clarity and to make the concept approachable to people with little or no background in organizing large quantities of data. Your example makes it even clearer. Thank you for sharing that insight with the class.
I like the way you condensed the material in Poindexter's data into poem that reads somewhat like prose. THANK YOU for not trying to make it rhyme! I don't know what makes people think poems written in the 20th and 21st centuries need to rhyme like a Shakespearean sonnet (or a Hallmark greeting card). Poetry hasn't rhymed for a long time, just as artists stopped making history paintings a few centuries ago. But for some reason, folks continue to write sing-songy poems - Leavy even does it in one of her examples. Bah!
Overall, a great response to this week's questions, Jenise. Thanks for diving in.
Liz, I really like the way you preserved the "voice" of the speakers in your poem. The uncertainty, the nervousness, the youthfulness. You also have a great sense of timing and phrasing. The bracketed information is a nice touch.
ReplyDeleteThe comment one speaker made about thinness as power - the power to attract men and, perhaps, make other women/girls jealous - was really important so I'm glad you incorporated it into your poem. I'm wondering if you have written poetry before doing this exercise? You have a good ear, as they say in the literary world.
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DeleteThank you. It means a lot that you recognize my thought process. My english professor, the one that saved my life, heightened my senses to words, and the "play" on words. He, I can safely and positively say was a poet. I'll send you some of his poetry.Ill never forget what he once told me, "Liz, it must make you dizzy to know which direction to point your talents." He wrote that to me on the inside front page of the book "A Woman on Paper: Georgia O'Keeffe" [Paperback]
DeleteAnita Pollitzer
I agree with Jenise. I loved this topic! I found it very fascinating. Dr. Erler, do you remeber last semester I did something similar with one of the assignments? I took what each artist had said and summed it into a brief description of what they were all talking about. Arts for change, Beverly Naidus.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read the data from Appendix 3.1 I was highly annoyed and could barely comprhend like, all the like, likes that were used. And it like bothered me, like these were college level students. I targeted the perfect girl that their all wanting or trying to be, even though some didn't admit it. They all sounded like robots to me, like almost all started off with um, like. Wow! I just annoyed myself. I find my students using the word "like" way too much and I correct them right away. It's almost as if the word "like" is replacing conversation. Because when we say "like" we want the person were talking to, to already know what were trying to say without having to explain it, like you know what I mean?
First of all, I have my hair story to share with you. The social norm in Taiwan is ---long hair for girl and short hair for boy only. When I was a college student, I kept my hair as a long hair style to show that I was different from social expectation. Then, my identity was changed since then. If I didn’t say something to people, then they considered me as a female all the time. Even I looked “too strong” to be a girl, they still called “Miss” before they talked to me. There was an interesting story about my wife’s and my hair. There was a time after we got together, she worn short hair and I worn long hair. We waited in line for ordering fried chicken side by side. Then there was a guy want to ask me if I can let him ask the casher a quick question first and because he stood behind me and saw my long hair; so, he called me “madam”. Then, I answered his question and he was aware that I am a male and said sorry to me with awkward for his mis-identification about me. When it was our turn to order, Li-Yu, now is my wife who worn a short hair cut at the time, was ready to order. Even if she stood in front of and face to face to casher, the casher still identified her as a male and asked her “Sir, what can I do for you?” This is so funny that I can’t help but mention about this to my friends.
ReplyDelete#2
I am a casual guy and most of time I would like to speak in daily language. But I will modify my own talking mode into different ways when I am talking to different groups of people. When talked to art critics, art historians and people who work in the art field, I will talk in more gentle and slow. Therefore, I actual don’t like to participate most of art exhibition opening events. I am more like to be with my senior high school friend group. To hang out with them, I always feel relax and comfortable. At most of time, we talked out loudly and sometimes rudely. We talked to each other and never care about eschew dirty or filthy words. This way of talking not only shows our close relationship but present our same background.
#3
Code category: Attractiveness Ideals self.
To look good than to eat what I like.
My stomach is not small.
Working hard in the gym.
Like you just want to look good.
I just want to keep my body toned.
I just want.
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.
I feel like, I feel like, I feel like.
I think that, I think that, I think that.
The compliments,
Your hair, your smile, your thin body, your long, slender legs, your clothes…
Gym!
healthy!
The compliments, you know?
I don’t know.
A Ta - that is the best "hair story" I've ever heard. It illustrates the extent to which hair length mediates gender and social identity. The markers of gender are so firmly in place that social identity can detach and operate separately from physiological gender. Even when standing face to face with your wife, the cashier still identified her as male. It is possible that the cashier noticed the discrepancy but did not apologize or correct himself, whereas the man behind you in the line apologized to you for his mistake. If the cashier did realize that your wife was female but still called her "sir," it could mean a couple of things. First, the "sir" could be an insult directed at a woman who stepped out of her socially designated gender role and attendant norms of appearance. Second, it could mean that maleness does not require an apology, but femaleness does. The third and simplest explanation is that the cashier sees so many people in his work shift that he stops seeing individual faces. All he sees is an endless flow of hands giving him money. Either way, it is a great story. Thank you for sharing it with us!
ReplyDeleteIn your poetic transcription of the interview data, I like that you highlighted the elements of want ("I just want"), self-doubt and uncertainty ("I don't know"). The fundamental feeling is one of inadequacy. Industries aimed primarily at female consumers carefully cultivate this feeling of inadequacy, for it is what keeps women buying their products. Women in my age group spend billions on anti-aging products from "lifting" creams to botox treatments and plastic surgery. This industry works hard to exploit women's fears of losing their attractiveness to men. The psychology at work is pretty simple: women's greatest power is their power to manipulate men through sexual attraction. Women access power through men, but have no power innate to themselves. Therefore it is all-important for women to work hard on their appearance. Without this, they have nothing and, by implication, they ARE nothing. Feminism is the radical idea that women have power and value of their own.
I was raised by a single mom (divorced) with my older sister, my mom was a teacher and well-educated. My mom's family were all strong women. I was not raised with the 'boys do this and girls do that' concept and being from New Jersey, in the 1960's and 70's, those social expectations went over my head! They were there and enforced in 2 parent families- in our family they did not exist. My mom sure had problems with the lack of women's rights-- I remember those battles with credit companies and contract issues, for a long time, a man had to sign with the woman, and she was the co-signer- rental agreements, purchasing a car, even buying a sewing machine. It did not matter that my mother was teaching full time for 10 years, tenured and had a BA degree-- they still wanted a man's signature (permission) they even asked for my father's! can you imagine??!!
DeleteAbout short hair...
I always had short hair as a kid, but even with a hot pink corduroy pantsuit on... I was always called a boy.
At 10 I started to 'bloom' and because I had a lot of friends that were boys from my neighborhood, I was then called a 'flirt'... you just can't get away from other people's narrow views...
AllisonB, I had a similar experience in the late seventies when my ex husband and I bought our first car. He had been out of the service for about six months and was not working. He hardly ever worked during our thirteen year marriage. I was the 'bread winner', and yet, the finance guy only wanted his information. When I asked if he wanted mine too, he ignored me. I had to make him take my information.
DeleteDr. Erler, no, the cashier actually didn't realize that my wife was female at her first glance, but after that she understood Li-Yu is a female, she apologized immediately.
ReplyDelete"Industries aimed primarily at female consumers carefully cultivate this feeling of inadequacy, for it is what keeps women buying their products." I can't agree more about your comment. Time pass by, no one can escape from it. However, the beauty criteria of society ask female to keep younger in order to be attractive. I think this impossible mission is the main element that related to the "inadequacy" you mentioned about.
Yes, the youthful, stay young -almost at any cost, too, be thin, be very, very thin, and beautiful, glamorous, with large perky breasts... these are not they way the majority of women are. As the painter, Jenny Saville says, "if the majority of women have larger thighs then why are larger thighs not the standard, why should we follow the minority?" I paraphrased it terribly, but that is the gist of what she said.
DeleteHey guys, looks like there's an interesting discussion being volleyed around. I'm just now getting back in town and I will get to posting as soon as I get myself situated.
ReplyDeleteQ1: p 85 #2
ReplyDeletePoetry might assist a researcher interested in studying the identity management practices of a person in high school, family and peer contexts of first-generation Americans who live with a parent or parents born in a different country...
Poetry could help define the edges of one culture as they come together misaligned with expected traditions of another culture. {I see visuals of puzzle pieces that don't fit together, but struggle to come together anyway- we see the new shape of the space in between} These area will surface and can be juxtaposed in a poetic form that ultimately may give insight and permission for them both to exist fully acknowledged as they are, but understood.
Q2: p 85 #3
The Goal
On becoming
Small(er)
To be healthy
To look good
For yourself
For others
My body toned
Confidence
Happy
Compliments
Compliments
Good hair
Nice smile
Start to feel
Like it is true
Wish my legs were
Long
Slender
Go to the gym
Work out
Watch what I eat
Stay in shape
Look hot
Feel wanted
Put together
Don't pretend
To like others
Wear clothes
Look good
Get into a
Relationship
Go to the gym
To stay thin
I don't eat what I like
To be thin
To look good.
#2
ReplyDeleteAs a first generation American from immigrant parents I can imagine one approach being to emphasize the difference in opinions between the child and his or her parents from interview manuscripts. The same questions could be asked of both, parent and child, and then the answers of these questions could be singled out separately or compared side-by side. Finding some functional way of employing poetry would certainly make comparing the two interesting especially with the intent to explore the differences in identity management approaches. The parent, I assume, would have less of a conscious realization that they do conduct themselves with some level of identity management while the child would most likely be much more conscious of the way they present themselves in their social circles.
Since I come from an Italian heritage, I envision the comparison interwoven with some other “Italianicity” (Roland Barthes, Mythologies) that is more concrete. For example, family recipes that are passed down from generation to generation can be passed between the differing opinions of parent and child.
#3
what would make you attractive?
what would you want to be to be attractive? why do you go to the gym?
so why don’t you eat it all the time?
what do you think constitutes a cute girl?
so you desire to have skinny thighs?
do you think part of it is basically to be attractive to others? why don’t you like being short? do you do these things, would you say to be attractive to others?
Identity Management
ReplyDeleteI was so excited to respond on this topic, but now I’m sitting here watching my cursor flash on the screen….what do I want to say? Do I want to go personal or go with something I’ve observed in another person? I can have fun with this. If I choose a person I can finally release all the things I’ve wanted to say to them or if I choose myself, maybe I learn something about me. Hmmmm…
I had an interesting conversation this morning with my mom, brother, and my partner. Yes, I said partner, partner of 10 years and proud of it. I guess all the name calling when I was a kid, stuck. Anyways, I was talking about this week’s topic on identity management and the conversation exploded into so many experiences. It went from The Matrix, to unknown galaxies, to corporate America, and back to reality. I found myself saying, “We are all life’s puppet, having our strings pulled by whatever we let control us.” My mom just kind of stared at me, she asks, “Who pulls your strings?” I thought about it for a second and I found myself getting angry. Society. Society pulls my strings. Every second society passes judgment. It passes judgment with a glance, a thought, a whisper, a stare, an interpretation, a sexual wonder, a secret, a smell, a demand, a laugh, a cry, a whatever you want to fill in the blank with, it passes judgment and forces one to exhibit identity management.
When I go out on the weekends, I ask myself, “Should I wear my hat today? I don’t feel like being called “sir” today. Screw it. I’ll wear my Yankees hat. But wait, Do I feel like hearing people say crap about the Yankees. Screw it. I think I’ll wear my Counting Crows shirt, It’s comfortable. But wait, it’s baggy…people will really stare and stereotype me as being gay. Um, I’ll wear my favorite Under Armour shirt. But wait, it’s tight, the girls will be out and I’ll really confuse people, especially little kids. “Mommy, is that a boy or a girl?” “Shh, just leave him alone honey.” Ah, screw it. I’ll just stay home.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m as confident as they come, I just get tired of ignorance. I guess not everyone can be raised by an awesome mom like mine.
I feel safe at work with my peers and my students. My school is not doing so well right now. We were on the local news last Wednesday night. The headline read, “Hostile workplace has teachers pleading for help”. If you haven’t seen the movie “Lean on Me” you should, it’s exactly what were going though.
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story/Hostile-workplace-has-teachers-pleading-for-help/NKgxJJCUCk-nhjgVl721DA.cspx
This past Friday we were required to attend a team building workshop. I was so upset and uncomfortable, I just wanted to leave. But, my theatre arts teacher said, “Come on Reyes, we have to be their circus monkeys.” We have to act as they want us to. The district voted on a R.I.F, (Reduction In Force), it means they can let go of any teacher at any time, for any reason. I guess I need to be a circus monkey. Our administration has changed drastically in the past week, so many people are coming and going in an hour’s time. One hour their there, the next their not. Our elective team is crumbling, due to frustration, worry and disappointment. We’re staying strong for each other, every day is a new day, with a new face. With my team I can be Liz, I can be free. Once I leave my hallway, I’m Ms. Reyes. It’s a rollercoaster ride, but what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.
I came across an amazing quote, “Never allow someone to be your priority while you're just their option.”
My students are my priority. It’s the one place I can simply be Ms. Reyes, the Art teacher.
Allison, I like the phrasing in the second half of your response to Q#2. It brings to mind puzzle pieces, yes, but also scraps of material sew together in a quilt. American-born children living with first-generation immigrant parents like Francesco negotiate between home and school environments, which includes differences in language, customs, social expectations and a great deal more. I agree with you that poetry can help researchers explore the patched-togetherness of identity, of which second-generation Americans (and kids adopted from other countries, I might add) are acutely aware.
ReplyDeleteI also like your poem, especially the repeated line: "the compliments." The most unhealthy habits - self-starvation, binging & purging, compulsive exercise and use of laxatives, drug use (i.e., "heroine chic") - bring forth compliments. It doesn't seem to matter what a person has to put him/herself through, as long as the outcome is thinness. I find this quite fascinating, as in parts of the world where only wealthy people can afford to overeat, plumpness is a status symbol and thinness is the norm.
Francesco I definitely agree with your statement about second-generation Americans being more conscious of having more than one social/cultural identity. Children of immigrant parents experience a great deal of pressure at school to fit into the cultural norm (whatever that is). Sometimes they are made to feel different, which in a highly conformist environment like school can arouse feelings of shame. For this reason, sometimes they reject their parents' heritage completely. The strain is lessened somewhat if one is white and/or if there is more than one student in the school whose background is similar. The search for "concrete" expressions of ethnic heritage such as recipes is understandable. The research on this subject shows that not until the 3rd generation do people start to embrace their ethnicity - at a safe distance.
Your poem is quite interesting. I'm wondering if you focused on the researcher's questions to highlight the constructed nature of the research process. The researcher plans the study, selects the participants, write the interview questions, conducts the interviews and, finally, the researcher manipulates the interview material into a poem (or other text) that can't help but mirror his/her own interests. The extent to which researchers are aware of this varies, but the trend for the past 30-40 years has been to question the validity (and ethics) of the whole research process. Some researchers (Carolyn Ellis in The Ethnographic I and other works comes to mind) have thought it through and arrived at the position that auto-ethnography is the only honest way to conduct research. Others (such as Michael Taussig in The Magic of the State) explore experimental fiction as a mode of doing research. In short, qualitative research has been in a crisis for quite some time.
I may have completely missed the point of your poem, so please tell us why you wrote it in this particular way. I know that you've been out of town and are probably exhausted, so rest up first! My curiosity can wait.
Thank you, all, for the great work this week!
It is like you noticed, as I read through I could not help but become keenly aware of the researcher's presence. The questions, in a sense, said so much about what is considered worthy of research. They also certainly led the interview, which like you mentioned should be taken into consideration. I think its one thing for the interviewees to naturally arrive at the comments they made but its quite different for their responses to be prompted. Not that its wrong, its just something extracted rather than discovered.
DeleteLiz, your post on identity management reveals the extent to which appearance is a social performance. Thanks for including all the details, all the micro decisions that go into self-presentation. Social performance can be very complicated when we're part of a marginalized group. We exist in constant movement between worlds, each world having its own rules and meanings. We have multiple selves.
ReplyDeleteDear Friends;
ReplyDeleteThis has been one crazy weekend! We had an art show with Tapps yesterday (it is the private school UIL) and I worked preparing all weekend until 4:00 am Monday morning. Went to bed at 4:30, got up at 6:00 to drive to Boerne. So, I haven't had a chance to look at the blog, again, until today! Good news...our art students won First Place in District.
I have decided that you are all artists and poets! I am in a band of Renaissance persons!
I will make a stab at poetry, myself! Here goes:Poem (?) from appendix 3.1, p. 89-91
i am trying to focus,
like focus,
look good,
for yourself?
for others?
'cause, I don't want to grow up.
grow up!
up!
like.
looking good for others?
look good!
good!
good, like.
you start to feel like it’s true.
feel, like.
focus on true.
true.
‘cause I think like I could.
i don’t know.
i could.
like know.
everyone wants to look hot.
like hot.
look hot.
hot.
you know.
like, feel wanted.
wanted and stuff.
wanted.
but I didn’t want to ever,
like, other people.
yeah.
I like to feel, like.
attractive to guys.
guys.
image, body image
i
want
to
have.
like.