Workers speaking Spanish and customers speaking
English. In this observation I went to the deli in the
Ward circle building. It is centrally located and so
during class changes a lot of students go through the
deli. This provided me with observations on race and
language and their connections. Language connected
with race creates two divides one auditory and one
visual. You know you are different both verbally and
visually. Some patrons attempt to speak Spanish as a
courtesy to the workers whom they know. These attempts
are always it seems met with enthusiasm by the Spanish
speaking workers. No matter how bad the Spanish is or
rudimentary. The clash comes when English speaking
patrons have difficulty ordering or with understanding
the price at the register. Usually this is solved by
pointing or the universal translator of talking
louder.
This is an interesting performance of race because
with the addition of language and language differences
the differences between people can become more stark.
What?
This blog is part of a larger project of our anthropology class. While others pay particular attention to public communication, sex and sexuality, and body language, our focus here is the performance of race. We look at the many ways in which people or things become of an ethnic background. This can include how a person references, whether through physical attributes, speech patterns, or surroundings, another ethnicity. It can include the ways in which a person makes their own ethnicity apparent (or render them invisible). Even within one ethnic diaspora, we meticulously capture the events in which they separate themselves through even narrower ethnic classifications. Every entry displays a reenactment of a racialized characteristic in the context of American life -- and a profound sense of the meaning of culture.
Why?
We participate in the mass observation movement because we believe that it has much to contribute to the field of anthropology. We capture the "thick description" described by Geertz without the consequences of our participation. In each moment, we are able to catch power structures, cultural flows, functions, structures, an individual's or community's relationship to its environment, human agency, symbols and symbolic meaning, the difference differences make, and/or how history is played out in one simple incident.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
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