Seven Fridays in South Phoenix
Observations, Reflections, and
Photographs by Matthew Alan Lord
The More Things
Change, The More They Stay The Same, cont.
This
first day has shown me how difficult the fieldwork is going to be in
this class, but in a way unlike any of my classmates. I chose to
earn a measure of trust and access in Laveen by spending hundreds of
hours getting to know the rhythms, landscapes, issues, and, most
importantly, the people of Laveen, as well as outsiders whose work
deals with its transformation from a rural to a suburban place. I
get some of the inside jokes at meetings (and am the butt of said
jokes on occasion!), and understand the import of subtle
connotations in public discourse that someone just passing through
will miss.
I have built up none of that
credibility, none of that access, none of that experiential
knowledge in South Phoenix. I am strictly going by “book learnin’”
and what I have observed passing through, and paying attention to
the larger context. How am I going to find people who will trust a
completely unknown stranger enough to share their stories? By this
point in Laveen, I expect what I write can serves as a mirror
reflecting back to the community a reasonably accurate
representation of what has happened and is happening there. How
will anything I write about here be anything but a fun-house mirror,
distorting if not stretching beyond recognition the stories of South
Phoenix?
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We have just finished lunch at
Cancun, a great family-owned Mexican restaurant with a genuine
Mexican rodeo grounds out back. The owner himself welcomed us, and
the grilled shrimp platter is first-rate, and a steal at seven
bucks. We ended up here because we failed at our goal to get a
survey of the entire area by driving the all of the major surface
streets during class today. We have succeeded in making it only
along a stretch of Dobbins and the run of 19th Avenue,
flirting in spots with the divide between South Phoenix and Laveen.
One o’clock strikes, and we are off hunting for our “Freeze Frame.”
The religious shrines in the front
yards of this neighborhood have caught the attention of others in
the car, and we are on the prowl. It is an intensely Hispanic
neighborhood of single-story houses. Some seem almost
uninhabitable, while others gleam from fastidious upkeep. Camera
batteries dying, one of our patrol remembers he has a new
camera-equipped mobile phone. We pile out of the car, and gawk. Or
contemplate, question, and educate each other about what we
observe. No sooner do we set foot on the sidewalk than we are
spotted by a grandma with broom at the ready.
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