March 25, 2010 Pieter Pastoor Thank you for this eye opening article. I look forward to your updates. I must say that I find it difficult to navigate your site (story). It mentions 8 updates however I can not locate them. Are the images considered updates. Would love to know how white America is viewed from their perspective. Is crime considered a must of survival or deplored. How does that community see the future and how are fixes in the system discussed. Thanks again
Thanks for taking on this kind of real in-depth story. I anticipate learning a lot about people whom I otherwise would have no way of observing in this manner.
Hi Pieter and Jonathan, Thank you so much for supporting us. I understand how the word "update" might have confused you. Our site has eight entries (so far) -- short posts that chronicle our experience living in MacArthur Park with a family from Mexico. They're in chronological order and named numerically to help navigate: Entry One through Entry Eight. And, absolutely -- we are working on getting some answers to your questions, how they and others here perceive America, crime, the future and the system. And Jonathan, we appreciate your comment! We'll do our best to invite you into the neighborhood and home we now live in with stories that are compelling and deeply honest. More soon! Devin & Kara
I am seriously disturbed by your story pitch and it is unlikely I will pledge to Spot.us again after seeing this. You exoticize a common experience that many of us have arriving to and living in the United States (not America, by the way... we are already from the continent of America). Like the problematic ethnographers who have paved the way before you, you choose to temporarily embed yourself in our communities, without making clear what you will give back to us. You claim to want to understand and include our voices and experiences -- so why would you choose to fixate on stories like "fake ID cards"? So that you can ignore our voices (which you claim to want to understand) and sensationalize our reality? You say that you live in MacArthur Park, yet this is "abroad"? Why? Simply because brown people exist there? I am deeply offended. To top it all off, you ask that we fund your adventure.... This site, I thought, was supposed to fund journalism, not whatever it is you are doing.
hi ramona. thank you for your feedback. like all of us, kara and i are limited by the personalities, time and place we were born into. this is one of the reasons we think journalism is so important -- at its best, it bridges this limitation and invites people (like the commenter before you) into worlds they wouldn't ordinarily go. the culture and economy of fake ID distribution is just one of these worlds -- we want to explore it as we think the way new, american identities are bought and sold is an important part of the neighborhood's story. i wrote that the neighborhood often feels abroad simply because i am still learning the language. (and the open-air markets, the street vendors, the whole way commerce happens here, reminds me a little of my time in oaxaca and, also india.) i feel similarly far away when i'm in the pico-robertson neighborhood and everything is written in hebrew and no one drives on saturdays. this is my third year living in macarthur park, and it's true that i don't know how long i'll stay. neither do maria and juan! they want to move home next year. they chose to invite us into their home last november after i introduced myself to a group of moms at leslie's charter school. i told them i was looking for a family that would help me learn spanish and let me write stories about them. then i told them what i could offer: rent, companionship, and help with their kids' homework. maria was one of four moms who approached me afterwards to say she was interested in kara and i as roommates. thanks again for your comment.
This entire project seems so far seems to be centered on the reactions of the two of you - "white" versus "the other"; it comes across as extremely self-centered and myopic. I'm less interested in how you react to the toilet paper situation rather than the people with whom you've taken up residence. Usually, self-reflection is more effective if it's paired with an effort to actually understand the lives and situations of the people you're supposedly chronicling. You say "the Marias and Juans of our country" don't care to learn English and don't seem to care very much about your life as an upper middle class white person. These are really just lazy generalizations about immigrants to the U.S.; have you bothered looking up actual data on this subject or is this just how you "feel"? It's a great idea, but why is it so focused on you two? Sorry, and in the photos of you interacting with 'cholos', why are you all dressed like you're at a hipster cocktail party? Maybe there's a reason people seem reluctant to talk to you.
I'm just amazed that anyone would think this was a legitimate project. It's beyond cultural tourism, and ventures into voyeurism, but the "reporters" aren't really that self-aware to be voyeurs. You're taking advantage of these people's good manners, and making the most superficial judgments about their lives, all filtered through your own privilege and expectations. I wouldn't be so horrified if you'd managed to find something new in the experience, but based on these entries--you've plumbed the shallows, all right.
We've responded to the variety of criticism we're received here: http://the-entryway.com/category/entry-9/ in an entry devoted to FAQs. Thanks.
It's very important that people who are perceived as "outsiders" or whites in a non-white atmosphere get a chance to immerse in a situation and view it with different eyes. Men will see things differently than women. Young women maybe view a situation differently than older women, you know what I'm saying... Young, professional men will see it differently than blue-collar workers who are older men. Non-Latinos will see it differently than Latinos. And really, within the Latino group, Mexicans might have a different view than Cubans and Cubans might think differently than Salvadorans. That's what makes all of us so interesting and more people should try writing about us and we can try writing about it too. I think everyone needs their own chance to share what they see. This is what they see and they're not pretending to be someone else they're not. I can appreciate your raw observation and emotions. If I live in my co-worker's home for 6 months, I'm thinking I will see the family situation differently than my co-worker or my co-worker's cousin, and I might be shocked by some things like what they eat or how they keep the place clean or dirty, or surprised by the kids' table manners or not having any manners or the strict holiday customs. Man, this is normal. It's based on the different relationships we have with the co-worker's family or our background. I appreciate the Spot.Us model while we keep having business layoffs and media layoffs. This is a good sampling of stories to select from, I will recommend it to my friends. Go for it.
Hi Devin, I just pledged my $5 credit toward your stories. I attended USC and spent lots of time reporting in the Pico Union area. I feel it is an exciting and vibrant part of LA that doesn't get much good attention in the media. I think your story pitches are a good start. I would like to see you partner with community organizations to empower immigrants to tell their own stories, in their own words. Have you thought about using mobile technology? Good luck! Daysha Eaton
