me at the bus stop. If the weather was okay, I’d even walk, which gave me a chance to see some of the neighborhoods that surrounded Robert Taylor. They were all poor, but even with their mixture of dilapidated homes and abandoned lots, not nearly as intimidating.
I always got nervous as I approached Robert Taylor, especially if J.T. wasn’t there to meet me. But by now I was known to the gang members stationed out front. So instead of searching me—which they often did to strangers, even if it was an ambulance driver or a utility worker—they let me go up to Ms. Mae’s apartment on the tenth floor. She’d fix me a plate of food, and then we would sit and talk.
I felt self-conscious that Ms. Mae had to entertain me while I waited for J.T. I also figured she couldn’t really afford to feed another mouth. I once tried to give her a few dollars for my meal. “Young man, don’t ever do that again,” she scolded, pushing the bills back at me. “Let me tell you something about us. We may be poor, but when you come over here, don’t pity us, don’t pardon us, and don’t hold us to a lower standard than you hold yourself up to.”
Ms. Mae was a heavyset woman in her late fifties who, unless she was off to church, always wore an apron. She always seemed to be in the middle of housework. Today’s apron was flowery, yellow and pink, with MS. MAE and GOD BLESS printed on it. She wore thick glasses and a warm, inviting look on her face. “You know, I came here with the clothes on my back,” she said. “Arkansas. Mother said there was no life for me down there no more. She said, ‘Go see your auntie in Chicago, get yourself a man and a job, and don’t turn around.’ And I didn’t. I raised six children in Chicago. Never looked back.”
I sat and ate as she spoke, trying to keep up with the stories she was telling as well as the food she kept heaping on my plate.
“We live in a community, understand? Not the projects— I hate that word. We live in a community. We need a helping hand now and then, but who doesn’t? Everyone in this building helps as much as they can. We share our food, just like I’m doing with you. My son says you’re writing about his life—well, you may want to write about this community, and how we help each other. And when I come over to your house, you’ll share with me. You’ll cook for me if I’m hungry. But when you’re here, you’re in my home and my community. And we’ll take care of you.”
I felt nervous as she spoke. Her warmth and her notion of community certainly challenged what I had read about Robert Taylor. Ms. Mae spoke to me as though she were teaching a child about life, not giving an academic researcher answers to scientific questions. Indeed, the time I was spending with families felt less and less like research. People who knew nothing about me nevertheless took me inside their world, talked to me with such openness, and offered me the food that they had probably budgeted for their own children.
No one back at the U of C had prepared me to feel such strong emotional connections to the people I studied. None of the ethnographicstudies I’d read offered much guidance about the relationships a researcher formed during fieldwork and how to manage them. The books talked about the right way to ask a question or address a respondent during an interview, but little about managing relationships with the people you hung out with. In time I would meet the anthropologist Jean Comaroff, who taught me about the benefits and dangers of getting personally attached to sources, but that was still a few years away.
Nor was Ms. Mae’s description of “community” something I was accustomed to from my own background. I don’t think I could name more than a few people who lived on the nearby streets in the suburb where I grew up, and we certainly never borrowed from one another or planned activities together. Suddenly I envisioned Ms. Mae coming to my apartment someday for a
I always got nervous as I approached Robert Taylor, especially if J.T. wasn’t there to meet me. But by now I was known to the gang members stationed out front. So instead of searching me—which they often did to strangers, even if it was an ambulance driver or a utility worker—they let me go up to Ms. Mae’s apartment on the tenth floor. She’d fix me a plate of food, and then we would sit and talk.
I felt self-conscious that Ms. Mae had to entertain me while I waited for J.T. I also figured she couldn’t really afford to feed another mouth. I once tried to give her a few dollars for my meal. “Young man, don’t ever do that again,” she scolded, pushing the bills back at me. “Let me tell you something about us. We may be poor, but when you come over here, don’t pity us, don’t pardon us, and don’t hold us to a lower standard than you hold yourself up to.”
Ms. Mae was a heavyset woman in her late fifties who, unless she was off to church, always wore an apron. She always seemed to be in the middle of housework. Today’s apron was flowery, yellow and pink, with MS. MAE and GOD BLESS printed on it. She wore thick glasses and a warm, inviting look on her face. “You know, I came here with the clothes on my back,” she said. “Arkansas. Mother said there was no life for me down there no more. She said, ‘Go see your auntie in Chicago, get yourself a man and a job, and don’t turn around.’ And I didn’t. I raised six children in Chicago. Never looked back.”
I sat and ate as she spoke, trying to keep up with the stories she was telling as well as the food she kept heaping on my plate.
“We live in a community, understand? Not the projects— I hate that word. We live in a community. We need a helping hand now and then, but who doesn’t? Everyone in this building helps as much as they can. We share our food, just like I’m doing with you. My son says you’re writing about his life—well, you may want to write about this community, and how we help each other. And when I come over to your house, you’ll share with me. You’ll cook for me if I’m hungry. But when you’re here, you’re in my home and my community. And we’ll take care of you.”
I felt nervous as she spoke. Her warmth and her notion of community certainly challenged what I had read about Robert Taylor. Ms. Mae spoke to me as though she were teaching a child about life, not giving an academic researcher answers to scientific questions. Indeed, the time I was spending with families felt less and less like research. People who knew nothing about me nevertheless took me inside their world, talked to me with such openness, and offered me the food that they had probably budgeted for their own children.
No one back at the U of C had prepared me to feel such strong emotional connections to the people I studied. None of the ethnographicstudies I’d read offered much guidance about the relationships a researcher formed during fieldwork and how to manage them. The books talked about the right way to ask a question or address a respondent during an interview, but little about managing relationships with the people you hung out with. In time I would meet the anthropologist Jean Comaroff, who taught me about the benefits and dangers of getting personally attached to sources, but that was still a few years away.
Nor was Ms. Mae’s description of “community” something I was accustomed to from my own background. I don’t think I could name more than a few people who lived on the nearby streets in the suburb where I grew up, and we certainly never borrowed from one another or planned activities together. Suddenly I envisioned Ms. Mae coming to my apartment someday for a
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