-
Appendix
- NYU Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
| 185 Appendix: Getting Schooled Into the Field I originally visited CAA in the spring of 1995 as part of an evaluation study of a school-to-work program coordinated by my university. I remember the educational coordinator, Candice, a short Caucasian, fluent in Spanish, who, with a bit of a snicker, asked, “Ever been to the ghetto?” I had not. She gave me directions for negotiating the twenty-five miles of freeways and surface streets. “Does it matter what colors I wear?” I asked naively. “No,” she said with a chuckle. The area, still mostly undeveloped years after riots had destroyed many businesses, seemed to consist primarily of windowless churches and liquor stores among the empty lots. Over the years, community organizing reduced the number of liquor stores while storefront, community-based organizations multiplied. I drove down a wide central avenue past a median strip with conifers growing out of green asphalt, giving the street a spacious if surreal quality. Often a couple dogs trotted along this strip, warily making their way into traffic. Along the sides of the street a number of small businesses, such as a VCR repair shop, a nail salon, and an eyeglasses shop were set off from the main strip by another concrete strip in order to provide parking away from traffic. The school sat a few hundred feet from this main boulevard, down a side street. I parked at the curb, checking the signs to make sure it wasn’t streetcleaning day, and walked down the sidewalk to the school, carrying a backpack with my surveys. I passed old Craftsman homes with lawns in front and wide porches. Some were well manicured, with roses and bougainvillea plants engulfing short chain-link fences running around the front of the yards. But others were a nondescript gray or a faded pink, sometimes with the shell of a car or two in the front yard, along with assorted trash blowing onto the sidewalk. 186 | Appendix After being buzzed in at two gates attached to twelve-foot high chainlink fences, I distributed the surveys inside an English classroom. I noticed that the students were all African American or Latino, many with tattoos and hairstyles I didn’t recognize, extremely baggy T-shirts, and jeans. They looked at me warily without paying much attention to what I said about the survey. Instead, they sought help from Candice, who warmly circulated among them, helping them decipher the questions. Arriving at CAA felt like landing on the moon. Of over twenty inner-city high schools I visited in the city as part of a school-to-work study, it seemed to have the most dire conditions. Also, since the school was small and the principal accommodating, it seemed more manageable than the sprawling bureaucratic structures set up for teenagers throughout the city. Finally, since every student at CAA was a dropout, by working there I could learn more about why kids leave school. In January of 1997 I visited Kyle Griffin at the community-based organization (CBO) connected with CAA. I had worked with Kyle at the university’s school-to-work program on and off since 1988, and his presence near my field site was a comfort and another motivator for me to choose CAA. As the months passed, I cherished our times in the backroom, smoking Carltons and bullshitting. Ms. Reynolds, the principal of CAA, was delighted that I would volunteer and conduct research at her school. An African American woman with a strong sense of southern manners and hospitality, she was always dressed fashionably. She told me that the young man she had hoped to match me up with was no longer attending. He had been in the school in the past but had had some altercation, and when he returned from camp she met with him and his parents, who begged and pleaded that he be allowed to return. “Camp?” I asked. “Juvenile?” “Yes,” she said, and continued nonchalantly. She said she had written out a detailed contract of what he needed to do. “He only lasted two days. He’s gone now. Said he was too tied down. There were too many restrictions.” I shook my head. “That’s too bad.” “But we have someone else for you.” She seemed to be grinning. She said his name was Chris and he was in the special education room. “Now what is it you’re looking at?” she asked. This was the first of many requests to explain...