Tag Archives: #pushpapraxis2015

A Need for Structure

Today was our first true day exploring skid row, graf 1which is 50 square blocks that is home to four to six thousand homeless people. One of my favorite parts was walking through the skid row streets themselves. The streets were dirty and covered in trash, tents, and sleeping and sitting people, but it w as sunny and you could see some subtle beauty and rhythm in it all (this is where you call me naïve). I thought about how no matter where, there s a natural flow to how people self organize, an unspoken structure. People claim territories and there are certain things you do and don’t do and all the locals understand it. And to people like us, floating through, this is invisible.

Of course the same thing happens in language, too – it takes one generation to form grammar rules and sentence structure in a makeshift language. During the boom of slavery in the States, slave graf 2owners would purposefully get slaves from different parts of Africa, so that they couldn’t converse and for together. The slaves suffered unimaginable isolation (among other things), and communicated as best they could in a language that was a mix of their own. But their children would form a fully coherent language out of that, complete with grammar. Some linguists say that this is because our brain is wired to hold grammar structure, which makes learning language when we’re young so easy. Thinking about the imperceptible rules and laws on skid row, I wonder if humans in general thrive off of invisible structure.

*The images are from a grafitti mural I liked a few blocks up from skid row

Should I ask?

There are a lot of firsts for me on this journey. I’ve never been on an organized trip before, with a group. I’ve never written a blog about it (shame, shame, I know). I’ve never been a tourist in the States, or traveled much in the States at all, for that matter. I’ve ever done group research, and that is something that really interested me about this trip – when else will I get the chance?

One of the things I was concerned about going into the trip, is how to interview people about things they talk about every day, difficult, nuanced, delicate things, and how not to seem like we are using people’s misfortune and hardships as an opportunity for tourism. On the very first day, the very first person we talked to, proved me wrong. Granted, this was just our first day, and we got very lucky with the person we talked to – pure serendipity. But I am very curious, now, about how this will continue. And I am no longer so concerned.

Sunday is an unfortunate day to conduct almost any kind of business in the States, much less meet with people who have offices and business hours. So our merry group of seven set of on a mostly unplanned day, beginning with the Dolores Mission for a Jesuit service, which was conducted primarily in Spanish. I found myself both engaged and struggling with the language, because with my limited amount of French, I could understand juuuuuuust a little to see how much I didn’t know – about the service, the Jesuits, and the community. After the service we caught up with one of the leaders of the service, and asked him to come talk with us a little. He treeeeeeagreed, and so I had to face my small fear of imposing.

I found, instead, that he talked to us freely, because we, in our current role as researchers, were the best listeners, eager and asking questions; and because most people want to be validated and heard. And in return for facing my small fear of asking about those things, we found many answers, answers that revealed much about the invisible roots of the community, much like the exposed roots of this majestic tree I found, not far from the Mission.