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In the words of
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, eminent American folklorist:
"Armed with clipboards and cameras, the Lower East Side is
alive with cultural foragers. They speak English, Spanish, and
several varieties of Chinese-Cantonese, Mandarin, Fukinese, Toishan,
Shanghai. Most were born in the Caribbean or Southeast Asia. And
they range in age from ten to seventeen. After school, from 3:30
to 5:30, twice a week, they venture forth in small groups to map
the neighborhood, interview local shopkeepers, draw the interior
of the tenements and apartments in which they live, or watch senior
citizens practice Cantonese opera in Columbus Park… For
a few hours each week, these young people are encouraged to look
at the world in which they now live, to document what they see,
to talk to neighbors and relatives about their experiences, and
to value and make sense of what they find."
Waves involved several hundred teenagers working after school
for three years. In researching a “child’s-eye view”
of their neighborhood, they also learned photography, drawing,
interviewing, transcription, observation, and to work with others.
This unusual and carefully structured ethnography depicted the
communities of the Lower East Side from tenements to temples,
food to festivals, and much more, in the words of the people who
lived there.
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