Project SHINE Field Note - Nov 18 2005

Anth 142
Field Notes @ Villa de Gurdalupe
3:00pm – 8:00pm
18 November 2005
ESL/Citizenship materials: N/A
Teaching method: N/A
Description:
I visited the site at 1:22pm after my class finish and stayed in library to check e-mail to see any other information from Sarah. It was a little hard to find the apartment since it locates back of the main street and there were road works going on at the Alum Rock Ave. The gate was unlocked and I saw some elderly people went in through the gate next to the large one for cars. I used that gate and found the entrance door locked. Then I saw the security lock with a speaker on the right to the door, and there is a sign, push three zeros to contact with the manager’s office. So, I pushed the phone and looking into the people at the entrance. When they saw me, one of them, an elderly male, opened the door. I thanked and asked him where I could find the manager. Then a mid-aged stout Latina(?) Woman greeted me at the counter and asked me to sign in on the paper on the counter. There is a section to fill out for the purpose of visit, and some other visitors filled out their families or friend’s name, so I asked the woman about it and she said I could fill out with “common.” Then I explained I was there for SHINE project, and she told me to meet Sandra, who has the office on the back of the hallway. When I entered the office, she was typing something on the computer, but once she saw me, she stood up and greeted me and asked if I was there for SHINE. She then gave me a short tour of the site, from the entrance door to the computer lab. On the entrance, she said that the pass cord for that day was #8991, and told me to use the code when I went back in afternoon. If I came back on next day, she told me to use 000, then she asked me to try the pass cord. Then I left the site, and told her to come back at 3:00pm. MTM: security matters.
It was 15 minutes before three, I came back to the site and found the sidewalks were almost full of cars, and I found a space on the corner and parked my car. The garage inside of the apartment lot had a sign “Tenant Parking Only” and the gate was locked. MTM: Does elderly people own cars? How do they manage their mobility with or without cars? I saw an elderly couple with a dog on leash walking to the entrance door, so I followed them. I opened the door with the pass code and filled out the sign up sheet on the counter. I saw a young woman (teenager?) sat on the couch in the open-room right side of the counter. I walked in to the space since the computer lab door was locked. There were three small (1m height) bookshelves with old English paperbacks. The one next to the door to the computer lab held the series of the Readers Digest Books. Two plants were on the small table with tabs, “In the memory of xxxx (someone’s name),” so they might be donated from the family of diseased. There was a TV on the East side of the wall and it was set to channel 2, Fox television. At three o’clock, a tall Caucasian male in 30s came and open the door to the lab. As I noticed, the girl entered the computer lab. I followed her, and there the Caucasian man greeted me and asked me if I was there for school. I said yes and told him that I was from SJSU. Then he gave me a brief introduction of the lab, which was one year old and the computers and materials was founded by the NNC, the neighborhood network communication or something like that. He also told me that there was an ESL program taught at the apartment. As there were no elderly people in the lab, I asked him to talk to Sandra about the ESL program and walked to her office. When I visited her office, there was a Hispanic woman sat in the chair in front of Sandra’s desk. When Sandra saw me, she paused the conversation with the woman and asked me if I needed a help. I told her about the ESL program Mike told me and told her that I saw the ad on the hallway telling there is one ESL class going on Tuesday afternoon. She asked me to follow her to the hallway and told me if I have time to come on Tuesday. I said that I have class until noon, so I could be there on next Tuesday. However, she said that there would be no class next Tuesday since the holiday week. Instead, she asked me to come the week after next week and told me that there was only one teacher teaching the ESL class, so it would be nice to have another person participate in that position. MTM: there is only one teacher teaching ESL and it seems lots of students come for the computer lab. Why there is no one to help ESL instead of computer lab? Then I came back to the lab and found the teenager sat on #3 and checking e-mail. Mike, the supervisor, was at #1, and told me feel free to use any computer. So, I sat at #5 and checked the computer settings. I found both C and E drives had 20GB hard drives each and it had D drives with CD-RW. It seems the computer had the Internet Explorer as the default internet search program and the default home page was set to MSN.com, which is the default setting of the IE. The links in the “favorite” folder had links to newspapers (Chinese and Spanish), Foothill College, and other major search engines like Google and Yahoo! At 3:25pm, an elderly Asian woman came in and sat #4 and started to play Spider Solitaire At 3:44pm, the Asian woman was still playing the game, and a elderly man gray T-shirts came and sat next to me (#6). Nobody talked in the room and the clicking sounds continued. The man next to me was checking Yahoo! Mail. Around 3:51pm, the man left. At 3:55pm, Mike walked around and looked the folder in the closet, and he drunk water. There was a water cooler in the room with seven extra bottles on the floor (four of them were empty). Next to the closet, there was a small shelf that contains a toaster, a coffee maker, microwave, and other kitchen needs. Left side of the door, there is a small sink and kitchen section. MTM: water bottles and other kitchen stuffs seems the room serves other need for the people. At 4:00pm, some people on the hallway talked about the story of man who was sent to hospital yesterday. They said he lives in the 3rd floor, but no body know who it was. MTM: the community must be quite huge, since people don’t know everyone. A Hispanic woman in yellow jacket came in and talked to Mike about that story. At 4:50pm, the woman at #4 poured water from the water cooler to her plastic bottle, and she left. On the monitor at #4, I saw the sign “You Won!.” At 4:01pm, Mike left the room. At 4:10pm, couple of people passed by. At 4:19pm, the man sat next to me came back and sat #2. At 4:20pm, I heard some people talking in the hallway and a man brought a TV set on a cart to the lab and chatted with Mike, then he left. At 4:30pm, Sandra with an elderly woman came and Sandra pour the water to a cup and they left. At 4:47pm, a guy with a hat and white T-shirts came in and asked the man at #2 to have dinner. He said that there were foods at the multipurpose room and pointed out the outside of the window. The man at #2 said he was not in a mood. The other man with a cane said there were clams, ribs, and said it was seven o’clock. Then they left the room. The man with a cane came back and talked with the man at #2. From their conversation, I figured out the man at #2 is Matt. Matt was playing chess on his computer. At 5:36pm, they left. About 5:20pm, there were Asian woman and an elderly Asian man came to the room A (living room), and looked around. I saw them from the opened door. When a woman (Sandra?) asked them how they like the place, the woman replied, “very nice,” and the elderly man agreed. MTM: a typical Asian American conversation: younger person has dominance in the conversation. The woman praised the cleanness and decoration. The woman (Sandra?) said “they are really old.” Then they moved to the left from the hallway. Mike was reading his Network-related book at the desk. At 5:58pm, the man with cane came in and asked Mike, who sat at #1, to have some food, then they left. From their conversation, I learned that it was someone’s birthday and foods were for his birthday party. Shortly after that, he came back and said “Wow, there is bunch of food there.” I replied, “yearh?” Then he said “I shall go back to get some,” and he left. It was 6:05pm. At 6:10pm, when I look back the window, I saw the multipurpose room with some people, and they held plate and a cup in their hands. It seems the food was distributed at that place. I saw Mike and the man in cane there. At 6:17pm, Matt came back and when I looked at him, he said “hi” and I replied him “hi.” Then he sat #2. There was a security camera on the SE corner ceiling in the computer room. I saw one in the entrance, above the counter, and the one above the door to the multipurpose room when I first came in. It seems security is important issue in the building. MTM: security cameras everywhere. Maybe they are to monitoring elderly people for safety purpose. At 6:25pm, people walk by and looked inside of the lab. Then a man came in without cane and sat at #6, which is next to my sheet. He held a plate full of foods; grilled chicken, tortilla, egg rolls, and so on. He said it was a party for someone and complained that the food was so tough to eat for him. And he started to ranch Google Earth program. Then he told me that he have been to Latin American countries and asked me couple of questions like where are you from. We started the conversation and told him that I am from the sister city of San Jose in Japan, and explained that there was a small replica of the Japanese garden in the Kelly Park, which locates the south of San Jose downtown. He did not know the park, so I showed him my city using the Google Earth, and showed him how to check the information. Some information icons on the map had the links to the pictures, so I used them to explain about the Japanese garden. While talking with him, I taught him how to use mouse wheel to zoom in and zoom out the map. He seemed excited about the function. At 8:00pm, I left the site.