City Reading

Irina and I decided that we would go the International District in order to be able to catch different ethnicities interacting. Irina came up with a great idea to visit Pike Place because diverse ethnic groups were there, unlike International District which is predominantly Asian. We felt that wouldn't translate very well to our studies in Amsterdam, where Asian populations are comparatively less significant.

We took a stroll along a block in the Pike Place Market area. We acted as Marginal Participants because we could just be visitors/tourists like everyone else. This way we were able to look at which kinds of people were there, what they were doing, what they were shopping for, and their interactions. Because we were on the walk the whole time we decided to use photography to take snapshots and record the urban setting. Our photos are located here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7787602@N04/

We noted that we were very close to the water and could see the bay from our viewpoint. The streets that we visited were pretty crowded and lively. As we walked along one street, there were various small bakeries and shops with signs hanging outside of each one which were uniform in size. It was interesting that various ethnicities were present but a large majority of people there seemed to be native Seattle-lites that were enjoying exotic food in a tourist-like fashion. In other words, the signs were very commercial in purpose.

Most people there were together in families, especially true for immigrants. However, we never saw the groups interact much. They pretty much traveled together, independently. We had to make some assumptions for immigrants - the main one being the language we heard spoken because we couldn't realistically ask people if they were immigrants or not.

We saw people having selling their special crafts in the open air and then we went inside a covered market. We noted that outside, the individuals selling their crafts seemed to be separated culturally and socially despite the fact that they were right next to each other's tables. Inside, the flower selling stands were all working together and talking amongst each other as a community. Despite selling flowers from different sources, there didn't seem to be blatant competition. We hypothesized that flowers are such a universal theme. For the individuals selling their products, they are using their culture as a selling point and by emphasizing one's unique identity, one may end up avoiding interacting and mingling into other cultural circles.

That is a very interesting observation that we plan to take to Amsterdam. Right now we are curious whether the pressure to assimilate in Amsterdam can cause the opposite of what we see here - a feeling of oppression and lack of freedom because immigrant groups cannot stand up and speak out thoughts or complaints. Is forced assimilation detrimental? If it is, is Seattle a kind of alternative? Whether good or bad is debatable too.

We hope that in Amsterdam we can do this kind of urban exploration to get ourselves situated before we go to find particular people to interview. It's a great way to be able to understand how people interact and what reactions to expect out of people before venturing into specific research.