I arrived early to this second, more regionally targeted mentor thank-you dinner, and passed the time reading in a café a couple doors down from the taqueria. It was the kind of place I think would have felt modestly upscale against the backdrop of the neighborhood’s past identity as a broadly targeted shopping district and will soon feel a little quaint here in the city’s “hottest neighborhood,” where, according to the tourism bureau, “another local boutique, funky restaurant, or cocktail joint seems to open every week or two.”
The same goes for Los Perros Felices, I think. I met Hannah and Sam as they waited near the door, and we entered the well lit, brightly colored space and before ordering gathered a critical mass of mentors and facilitators for whom the location of this thank-you dinner was better located relative to home and/or work. I don’t know if the place is locally owned or has some other prominently enacted pro-justice or -equity positioning like the restaurant run by the Walnut Street Community Coalition. It seems plausible, but my research didn’t turn up any definitive results.
As we wait for our food at a table in the dining room partially separated from the ordering area, we do informal introductions and have get-to-know-you-style small talk and catch-up time. We talk about what’s happening at a school where one of the participants works or volunteers, and the newish tech job of another, younger participant. There are six of us, including the co-directors and me, all of us white as far as I could tell.
We talk a bit about the two youth whose teams these volunteers belong to. One is a “non-talkative teenager,” with whom games are a source of connection, the other “a tween artist” who will engage through expressive activities.
I have done a fair bit of “supply clergy” work for Black congregations, and I appreciate his characterization of the challenges of respectfully entering a community with a different cultural expression of Christianity—participating fully and enthusiastically but wanting to avoid behavior that feels appropriative or fake.
He tells the story of attending a recent “foster youth funeral” at a Black Baptist church led by a pastor who has been very involved in local gang intervention work. He describes it as quite humbling to be present for the event, let alone called on to offer a blessing from his more affectively staid tradition and personal style.
The group expresses some interest in me, a newcomer who is not attached to a team. I probably showed some hesitancy about how to proceed with an answer, because Hannah invited me to “tell the group a bit what we’re thinking.” Interestingly, I don’t have in my notes, and cannot remember, anything about how my explanation was received.
When the evening wraps up, I leave with Sam and Hannah, who have driven together but walk me to the nearby public transit stop. We make plans for me to be in touch as I continue my proposal and ethics paperwork. I take my notes on my smartphone on the ride back downtown.
Data collection
- Field notes?: Yes (minimal)
- Audio recording?: No
- Photographs?: No
Significant observations
- I notice in Sam and Hannah’s orientation to the others a familiar pastoral leadership quandary: They attempt to keep the focus of conversation on participants and their personal lives or Tapestry work. However, this focus is somewhat undermined by participants’ curiosity about the co-directors lives and leadership roles.
Interpretive insights
- I think the dynamic above is also shaped by the co-directors’ commitment to the same kind of intentional mutuality and self-disclosure they encourage their volunteers to cultivate.
Implications / reflections
- The conversation about the Black Church funeral, as well as short digressions about gentrification, educational control, etc., put race and class at the center of my attention in a way that is sometimes hard for me to cultivate at those (usually quite small, usually adult-only) Tapestry events in which no BIPOC participants are present.
Image credit: “Taqueria San Jose” by ricardo via Flickr (CC BY 2.0). For illustration only—not a research artifact.