In order for this to be effective, I need to start using it during production, so my reflections do not become an after thought.

First order of business: title.

My instinct, in that kum ba ya sort of way, was to name the site, Know Your Neighbors-- a double wink toward Mexico as a neighbor, as well as people who live in my neighborhood, some of whom are also from Mexico, but many are not. Generally, it is a call to get to know each other a bit more, to rekindle a curiosity toward difference... It was also speaking toward my desire to settle into this neighborhood and create community with those in my geographical proximity.

Mole and cream cheese (title under consideration) became icons that represented in my mind Puebla and Philly respectively. Mole, a food that I wanted to connect to a particular region (even though mole exists in many varieties throughout Mexico), and because during my summer in Puebla, mole was the staple. And yet, it is not a food we associate with Mexico- generally speaking- people are more likely to think Burrito= Mexican food.

Philadelphia brand cream cheese, was labeled as such because it wanted to ride on the reputation of Philly foods at the time of production. For people in Philly, cream cheese is not a local food-- cheesesteaks and soft pretzels define the town. In Mexico, on several occasions, when I told people I was from Philly- they said- oh, like the cheese-- and this was their point of reference. Philadelphia brand did a good job of importing its image around the world- but the meaning has been lost.

As our understanding of people and places becomes more and more mediated, I want to offer "the conversation" as a way in....

Last thought for the night--- How do we know what we know? How is meaning constructed, connected and experienced?

onward!

MARCH 11

It's seeming more and more impossible to keep focus on this project. I want it to do too many things.

- Yet the reality remains, for an english audience, what can it do? What is it actually doing?

Is it brining a bit of the context of Puebla to life- as it may have been lived by Mexicans before coming to Philly? Is it encouraging curiosity and interaction, when possible despite language barriers?

What can a friendly stranger offer to someone who has risked their life hiking for weeks across rivers and mountains to find out that the Dream is a scam. Once here, work, work, work. How very American.

Coming to the States changes people. For a culture that is bound by family, community and customs-- living here in somewhat isolation and fear, bound by work, can be very depressing.

Another point of the maps on the same "page" was to show the way that these places often exist as 2 distinct places, with nothing in between. One world is all that is known of the US, the other is all that is known of Mexico. Often the possibility to travel within one's own country is limited-- much less the opportunity to

travel in a new country.

MARCH 19

Problematics of audience and intent.

I have yet to show this project to some of the people I have interviewed. I find it difficult to describe, and end up talking about it as interactive documentary about the neighborhood. I have shown pieces of it to friends I worked with this summer, who enjoy the stories and interviews-- However it's a strange feeling to be so closely focused on people in a place (in this case in a small town in Mexico) who do not even have internet access to view the project. I do hope when I visit again one day to bring a simulated DVD copy to share with them...

Even still the whole premise of wanting to know more about a place, and having the resources and capacity to go there, at will, more or less, demands great responsibility and continues to be a source of tension. Evidenced by my conversation with Raul, the owner at Plaza Garibaldi who, when talking about how the mole is prepared- made a comment like, well you probably know better than I...

MARCH 21-- NEW FOCUS?

I'm going back to the idea in this quote that I always found interesting:

the excerpt is from Jean Genet- and refers to travel as less about penetrating a country, and more about getting to the "interior of an image."

Although I am not offering a substitute for experience, I am asking us to reflect upon the meaning that we impose on images- and the contexts in which images gain meaning. When I think of images in this context, I think from the iconic to the photographic - and how our reading of images informs our reading of people and expectation.

In some ways my interest in going to Mexico was to see what is behind the image, the stereotype, the iconography, the faces that have become part of our cities, but often remain empty of complex meaning. At least this was my frustration...

The ways in which images affect our expectation and experience is reflected in this quote- but not limited to migrants:

"For migrants, both the politics of adoption to new environments and the stimulus to move or return are deeply affected by a mass-mediated imaginary that frequently transcends national space."''

Coming from a US perspective, we encountered our stereotypes not only about the Mexican population, but also about our romanticism of "indigenous" communities.... as if "indigenous" had to wear “traditional” dress, woven shirts, braided hair, leather sandals, white pants-the whole bit... the assumption was that all indigenous people look a certain way (authentic), as if mestizo campesinos aren’t as interesting or worthwhile to know… as if they can't also teach us something about indigenous culture.

For the people in the community who had never had foreigners stay in their town, we came to represent a different version of America, one that is not shown on TV, an America that represents different states, behaviors, ideas. We brought all that is good and bad about America with us. Hopefully more good? We proved we can cook- we don’t always eat fast food and hamburgers all the time… we came with stories that complicate the American dream, that offer a more complex understanding of our reality- beyond the shine and gloss of material things…

However as a mostly middle to upper class group, some of us also carried an assumption that we know better. Like many programs like this one, people come to do good. They come to build things… yet to those who we are serving, the value remains in the time, the conversations, the presense at birthday parties, confirmations, while the “things we have done” are secondary.

And so I'm going to try to start this piece here. As an attempt to follow my desire to move beyond the image toward the conversation.

Although this is not an exercise in breaking down stereotypes and images, I hope that it helps illuminate the complexities of intercultural exchange-in relation to class and power dynamics... Lastly, I hope this project asks us to reflect upon the meaning making process, at the intersection of image, conversation and experience.

MAY 1---

okay it's still not working- needs focus- trying to do too much..

I come back to my main themes- value- strangers- responsibility- - encounters

-- many people enjoy the adventure- the exploration- this is the strength, not the economic, political, cultural or social analysis-these thoughts are still forming and still being learned. Rather, it is the process that I emphasize as important. It is a process of exploring community in these 2 places- as it develops through relationships with people.

So with this-- I come back to the stranger- and the original- know your neighbors- premise...

as I look for better articulation of these ideas in the book, Strange Encounters by Sara Ahmed- this is what I find provactive and useful:

"the stranger is both within and without the same thing: as the border that determines the necessity and impossibility of the difference between one and an-other."

"knowing strangers, in this sense, is about telling the difference between what one knows and does not know, in such a way that this difference is already called into question."

"the flow of images and objects across border lines invites us to consider how identity is reconstituted in a rel to the strange and other"

and my thoughts:

- problematize "adventure" as seeking our difference- priv- compared to forced migration and diff being non negotiable- power of choosing to exp difference... carries a responsibility of - priv of knowing other cultures is also a responsibility- can not be negotiated by "modern" values.

- strange foods- familiar brand.- made stranger by the outside exp mole/cream cheese

- outsider can reflect the strangeness in the familiar-- at this point that this line becomes relative-- degree to which we can get outside of ourselves...

-- images/commodities create a shield for false knowing...

- communicative ethics...

- asymmetry- "a condition of our communication is that we acknowledge difference, interval, and that others drag behind them shadows and histories, scars and traumas that do not become present in our communication"

"such an ethics of communication would allow what cannont be spoken or voiced in the present, to be opened, or reopened, as that which remains ungrasped and unrealised, as an approach that is always yet to be taken."

-"holding proximity and distance together"

"... a testimonial ethics is not simply about speaking, but about the conditions of possibility of hearing"