Sorry for the delay in posting on the blog. My first visit to the Families office took place last Friday with Amber. We drove east down Washington Blvd into the warehouse district, a part of Los Angeles that to which I had never been and a part that never seems to be mentioned in conversation. There were numerous fast food stands, electrical cables, and free-flying newspapers along the sidewalk, and the metro was to our left almost the entire drive. The office itself is located within a warehouse-type facility, right next to a gentlemen's club and the freeway.
I parked the car, and Amber, having previously visited the facility, knew at which door to press the buzzer. After ascending a flight of stairs, I was pleasantly surprised by the extremely clean and professional atmosphere of the office. It was a much different environment than the outside area. By no means did I expect a trashy office; I was just very impressed. Immediately, we were greeted by Amalia, our helper and liaison with the Mothers of the Incarcerated. She was nothing but supportive as we presented our preliminary ideas for the documentary, and knowing the mothers better than any of us, she offered her own insights on how we could best approach and execute this project.
As we continued our conversation, I gazed around Amalia's office and noticed that it was chock full of photos and thank you letters. Her walls were a visual scrapbook. One of the letters in particular caught my eye. It was written by an incarcerated father, thanking Amalia for allowing him to be reunited with his daughter. A photo of their visit together was posted right next to it. I realized then that Amalia and this organization are making some extremely admirable, touching accomplishments. They help and represent families that go largely unaided and unnoticed.
Though it was hard to find days that worked in everyone's schedules, by the end of the meeting, we scheduled our next two visits - one at the Mothers of the Incarcerated group meeting and another at an individual's home. I can't wait for these next two visits because we will actually be meeting the families with whom we will be collaborating.
1 comment:
Hi Nick: I'm glad you were able to visit the site and meet with Amalia before you begin with these interviews. Is there a regular meeting of the Mothers group that you will all attend?
If there's not a regular occasion to meet with a stable group of folks, it will be harder to make the project collaborative, but you can still make it an activist project by focusing on telling some part of the story that doesn't get told. Rather than focusing on more sad stories, in other words (which obviously can serve a useful function), see if you can broaden out the issues to focus on deeper or structural aspects to the problems you identify.
And please do keep us posted...we'll look forward to hearing about this collaboration.
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