Participant Observation
Orange International Street Fair
Sunday September 5, 1999
James Reed
Given the particulars of this assignment I quickly searched for an activity that I had never seen or done before. I had to make sure that I found and attended the event as soon as possible because I didn't want to be caught short towards the end of the semester. I was lucky that it was before the labor day weekend when I began to look for an event, it proved to be much easier to find a community function that was being held during that three day weekend. I decided to attend a larger function because I thought it would be easier to describe it if I had a wide variety of people and activities to talk about. The Orange Street Fair seemed to be a perfect find. I have lived in Southern California all my life, even living in the City of Orange for three years, and have never attended this event. It offered a large number of people to describe and a great number of activities to talk about. It encompassed a large physical area that would be spread out over four city blocks, that much better to see a larger group of people.
With the decision about where I would go made I then turned to the actual task of the participant observation. I wanted to make sure that I had a good grasp of all the necessary skills I would need to accomplish the assignment. I began by searching the web for educational sites that might offer some points or insights into the actual work of a participant observation. I found many anthropology class notes that had been turned into websites for students to read. One from the University of California at San Francisco was posted in January 1998 under the heading Media Practice, Techniques of Participant observation. A quote that struck me was "one way to think about participant observation is to think of all the elements needed to tell a story - who, what, where, why, and how." A framework was laid out using these guidelines taken from a book by Goetz, J. P., and LeCompte, M. D. (1984) titled Ethnography and Qualitative Design in Educational Research. Orlando, FL: Academic Press. The website stressed the importance of good notes, stating that good notes should let you relive the experience up to a year later. A length of ten pages in a steno notebook was mentioned as a minimal amount for the length of the notes. I felt that I had a good if somewhat simple understanding of the assignment so after purchasing the steno pad and a couple of pens I began.
I will tell you now that I did not have a clue as what I would be doing or what the others around me would be doing when I first took off that Sunday evening. I waited until about two hours before sundown to leave my house and drive to Orange, some five miles away. I was nervous as I drove through the familiar streets in what once was my hometown, I had just moved from Orange some two years earlier. When I approached the main intersection that the street fair was being held at I began to notice the large number of people walking the sidewalks, all going towards the fair. It then struck me that I may have to park farther away from the event then I had anticipated. As I got closer to the center of the fair, the intersection of the two streets Chapman and Glassell, the crowds became larger and people packed closer together. As I drove pass the end of one of the four closed off streets I looked down to see hundreds of people packed so close together that they had to move as one unit. It was like a sea of people who were undulating around the food and beer booths. I slowly drove past thinking this is going to be tight. As I looked at the parking lots set up for the fair all had a "lot full" sign in front of them. I drove block after block past lines of cars parked on each side of the street, no where did there seem to be an open space. It wasn't until I had drove seven blocks that the cars had thinned out enough to allow me to park. I parked on the west side of Stewart Street just a half a block from Chapman Ave but seven blocks east of the circle drive that marks the intersection of Glassell and Chapman, where the fair was being held.
I got out of the car and pulled out my steno pad. I walked towards the traffic light at the intersection of Chapman and Steward writing in the pad the name of the event and the date. Even at this long distance from the fair there was still a good amount of people walking by, they all seemed to going in the direction of the traffic circle. I fell in with the people and began walking to the fair. It felt very strange to be walking along and jotting down thoughts and particulars about the event before I even got to it. Once I got close to the circle I was able to make out physical attributes about the fair.
I began to see the layout of the fair. A series of booths had been set up straight down the center of the closed of potion of the four streets leading towards the center of the intersection. At each end of the closed off street a stage was set up and bands would play. Chapman Ave. was known as Mexican St, as I got nearer I began to hear a band playing and a man singing in Spanish. The crowds had increased to a tight mix by the time I got to one block near the blocked off street. I had to move in closer to the stage to see the people playing the music and not be carried along by the constant stream of people walking by. The crowd was very friendly and really seemed to be enjoying themselves. I was a little embarrassed by the pad and pen in my hand, but people seemed to take it stride, even asking me what I was writing. It was very rewarding to tell them that I was doing a participant observation for an anthropology paper! They would open their eyes wide and nod their heads approvingly. I felt kind of like a cheat. Doing this for a first year class like I am makes it seem almost not right to let people think that it really is all that important. The crowds were moving in towards the center of the intersection on both sides of the stage. I left the bandstand and started to travel with the flow of people.
Directly behind the stage was the first food booth that I saw that night. This being Mexican street the food that was served was small beef burrito, also soft drinks could be purchased. Just past the food booth was the beer booth, serving beer from Mexico and that standard domestics, Coors and Budweiser. At the end of the booths and stage was the circle drive that surrounded the center of the intersection. Just to the left of the entrance of Mexican Street was the main stage, much bigger than the end street stages that were on each of the closed streets. The people were packed in front of this stage and they covered the street in front of it to the point that only a small stream of people could walk past to the other side of the stage. Two rows were working there way past the craft booths that were set up on the outside circle of the intersection. The crowd watching the stage allowed only a small section of open traffic space. I got in this line of people and bean to slowly move towards the other side of this crowd. Packed in like sardines, is the only way that I can describe it. We slowly walked toward the other side, just as a line of people were walking the other way. The travel was extremely slow our feet just moved the smallest amount as we shuffled along. It must have taken me at least fifteen minutes to get to the other side, some of us wiped our foreheads of mock sweat after finishing a great feat. The crowd standing watching the band play on the main stage would turn and look at the two rivers of people streaming across to the left and right every now and then. It seemed to me that the sight amused them.
The so-called craft booth setups around the traffic circle were not local craft sellers. There were some that were true businesses, cell phone sellers and even business opportunity pushers. I didn't look closely to what opportunity was being sold but I didn't think it could be much of an offer. It was funny to see the cell phone booths, I wondered to myself what international cultural group the phone sales people represented. Also around the traffic circle were three booths that were set up for fair business. One was an information booth, another was a lost and found booth, the third was an arm band sale booth. The armbands are used to purchase items at the beer booths. The bands cost five dollars, I asked where the money went for the bands. A young man behind the counter told me it went towards the cost of the fair that the City of Orange had paid. I thought it was nice for the City that it did not have to forfeit the monies that they had put out for the fair. The information booth told me of the huge number of people that were there for the fair. Twenty thousand showed up on the opening night, Friday. They also told of maybe limiting the amount of people that would be allowed to enter the circle area next year. I wondered how that could be done with the four streets leading out from the circle being fairly open and not knowing the number of people who enter or leave at all the streets. The woman in the information booth saw me writing and asked whom I was writing for. I was able to tell her about the participant observation for an anthropology paper story and was again pleased to see an approving look. Ah the power of science.
From the information booth I walked down Glassell St. which had been designed as Greek St. A band was playing on the small stage at the end street, and the food booth and beer booth were setup behind it like the other street. The food was the lamb pita sandwich that I had seen many times before, a very flavorful sauce spread over it. The beers were just the domestics. I purchased the pita sandwich and a beer and stood over next to a furniture shop window to do some people watching. It was amazing to see the number of people that were walking by. I could not believe the amount different kinds of people, the families, the couples, the groups of kids. They all seemed to be here for the same reason, just to walk the fair. I finished my meal and walked back up to the circle. I did not walk over to the main stage area, the crowd still fanned out to cover the entire street area in front of it. I began to walk towards the other side of Chapman Ave. Chapman Ave. was laid out as an alpine area. The setup was the same as the other streets I had seen so far. A small bandstand was setup at the end of the street and a beer booth followed a food booth. The food served here was an apple turnover type of baked good. It looked tasty but I did not buy one. There was another beer for sale down this street, Carlsberg. This is a well-known brand of beer that is imported to the United States from Holland. It was priced at one dollar more than the regular beer price, I wondered if the beer was better than the other domestic stuff but I could not find out as I was told that the beer was sold out. Coming out of this street I past more of the business booths on my way over to the fourth and final street, North Glassell St.
The north side of Glassell Street was set up as what was called Polynesia Street. It had the same sort of setup as the other streets, a food booth and beer booth and a small bandstand at the end of the street. The food was marinated pork on a stick; this is probably why the street was attributed to Polynesia and not a larger populated Pacific Rim country. The music was not really anything that you could call Pacific Rim either, It just seemed to be a local rock band. I had noticed the same thing down the other two streets that I gone down. The Nordic and Greek theme streets were not represented with a musical group that seemed to be part of their theme either. I knew that being so intertwined with the country of Mexico here in Southern California that it was easy to find the musical groups for the Mexican Theme Street but the other cultural theme streets were lacking in the same musical selections. Leaving the fourth and final street led me to the center of the traffic circle.
The center of this traffic circle has four large trees around a concrete fountain. There is a plaque at the base of the fountain telling the date of its being placed there. In the setup for the fair the circle is cut up into three large areas. One half of the circle was made into a small petting zoo. There were a dozen or so animals inside a fenced off area, there were goats a pig and even a lama. Mothers mostly were taking their small children through the gate to pet the animals. Small packets of food could be purchased and fed to the animals, which many children were doing. I stood and watched this interaction between child and animal. It was very interesting to see the kids wide eyed with wonder as they came close to these animals and reached out to touch them. I laughed out load as a small boy squealed with delight as he felt the lama's forehead. The lama must have been very used to this for he or she didn't even seem to flinch when this happened. It was very pleasant to stand there and look at this, I even forgot to take notes. Many other people were standing around the petting zoo and watching with me.
The other half of the center circle was spilt into two separate areas. One was laid out for face painting. Even at this late hour children were still having their faces done. I watched this for a while as the face painters would talk and joke with the kids. The kids would laugh and jump up as soon as they would be done and run screaming through the fair. The other area was setup as a sweatshirt painting area. A spinning well device was setup for the purpose of painting the shirts. The unpainted shirts would be placed into the well and bottles of paint were poured into the well as it would spin the shirt at a fast rate. The People who were running this section were wearing products that were produced with this painting technique. The normal sweatshirt was painted with circular swirls of bright paint, something that the kids enjoyed to the utmost.
These sections in the center circle seems to be more of a distraction for the younger set than a statement about international cultures. In fact the entire International Street Fair seemed to be more of a community get together than a demonstration cultural intermingling. The aspects of this event that seemed to stick out to me as standards of cultural difference were limited to at best the food. It was the only thing all the different streets had in common as having specific cultural aspects. The Mexican Street was the only truly cultural avenue that seemed to be presented. Perhaps it's because the close nature to the Mexican community that Southern California already enjoys. It would be very easy to get the food from this part of the world and the music would not be that great of a problem either. I walked down this part of the fair again to try and get a feel for this cultural nature that the rest of the fair seemed to lack. It was apparent that it was easy for this group to setup here. It felt more real and relaxed than the other parts of the fair. Thinking back to the other three streets perhaps the Polynesia Street was the closest to achieve a realism that this street did. For the pure feeling of the culture that was supposed to be around you through, the Mexican Street did the best job.
By the time I had walked down through the Mexican Street the fair was only going to be open for another hour. I decided that it was time for me to head back to my car and try to sort out the notes I had taken. I continued to take notes as I walked backed. For seven blocks I walked and wrote in my pad by the streetlights. My ideas were still jumbled together too much to be able to write any sort of paper. I only hoped for something to come out of my memory to spark an overall approach to the assignment. I came up to my car and stood there leaning on its top writing in my pad. I started thinking about the so-called cultural mix of the fair. It was more apparent to me that this so-called International Street Fair was not really setup to be any kind of true view of the cultures represented. It was more an end of summer three-day weekend celebration. I began to come to the conclusion that it really wasn't setup to be that culturally significant in the first place. It was just an end of summer community get together that had a loose cultural theme. Perhaps that says more about the mixes of cultures in this country than anything else does.