Reflection of the 35th and Lisbon Community

While traveling through the neighborhood around Our Next Generation my first observations were the large amount of churches, variety of day cares and “academies", and yet still quite a few liqueur stores. The abundance of churches and daycare showed that the focus points in this neighborhood are family. There was a lot of construction and I got the feeling that there was a lot of rebuilding and “fixing up” of the area. The more I looked, despite my first impression; I started to see the problems that were trying to be fixed. Groups of people hanging outside liqueur stores, run down stores, bared windows, and low income housing we’re some of the hidden challenges of any community.

We found our interviewee outside the dollar general store right after witnessing a pretty bad rear end car accident. A van driver wasn’t paying attention and rear-ended the van in front of it. The van he hit was full of kids and ended up having to go to the hospital (no serious injuries that we know of). Before he began to interview the man I noted how quick and responsive the fire fighters were in the area and how calm the people remained in the accident. We then went on to interview the two men that came out of the store and were enjoying ice cream cones. We asked them a series of questions about their community, what they would like to see brought to their community, a change they would like to see, cultural changes they have noticed, something unique to the area, and if they could describe their community in one word what would it be? The two African American men we pretty comical and were very willing to answer. They really wanted to see a recreation facility of some sort put up and a Home Depot (their Lowe’s store just closed). They wanted more job opportunities and less crime in the area (the marathon Gas station we stopped at, which is right across the street from the Dollar General, just had two fatal shootings in the last month one just two days before our visit).

The one thing unique to the community is the number of churches in the area and the growing Hmong population. Lastly the men described their community as “rough”.

I put together this photo documentation of the area and community around Our Next Generation and the documented the efforts made by people to help improve and heal the place the call home.