Chicano Gang Graffiti Ethnographic Lessons Leo gave me my first lessons in ethnography. I'm not sure how he was able to know my job better than I knew it myself. But somehow his innate understanding forced me to see the consequences of my actions as an ethnographer and as a human being. Fieldwork is a slow and sometimes painful process. So much social and emotional angst accompanies trying to get to know the people you want to work with.
Ethnographic fieldwork is made up of people with moods and personalities.
You have your unlucky days and your lucky days, which makes fieldwork something of an emotional roller coaster. Working with gangs in the city where one lives is not considered typical anthropological fieldwork. I was a commuter anthropologist. I never lived with the people I worked with but, in typical L.A. style, would drive over to my field site and hang out with them. I thought wishfully of moving to where my informants lived and envied those who could leave the country to immerse themselves in another culture.