Ethnography review of “In search of respect: selling crack in El Barrio”

ETHNOGRAPHY REVIEW

This paper is an ethnographic review of the ethnography about “In search of respect: selling crack in El Barrio” written by Philippe Bourgois. In this review, I will talk about major points of the book, and compare them with what I learn from the lectures and reading. I will also discuss the correlation between the book and global health issues.

In the ethnography “In search of respect: selling crack in El Barrio”, a book written by Philippe Bourgois, the author talks about his experience living in East Harlem, also known as El Barrio in Spanish. This section of Harlem, located in the northeastern of Manhattan, is notorious for having the highest violent crime rate and jobless rate in the entire New York City. The area also faces many other social issues such as teenage pregnancy, AIDS, drug abuse, and homelessness. Most of the residents who live there are Latino such as Porto Ricans, Mexicans, and Dominicans. As stated by Philippe, the main point of this book is not about crack or substance abuse, it is about his first hand experiences with the culture and poverty of East Harlem. It is about the struggles that people there have to go through in order to survive in an extremely poor area of one of the riches city in the world.

In order to write the book, Philippe had to observe and participate in real life events in East Harlem. He and his wife moved to the East Harlem and lived there for three years. The first thing that caught Philippe’s attention was that based on the data of 1990 census, 38.9 percent of local residents lived below the federal poverty line and 62.1 percent of them receiving less than twice official poverty-level income. The numbers were astounding because they suggested that over half of East Harlem residents wouldn’t be able to meet their basic needs. However what he observed was totally the opposite. Most people there weren’t starving or living in the street. In fact, most of them were adequately dressed and healthy. He questioned about the hidden resources that helped those people to maintain their basic needs. What he discovered was an enormous underground economy running in East Harlem. The economy involved around cocaine and crack selling. It was a huge job opportunity for most men in East Harlem and incomes generated from it outcompete every other job opportunities.  In fact, the incomes generated from selling drug were so attractive that the author was surprised that many people still maintained their legal jobs. In order to learn more about the system of the underground economy, Philippe had to be a part of it. He got to know and become friends with drug dealers, thieves, drug addicts. Those were the ones that granted him easy access to a crack house near his tenement. The crack house, also known as “game room” in the book, was where he did most of his observations in his book. He also went further as getting to know their parents, spouses, children, and friends to learn more about their lives and personal struggles. At the beginning, his white skin and accent gave him difficulties to become part of the community. The way he talked and acted were so different from the rest of East Harlem residents. The dealers and addicts would avoid him because they thought he was an undercover cop. The cops would assume that he was an addict and searched him in many different encounters. However, later it was revealed that his white look and accent actually gave him an advantage. His look became his protection against thugs because most of them would think that he was an undercover cop. It also helped him become close friend with Primo, Caesar, and Ray. Those people helped him in the process of writing the book and they played a key role in it.

The characters such as Primo, Caesar, and Ray were the different voice and perspective came through in the work. Primo’s voice was depicted as a helper in each story. He helped the author to understand more about the street culture of East Harlem. He accomplished it by introducing Philippe to people who played important roles in drug business like Ray who was a crack entrepreneur and owned the crack house where Philippe did the research. He warned Philippe about the danger and consequences of his actions. Primo, in a sense, was used to represent the East Harlem residents who were forced into the drug business because that was the only for them to survive. The voices of characters such as Benzie and Caesar were used represent the drug addicts working for the drug dealers. The more I went deeper into the book, the more I realized that they were actually victims of the vicious drug cycle. Character like Ray represented the powerful drug dealer who had power and authority in the underground world. He used fear and violence to run his crack house successfully. I can also see the vulnerable side of him in the book. He couldn’t read and was unable to deal with any form of legal paper work. Every small business he created resulted in failure. The powerful authority figure he created was used to hide his weakness and his vulnerable side. Each character in the book had a different voice, but their voices were all used for a single purpose, that is to portray the street culture of East Harlem and to create a sense of sympathy toward the people there.

The book does an amazing job at depicting East Harlem community. It mentions every aspect of the community. Both the lives of normal residents and of those who involved in drug market are depicted in it.  All the characters of the book are based on real life residents of the community. The author uses his first hand experiences and observations of real life events to tell his story. Those experiences include the interactions between him with people in East Harlem, his observations of the underground drug business and the conversations he had with family members of the people who involved in the drug market. His book portrays the street culture of East Harlem. This ethnography should be used as a primary example of what happen in a poor neighborhood. Through what happen in East Harlem, we can analyze the causes of crime, violence and drug abuse. Based on that, we can come up with an effective way to reduce those social problems. What we learn from East Harlem not only apply to poor neighborhoods but it can also apply to the whole country. We learn from the book that the number of drug dealers has a correlation with the loss of jobs of East Harlem residents. Losing jobs prevents people from provide basic needs to themselves and their family. It leads to illegal activities such as selling drugs. Based on that, we can attempt to reduce the unemployment rate in order to reduce the crime rate. We also learn that culture barrier plays a big part in keeping East Harlem from getting legal jobs. Most people in East Harlem lack the necessary social skills to interact with people outside of their community. The only legal jobs they can get are low paying jobs with little respect. This is the motivation that leads to illegal activities and illegal activities lead to violence and crime.

 “In search of respect: selling crack in El Barrio” is about global health issue even though it doesn’t focus on health and illness aspects of East Harlem community. The main focus of the book is the street culture of East Harlem and the people in that community. We learn from lecture that global health is the health of populations in global context that transcends national boundaries. In the reading Scrimshaw 2006- culture behavior and health, it states that health and illness are defined, labeled, evaluated, and acted on the context of culture, and that people around the world have beliefs and behaviors related to health and illness that stem from cultural forces and individual experiences and perceptions. We learn that cultures have a big impact on how we perceive things. People from different cultures perceive health and illness differently. Therefore, in order to improve the well being of a particular population, we need to know the context of their culture. And studying about health of populations is one of the main goals of global health.

Philippe discussed three major points in this book. The first point was that the underground drug dealing business was a result of people losing their legal jobs in East Harlem. The second point was that even though East Harlem was notorious for violence, it rarely occurred to the people who weren’t involved with drug. Only those who were part of the drug business encountered violence. His third point was that legalizing drugs would lead to the reduction of crime rate and violence in the community.

Philippe argues that the high unemployment rate in East Harlem caused people to take part in producing and selling drug. The census data given in the book shows that more than half of East Harlem residents should not be able to meet their basic needs, and yet people are not starving. In order to meet their needs, these people have to resort in underground, untaxed jobs. Crack and cocaine selling provides the necessary income for them to survive. However, it is surprising to find out that the high unemployment rate is not because people there are lazy and refuse to get jobs but because they are unable to find ones. East Harlem residents lack the social skills and knowledge required for most jobs in the city. The only jobs they can compete for fail to provide them adequate incomes to meet their basic needs. Drug selling provides them with income doubling or tripling the amount they got paid from legal jobs. It is a no brainer that most residents end up involving in the drug market. However, Philippe’s calculation shows that income from drug is not stable and often time they only account the day when they make a lot of money. On average, it is almost equal to minimum wage income.

His second point is that only the people who involved with drug selling encounter violence. The normal people don’t usually encounter violence. In fact, it is safe to walk around East Harlem during the day and even early in the evening. Philippe has only been robbed once during 3 years living in East Harlem, while his friends who live in safer neighborhood have been robbed multiple times. We learn from the book that violence occur mostly in drug business is because drug dealers use it as a defense mechanisms. They act tough in public to gain respect from their peers. By creating fear or a “reputation” among people in the underground community, no one would dare to try to harm them. It not only helps them protecting themselves, but it also helps them run their business smoothly. In the book, Ray abuses this tactic to run his crack house successfully for many years.

The third point that the author tries to convey in his book is that decriminalizing drugs can reduce the crime rate and violence in this area. His second point shows us that violence mostly occur in the group of people involving in the drug market. If we decriminalize drugs, the drug dealers no longer have the monopoly over the drug supply. It will inflict a big blow on drug dealers, and thus reduce their numbers. Violence and crime rate will also decrease as a result. Some might argue that decriminalizing drugs is wrong because of the negative impact drugs such as crack and cocaine inflict on human body. But it is obvious to see that even if drug is illegal, people still manage to produce, sell, and consume it on a daily basis regardless of the laws. It is impossible to stop people from abusing those substances and by legalizing them; we take away the monopoly drug dealers have.  

The solution of the author for the violence in East depends on how we perceive it. We learn from the lecture that perception is a process of gathering information through any or all of our senses, followed by the acts of organizing this information and making sense of it. And perception is shaped by a lot of factors such as practicalities of everyday life, culture, economic concerns, and social position. In order to understand the main points of “In search of respect: selling crack in El Barrio”, we need to put ourselves in the position of people living in East Harlem and see how the street culture shapes our perception.

Philippe did an amazing job in portraying a vivid street culture of people in East Harlem through “In search of respect: selling crack in El Barrio”. In this book, we learn more about the people and their motivation behind their actions. Through that, we can feel our sympathy toward those people. It is also a message to us about poverty in many parts of our country.