Washington, DC, 2009.
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Start M19 A(1)
Fw: <unintelligible text>
IN: let's see, the only tricks we, yeah, <gap> we used to play all the tricks on her. We used ta say that another teacher said that we should, ya know, we don't havta, see, she hada student teacher in there helping her and we used to say that he said that we should get out early cause we had ta go somewhere, you know, we used to stay on so much projects tryin to raise that money, ya know, for the camping trip, ya know, she didn't have nothing else to do that <unintelligible text>, so we left and instead of goin there we all-the whole class almost went up to uh ones our teachers houses...he took us out there, and she didn't know anything about it, and she'd say we tricked her, ya know, cause she was sposed to have told her about it, she was sposed to a went with us and we just went up there cause we got this <VW?> and there's a couple other teachers took us out there.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: We, uh, his wife musta been expectin us cause she had uh cooked a great big old cake with lemon sauce, whatever you have on it, and she had milk or some kinda punch, I think, I'm too sure what it was, so long ago. He had just-he got his new house, ya know, and we was on a housing project different--knowin about different kinda houses and he took us next door and looked at her fireplace, cause he didn't have a fire place. We did all that.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: You mean uh... <Wyman?> School? Uh, huh, 8:00, you have to be there at 8.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Well, it depends on how many classes you got. Me, since I go to summer
No. 1 VHL
p. 10
SChool I got three classes, typing, english, and I got uh American history, un ya get out about 12:30
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Well I don't have to do nothin but take one bus and that's to Forest, tha to <eneastown?> down there, and I get there in about 15 minutes time so I don't have to leave til about 15--a quarter to 8.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Oh, yeah, we all need to go to the same school. Used to be 5 of us, 5 of us. Every place you see on you were bound to see the others.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: They fellows and girls, they used to be fellows and girls, but most of then are outa school now--the fellows. They all in the service. So now, us girls are left and all you see is us..running around--we do everything mostly.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: We go skatin, we usually meet each other down at skatin, we go uh down to Mason's to a dance every Friday. And we go to show on Wednesday, Ladies Day, we usually meet down there too.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: No. They older than I am. They're around 18, 19 years old.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: I'm 16
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Yeah, <unintelligible text> giving me driver's training til I go back this fall.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Well, I used to hang around with the Puerto Rican girl and she used to speak it. Sometimes, <unintelligible text> she get mads, she be talking all that, you couldn't understand a thing she be sayin but you be guessin. She real nice tho, every time you see her she's smilin.
<unintelligible text>
No. 1 VHL
P. 11
Uh, that's about all. I got a white girl friend live down the street, she hang around with us too sometimes.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: No objections, we walk out just like we own the place, just like we do here.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: No, not that I know of.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: (Yes)
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Oh, at Northeastern, it's quite a few uh colored. And now in my room, summer school, we have four Polish, they just came I think in this country, ya know, and they can't hardly speak it, but they can speak it better than we can, what little they know, ya know. And I don't know how in the world they understand, ya know, they use the same books we do and they uh don't even know the language that good.
FW: <unintelligible text> color?
IN: Well,...
FW: <unintelligible text> or..?
IN: You could call me colored, I mean, that's what <unintelligible text> ya know, we we can talk free together, ya know, we don't have no ya know barrier ta...
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Uh, huh.
FW: <unintelligible text> or..
IN: No, but, ya know, when we start talkin if she got a friend that I don't know, the only way I know is, ya know, is she point out the color to me and like she say's she's colored and she is so and so, and that's the only
<unintelligible text>
No. 1 - VHL
p. 12
way I know her, ya know, otherwise I wouldn't know who in the world she talkin to.
FW:<unintelligible text>
IN: No. I I think you can live without all that, I mean, you see somebody and you talk with em..
FW:<unintelligible text>
IN: Yeah, she could call them "colored" she- ya know, cause every colored person <unintelligible text> not exactly black.
FW: <unintelligible text> who seems to be <unintelligible text> who comes up with all the ideas?
IN: <unintelligible text> I don't know what we'd do without that girl. She always, you know, like we just be sittin around the house and ain't got nothin to do, she always come up with something, I don't care what it is. Always has somethin, ya know, to go. I don't care if its to the store and play records.
FW: <unintelligible text> school?
IN: I'm planning on being a nurse.
FW: <unintelligible text> to do?
IN: Well, I'm goin to have to take up a little bit more math cause I'm not goo good in math and only I'm goin to be a good nurse is to take up, ya know, be good in math and uh, let me see, what else, try to take up, ya know, try to get into most good subjects that I can't get in.
FW: <unintelligible text>?
<unintelligible text>
No. 1 VHL
p. 13
IN: Plan on goin straight to training....nurse's training.
FW: <unintelligible text> go?
IN: I don't know - I haven't made any plans yet. But I know one thing, I wanta be uh--this certain, ya know, it's a nurse who makes the beds and uh, ya know, give the medicine and everything and it's another nurse that only have desk work, and I'm trying -- I think you have to go two to 4 years, I think, for that, and I'm I goin to try for that.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Whoooo! Uh, I don't know, I wouldn't know what to do with it, if I had all that money. Probably buy a new house, uh, get clothes, uh you know a lota stupid stuff, ya know, I wanted and couldn't get.
FW: <unintelligible text> house?
IN: Whoooo! in the best neighborhood I could find, you know, so if I get anything good it tore up by anybody, be wround people who wants to keep their neighborhood clean.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: No, not around--oh I've been, the homes been O.K. but just didn't like 'em. I want it to be different.
FW: <unintelligible text> of work?
IN: Who me, no...housework.
FW: <unintelligible text> live?
IN: Well, you might as well call it "slum" cause that's all it is. But the people who tryin, tryin to make a decent living for themselves, they're not downright bad but, you know, they're average..not even average, they little below average tryin to make whatever they can outa things.
FW: <unintelligible text> work?
IN: Most of 'em work in the plant and uh construction and I think we got a couple uh school teachers livin over there on Burns, and we got quite a few
<unintelligible text>
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p.14
school teachers and nurses livin around here.
FW: <unintelligible text> cular name?
IN: We call it east side.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: East side? Well, the east side it's a whole lot different from the west side. The east side they--we say--is about the best place you could live because you know everything that's goin on, but when you get on the west side you think they know everything goin on, but wherever they have to go they have to go on the east side to go to.
FW: <unintelligible text> side?
IN: Hmm, not too sure.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: The east side of, I think about as far as East Davidson--it's about our territory...cause we all--we scattered all around.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: To, let's see, East Davidson to hm--I wouldn't know.
FW: <unintelligible text> city?
IN: Detroit? Michigan.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: <Gratiot?>, Moffitt, uh, you could say, <Holooln?>, These most of those streets, ya know, we go to.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: I was born in that <Herman-keefer?> Hospital.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: In Detroit, Michigan.
FW: <unintelligible text> here?
IN: We lived over across the street and, uh, on Seminar, we lived on Seminar
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p. 15
and uh thats the only two places we practically lived since our--my father died.
FW:<unintelligible text> Detroit?
IN: Yeah,
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: I went to Toledo, Ohio. I went to um Jackson, Michigan. I've been to Chicago and New York to see Niagara Falls.
Fw: <unintelligible text> trips
IN: Uh, when I went to Jackson, I went to Jackson for New Years. I spend New Years night over there with my aunt and we came on back the next day, and when we went to Toledo, I think we went to uh camp, and Battle Creek we went to camp--we stayed a week in both places.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: How do we what?
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Uh, usual way buying presents un talking about each other un knowin, ya know,buy our presents and thinkin about what somebody need, un, we sit around Christmas eve cause, see, since my father's dead I'd be the one stayed up, ya know, to sorta get the things out cause my mother--she know the kids know there's no such thing as Santa Claus, but she still make em go to bed--they still have to go to bed.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Humm, well, my pairs of roller skates. I didn't think I was goin to get em cause my mother kept saying she wasn't goin to get me no roller skates cause I wouldn't know how to take care of em, and I was just wishin for some roller skates, and the next thing I knew it, I had em. She didn't let me know until Christmas. I went over there--upstairs to get the things out and I found a box with roller skates in it and she said they was mine.
<unintelligible text>
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p. 16
FW: <unintelligible text> of October?
IN: You mean around Halloween?
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Well, one thing they go garbage can nite they knock over all the garbage cans and try not to get caught-that's the nite before Halloween, they call it"garbage can nite". You dress up, ya know, bunny, and run around people's alleys and whoever keep their garbage Can out, ya know, get their garbage can knocked over. That's how they know the gobblin's been or the gobblin's goin to come. And that's when we know it's garbage can nite, we bring the garbage cans up here on the porch that's the only way they cannot get to 'em.
FW: <unintelligible text> and ring the door <unintelligible text> say?
IN: They say, "Trick or Treat."
FW: <unintelligible text> else?
IN: Trick or Treat. They say all that stuff.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Yeah, my father took us out, my mother was working, then. <gap> My father took us out Hallo--you know "trick or treat" and my brother he wasn't no bigger than that, small, and he had his bag, and he was, ya know, lagging behind and I had his hand, you know, and uh you know how kids snatch the bag, we he had snatched the bag quick and didn't say nothin about it until we were six blocks away from where he got his snatch from. We was goin from house to house he was puttin it in his pocket, I didn't even see it until 6 blocks, it was 6 blocks away and and found out he said he didn't have no place to put his apple at.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Well, around here? We don't have too many fights. They argue, ya know,
<unintelligible text>
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p. 17
kids, they get together and they argue....they'll argue about things.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Oh, no. I'm too big to be out there fightin and fUssin.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Uh, huh, the little ones do, <unintelligible text> but they goin to be right back out there the next day playin with each other.
FW: <unintelligible text> they fight?
IN: A lota talk and rubbin shoulders-going around in circle, that's about all they do.
FW: <unintelligible text> other?
IN: (No) Their mouth be runnin too, you know, too long and too fast so they just forget about hittin each other - they just be goin around in circle bearin each other and hittin each other.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Hit me, hit me, I dare you to hit me. And the other one be sayin the same thing.
FW: <unintelligible text>
FW: <unintelligible text> fight?
IN: Yeah. Nobody jumps-and I don't care if it is your sister - long as she is not being beat up by a bigger person than she is, or, ya know, if she small not to have a big person to beat her up, or uh, dont have anybody jump in to fight when it's only one person, ya know, jump on your sisters side when the other girl haven't got anybody. Long as, ya know, done to in a same size just let em fight it out.
FW: <unintelligible text>
IN: Oh, no. No. I wish they would pick up a stick or somethin. No, they always