A Little Context

I am a white, 18-year-old male from a middle class family from the small town of Woonsocket, RI.  I spent the first 2 months of my life in Fort Pierce, Florida where I was born, but then moved to Woonsocket where I grew up.  I grew up and went to school in the poor district of Woonsocket and saw a lot of children who lived in poverty stricken homes.  I later moved to the more wealthy area of Woonsocket, despite being middle class.  I went to school at the public middle school and high school and was a member of the band and jazz band.  I attend Rhode Island College currently, majoring in Elementary Education.  My parents grew up around Woonsocket, instilling me with their own memories of the city.  I grew up a fan of superheroes, classic cartoons, classic music, watching movies, and reading books.

My focus in my fieldstudy are the people of Woonsocket.  They're believed to be drug addicts, thugs, punks, scum, drunks, and homeless.  Growing up in this city, I've come to see some of this as true.  My own view is that the people of Woonsocket are more than just these categories.  There are many more categories, and publicity in the media has skewed the view of Woonsocket to be negative.  I could, however, very much be wrong, and with AutumnFest being the biggest collection of residents, I may very well discover that I am wrong.

As an insider to this subculture, it worries me to a degree I may know too much about it.  At the same time, I fear I may not know enough about my own culture.  Woonsocket is a city of over 41,000 people, meaning there are people from all walks of life, and people who I may have never seen before.  I won't claim to know everything about the culture of my city, but I believe I know a lot.  These worries I hope I can overcome by paying a little more attention at AutumnFest and coming to understand the possible reasons as to why I don't know much or why I know too much.

Since the city is so diverse, I can safely assume that I differ greatly from many of the people in the city.  Politically I'm moderate, supporting right-wing economics and left-wing social issues.  The city tends not to be concerned about parties and instead focuses its political attention to who can try and fix the economic disaster.  Woonsocket is a Catholic majority city, while I am not religious at all, despite being Protestant.  A balance of races makes up the city, almost equal in each race.  Being a insider, I hope to see that I am able to discover things I've never noticed before.  I feel that in my city, I go unnoticed, but I never really mind, because some times its better to just blend in.