Bourgois In Ernest Hemingway's The Joy Luck Club

stories, and black and white images whilst explaining his own emotions and thoughts. His honesty and the transcripts especially, which include background noises such as gun shots are central to the books achievement as he leaves nothing out and lets you fully immerse yourself into the situations he is in.

He says early on that:

“I refuse to ignore or minimize the social misery I witnessed, because that would make me complicitous with oppression” (p. 12)

which he sticks with as he does not shy away from leaving out harsh and disturbing events such as gang rape, and in the case of Candy, an abused mother of 5 children who shot her husband. They give a background and reasoning to why these subjects act as they do whilst demonstrating changing kinship and hierarchy patterns. These stories are effectively told with no hint of persuasion or pity, and by being shown in transcripts allowed me as a reader to fully understand the primary evidence void of manipulated judgements. I have to respect Bourgois for this, particularly so for creating such a deeply trusting relationship with
The close friendships between Bourgois and the drug dealers meant that at times he could not be objective and stand back as he saw some of his friends’ lives spiral out of control because of the drugs and did not know whether to intervene. In one case, Caeser, a violent addict, describes how he nearly killed a boy who had cerebral palsy whilst at school and Bourgois’ son had just been diagnosed with this condition, which reduced him (and me!) to tears. Bourgois does often show his disdain at their actions which does question the credibility of the ethnography, but I feel that it just lets the ethnography be all the more honest and perhaps surely it is more credible for him to have been upfront and reflect on his outbursts and its effects on the subjects as he