Cherry Street Community
Mentor 1
Arijit Sen
Start Date
28-4-2023 12:00 AM
Description
The Midtown neighborhood in Milwaukee has been plagued by problems such as crime, reduced access to affordable housing, and lack of healthy food options for many decades. Scholars call these “wicked problems” because they are problems “that are challenging or impossible to solve either because not enough is understood about the problem, the number of stakeholders involved, the number of varying opinions, the economic burden, or the impact of these problems with other problems” (Plymouth State University). My research examines how African American elders use the knowledge passed down over generations in order to find solutions for these problems. The elders in the community take the role of urban guardians and attempt to address problems around crime, poverty, and health in this neighborhood. They nurture the Cherry Street Community Garden by using their knowledge and memories from past traditions around growing food. The community members had access to healthy fresh food, and the neighborhood became a safer and more welcoming place for the community’s members. My work focuses on the Cherry Street Community Garden, where residents grow, cook, and distribute food as a way to address deep-rooted problems. I began working with the Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures (BLC) Field School in the summer of 2022. As a field school researcher, I studied three black elderly women who took the initiative to act as change agents in the Cherry Street community. The field school team hosted oral history interviews, history harvest, observations in space, and collected recipes from the gardener. Through these ethnographic methods, I learned how to engage the residents of this community and learn from their experiences. In particular, I knew who the urban guardian in the neighborhood was and the strategy they used to make the change in the neighborhood.
Cherry Street Community
The Midtown neighborhood in Milwaukee has been plagued by problems such as crime, reduced access to affordable housing, and lack of healthy food options for many decades. Scholars call these “wicked problems” because they are problems “that are challenging or impossible to solve either because not enough is understood about the problem, the number of stakeholders involved, the number of varying opinions, the economic burden, or the impact of these problems with other problems” (Plymouth State University). My research examines how African American elders use the knowledge passed down over generations in order to find solutions for these problems. The elders in the community take the role of urban guardians and attempt to address problems around crime, poverty, and health in this neighborhood. They nurture the Cherry Street Community Garden by using their knowledge and memories from past traditions around growing food. The community members had access to healthy fresh food, and the neighborhood became a safer and more welcoming place for the community’s members. My work focuses on the Cherry Street Community Garden, where residents grow, cook, and distribute food as a way to address deep-rooted problems. I began working with the Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures (BLC) Field School in the summer of 2022. As a field school researcher, I studied three black elderly women who took the initiative to act as change agents in the Cherry Street community. The field school team hosted oral history interviews, history harvest, observations in space, and collected recipes from the gardener. Through these ethnographic methods, I learned how to engage the residents of this community and learn from their experiences. In particular, I knew who the urban guardian in the neighborhood was and the strategy they used to make the change in the neighborhood.
