Thesis Prospectus: Noriega Street

Thesis Prospectus: Noriega Street

Group Members:

·         JeRevien Richeson- jricheson12@yahoo.com

·         Raymond Zhou- raymondz032091@yahoo.com

·         Joyce Ku- tapigele@live.com

·         Jason Lew-  jasonxraptor@yahoo.com

·         Michele Richardson- ennuiae@aol.com

 Our group is researching the area of Noriega Street between 19^th avenue and 34^th avenue. The area mostly houses small family operated and owned businesses, while the majority of these are restaurants or markets. The “ethnic enclave” generally seems to be Chinese with a smaller population of Japanese and Vietnamese individuals. Through preliminary observations we have gathered data to construct a thesis for the project; however, we intend on tweaking and better defining a thesis after more thorough research. Who originally developed the Asian-American community on Noriega street, and why. How has its purpose changed since it was first developed? Although our current thesis statement is generalized and highly vague, we have simply defined this as a jumping off point to guide us in our research of the community. In order to achieve this, we have divided work into topics of interest to research in the next coming weeks. Before spring break we hope to have a concrete thesis and all of our information for our research paper.

Each member of our group has been assigned to a specific focus for researching in our area. We have divided the work as follows: map businesses from 19^th to 25^th (including business owner, business purpose, business name, and founding date), map businesses from 27^th to 34^th (including business owner, business purpose, business name, and founding date); find statistics for neighborhood (population, ethnicity, sex, age etc.); research when area was founded and defined as Asian American community, as well what the first business in the community was and when it was opened; and then we will take a look at a general overview of how the community has changed since it first came together.  In addition to having already done initial field observation, we will be doing our introductory research online. After completing our online research will be going out into the community to take video interviews at specific businesses as well as in other areas of the community. We will continue to do field research as the project progress but we will also be meeting to compare information and piece the project together.

Since it seems to be rather cumbersome to meet with each other as often as we need to thoroughly compare information, we will instead be using a blog we created in order to more efficiently keep track and compare our notes, information and resources. Each group member will be able to access, post and update the blog as needed. This blog will help to document our research process along the way, as well as keep in touch with each other. We will be using our blog to assist us during our presentation; but in addition to that, after the project is completed, the blog will be posted as public domain on blogspot.com, so other individuals and students can access the information for years to come!