I have always been intrigued by the lives of those living on the "other side of the fence" than me. I have always had a deep-rooted admiration for those who are less fortunate and do in fact have to face the horrible struggles of living below the poverty line in our country. This interest stems primarily from the many stories of hardships and struggles my parents and more particularly my grandparents told me about their child-hoods and life before I born. For both of my parents and all four of my grandparents life before me was very filled with hardships and struggles. All of them were born into poverty and some how were fortunate enough to escape it and become very successful and financially blessed in life. The stories I can remember being told as a child such as having to live in the "projects" in the Bronx, New York, not having any food to eat and having to wear the same clothes everyday, have always made me wonder how people in those situations are able to survive with such little income and so little support. This constant question in my mind made choosing the type of family I wanted to interview very easy for me. I wanted to choose a family who was living in an impoverished section of any inner city and who was living below the poverty line. The reason for this is simple; I wanted to with ask how they make it, and how they survive living in such conditions. I truly came to this experience with an open heart and a very clear conscious, and sincerely wanted to understand life outside of the suburban shelter in which I grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey.
The task for finding such an environment in which I could find a family to interview was not difficult. Less than 10 miles away from the University of Maryland is perhaps one of the most impoverished areas in this region of the country, the Shaw area in the Northwest portion of Washington, DC. I am very familiar with this area, since I have been going to church there since the beginning of this year.
