After being presented with the assignment last Wednesday, we decided that in order for us to see an example of immigrants working together, it would be great to go "walk around the block" in the international district. I had never been there before but had always thought it was mostly Asians, so I agreed we would meet there on Saturday afternoon to do some exploration. Once we met in the international district, I realized that observing a variety of Asian populations would not give us to much information towards understanding the issues of immigration in Amsterdam, so I recommended we head down to Pike Place Market.Shirley had never been there, so it worked out great because she came into the situation with a completely naive look.
We met at noon and spent about an hour walking around. We started our walk at the beginning of the marker, and then ended at the world famous fish market.After that we took a walk around the block to see all the different shops that were open. We used photography as our method of documentation. I also took some mental notes of what was going on because it was so crowded that it was really difficult to have a notebook out.
We noticed that in general everyone just kept to themselves. It was kind of interesting to see all the different types of stands that were open, and the lack of chit-chatting between vendors. From personal experience, vendors in Portland tend to be much more talkative than the ones that I saw on Saturday.There were lots of different cultures that were coming together yet were not connecting with each other. On one side of the walkway were flower sellers, and they seemed to be chit-chatting with each other while selling their flowers. I noticed that there were signs over the flowers stating where they were from, and even if the vendors were from different parts of the state, they were still very friendly and accommodating to each other. I thought it was interesting to see how different how the two sides of the walkway are different.
In general, there were lots of different languages being spoken, and there were lots of families. People kind of blocked the walk way in groups, causing it Tobe difficult to get through. The older generations were nicer than some of the younger generations. A lot of the families with younger children made it seem like they had a priority in getting through the crowd. Maybe my view is slightly different from other observations but I felt that every individual in the group thought that they were better than the people standing around them.
My favorite part of the walk was observing the different kinds of people that were getting food from the French bakery and the Russian bakery. The people in line for these places weren't all of that culture, but everyone was coming together to enjoy some good food. Also, I noticed that these people tended to be very friendly to each other.
After taking this walk, I decided that it would really useful for us to take walk around a central area in Amsterdam, where all kinds of people get together.I also think it would be helpful for to us to talk to a counselor at an international community center (a real one, not one that just deals with the Asian population). Also during our walk, we thought it would interesting to attend a human rights lecture at the University of Amsterdam if one is available.
From this walk, we realized that just observing the general population may give us a false sense of integration. So we will need to find people to talk to that know about the issues that immigrants are facing.
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