| After a semester of field work, interviews,picture taking, video, and data collection the group has, thankfully, neared the end. There are many things to take away from this project. The experiences, the people interactions, the group's interaction and the act of forging our experiences and research into a coherent product is enough in itself to provide food for thought beyond what we're able to fit into aforementioned final product.It probably wouldn't surprise anyone in the group if, next semester, or next year, or five years from now, we think about this project and suddenly think "Oh yeah! Aw man! I should've spotted that before!" Overall, this project has been fun; it has also been grueling work and at times the bane of our very existences, but mostly fun. Nobody in the group had really encountered salsa before, or a community like this before. For some of us, or at least me, it was a little surprising that there was a community. Then, we began to discover what it meant to our informants to be a part of that community. Salsa in Lubbock isn't just for fun, though it is fun. It's a way to make friends, meet people, feel more at home, and invite people to understand the culture. One of the reasons everyone was so open with us is because they wanted us to add to the community. We didn't have to be outsiders for very long at all because they have a love for the music, dance, and community that makes them want to expand it. They want people to know and to learn to enjoy it as much as they do. One thing that struck me, especially, was that though some people went there to meet and mingle, most of the regulars at Melt, or Jake's, were there because it was "their" salsa night. For example, Joe and his dancing partners were at Melt pretty much every Wednesday night. Now, Wednesday night is not what most people would consider a convenient night to go out dancing, but Joe was there because he loved to dance, he loved the community. He grew up dancing and decided to stay with it. He also chose Melt over Jake's because one was "better" than the other, one had more "real" salsa, more "real salsa people", if you will, than the other. Almost all of our informants felt like Joe; they felt that they had a real stake in salsa in Lubbock. Almost all of them had that sense of ownership of and necessity to Salsa Night in Lubbock, Texas. -Nicky |
