The Life Study

For several years, my research has been based on visiting with families in poor neighbourhoods of Boston.1 I have met most of the families by chance, often through encounters with their children in the street, at schools, or after school in local restaurants, pharmacies, tailor shops and flower stores, where in the winter it is particularly warm, and in pool halls too. From the start, the families learn that I might write about them, and describe their histories for others, as well as the way their lives presently are led, and how it is they are able to endure what they themselves call ‘life’s most difficult hardships’. In some cases, naturally, there is no friendship to be established; I am turned away by a family, and told not to speak with the children.