Ethnography: A Personal Reflection

III: Reflections

The interview with Ms. X flowed so easily; it quickly consumed nearly an hour and a half of our time. I felt conviction in my subject and topic choice(-,) but realized that the most daunting task would be trimming the interview to meet the requirements of this assignment. Offering so much that caught and captivated my interest, I was grateful that Ms. X gave me permission to record our interview. During the first few minutes, I realized that if I had to take notes while she was talking, I would not have been nearly as present in the conversation, and would have likely screwed up details later (-on) in the writing process. Knowing, however, that I will not always have the luxury of consent for recording conversation, effective note-taking during personal interviews is a skill I need to enhance.

Back home, listening to my interview with Ms. X, I began the process of trimming out anything that was non-essential to my topic of choice. Easier said than done, as Ms. X had explained, something that made her experience as a youth in the sixties so profound was the intersection of multiple movements that triggered

Most profound, however, is how Ms. X’s story restored my faith in grassroots activism. As I stated earlier, this topic resonated with me because of the personal experiences I’ve had within anti-war movements. The Resistance is a prime example of a grass-roots activism success story: By 1969, resistance and evasion had become a mass phenomenon, with over 200,000 men refusing induction, crippling the Selective Service system (Burns, 1990). This movement, paired with the millions of Americans who participated in anti-war demonstrations across the country that year, effectively led to the U.S. retreat from the Vietnam War. I am grateful to have, in my records, a first-hand account of the Resistance Movement, as told by Ms.