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Consumption in Context . 21

house her grandparents own often reverberated from the force of Natalia's
feet pounding on the stairs as she dashed up to answer the phone or down
to get the door.
Natalia's cousin Asia had recently moved in next door. Asia's father
had died the year before from heart trouble, and Asia's mother, deeply
depressed, gave up the family's home and was unable to work for several
months. Asia, her mother, and her brother shared a two-bedroom apart-
ment with Asia's aunt and uncle. Unlike Natalia and Tionna, who at-
tended the local elementary school, Asia went to a parochial school in
another neighborhood. She had a dry, ironic sense of humor and often
made up tales, telling them to friends with great drama lighting up her
round face and almond-shaped eyes.
The three girls spent time together nearly every day, sitting on their
stoops, wandering the neighborhood, playing, running errands, and, on
occasion, going downtown. Their caretakers all knew and trusted each
other, telling me that they were "good people," and when one girl was
with the family of the others, caretakers knew they did not have to worry
about where the girls were or wait watchfully for them to return home.
These girls' friendships, though strong, also seemed to proceed in cycles,
with Tionna sometimes complaining about Asia, Natalia complaining
about Tionna, Asia complaining about one or the other of the girls. They
would take breaks from each other's company, sometimes for weeks at a
time, spending time with other kids instead and pointedly ignoring the
others. Nevertheless, overall, their friendship endured during the time I
lived in New Haven, and I found them in each other's company more
often than not.
A Note about Me
In recent years the question of the ethnographer's identity and position-
ing has become increasingly important in the writing and doing of our
work. This ethnography is and is not a piece of "native" anthropology.
I grew up in New Haven, but I did not grow up in Newhallville, and in
the book's afterword I discuss in greater depth the complexities of going
home to do fieldwork. While nearly all of the people I knew and spent
time with in Newhallville are black, I am half white and half Chinese.
Many might wonder how a half-white, half-Chinese anthropologist can
claim to know or understand anything about the lives and worlds of
black kids.
As a number of prominent black anthropologists have pointed out,
being of the same race as the people you are researching is no guarantee