1. Lucille Roberts… The Study of Women in Astoria and Forest Hills by: Lisseth Ramirez

2. My Objective(s)… I would like to study how the people in the communities of Astoria and Forest Hills can affect the establishment and the service provided back to the community by the employees. BUT… with the progress of my fieldwork my point of interest changed and so did my objective. It turned out to be that my objective was to study the similarities and motivations of women in both establishment for going to the gym.

3. Main Questions?? How does the establishment impact or benefit the community? What are some of the challenges of being an employee? How does the community benefit the establishment? What kinds of people are considered regular customers? >> There are more questions BUT they became too broad….

4. Well, my main questions evolved with the project and became less superficial… These questions adjusted from a focus on physical aspects and appearances of the gym to details about motivations of clients to become involved in a health club! I was looking to compare differences in the effects of socio-economic status from one location to the next. But as I continued to observe what I noted were similarities in motivation and I decided to switch my focus to that key factor.

5. How did I do this?! aka picture time!!!

6. Welcome to Astoria!!!

9. Welcome to Forest Hills !!!

13. I used participant-observation and informal interviews Interviewed employees from both locations who have worked for more than two years Interviewed clients who have been there for over five years from both locations And I over heard a conversation here and there.. Shhhh!!!!!!

14. More Tactics… I conducted a total of six informal interviews. I spent approximately one and a half hours, two or three times per week observing depending on my availability with work and school schedule. I tried to vary my time frame of observation.

15. Results My research questions allowed me to learn a lot from the employees and the customers in the community as a whole. (ex: self-esteem) I believe my methods were suitable for my research because the interviews allowed me to get closer to the customers. The participant-observations allowed me to sit and be a passive observer and understand the undercurrents of the environment

16. Some of My Observations At the beginning of my fieldwork I observed that the members would act different around me. Women were simply talking, laughing, telling stories, talking about their families and friends, and this didn’t vary from race to race or social status. Then the idea and interest to compare and contrast two different neighborhoods according to an establishment went downhill !!

17. Ups and Downs I was not too sure about what the employees might say to me because they would probably avoid hurting the image of the company. Being bilingual allowed me to ease-drop on conversations allowing me to gather information about the customers. Listening to conversations led me to changing the topic of my project.

18. Fieldwork and Classroom conversations… hmm According to Freud, many people store painful memories deep into their unconscious mind to try and forget those things but regardless they will always be there. In Lucille Roberts a lot of the members store painful memories deep into the recesses of their minds and use the establishment to help make them less apparent and less of a burden on their daily life.

19. Freud and Teresa… Teresa had a son who at the age of 27 committed suicide a few days before Christmas. I learned that due to her depression she became obese and one day she passed the establishment and decided to join. She doesn’t miss a day since then and she is able to cope with her circumstance by having something to look forward to.

20. Freud and Bok… Bok is a 70-year-old Chinese woman who has no contact with her immediate family. Bok has attended the gym daily for the past five years. She caught my attention because I would see her come in at 8AM and not leave until 2PM and then later I would see her return in the evening for approximately two hours. Bok’s children all married and made their lives and do not even contact her... She presents as an aggressive person and is difficult to interact with. I feel that it may be a defense mechanism to avoid having to deal with inquiries regarding her family and her personal life.

21. Classroom readings and my fieldwork! The course readings, discussions, concepts and theories helped me by giving me the skills to make connections between the information presented in class to real-life applications. “The Woman in the Body” by Emily Martin. Emily Martin was deeply engrossed in her research because she was also part of the population she concentrated on. Similarly, prior to becoming an employee at Lucille Roberts I was a customer, which I thought would alter the results but it didn’t.

22. “The Gift” by Marcel Mauss The author posits an interesting theory of reciprocity. In essence an act of kindness is not without its expectations. In Lucille Roberts, you join and I give you FREE guest passes so that you can bring your friends to workout. In essence my actions are tainted by my own underlying agenda, I aim to obtain more memberships through your advertisement.

23. Every situation has its problems… A significant challenge I faced during this study was the fact that I am an employee. A secondary challenge can be found in the act of obtaining information as the main source of my information came from informal interviews. Under the guise of a member, I would go to the gym in order to observe the occurrences at the gym. However because my identity as an employee was known, this guise was compromised.

24. For future reference… In the future I would have a third-party conduct the observations in order to eliminate some of the biases I may have encountered as a result of being an employee. I think this would be more successful than the alternative possibility of informing members that I am conducting research because this secondary option may yield non-genuine results as well.

25. At last… This ethnography project allowed me to integrate with the people that I work with, as well as with the customers that I deal with in a daily basis. The most interesting thing out of this field work was my own enthusiasm. I seemed to enjoy the field workbecause it was unpredictable the way these women had something in common besides wanting to fit in a pair of jeans. I truly enjoyed sharing words and conversations with the members and I feel that I learned from them as well as they learned about me. I am very glad that I learned to see women in these communities as if it was the same place.