Lynsey Ward - Research Proposal

Lynsey Ward

English 106 – MWF 12:20 – 1:10pm

Research Proposal & Annotated Bibliography

Monday, April 16^th, 2012

Essay #3 Research Proposal

                  The space in Miami that I have chosen to address in this third essay is South Beach.  This popular part of Miami says a lot about the city itself, the image of the city, and of course, the people of the city – or at least the mobiles that have contributed greatly to the image Miami holds today.  In my research paper, the central question I will address is, “How has the historic development of South Beach contributed to the city of Miami today, including its image, locals, mobiles and exiles?”  I will then research things such as how South Beach first developed, in terms of the geographical South Beach, along with its evolvement from then to now, as it pertains to image.  Some key points that I will address in detail are the diversity South Beach has brought or even taken away from Miami, the racism – if any – associated with South Beach as it pertains to Miami, and any globalization that was brought to Miami as a result of the development of both the geographical and social South Beach.

                  This research question is important as it says a lot about the theme reality vs. spectacle, which we have been looking at closely in this class.  By learning how the development of South Beach from prior day to today has contributed to the development of Miami as a city, along with the image associated with Miami today, it will then be possible to make a personal connection to what the city of Miami is really all about; especially with concerns to race, diversity and globalization.  The personal connection that I can make with this topic is simply how South Beach and its history has affected me as a long-term mobile in Miami.  I can then expand on things such as how I personally see the image of Miami, what I think about it, and how it has revealed itself to me in my everyday life here, including any struggles I have faced because of it, or opportunities I have gained as a result of it.  I have chosen not to focus on one particular aspect of South Beach because I want to encompass different things about this space in order to be able to say more about its contribution to the development of Miami; this includes the type of people that go there, which are mostly mobiles, the social expectations and aura that is presented there, the shopping and dining, and even the art. 

                  In order to complete this research paper I will need mostly qualitative material.  The qualitative information that I will need includes things such as who, where and why the area of South Beach was first built, what image was associated with that area back then and why, what brought on the changes and renovations of the area, and the image now associated with the area.  Along with that, I will need to dig deeper and find out things such as what the diversity, globalization brought on or taken away by South Beach has done to the development of Miami as a city, so that I can find the answer to my question and be able to make a personal connection with it.  The only statistical information I will need is perhaps dates and financial figures of people that occupied South Beach in the past in comparison to the people that occupy South Beach today.     

Annotated Bibliography

1.     http://southbeach-miami.biz/

This website will provide me with information on this history of South Beach, from its very beginning as a Sandbar, to the plantations on South Beach, to the segregation, the revival and even the fairy land image that was and is now associated with this luxurious area.  This website will also provide me with photographs from the past of South Beach to present day so that I can make analysis on the changes that are visible through photography.  This website also holds information about hotels on South Beach along with good dining options, which will in turn say a lot about the area. 

2.     http://www.nws.edu/

This website will encompass another side of South Beach.  Instead of capturing the history of South Beach along with activities and places to do and stay while on South Beach, it talks about the art and culture this area has.  There is a place that operates like a school called The New World Symphony that develops graduate students with music degrees and instills values of art and culture in them in order to make them better at what they do.  This part of South Beach is not included in their image right off the back to the average tourists, which can make for a good counter argument for the image of the rich and famous filled with tanning, swimming and showing off, that is now associated with South Beach.

3.     http://miamisouthbeach.org/

This website focuses more on the advertisement of South Beach.  I thought this would be interesting to include in my argument, as we learned from an article we read previously that the image of Miami today was built solely off of advertisement from the rich and famous; particularly Mr. Fisher and Mr. Merrick.  Bringing in this aspect to my argument will emphasize exactly where the image of South Beach derived from, and what effects it has had on the image of Miami as a city.  The sense of falsity that advertisements can sometimes hold also relates to the theme reality vs. spectacle, which will be the theme of my whole paper. 

*I also intend on using books from the Otto G. Richter Library as well as historic pieces from the special collections section of the library in my research; but these websites will be where the brunch of my information comes from. 

Alexandra

THE PIZZA PLACE

On the third floor of the open mall "Sunset Place" right next to the AMC movie theatre there is a  Pizza Place. It's a small restaurant, family owned that serves different appetizers, pizza, wings, salads and desserts. Because of its location, it mostly attended by families and teenagers that after shopping or after a movie they want to eat something good and not too expensive. I worked there during the weekends as a waitress for almost one year. It was my first experience of work in a restaurant but I adapted myself quickly. The owners are a friendly and generous couple that treated me as a daughter. My coworkers were very nice people too and I never had problems with customer service. Because of the limited size of the restaurant there is no room in to keep the extra stuff. Therefore, right behind it, in the parking lot of the mall there is a box room used to keep all the extra napkins, utensils, boxes, sauces etc. The first time I went in the room is was the day I was hired. They were explaining me the things an employee need to know, so they brought me in the utility room. It was dark and dusty with shelves full of boxes. On the floor there were old pizza signs, menus and boards one on top of the other. The smell of the room was familiar. It brought a smile on my face and it triggered memories of my childhood. I took a few deep breaths  and I imagined the basement I had in my old house. It was a place were I used to hide from my parents when I was angry or I didn't anyone to find me. The smell of dust and old of the back room of the Pizza Place  was the same of my old basement.

Adam Hendel
April 9, 2012

U In the 80’s

      Imagine marching to the middle of the field to call the coin toss during your biggest game of college football and the other team refused to shake hands and told you, “We are going to eat you alive!” This happened to Notre Dame during the orange bowl of  198* against the university of Miami. The U didn’t know what football was until they brought until coach Howard Schellenberger’s involvement. He was the reason for the tremendous amount of football success during the 1980’s. His virtue was his recruiting process. He decided to recruit from solely the dadeland area, bringing in the monsters of the University’s football team. From Tampa to south Miami, the recruits designated the area the State of Miami. The head coach would walk into the impoverished housing units and personally invite the best and sometimes poorest locals from Miami to play. The reason being was these were the most ferocious of all the American kids. Considering the street struggles during the 1980s, many of the upcoming high school players had parents locked up in prison. They saw football as their way up from the hood and the coach capitalized on that. What the team became was the reflection of the Miami local body outside of Coral Gables.
            When the University of Miami football players moved from liberty city to Coral Gables, they were surprised to find that there was another side to the city they had not seen. The segregation of Miami was so intense I’m sure it seemed like they were at a country club. However, even when in the light of the upscale school, they still let their inner Miami shine through. The players were like nothing anyone had seen. They would slaughter the other team, dance, taunt and even fight the other teams without mercy. They played without any restriction, which resembled their lives off the field in Miami.
            The Miami Hurricanes appalled most people, they were involved with countless arrests and some mix ups in south beach, but I understand their behavior as a movement. These kids were underprivileged their entire lives. To play in the giant orange bowl in front of the people they grew up with brought hometown pride, and their confidence couldn’t be broken. Everyone around them supported them like superstars. Uncle Luke from two live crew made the raunchiest booty music known today and often represented the university of Miami football team as a primary spectacle of what it means to be cool. The athletes ran with it, and so did the city of Miami. Everywhere else in the country was jealous or annoyed of Miami, except for the Miamians. All the showboating and taunting was just feeding the fire that brought in more supporters from the Miami area and only produced more revenue. The people of Miami have always been about the flash and glamour and this exemplified it.
            The 80s was an unregulated time, a free-for-all on the field and even in the cities walls. Even players like Michael Irving were doing cocaine during season until they were demanded by school authorities to clean up their act. Despite the attention from the football players, the school overtime became the prestigious school it is today. I feel that the school and the city of Miami are in parallel in this regard of shaping up over the past two decades. Miami doesn’t seem like the scary place it was known to be and now our football team is not considered hoodlums and gangsters, but they are still out there. The segregation is still just as bad. It was almost as if the university used overtown’s abilities for a few years and then went back to the way things were being segregated. Maybe it was too much for society to handle considering all the intense and new Miami trends, but I feel as if it was an era that was on the rise, but did not prevail with progress 

Punk'd by Miami

Once again I really enjoyed the special collections section of the Richter library. They had a new selection and I think that this time it was so much more specific to the topic of Miami and that was really cool to me because we saw things from the everyday person, like at the are museum, and it represented the true Miami Local. Something that really made me happy was the University of Miami Section and seeing all those new 106 kids look at it for the first time in awe. Looking at the old yearbooks becomes like looking back into your family history and seeing how they lived over the same land over half a century ago. It will always give me this kind of mixed feelings of seeing all these young kids but I’ve yet to see any black students who attended, but that’s just because they had too old of yearbooks out but also history didn’t not allow that integration at the time. I was happiest to see my own part of history in the UM collections which in the future, students will see my work while going here and compare that to the futures present and the past before mine. The one with the zines and the punk kids who wrote the little zines created my punctum, but it also makes me think of how fast technology has advanced because today’s zine would be called a blog. I really thought that the Mocazine was this intrusion on imagination (which is probably perfect from what I hear about Moca) and really one of the craziest things I have ever seen, there was a purple man alien with horns coming out of his forehead playing the guitar with no shirt. Then there were little cartoon people hidden throughout the clutter of the chords and amps in the drawing. I consider this to be another unrepresented part of Miami that the rest of the world was not able to learn about due to the flashiness of south beach and the mobile/ Miami vice perspective. With the punk crowd responding to Moca which is one of the largest and coolest Art exhibits in the country, It shows this whole other creative and intellectual side to Miami and in reality it shows a kind of invisible curtain that Miami has pulled over the locals in order to pimp Miami out to international as well as domestic foreigners. I think of how important little pieces of paper became to these people because they had to make these little zines to express their opinions. I think of how punk has evolved into today’s modern style of Miami Punk. You still do not see it too much but it’s around in places. But I loved seeing the punk Miami culture of late end of the last millennium till now.

City of Dreamers

With any great accomplishment, there was always a dream. Without some sort of vision, nothing can be done. As we visited the special collections section in the library, I opened a book that included information about the founding of the university. It started off with a statement that instantly impacted me. It said “.... dreamer who repeatedly makes  his dreams come true is a real boon, not only to his contemporaries, but to all the generations to follow. He is an example that many strive to follow, and a leader who is blazing a trail for those who come after him.” This was an introduction statement to the founder of the city of Coral Gables and the University of Miami. George E. Merrick was a dreamer who knit together the city of Coral Gables. He is credited for the establishment of the university. What captivated me about this was the fact that he was a dreamer. He had a dream and he made it happen. Instantly as I read this, I felt a deep connection to Mr. Merrick. Ever since I was a child, I have always been a big dreamer. Sometimes I have wondered if it is possible to dream too big. A dream if mine has always been to study at the University of Miami. This is the top University in the state and the best in my eyes. Often I found myself confronted with limits and challenges that could possibly prevent my enrollment to the university. However, I decided to hold on to a dream and before I realized, my dream came true. I find it so beautiful how George E. Merrick’s dream was a door way to my dream. He is a leader that blazed a trail for those who came after him. He sparked a flame of enlightenment in me that led me to conclude that Miami is a city of dreamers.

George E. Merrick was one of the many dreamers that invested in the city of Miami. Every person who was involved in the creation of the city had a vision greater than what was seen before the naked eye at the time. Miami with all it’s diversity and variety is filled with dreamers. Exiles make up a large part of the population of the city. These exiles arrived to the city with a dream to live a better life and with hopes of  moving forward. The mobiles who abide in the city attempt to live a dream as they enjoy the city and appreciate everything Miami has to offer. The locals are dreamers who dream of having a voice and succeeding in this city. Miami is an oasis for the dreamer. It is a place established on dreams that remind us that dreams do come true.

A Fried Piece of Goodness

“Food is essential to life; therefore, make it good.” This quote hovers in almost
every one of their restaurants. It is a bold statement, but at the same time, accurate
beyond belief. We eat three times a day, over and over again. Our meals can
cause a mood swing toward the positive, but if a meal is disgusting, leads us
to a disappointing aftermath that affects our mood too. Thus, if I had to
choose one particular food item to upswing my mood, it would have to be a
Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich. The quote earlier is from their founder, Truett
Cathy, and it holds itself true to this day.

A Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich my not seem very, well, interesting. However, it stands above all of its rivals. Cooked in a pressure cooker surrounded by peanut oil, these slabs of chicken are
butchered to uniformity right before it goes into the fryer. The breading, this
is what gives it its brown crunchy look, is a company secret and applied
generously on every single piece of chicken. Once out of the fryer, it is
delicately placed inside a bun with two, crucial, pickle chips. Lastly, it’s
placed in a heat protecting bag and given to a customer within minutes. When
you bit into one, it seems like heaven. Crunchy on the outside, hot on the
inside, the breast of a chicken is one of the easiest to tear apart and eat.
The pickles add a jolt of zest that was not expected, but looking back at it,
necessary. All in all, the Chick-fil-A sandwich is a food delicacy that is as
perfect as one can expect. After consumption, immediate pleasure radiates
across the body of the eater. Food is essential, and this sandwich is definitely
good.

One of the most brilliant parts of the Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich has to be its uniformity. In any Chick-fil-A, in any part of the country, one can expect that same heart-shaped filet of
chicken prepared, cooked, and served all the same way. This sandwich is just
one of many examples of how Chick-fil-A pays close attention to detail with not
only their food, but every other outlet that their consumers come in contact
with. The company’s origin from a suburb outside of Atlanta in the south is
portrayed in their menu, since their specialty remains to be fried chicken and
waffle fries. This sandwich has remained virtually the same since Truett Cathy
first invented in back before Chick-fil-A was founded. Why fix what’s not
broken? The company has believed in that policy since day 1, and their menu the
way it is has been very successful. Chick-fil-A is a company that seeks out
customer satisfaction, and there is nothing more satisfying then consuming one
of their legendary chicken sandwiches.

At First Glance

If you could judge what's going on in this picture, what would you say? At first glance, it's just a few guys dancing and people standing around, having a good time.

Here's the scenario: Local bands play gigs on the stage, blasting through the loudspeakers for the entire block to hear.  Food vendors line the street - some Cuban food, some American.  Booths with art and jewelry exhibit their colorful work.  This festival lures in people from the surrounding community to join in the fun and to experience a "taste of Miami".

In front of the stage is a crowd of people, singing along with the local bands and dancing. I am especially drawn to the expression of this boy's face, and the movement of his hands.  His body language shows sheer enjoyment of the experience.  He is dancing as though no one is watching, free of worry. The vibrant colors add to the sense of spirit and playfulness.  This candid moment, in a sense, encapsulates the perception of Miami as a city focused on the fun parties and entertainment.

The boy is a local, born and raised in Miami.  Judging solely from his appearance, one would not guess. However, as a close friend of his, I have seen how he and his family are deeply rooted in their Cuban background.  This is what makes this photo so ironic to me: referring to Nijman's writing, this boy is a "local", with "exile" background, who appears to be a "mobile" at first glance.  He seems to capture all three of these diverse groups that represent Miami as a whole.  Without knowing him, the viewer would not know this information.

This idea of "at first glance" is important because it's the moment that creates an impression in our mind, and what may or may not spark an interest or memory.  The perception of Miami as an entertainment, capital-driven, city is the first glance of those who do not know the background and history.