Your Tax Dollars At Work.... Or Are They?

      
            I recently had the opportunity to attend a screening of ethnographic films created by UAB students shown during the Collective Perspective film series at Vulcan Park in Birmingham, Al. The screening titled “Your Tax Dollars at Work: Documenting Federal Programs in the Magic City” highlighted documentaries that illustrated the effect of federal stimulus spending on Birmingham residents. This series was part of Vulcan Parks “Birmingham in the 1930s” and it examined life in Birmingham during the great depression.
          Before attending this documentary, I have to admit I was not very informed with what happened to the stimulus money in Birmingham and how the federal grants affected its residents. I do not live in Birmingham, Al and many of the topics covered did not and would not affect me personally. However, it was very interesting to see the hard work the students put in and finding out what actually happened to this money.
          To give a little background information, 15 students in UAB’s Ethnographic Film class taught by our very own Mrs. O’Beirne, MA and Michele Forman, MA recorded and produced seven short documentaries following stimulus money throughout Birmingham. The students, paired up in groups of two or three, each picked a specific project or organization that received federal funding and followed how they used the money. Even though all the documentaries were very interesting and important, the one that stood out to me the most was "Birmingham: YouthBuild."
          YouthBuild is an organization that offers second chances to many young adults that often do not have a college degree much less a completed high school education. They offer GED courses, construction classes and the chance to build homes for homeless families. This organization took the stimulus money and was able to keep doing great things for their organization that truly change lives everyday.
          These young anthropologists engaged in the new information technology phenomenon that is now more widley available to more contemporary anthropologists. This allowed them to use new data-gathering methods to achieve their ethnographic fieldwork.
          In the end, it was great to see many of the different ways that the stimulus money was used for the residents of Birmingham and a bit disheartening to find out that some of it was not used in the way it was intended. Overall, It was a great screening and I enjoyed seeing the film work of these students!


This is the screen where the documentaries were shown.

Me in front of a beautiful view of Birmingham at the top of Vulcan's mountain.

This is the statue of Vulcan with his spear touching the rainbow!

                                                                                      This is a replica of Vulcan's foot and is located inside of the museum. I thought it would be amusing to see my foot compared to it! lol :)