Ethnographic Paper

On November Seventh, 2012 at 1:39 PM I went to Naan Stop to continue my observations from before. I went in and it was the same employee who has been working there all eight times I’ve gone in. As usual I was the only person there, the radio was playing a popular pop song by the band One Direction. The owner of the store was in the back and popped out to say hello to me and ask how I was doing. I got my usual, a small mocha Boba and I waited as the employee, a young Mexican probably in his 20’s made the Boba with the same frown he has on every time I come in.

I stayed in Naan stop for twenty minutes and no one came in. On November Sixth 4:50 PM I went to Naan stop with my friend and we got Boba. We were the only ones in there at first but then two Indian men in their late twenties came in and greeted the owner. They spoke in what I assumed was hindi and then switched to english and then back to hindi. I gathered that both the Indian men were graduate students at UCSB at some point and had returned for the weekend to say hello to old friends. I found it odd that they didn’t order anything from Naan Stop, they chatted with the owner and took a picture with him and then left.

The music playing during their encounter was again pop culture. If there wasn’t Indian food and a couple of small cultural Indian statues one would never know it was an Indian Restaurant. My friend waited ten minutes after the Indian men left for new people to come in but got frustrated and left. I stayed for 40 minutes and within my 40 minutes two undergrad students came in and got pick up Indian and left, four girls all wearing their Alpha Phi letters came in ordered Boba and left. A middle aged man and his wife came in, I recognized them from two weeks ago when I was doing observations.

The wife, similar to last time, was wearing an extremely low cut shirt and her breasts were actually spilling out. The man was in a wife beater, they ordered Indian food and were the first customers I’d seen in the last two days to actually eat the food at the restaurant. They were very loud and I’d assume that they were lower class or lower middle class. The woman went on and on about her “fancy” sister going to Mexico. She kept saying fancy with such disdain, the one Mexican employee perked up at the name of Mexico but then got uninterested and went back to staring at his phone as the lady went on and on how her sister had a better life.

The man kept staring at me and I felt pretty uncomfortable, I believe he was aware that I was observing them. He whispered something to his wife and they both turned around and stared at me as I was pretending to text someone. They finished their dinner shortly after and as they threw out their trash the woman rolled her eyes at me. They resented being the objects of my observation and I’m pretty sure their anger stemmed from embarrassment. As soon as they left and were out of eye sight I packed up my things and left.