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There’s a tried-and-true radio trick that’ll get the same result. Look, you tell your interviewee. I’m drunk, I’m stupid, and if you can get this information through my thick skull, it will save my life. Studs Terkel spoke of fumbling with his recorder to bring about a compassionate clarity on the part of his subjects; I have my ways, too. But Vanessa required no such trickery. She had simply offered me an eloquent overview of her experiences in, and in response to, Chicago.

In many cases, our urban environment was the only thing I had in common with the interviewees I’ve shared over a hundred clips from in the past six months—Vanessa and I just happened to have more to build on. But the degree to which she was willing to open up her life and share it with me was not, in any way, unusual.

Revision Street: America is going on indefinite hiatus.

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I have to curb my small talk when I go home, Vanessa explains. It’s not something people do. The Navajo people are straight-to-the-point kind of people. They don’t dillydally around conversation.

I’ve been talking to her for several hours about growing up on the rez and living now in the drastically different urban environment of Chicago. And what it might take to go back.

When I go home I just sound like an idiot. It just sounds like I’m talking to hear my voice and I can see people shutting down on me. I’m better now than when I first used to go home. I thought they would enjoy my stories but it was more like, You’re talking senseless stuff, I don’t even know what you’re talking about: I don’t know who these people are, I don’t know what the point of the story is…

Part of it is definitely the urban environment way in which I operate. I learned a lot of these nuances of speaking on the East Coast, so there is a little bit of a quickness and there’s a lot of sarcasm. It’s definitely an urban way of thinking: you push it, you push everything. Everything’s got to be on a certain timeframe. People can’t be stagnant. People in the city feel like, if I take morning off, I better do something in the afternoon because I’ve just wasted a full day. No one knows how to just enjoy something and you can’t just arrive when you feel like it.

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It’s the size of West Virginia, she says. But it’s the Southwest. It’s so big down there that nobody would blink at a five-hour drive.

It may sound preposterous to city folk, but it’s true. I have lived a bit on reservations in South Dakota, where a movie a four-hour drive away was a perfectly reasonable evening activity. Whereas in Chicago, an hour and a half on public transportation is unthinkable, even with my Blackberry.

It’s called, usually disparagingly, Indian Time, and it’s often used to explain lateness (and veil blatant racism). But I’ve always liked the slow, purposeful way that time passes on reservations, and the way people adapt to it.

It’s not the only difference Vanessa grew up with, either.

It’s really one of those things that I try to see from an outside perspective because for me it’s so basic. It’s so normal that I’m not sure what parts of it are different and what parts of it are the same.

The coolest stuff is that I grew up with my grandparents. I have nine aunts and uncles on my mom’s side and seven on my dad’s side.

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In our hyper-branded, if-you-like-this-you’ll-also-like-this, 24-hour-news cycle culture, we forget how easy it is to specialize unthinkingly. Meaning: we narrow our own interests so severely that, for example, we no longer talk to our neighbors. We don’t treat the foreclosures down the street as news. We don’t think our individual circumstances can possibly reflect the same national or international concerns we glimpse on cable news or read on our RSS feeds.

And we forget how early it starts. How quickly and efficiently we narrow. Categorize. Dismiss. Until finally we are demanding of people: what is interesting about you? Why should I care?

I’d met Vanessa a number of times over the years, and exchanged pleasant enough conversation with her. Yet when I began Revision Street: America, she appeared on none of my initial lists of interview subjects. Simply put, I had no idea what she might have to say. Nor why I should care.

But Revision Street has been about allowing those things to be said anyway: finding place for them, granting them import. So I trundled down to her Pilsen home on a quiet weekend to listen. I'm not even sure why she let me.

Our conversation gutted me. And I can think of no better way of signing off from Revision Street—even temporarily—than by asking you to listen, too.

I’ve lived here almost 10 years.

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When did you start giving mural tours?

Well, back in 1980, I guess.

How did they start? Were you just the closest art historian that happened to have all the information?

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Jose Guerrero does make art in his Pilsen studio. In fact, he’s getting ready for a show as we speak. But mostly, Gerrero gives tours of all the murals around the Pilsen neighborhood. It’s because of this that he calls himself an amateur anthropologist.

Amateur anthropologist? I repeat. Seems to me like you’re a pretty well-established anthropologist.

Jose Guerrero laughs hard for a minute, slapping the table in front of him.

I’m glad you said that, he says. Did you hear that, Margaret? I’m an established anthropologist. He turns back to me. I hope you write that down in your article, he says. Established anthropologist.

So you’ve watched Pilsen and Humboldt Park change since 1964. Do you think art has impacted the sense of community in Pilsen, and have you seen anything similar happening in Humboldt Park over the last 40 years?

Well, in Humboldt Park, they do have art. All communities appreciate art. The thing is that the people arriving there were not appreciating it. It’s slum art, it’s viaduct art, they say.

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