Urban Eyes : The Final Project

Over the past four months, we have embarked on a joint journey between UofT students  and Regent Park members. This journey has allowed us to get to know one another, and  understand different perspectives, different backgrounds, and what brings us to  Toronto. With no surprise everyone had a different answer, this highlighted the diversity  of individuals within our classroom and also within Regent Park. 

Thus when our group was tasked with deciding a topic for our research project, it was a  given that we wanted to look at immigration within Regent Park and the role it plays  within the community. Hence we landed on the research question:  

What is the history of immigration in creating social communities,  and how has the introduction of redevelopment disrupted already-created  communities? 

Our research question aims to understand the history of immigration within Regent  Park and how the revitalization process has impacted immigration, and the social  connection and ethnic communities that have formed due to immigration. The reason  we decided to look at immigration was that all of us identified as either first or second generation immigrants and had our social connections and personal networks stem  from that identity. We were also curious to understand how the physical changes to  space impacted the social connections that were made. 

Before we moved forward we decided what we wanted to achieve as a group, the four  goals we settled on are: 

1) Develop our understanding of the role immigration plays in social housing. We  aim to achieve this goal by interviewing members of the Regent Park community who  identify as immigrants. We also made sure to ask the interviewees how they felt they  were impacted by the social housing community within Regent Park and why it played a  large role in their social relationships. 

2) Develop our understanding of community building in the context of  immigration, and gentrification. When interviewing members of the community we  made sure to understand how gentrification has impacted their social relationships. 

3) Create space to find lost narratives in immigration. We aim to do this by using  the interview clips wherever possible to have the residents' own voice tell their stories.  We aim to be honourable with the trust they’ve placed within us in relaying their story  through our project. 

4) Allow immigrants to be makers and tellers of their stories + understand and  hear them. This goal sums our previous three goals perfectly and will be achieved as we  strive towards achieving our previous goals. 

Based on our goals we decided to conduct our research in various methods. Once we had  decided that we wanted to conduct interviews with various members of the community,  accompanying it with academic research would be our best option. Through this  process, we have both primary and secondary research. 

Primary Research: Each group member aimed to interview two members of the  Regent Park community. These individuals were either immigrants themselves or  worked closely with immigrants. To prepare for these interviews as a group, we decided  on ten questions to ask the interviewees, understanding that the interviewer would have  to adapt the questions to the specific individual. 

Secondary Research: The two U of T students were equipped to research the  immigration patterns of the ethnic demographic of the individuals interviewed. The goal  of doing so aimed to shed light on how these demographics landed in Canada and the  history behind this specific migration pattern. 

In combining these two research methods, the group wanted to create a big  picture of the people who made up Regent Park and why Regent Park was so diverse.  Doing these two research methods also shed light on the various social connections that  were made due to immigration and how they may/have changed due to revitalization.  

Thus we decided for our project to be displayed on a website in which the viewer could  choose who’s story they wanted to hear. We also knew that we wanted to understand the  path of immigration for each demographic that we interviewed. Trying to achieve this  was harder than anticipated, and therefore we decided that a multimedia website would  be the best fit for our group. We would achieve our vision by using various tabs and  hyperlinks within a website. When we started to brainstorm how we wanted to plan the  website, we began to think of the various methods in which we wanted to deliver our  research and interviews. We wanted the authenticity of the interviews to come through  instead of quoting them, so we decided to put clips of the interviews throughout the  website. This allowed the interviewees a chance to express their own perspectives and  emotions. 

Our biggest takeaway from the project was understanding the different types of  immigration patterns and the various reasons why individuals migrate. Through the  article written by Boyd and Bickers, we learnt some of the main reasons why individuals  migrate to Canada, these being; education, joining family, to flee human rights  violations, amongst other hardships (Boyd & Vickers, 2000). Through the interviews we  learnt how hardships process of migrated brought many individuals together and  created a tight-knit community. However, it was clear that revitalization had affected  this community.  

One way in which the community was affected and was discussed in class was the  divide between apartment owners and those who lived in TCHC housing, creating a  change in the existing social communities. This was reminiscent of the papers on condo  owners within Regent Park. Within their paper, Kelly discusses how the new mixed income housing model created a negative divide between owners and community  members (Kelly, 2013). While Kelly’s paper is more cognizant of condo owners' worries,  the paper by Rose and Walks addressed the negative implications on existing residents.  Stating that the increase in condominiums is not only displacing various communities it  is also breaking the bonding social capital within the community (Rosen & Walks, 2015).  A class member brought up the very harsh reality that many condo owners do not live in  Canada let alone in Regent Park, however, they are given a stronger voice due to their  financial ability to own a Condo. This is not a new concept, within his theory of Three  Cities, Hulchanski talks about the long history of income polarization within Toronto  and how this creates large disparities within socio-economic opportunities and growth  (Hulchanski, 2010). Furthermore, Bucerius et al, stated within their study that the social  mix model/ mixed income housing model has often shown to be ineffective and cause  lower benefits for existing residents than newer ones (Bucerius et al., 2017). 

Our biggest takeaway was; participating in a group with Residents and UofT students.  This gave us an opportunity to learn about the community within Regent Park and how  big of a role it plays in everyone's day-to-day lives. We learned about the immigration  patterns within Regent Park and the personal narratives of the various members of the  community. narratives of the various members of the community. We are all very  grateful for the opportunity that taking part in this course has provided us with. Being  able to learn while creating friendships that have impacted us all positively has been an  experience that none of us have been able to have before this course. 

This is the link to our final project: https://www.uoftxrpfocus.com/uehome

Urban Eyes: Ipshita, Tanishka, Gail, Lizete, Saquib, Fardowsa

Bibliography 

Boyd, M., & Vickers, M. (2000). 100 years of immigration in Canada. CANADIAN  SOCIAL TRENDS, 11, 12. 

Bucerius, S. M., Thompson, S. K., & Berardi, L. (2017). “They’re Colonizing My  Neighborhood”: (Perceptions of) Social Mix in Canada. City & Community,  16(4), 486–505. https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12263 

Hulchanski, J. D. (2010). The three cities within Toronto: Income polarization among  Toronto’s neighbourhoods, 1970-2005. Cities Centre, University of Toronto. Kelly, S. (2013). The New Normal: The Figure of the Condo Owner in Toronto’s Regent  Park. City & Society, 25(2), 173–194. https://doi.org/10.1111/ciso.12015

Rosen, G., & Walks, A. (2015). Castles in Toronto’s Sky: Condo-Ism as Urban  Transformation. Journal of Urban Affairs, 37(3), 289–310. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/juaf.12140 

Last Stretch

In our session this week, Tanishka and Ippi could not attend class due to personal reasons, and Saquib was away sick. While the group was significantly smaller this week, much work was still done. Tanishka and Ippi researched the different demographics of the individuals that have been interviewed, while Gail and Lizete worked on getting Fardowsa up to date. The group was also able to finish the interviews that were left and get photos from all the interviewees for the website. Even though the group was working separately, we kept each other up to date with constant communication and transparency. 

Something that we observed this week was the sense of trust and comradery that the group has formed. While Ippi was a little scared that the time spent apart so close to the project deadline would affect the group negatively, the group was able to step up and still plough ahead. Furthermore, the group accommodated each other and agreed to meet this coming Monday to prepare for the project showcase that will take place on December 8. 

While we are in the final stretch of producing this project, we have learned many things throughout the process. Our biggest learning was participating in a group with Residents and UofT students, which also meant adjusting our timelines to all the team members. Sadly, we had to work around a member dealing with a personal emergency. We also had an opportunity to learn about the community within Regent Park and how big of a role it plays in everyone's day-to-day lives. Lastly, we learned about the immigration patterns within Regent Park and the personal narratives of the various members of the community. 

We are all very grateful for the opportunity that taking part in this course has provided us with. Being able to learn while creating friendships that have impacted us all positively has been an experience that none of us have been able to have before this course. As we prepare for our final presentations, we would like to take time to thank the FOCUS Media Arts staff and Professor Mehta for creating this opportunity and facilitating our group throughout the year. 

UrbanEyes: Ipshita, Tanishka, Gail, Lizete, Saquib, Fardowsa

Almost There....

This week, UrbanEyes (or what was left of UrbanEyes as half of the group was unable to attend due to the Daniel Spectrum event or a child’s illness) decided to finally take some steps to create our interactive website, and catch up on the interviews conducted by residents. 

Our initial plan was to use Canva to create a website, but upon suggestion from our instructor, we switched to Squarespace instead. This way, we can merge our website with the existing URB430 course site, and we would be able to use the existing Squarespace credentials without having to pay for a premium subscription from Canva. This proved to be slightly challenging, as most of us already had experience with Canva but not with Squarespace, and the interface was not as user-friendly as expected. However, after meddling around for a bit, we now have a fairly good grasp of how it works. We created a home page, an “About Us” page, and some details about our interviewees. Below are images from our website as of now. We still need to replace certain images and text on the website, including our home page in which we plan to include an image of Regent Park residents during a festival from the Regent Park Archives.

Figure 2: Meet the team 1/2

Figure 3: Meet the team 2/2

Since half of our team was absent for last Thursday’s class, we refrained from any discussion regarding the logistics of editing the interviews and deciding which part to keep and how to present it, as we wanted everyone to be able to listen in and give their opinions. We plan on discussing the role of the recorded interviews in our website either next week, or our upcoming weekly outside-of-class meeting. 

We are hoping to get in touch with the Regent Park Archives to find some pictures of community activities or events/festivals that we can use for our website. However, at this point in time, we have zero images of Regent Park residents (excluding the ones in our group). 

In terms of our interviews, we are almost done! Out of the seven interviews that must be conducted, five were done as of last Thursday, and one is being conducted today (Friday). We are simply waiting on our last but not least interview from Gail, and we will be ready to upload them onto our website. Additionally, the U of T students have already begun their research on the histories of Latin, Vietnamese, and Irish immigration, but it is still in its early stages and we plan on diving in deeper once the last interview is complete.

UrbanEyes: Ipshita, Tanishka, Gail, Lizette, Saquib, Fardowsa

Use this quiz to determine the type of immigrant you are!

This week, our group planned on determining our project goals, modifying our questions to ensure our goals can be reached, and identifying the intended audience and interactive component of our website. Afterwards, a meme about sandwiches struck inspiration, leading us to develop a theory surrounding the roots of immigration.  

When brainstorming what our possible interview questions could be, our group decided it should revolve around the following themes: immigration, changes over time, community building, and most importantly: allowing them to tell their authentic histories as per their own personal experiences. Thus, it made sense to us to outline our goals for the project as the following: develop our understanding in the role immigration plays in social housing, develop our understanding of community building in the context of immigration and gentrification, create a space to find lost narratives of immigration, and to allow immigrants to be makers and tellers of their stories. 

The group felt that the questions appropriately allowed us to achieve these goals, but we modified the order of them as per our instructor’s suggestions. 

While taking a break, Gail came across a hilarious meme about the various types of “sandwiches”. This meme is attached below:

After seeing this meme, we were inspired to make something similar about the various types of immigrants. However, our version had a few tweaks. Instead of comparing purists/neturals/rebels with one another, we compared “genres” of immigrants (aka their purpose for immigrating to Canada) with how difficult their immigration experience must have been (as per our collective experiences and perceptions). The “genres” are the following, descending in difficulty: as refugees/displaced people, for better opportunities, for a better passport, to live in Canada temporarily, to join family living here. Underneath each category are examples of each type of immigrant. Our meme is attached above.

Our group wishes to use this template as a component of the interactive aspect of our website, in which users can interact with the meme and tell us (if they wish) what type(s) of immigrant they are, and how hard their immigrant experience was. To start us off, here is how UrbanEyes is represented on this chart: 

Additionally, we plan on creating a website with tabs, buttons, and various surveys to incorporate the user into this learning experience as much as possible. At this point in time, our intended audience members are most likely people interested in learning about immigration, and those who are living/passing by in Regent Park and want to learn more about its history.

UrbanEyes: Ipshita, Tanishka, Gail, Lizette, Saquib, Fardowsa

Booked and Busy

This week, an unexpected community benefits meeting cut our group discussion time down. This meeting was between the residents of Regent Park and the developers, Tridel, in which they discussed how the large sum of money allocated to community benefits should be used. Despite our time being short, we managed to make the most of the limited time with our group members. This started with media training, where we learnt how to operate a video camera and make strides in our website creation and interviewing process. 

Proficiency in videography is crucial to the creation of our multimedia website. We learnt skills like perfecting the framing, sound, and lighting, and knowing which equipment to use for various kinds of filming alongside other videography techniques will allow us to film our interviews (with the interviewee's consent). Last Thursday's media training led to the development of our primary apparatus for the site- video interviews. Alongside that, we have unanimously agreed upon graphics, pictures, and illustrations as other outlets for our creativity. Our first step towards this is posting the first pictures the group took when we arrived in Canada to display the passage of time and the changes it brought.

This is Lizette when she first arrived in Canada in 2004.

Our next step was arranging the interviews with prominent leaders in Regent Park. We tried to find interviewees of diverse backgrounds who had resided within this neighbourhood for several years. Our goal is to have eight different interviewees of eight different ethnic backgrounds. So far, our list, compiled by the residents, includes the following: Deany Peters (Nova Scotian), Joanna Warner, Waleed Hugali (Sudanese), Palos G (Ethiopian), Ronnie Thompson, Ines Garcia (Portuguese), and Miguel Avila-Velarde (Peruvian). The subsequent move will be to reach out to those listed above to inquire about arranging a possible interview, and if they are interested and consent to being recorded, booking the camera and an interview slot with them. 

Due to the busy dynamic of our group members' schedules, finding time to congregate online outside of class proved challenging. We initially decided on Tuesdays from 5:30 to 6:00 pm, but one member had forgotten about a previous commitment she had made and notified us of her inability to meet at that time. After a lot of back and forth, we finally decided upon Mondays 5:30- 6:00 pm for a virtual meeting, including U of T students and Regent Park residents, and the residents decided that they would meet with one another immediately following the group meeting. 

Given that our research question is "What is the history of immigration in creating social communities? And how has the introduction of redevelopment disrupted already-created communities?" We have compiled the following questions as potential interview questions. We plan to narrow this list down to approximately five questions to keep the interview at an appropriate length. Based on which questions we chose to proceed with and the finalisation of our interviewee list, we will begin the research component of this assignment. (452)

This is Ippi when she first arrived in Canada, this photo was taken during her Orientation.  

Interview Questions:  

• How has immigration affected the service you provide at work?

• How have the new residents migrating to regent park affected the community?

• What are some challenges you faced in old regent park and how have they changed in new regent park?

• Did you face challenges as a result of being an immigrant? 

• Why did you or your family choose regent park to live in and/ or work in

• As time has passed, how does your experience compare to what you expected?

• Can you think of times when you have felt unwelcome as an immigrant? What about when you have felt welcomed? 

• There is a story behind every decision to migrate. What do you know about your family’s story?

• Migration can be hard. Where did your family gain strength in difficult times? 

• What traditions from your family’s country—like celebrations, foods, or songs—do you still enjoy? 

• How have these traditions evolved when you arrived in Regent Park?

• Do you see connections between your family story and that of today’s immigrants?

• Is there anything you would like to add that has not been asked? 

• Were there people or communities that made them feel welcomed? 

• What do you know about your family name—like its history, origins, or changes? 

• How do you think your family was changed by migration? 

• What supported you in your move to Canada?

This is Ippi when she first arrived in Canada, this photo was taken during her Orientation.  

This is Tanishka’s first school performance in Canada, circa 2008.

UrbanEyes: Ipshita, Tanishka, Gail, Lizette, Saquib, Fardowsa

Urban Eyes

This week we would like to introduce you to our project “Urban Eyes”. We are a group of U of T students and Regent Park residents who will be studying the changing cultures within Regent Park. This assignment is a product of a UofT x Focus Media Arts collaborative course that encourages students and residents to explore the multi-dimensional history of Regent Park. With this year's focus being on immigration and disease, we are tasked with creating an interactive research project. 

We will all shortly introduce ourselves in videos we have prepared to give you a more holistic understanding of who we are, but before that, we would like to discuss the premise of our project Urban Eyes. Our project’s research question came before the name, and we unanimously agreed that we wanted to discuss the evolution of immigration within communities. From this stemmed our initial research question:

What is the history of immigration in creating social communities? And how has the introduction of Corporations / Mixed-income housing disrupted already-created ethnic communities?

We then decided the form of media we would prefer to use would be an interactive website with mixed media to engage with users; in which  the viewer can choose which immigrant community’s path they would like to know more about and follow.This medium encourages users to feel empowered in their journey to discover more about the community they live in; they can search, choose, and click on various tabs on their own accord. It also allows us to branch out to research various specific phenomenons that we believe to be vital for a user’s understanding of immigration in Regent Park, as opposed to simply focusing on one broad element. Upon this realization, we adjusted our research question to reflect this idea. Below our current research question is:

What is the history of immigration in creating social communities? And how has the introduction of Redevelopment disrupted already-created communities? 

This question qualified us to study multiple different communities and get a more comprehensive understanding of the role immigration plays within Regent Park. It also allows us to understand the role redevelopment has played in immigration and community.

We individually created a short video introducing ourselves and answering the following questions: what is your name, where are you from, how long have you lived there, what is a fun fact about you, and why is community/immigration important to you. 

  We then started to discuss the various ways we could collect information for the project to create a holistic picture of the different communities within Regent Park. Based on our strengths and skills, we decided that the UofT students would conduct academic research while the Regent Park residents would conduct primary research in the form of interviews that will be both video and voice recordings to post on the website. Additionally, we began brainstorming for possible interviewees and shortlisted a few from the class discussion earlier on in this class regarding Regent Park archives. As soon as we finalize the interview questions, we hope to reach out to these community leaders and schedule a meeting between them and the Regent Park residents.

UrbanEyes: Ipshita, Tanishka, Gail, Lizette, Saquib, Fardowsa