Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [122]
While it is a central claim of this book that evidence cannot and should not be expected to speak for itself, and thus needs analysis, there is another side to this argument, especially in certain kinds of research. Historians, for example, are especially sensitive to the problem of distorting evidence by offering too much interpretation of it before they have adequately presented it—in effect, filtering it prematurely though their own conclusions. While they take care to frame the evidence in a context that makes its range of meanings apparent, they try not to put too much of themselves between the reader and the data. Rather than speaking for their subjects, such historians give them a space to speak.
Here is an example in which a historian presents the experience of a representative individual, one of the first Puerto Rican immigrants to Allentown, Pennsylvania. Note that she allows us to hear his “voice”—his experience—more than hers, although, if you look for it, you will see her presence as well.
Excerpt from Hidden from History: The Latino Community of Allentown, PA by Anna Adams
Jesus Ramos, the oldest of nine children of a Puerto Rican migrant worker, came to New Jersey in the early 1950s to pick fruit. He worked in the fields for two summers, returning to Puerto Rico for the winters. After visiting a Puerto Rican friend who had settled in Allentown, Ramos decided to move there himself. He recalls that by the late 1950s there were approximately 500 Latinos living in Allentown with no place to buy Spanish foods. [Writer uses subject as statistical source] Ramos and Juan Acevedo opened La Famosa grocery store where he sold Goya products upstairs and had pool tables in the basement. When Puerto Ricans began to congregate and socialize in the store, the police accused them of loitering and arrested Mr. Ramos for running a gambling establishment. [Writer embeds narrative of racism without commenting on it; notice that she sticks to the vividly evoked facts] After clearing himself of those charges, he went to work in the cutoff department of the Greif/Genesco Corporation where he stayed for twenty-eight years. He and his wife Carmen have raised nine children in Allentown. As one of the pioneers of the Puerto Rican community, Jesus tried to smooth the way for others. [Here, the writer generalizes about her subject, turning him into a representative figure] He lobbied for Genesco to hire more Spanish speaking people and was one of the founders of Casa Guadalupe, a community center dispensing social services. Despite his efforts, things weren’t always easy. “As long as you spoke Spanish, they looked at you different, and you had to work three times harder than the others,” he says in fluent, heavily accented English. [Notice the implied commentary in the fact that after 40 years Ramos continues to sound Puerto Rican but also to speak his new language fluently: he inhabits two worlds, whether out of reluctance to deny his Puerto Rican heritage or inability to do so] He recalls one occasion when a subordinate co-worker quit rather than take orders from a Puerto Rican. [Although use of the word “recalls” tells us that the whole account was told to the writer by Ramos, she is selective about what she actually quotes and exerts her influence in this way]
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Try This 8.2: Finding Kinds of Evidence
Find and examine a piece of writing that makes use of anecdotal evidence. Such evidence can take the form of stories or brief story-like examples in which the writer reports his or her own or others’ experience and observations. You might look for examples of this kind of evidence in a magazine like the New Yorker, in a feature article of a newspaper’s Sunday magazine section,