For our first fieldwork, my group watched a PBS movie called, Poor Kids. This movie follows the lives of multiple families in America who live in poverty. This film portrayed how poverty can effect so many things in your life such as your diet, home, pets, school-life, etc. I think that one thing this movie taught us is that being in poverty doesn’t always mean that you are homeless or living on the street. We discussed how many people think that when someone is living in poverty, they are homeless, but two of the families in the movie had a home. They were still struggling to make ends meet but they were not homeless. This movie was very upsetting and difficult to watch at times. It really makes you grateful for all of the things that you have. I found it very sad when Brittany, a young girl in the movie, was talking about her unhealthy diet and was explaining how she was disappointed in herself because the food that her family could afford made her overweight and her classmates made fun of her. This taught us about how being in poverty can affect your physical and mental health. Not being able to afford nutritious food can be very bad for the health of these children and can lead to them being self conscious. Our group would like to contact the director of this movie and see if we can interview her to learn more about these children and the topic in general. We recently sent her an email and are waiting for a reply. Overall, I thought that this movie was very moving and taught me a lot about the topic. It informed me on the issues that a family in poverty might face which is very helpful to our project.
