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summer in Lafeyette’s life, and in passing mentioned that his father occasionally slept on the living
room couch. What I later learned—remember, this is during the Reagan years, during the myth of “the
welfare queen”—is that local welfare officials were reading newspapers daily to find so-called
“welfare cheats.” It was a perversion of what public assistance is supposed to be about, which is
watching out for those in need. The result of all this was that they cut the family off of public aid,
arguing that there was a man in the house. There wasn’t. And, what’s more, the father at the time was
unemployed.
Did you intervene and try to set things right?
To be honest, I’m not sure my intervention would have done much good. In fact, it might have made
things worse. If I began complaining officials very possibly would have gotten their backs up, being
badgered by this pesky reporter. What I did do, though, was offer LaJoe, the boys’ mother, advice.
Officials eventually did restore her benefits.
How much information about yourself, and your project, do you share with your subjects?
I spend so much time with people, and ask so much of them, that I feel it important, imperative
even, to share information about my life. And that’s not always easy for me. I’m a fairly private
person. I also am completely honest about my intent and about my methods. People after all have
invited me into their lives, opened up their hearts. These, of course, are people who cannot in any
way be considered public officials, who often by their place in the world have already been shunted
aside, made to feel small, made to feel unwanted. With public officials, of course, it’s a whole other
ball game.
Full disclosure also makes sense on a practical level. I try to verify everything I’m told, so it’s
important that my subjects know exactly how I operate. That way when I check out someone’s story
by cross-referencing it with other people, they won’t think I’m doing it because I mistrust them.
Another method I have for making my subjects aware of my methods—of the fact that I’m reporting on
them, not just talking with them—is by making a point of always having my notebook out. I want to
remind them why I’m there. I don’t want them to be surprised, or feel betrayed, when what they’ve
said to me appears in print.
How confrontational will you become during an interview?
I’m not a terribly confrontational person (though I can be when it’s called for). But I am
opinionated. Sometimes too much for my own good. While reporting There Are No Children Here, I
learned that LaJoe, Lafeyette and Pharoah’s mother, would stay out all night playing cards at a
neighbor’s, and then I’d get phone calls in the morning from the kids that they didn’t have clean
clothes or food for breakfast. So, I’d say to her, “Don’t you think you should be home?” I don’t think
anybody had ever asked her that before. I came to understand, though, that this was her only way to
escape the pressures of her life. By this time I had a strong relationship with LaJoe, and so I felt I
could express myself honestly without fear that she’d walk away.