Arlesia Tutman: My name is Arlesia Tutman.
Fleming Thompson: Okay and how long have you lived in the Peoplestown area?
A.T: Seventeen and half years.
F.T: Ok, and in that seventeen and half years have you seen many changes in the area?
A.T: Yes I have, I noticed that, because when I was younger, it used to be like a lot of commotion a lot of drama, like my aunt said a lot of drug activities, it has changed because as now we see more police officers involved in the community and we say that they have cleaned up the community, there’s no more like gang violent relations, anything like that.
F.T: Okay.
A.T: But I also noticed the change in the community center because that about, maybe about five years ago everybody used to could go in the community center get on the computers, play pinball, play basketball, everything, but now it’s like there’s only a certain amount of people allowed in there. If you’re not in school, you only can come use the computer if you’re enrolled in their after school program. You can’t go inside the center unless you work there. We used to go in there and use the restrooms, we used to go in there to drink water, everything. Now it’s like that’s totally shut down. They don’t open the center to hardly anybody unless you’re enrolled in the camp or anything. And I also noticed that the neighbors over here they’re more involved now at first they wasn’t, but then they were involved in everything that goes on, then as, what I was speaking earlier about the transportation back and forth to the prison camp, I didn’t know for sure that they only had one going to one prison, but that’s not right because you have many people out here whose children are incarcerated, or family members incarcerated and they’re not all at one prison, so I don’t feel that you should be able to take one group of people to see their family members when you can’t take the rest of them, so I believe that people should be more involved in that, by trying to at least, if you going to take these people once a month at least try to take the other people at least every other month instead of just taking one people down there to see their family every month and the other people just have to sit back and wait on a phone call, wait on a letter, and that’s kind of depressing.
F.T: You talked about the um, community center, is there a fee to enroll in this?
A.T: Um, for the summer camp there is, but the after school program, they’re only, it’s only for high schools. It’s only for high schools, and I don’t think that’s right because you have elementary and middle school kids that want to learn how to do things, like they teach, they take the high school students to like basketball games to theatre events, they do a lot of things with more high school kids then they do with middle school and elementary and those are the ones that you really need to bring up rather than, because the high schoolers already done been through elementary and middle, they basically living a grown life now, they basically done did everything so they going to sit up there and basically try to take over, with the little kids do have to do and I don’t think that’s right. So, but no they, not that I know of or for a fee for the after school program but I just know that they’re only, it’s only for high schoolers.
F.T: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?
A.T: No.
F.T: Okay, we’d certainly like to thank you for taking the time to speak with us and as we said the tape will be archived and there will be a copy of it given to you and there will be a copy at Emmaus House and a copy at the Auburn Avenue research library, and we’d like to take, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, and hope that you have a good day.
A.T: No problem.
Interview with: Arlesia Tutman
Interviewed by: Fleming Thompson
Location: Ms. Tutman’s home
Date: 01/15/08
Transcribed by: Steven Satterfield
The Emmaus House-Peoplestown oral histories are edited to provide reading clarity while preserving the interview’s conversational tone and the speakers’ speech patterns.
