Not everyone has commented yet about how we should frame our study, but I am getting a broader sense of people's interests with all the comments you've made. First, I like Deborah's idea about stereotypes very much--it's a good way to capture the difference between outsiders and residents, and it also reflects what we've been studying as a class (Harlem, Chinatown, Little Italy, etc.)--but I am also concerned that outsiders probably won't want to be filmed talking about stereotypes. Perhaps if we don't frame this as "stereotypes," but rather as "perceptions," it might work. 

 

In addition, I've been thinking about the way many of you expressed interest in talking to kids and the elderly. A website completely framed in this way would likely lack a wider appeal, but you might be able to use this as part of a section of the website you could label "Past and future," or something like that (although I don't mean to insult the elderly by saying they are "the past"). In other words, this could be an important component, and two or three of you from each group (Brighton Beach and Chinatown) might think about working together on such a section. 

 

Similarly, one section of the website could deal with tourism, looking at it in a comparative way (what does it mean for each community?), immigration and politics (remember that a large number of residents of both communities fled communist or formerly communist nations), history, and even ethnicity and identity in a more complex way than just immigrant/native. After all, Chinatown is in transition from a once heavily Cantonese community to one that that contains far more people from different parts of China and even Chinese from other parts of the world. Brighton Beach is not only Russian, but heavily Jewish, and how "Russian" is it after the demise of the Soviet Union?