Sociological Imagination Project: Evelyn Rogers

The concept of a sociological imagination is to be able to look at something from another perspective in order to look at our own lives in a new way. In order to have a sociological imagination, one must look away from their situation and look at an alternative point of view. It is the concept of being able to see things socially and how they interact and influence one another as well as seeing the general pattern in the particular, in this case, based on time period. I was able to apply the sociological imagination through accounts of what life was like for Evelyn Rogers in the 50’s and forward. From childhood till today, Evelyn has been amongst the priviledged-upper middle class families.

I was at Rancho Solano’s Emeritus Assisted Living facility visiting my grandma when I saw Evelyn in the café. She isn’t a resident there but was visiting a friend who is.

Evelyn Rogers, formerly Evelyn Hendrickson, was born on July 17th, 1949 to an upper middle class family in Swansboro, North Carolina. She was the youngest, having one older sister named, Caroline whom was only about a year older her. Her mother came from a religious Christian family, she pursued the life of a housewife while her father was a general physician then a few years into his career, joined the Navy-causing the family to move on base to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina where he worked at the Naval Hospital. She admits to have lived a privileged childhood, her family lived a comfortable life in a suburban, upper middle class neighborhood. Of course racism was at a peak especially in the south. Her neighborhood consisted of only white people who were of the same social class as her family.

As a child, she and her sister shared mutual friends who lived in the same nei...

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... and had to create their own network of friends over time and did not have connections such as Evelyn’s parent’s did. When my parents came from overseas, they could not bring the people who they grew up with-they basically started over their social lives. It was easy for Evelyn’s parents to find her a mate through family friends but my parents wouldn’t have it that easy-luckily after many years, my parents have made a network of friends through their efforts. Also, both Evelyn’s paternal and maternal sides of the family all reside in the US, unlike me where all of my family lives overseas-she frequently gets to see her family and they are great influences in her life, as for me, I get to see my family every four years when my parents plan a trip to go to Pakistan, and my extended family has little influence on my life; only my parents and my religion influence me.