A Framework for Understanding Poverty (21 page)

"The economic traits which are most characteristic of the culture of poverty include the constant struggle for survival, unemployment and underemployment, low wages, a miscellany of unskilled occupations, child labor, the absence of savings, a chronic shortage of cash, the absence of food reserves in the home, the pattern of frequent buying of small quantities of food many times a day as the need arises, the pawning of personal goods, borrowing from local money lenders at usurious rates of interest, spontaneous informal credit devices (tandas) organized by neighbors, and the use of second-hand clothing and furniture."

Ibid. P. 31.

Lewis, Oscar. The Culture of Poverty. Penchef, Esther, Editor. Four Horsemen: Pollution, Poverty, Famine, Violence. San Francisco, CA: Canfield Press, 1971. P. 137.

Ibid. pp. 137-138.

Ibid.

Ibid.

". . . [T] he city jail is one of the basic institutions of the other America."

In a conversation the author describes "work hard, get ahead" as a "middle class promise."

The author says she "didn't spend a lot of time worrying about nutrition, just volume enough to quell hunger pains."

"The poor are usually as confined by their poverty as if they lived in a maximum security prison. There is not much exposure to other ways of life, unless their neighborhood starts to undergo gentrification."

In describing her friend Nora's situation, the author writes: "Born into what I think of as the `lost-out' generation, just pre-baby boom, Nora says there wasn't much questioning going on: you obeyed your parents and your teachers; middle-class values and expectations weren't suspect, everyone you knew bought into them. You provided your children with at least as much as you had, and that meant, for a divorced woman, getting a job. Nora's mother still works, at eighty-eight, bound and determined not to be a burden to her children. It's what a responsible person does, Nora believed."

The author, when writing about going to Nora's for a dinner party, says: "I can ask them about the invisible rules that become visible only when you break them. If they say, `Come about seven,' I can demand clarification: what does that really mean? I don't settle for, `Whenever you get here,' I hold out for what's socially acceptable."

Lisa, an interviewee, says: "'I never felt like I was middle class. I didn't live in a renovated house, we didn't have cable or colour television, junk food, ketchup in bottles, new cars, yearly family vacations.' My mother says: `Of course you were raised in a middleclass family. You went to camp, you took gymnastics and ballet, you read books for entertainment, both your parents were educated and working."'

Harrington, Michael. The Invisible Land. Penchef, Esther, Editor. Four Horsemen: Pollution, Poverty, Famine, Violence. San Francisco, CA: Canfield Press, 1971. P. 153.

Capponi, Pat. Dispatches from the Poverty Line. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Penguin Books, 1997. P. 41.

Ibid. P. 53.

Ibid. pp. 82-85.

Ibid. p. 161.

Ibid. p. 166.

Ibid. pp. 173-174.

Lisa continues: "'But to me, it seemed that secondhand clothes and home cooking (we never went to restaurants) were less of a lifestyle choice than an economic necessity. This is not to say I felt I was poor. I got everything I needed, just not what I wanted. I was envious of my friends. While we only had two channels on a black-and-white TV, a huge treat was going to lunch at my girlfriend's. We'd eat hot dogs and watch `The Flintstones.' It seemed at the time they had all the luxuries: Pop Tarts for breakfast, white bread, while at home I was crunching stale granola and wheat germ and watching my mother make ketchup out of tomatoes and molasses.'"

"But the new poverty is constructed so as to destroy aspiration; it is a system designed to be impervious to hope."

"This is how the Midtown researchers described the `low social economic status individual': they are `rigid, suspicious and have a fatalistic outlook on life. They do not plan ahead, a characteristic associated with their fatalism. They are prone to depression, have feelings of futility, lack of belongingness, friendliness, and a lack of trust in others."'

Of the poor, the author says that, "they do not postpone satisfactions that they do not save. When pleasure is available, they tend to take it immediately."

"Like the Asian peasant, the impoverished American tends to see life as a fate, an endless cycle from which there is no deliverance."

Class I: "the rich, usually aristocrats of family as well as of money." Class V: "the bottom class, was made up of the poor."

The elite are said to "accept one another, understand one another, marry one another, tend to work and to think if not together at least alike."

Ibid.

Harrington, Michael. The Other America. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1962. P. io.

Ibid. p. 133.

Ibid. P. 134.

Ibid. p. 161.

Ibid. P. 123.

Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1956. p. u.

"No matter what else they may be, the people of these higher circles are involved in a set of overlapping `crowds' and intricately connected `cliques."'

"... [T] here is the increased seasonal change of residence among both rural and small-town upper classes. The women and children of the rural upper class go to `the lake' for the summer period, and the men for long weekends, even as New York families do the same in the winters in Florida."

The upper social class "belong to clubs and organizations to which others like themselves are admitted, and they take quite seriously their appearances in these associations."

"They have attended the same or similar private and exclusive schools, preferably one of the Episcopal boarding schools of New England. Their men have been to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or if local pride could not he overcome, to a locally esteemed college to which their families have contributed."

"The one deep experience that distinguishes the social rich from the merely rich and those below is their schooling, and with it, all the associations, the sense and sensibility, to which this education routine leads throughout their lives."

"As a selection and training place of the upper classes, both old and new, the private school is a unifying influence, a force for the nationalization of the upper classes."

"The major economic fact about the very rich is the fact of the accumulation of advantages: those who have great wealth are in a dozen strategic positions to make it yield further wealth."

Ibid.

Ibid. P. 40.

Ibid. p. 57.

Ibid. P. 58.

Ibid. p. 63.

Ibid. p. 64.

Ibid. P. 115.

In describing the rich: "... [T]heir toys are bigger; they have more of them; they have more of them all at once."

Reverend Gregory Groover says many of the children in the South Bronx don't go to Manhattan. He says, "'...Some have never traveled as far as 125th Street, which is close to us, in Harlem."' He tells about a boy they call Danny. " `... He was 16 before he ever went across the bridge into New Jersey when I took him with me on a trip I had to make. He told me, "I thought New Jersey was this state out there near California." ... "'

Ibid. p. 164.

Kozol, Jonathan. Amazing Grace. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 1995. p. 81.

Chapter Four: Characteristics of Generational Poverty

The extended family "makes the dependence of family members on each other into a code of honor." This works by age usually, "the older people having a right to set the standard for the younger."

In describing a factory worker, his wife speaks of his ability related to sports statistics, and he says, "'She shouldn't make anything of it; I mean, I didn't.'" .. . "There is something more here than embarrassment at being praised. The strengths `I' have are not admissible to the arena of ability where they are socially useful; for once admitted, `I'-my real self-would no longer have them."

Low-income parents compared to rich parents:

Are not as likely to be married.

Typically have less education.

Typically have poorer health.

The role-model version of the good-parent theory contends that "because of their position at the bottom of the social hierarchy, low-income parents develop values, norms, and behaviors that are `dysfunctional' for success in the dominant culture."

Men and women from low-income background are less likely to marry when they have a child than those from higher income. When they marry, "they are more likely to separate and divorce."

"Absent any state support, some women and children will be more likely to remain in abusive and destructive relationships with men. Others will turn to `social prostitution,' serial relationships with men willing to pay their bills."

Sennett, Richard, and Cobb, Jonathan. The Hidden Injuries of Class. London/Boston: Faber and Faber, 1993. First published in U.S.A. in 1972 by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY. p. 106.

Ibid. P. 216.

Mayer, Susan E. What Money Can't Buy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. p. 8.

Ibid. P. 50.

Ibid. pp. 65-66.

Ibid. pp. 151-152.

"Poor parents differ from rich parents in many ways besides income. For instance, low-income parents usually have less education and are less likely to marry, which could also explain disparities in rich and poor children's life chances."

"Clearly, poverty experienced during adolescence negatively affects the educational attainment of children. The role played by education in determining the economic and occupational success of Americans suggests longer-term consequences. The consequences of dropping out of high school are particularly drastic: over the past two decades, individuals with less than a high school degree have suffered an absolute decline in real income and have dropped further behind individuals with more education."

"Our estimates of the determinants of the teen out-ofwedlock birth outcome suggest that parental characteristics (the education of the mother) are important determinants of teens' childbearing choices but that poverty itself is not a significant determinant. However, having income well above the poverty line does appear to reduce teen out-of-wedlock births. A family characteristic frequently associated with povertythe number of years spent living with a single parent -is also a significant determinant of teenage fertility choices, particularly if a child spends the teenage years from twelve to fifteen living in poverty."

"The number of unmarried women having children has risen dramatically, and childbirth outside of marriage is not confined to teenagers."

Mayer, Susan E. Trends in the Economic Well-being and Life Chances of America's Children. Duncan, Greg J., and Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Editors. Consequences of Growing Up Poor. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997. P. 51.

Teachman, Jay D., Paasch, Kathleen M., Day, Randal D., and Carver, Karen P. Poverty During Adolescence and Subsequent Educational Attainment. Duncan, Greg J., and Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Editors. Consequences of Growing Up Poor. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997. P. 416.

Haveman, Robert, Wolfe, Barbara, and Wilson, Kathryn. Childhood Poverty and Adolescent Schooling and Fertility Outcomes: Reduced-form and Structural Estimates. Duncan, Greg J., and Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Editors. Consequences of Growing Up Poor. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997. P. 443.

Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Duncan, Greg J., and Maritato, Nancy. Poor Families, Poor Outcomes: The Well-being of Children and Youth. Duncan, Greg J., and Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Editors. Consequences of Growing Up Poor. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997. P. 4.

"Criminality in this country is a class issue. Many of those warehoused in overcrowded prisons can be properly called `criminals of want,' those who've been deprived of the basic necessities of life and therefore forced into so-called criminal acts to survive ... They are members of a social stratum which includes welfare mothers, housing project residents, immigrant families, the homeless and unemployed."

He says his mother "held up the family when almost everything else came apart."

"We changed houses often because of evictions."

The family then moved in with Seni, the author's halfsister, and her family. A grandmother also lived there, making a total of 11 in the apartment. "The adults occupied the only two bedrooms. The children slept on makeshift bedding in the living room." The author and his brother "sought refuge in the street."

"We didn't call ourselves gangs. We called ourselves clubs or clicas ... It was something to belong tosomething that was ours. We weren't in [B]oy [S]couts, in sports teams or camping groups. Thee Impersonations (club name) is how we wove something out of threads of nothing."

"But `family' is a farce among the propertyless and disenfranchised. Too many families are wrenched apart, as even children are forced to supplement meager incomes. Family can only really exist among those who can afford one."

"Even when income is used to define poverty, one finds relatively high ownership of televisions and automobiles among the poor."

Rodriguez, Luis J. Always Running. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1993. p. 10.

Ibid. P. 23.

Ibid. P. 30.

Ibid. P. 32.

Ibid. P. 41.

Ibid. P. 250.

Seligman, Ben B. The Numbers of Poor. Penchef, Esther, Editor. Four Horsemen: Pollution, Poverty, Famine, Violence. San Francisco, CA: Canfield Press, 1971. P. 95.

"Poverty does different things to different people. Walk into the home of a poor family. A stench may offend the nostrils; filth may offend the eyes. Or the home may look immaculate."

An example of Rosita's neighbor is given: She has five children by five different men-she's never had a husband.

Boyd and his wife believe education provides the best chance for his son. He said, " `... [TIhey won't get any place at all without high school education, and most likely college to boot."'

"Some of the social and psychological characteristics include living in crowded quarters, a lack of privacy, gregariousness, a high incidence of alcoholism, frequent resort to violence in the settlement of quarrels, frequent use of physical violence in the training of children, wife beating, early initiation into sex, free unions or consensual marriages, a relatively high incidence of the abandonment of mothers and children, a trend toward mother-centered families and a much greater knowledge of maternal relatives, the predominance of the nuclear family, a strong predisposition to authoritarianism, and a great emphasis upon family solidarity-an ideal only rarely achieved. Other traits include a strong present time orientation with relatively little ability to defer gratification and plan for the future, a sense of resignation and fatalism based upon the realities of their difficult life situation, a belief in male superiority which reaches its crystallization in machismo or the cult of masculinity, a corresponding martyr complex among women, and finally, a high tolerance for psychological pathology of all sorts."