Class Lives: Stories from across Our Economic Divide

by Chuck Collins (Editor), Jennifer Ladd (Editor), Maynard Seider (Editor), Felice Yeskel (Editor)

Overview

Class Lives is an anthology of narratives dramatizing the lived experience of class in America. It includes forty original essays from authors who represent a range of classes, genders, races, ethnicities, ages, and occupations across the United States. Born into poverty, working class, the middle class, and the owning class—and every place in between—the contributors describe their class journeys in narrative form, recounting one or two key stories that illustrate their growing awareness of class and their place, changing or stable, within the class system.

The stories in Class Lives are both gripping and moving. One contributor grows up in hunger and as an adult becomes an advocate for the poor and homeless. Another acknowledges the truth that her working-class father's achievements afforded her and the rest of the family access to people with power. A gifted child from a working-class home soon understands that intelligence is a commodity but finds his background incompatible with his aspirations and so attempts to divide his life into separate worlds.

Together, these essays form a powerful narrative about the experience of class and the importance of learning about classism, class cultures, and the intersections of class, race, and gender. Class Lives will be a helpful resource for students, teachers, sociologists, diversity trainers, activists, and a general audience. It will leave readers with an appreciation of the poignancy and power of class and the journeys that Americans grapple with on a daily basis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801479656
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	12/18/2014
Series:	A Class Action Book
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Chuck Collins is a board member at Class Action and a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies. He is the author most recently of 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It. Jennifer Ladd is cofounder of Class Action. Maynard Seider, author of A Year in the Life of a Factory, has retired as a Professor of Sociology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. The late Felice Yeskel was cofounder of Class Action.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Caviar, College, Coupons, and Cheese
by Felice YeskelPART I. POOR AND LOW INCOMECleaning Up the Trash: Fighting Shame
by Linda StoutNorth American Peasant
by Fisher LavellI Work with Worn-Out Tools
by Janet LightfootMexican Girl from Fontana
by Geneva Reynaga-AbikoWhat They Say about Poor Girls
by Stephanie JonesBetter Than
by Patience RageNo Yellow Tickets: The Stigma of Poverty in the School Lunch Line
by Wendy WilliamsPART II. WORKING CLASSReflectionsThose of Us from Rio Linda
by Dwight LangThe Cost of Passing
by John Rosario-PerezThe Floors of the Met
by Karen EstrellaWashroom Class Politics
by Timothy HarrisArtichokes
by N. Jeanne BurnsHere's How to Drive the Poor Crazy
by Michaelann BewseeRed Datsun Security
by Karen SpectorWorking Class and CollegeA Box from My Grandfather
by Janet CaseyVacuum Cleaner Truth
by Sierra FleenorI Am Working Class
by Michelle M. TokarczykHitting the Academic Class Ceiling
by K. StrickerBlue-Collar Heart, Ivy League World
by Jennifer O'Connor DuffyBetween Scarcity and Plenty
by Camisha JonesA Nuyorican's Journey to Higher Education: Toward Meritocracy or Internalized Classism?
by Jim BonillaMy Parents' Hands Are on My Back
by Christine OverallPART III. MIDDLE CLASS"Better Be Street": My Adventures in Cross-Class Romance
by Polly TroutIt’s Who You Know and How You Talk
by Betsy Leondar-WrightChildhood Friendship: When Class Didn’t Matter
by Pamela BurrowsFinding Myself in the Middle
by Monica CrumbackA Privileged Path in a Class-Shattered World
by Anne EllingerOreo?: A Black American Experience
by John VaughnClass Is Always with Us
by Kyle HarrisPART IV. OWNING CLASSBorn on Third Base
by Chuck CollinsMoney Was Never a Worry
by Catherine OrlandThe Women Who Cared for My Grandparents
by Sarah BurgessWhat Was It Like Growing Up Owning-Class?
by Jennifer LaddA Day of Traveling across the Class Spectrum
by Charlotte RedwaySocial Capital
by Sally GottesmanPART V. MIXED CLASSComing Clean
by April RosenblumFerragamos: A Cross-Class Experience
by Zoe GreenbergGirl Scout Green
by Mariah BooneLiving beyond Class: My Journey from Haiti to Harvard
by Jacques FleuryAfterword: The Power of Story
by Chuck CollinsAbout the Contributors
Resources
About Class Action

What People are Saying About This

Kim Bobo

Too often, 'class' is viewed as a concept without meaning or impact. Class Lives demonstrates through powerful stories how we are all impacted by the challenges (for the poor) and opportunities (for the rich) imposed on us by class. Pushing against class barriers is critical for those who care about justice and fairness. This book will help us all.

Jack Metzgar

The stories in Class Lives all engage the reader at a directly personal level that both stimulates and guides self-reflection on the role of class and the awareness of class in one's own life. The overall class framework—poor, working class, middle class, and owning class—is intuitively compelling in itself, and the individual essays bring that framework to life in a way that is even more compelling and memorable.

James M. Jasper

In a sad world where our class origins matter more and more, it is useful to have these candid stories about exactly how they matter, from thoughtful people who have devoted their lives to combating injustice.

Rinku Sen

Among the many things that shape our movements, the class identities of principal players are among the least examined. In this insightful book, dozens of authors share heartfelt stories of their struggles with and consciousness around class. Class Lives takes class from a social taboo and brings it to life.

Bill Fletcher

Class Lives addresses the forbidden subject on the U.S. landscape: class. But it does so through the narratives of a spectrum of writers who examine—indeed, interrogate—their own experiences in order to make sense of their backgrounds, their challenges, their successes, and their worldviews. This deeply personal collection takes issues of class and class struggle off the shelf of both academia and social struggle and situates them in the context of living the real contradictions of the real USA. I was drawn into this volume from the very opening pages.

Editorial Reviews

It does a good job of highlighting the implicit class biases and prejudices that often infect progressive movements and institutionslimiting their popular appeal and undercutting their stated commitment to inclusion and diversity. The book's compassionate and inclusive ethos, and its detailed consideration of complex ways that class inflects the whole spectrum of identity and everyday experience, offers a welcome respite from the sanctimonious hothouse of much contemporary liberal identity politics.

--Dennis Soron "Labour/Le Travail"

From the Publisher

"Too often, 'class' is viewed as a concept without meaning or impact. Class Lives demonstrates through powerful stories how we are all impacted by the challenges (for the poor) and opportunities (for the rich) imposed on us by class. Pushing against class barriers is critical for those who care about justice and fairness. This book will help us all."

Kim Bobo

"The stories in Class Lives all engage the reader at a directly personal level that both stimulates and guides self-reflection on the role of class and the awareness of class in one's own life. The overall class framework—poor, working class, middle class, and owning class—is intuitively compelling in itself, and the individual essays bring that framework to life in a way that is even more compelling and memorable."

Jack Metzgar

"In a sad world where our class origins matter more and more, it is useful to have these candid stories about exactly how they matter, from thoughtful people who have devoted their lives to combating injustice."

James M. Jasper

"Class Lives addresses the forbidden subject on the U.S. landscape: class. But it does so through the narratives of a spectrum of writers who examine—indeed, interrogate—their own experiences in order to make sense of their backgrounds, their challenges, their successes, and their worldviews. This deeply personal collection takes issues of class and class struggle off the shelf of both academia and social struggle and situates them in the context of living the real contradictions of the real USA. I was drawn into this volume from the very opening pages."

Bill Fletcher

"Among the many things that shape our movements, the class identities of principal players are among the least examined. In this insightful book, dozens of authors share heartfelt stories of their struggles with and consciousness around class. Class Lives takes class from a social taboo and brings it to life."

Rinku Sen

It does a good job of highlighting the implicit class biases and prejudices that often infect progressive movements and institutionslimiting their popular appeal and undercutting their stated commitment to inclusion and diversity. The book's compassionate and inclusive ethos, and its detailed consideration of complex ways that class inflects the whole spectrum of identity and everyday experience, offers a welcome respite from the sanctimonious hothouse of much contemporary liberal identity politics.

Labour/Le Travail - Dennis Soron