Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Imagine for a moment that you have been transported
from your present life into a world in which you must
live and relate to the other people by the following
rules:
You can only own that which can be moved in half a
day and placed in the back of a truck. You have no
credit cards or a checking account (and even if you did,
you have no money to put in it.) You exist from hand to
mouth and you relate to other people in terms of what
they can do for you that day – just as they will relate
to you. There is no language of “negotiation”. You learn
to fight for your rights and defend yourself physically
or you need to find someone who will be your protector.
You have no car. You have family around but they live
under similar conditions and most of them have small
children to care for. You have a temporary living
situation with a friend but he/she has already told you
that you might need to be out by the end of the week.
They have no electricity and no phone. It is mid-summer
and it is intensely hot and humid. But hey,
congratulations, you just started a new job at the local
mall for $7.00 an hour! Good luck!
Some of you may read that scenario and think, “Been
there, done that - no problem.” Others, like me, would
find such a scenario a thing of our nightmares. Not
because it is necessarily a nightmarish existence –
after all, millions of people in North America live this
reality every day without ever questioning it, for some,
quite contentedly. What would make it frightening to me
is that I am not sure how I could survive, much less
thrive, in such a reality. For all the skills and savvy
I have to apply to this situation, you might as well
drop me into downtown Tokyo or a village in Ecuador.
Funny thing is, I once thought that I knew what it
meant to be poor because of an experience I had when I
was nineteen years old and ventured off to Spain for
what was to be a two month summer adventure. What I
hadn’t anticipated was being robbed of my backpack on
the first day of my sojourn, losing my passport, my few
belongings, my ticket home and all but $30 worth of
pesetas which I had in my back pocket! Too proud to call
home for help, I figured that if I got myself into this
situation, I had better get myself out! I remember
writing postcards to family members about the wonderful
sights I was seeing from the corner of the bus station
where I was camped out for twenty three nights!
To make a long story short, I ended up selling my
watch to an American tourist and used the proceeds to
take out an ad in the local paper in which I advertised
private English classes. I used the number of the public
phone in the bus station as my telephone number. On the
fifth and final day that the ad was running I received a
call from a German fellow who ran the local Berlitz
Language Institute and was looking for an English
teacher. Knowing this could be my one and only break, I
lied through my teeth, selling him on my imaginary
Master’s Degree and four years teaching experience. He
said I sounded “just perfect” and we set up an interview
for the following afternoon.
When I walked into his office the next day I came
clean (although after twenty three days in the same
clothes, I wasn’t looking or smelling too clean) and
admitted that I was sleeping in a bus station, ya da ya
da ya da. I told him in no uncertain terms that if he
gave me a class and a teaching objective and watched me
work, if he did not like what he saw, I would
voluntarily leave the premises. (An interesting
interview method, don’t you think?) Later he admitted to
thinking that he had nothing to lose by allowing his
students to experience this American gringo accent since
they were learning the “King’s English”.
Well, never having taught a thing to anyone in my
life, my little experiment worked better than I had
intended, as I felt like a bird who had found her wings.
Knowing that I had truly engaged this small class of
people, with the director standing with his arms crossed
in the back of the room, I proposed to the class, “Would
you like me to be your new teacher?” to which they
responded with a unanimous “Yes!” (I will never forget
the look on the director’s face.) He gave me a month’s
advance under the condition that I would secure a room
in a boarding house, burn the clothes I was wearing, and
buy an appropriate wardrobe. My two month trip to Spain
turned into one of the most incredible experiences of my
life as I did not return home for another year and a
half!
I bet most of you have your own tale of being
completely broke, nearly homeless, and/or living on the
fringes (what many refer to this as “college life”).
What I have come to understand, however, is that there
is a great difference between “situational poverty” –
where we are thrown into circumstances which demand that
we live on little for a temporary period of time – and
“generational poverty” in which a person has been born
and raised in that reality and sees no alternative.
There is in fact a distinct culture, mentality, and way
of being in the world that comes with living in poverty
– the rules and norms of which people within and outside
that culture are completely oblivious. There are also
distinctive cultures surrounding both the middle class
and the upper class, each with its own set of hidden
rules to which people within and outside these classes
are equally oblivious. Here’s the rub – North American
schools and workplaces are based on the hidden rules,
norms an d values of the middle class – leaving the
working poor unprepared and often times clueless to the
expectations and assumptions of their employers as well
as many of their customers and co-workers.
Based on the definition offered by Ruby Payne in her
insightful book, “A Framework for Understanding Poverty”
(which can be ordered off her website at
www.ahaprocess.com), poverty is “the extent to which an
individual does without resources”. While we ordinarily
think of poverty in terms of lack of financial
resources, Payne discusses the lack of resources in
other areas. In reading her work, I was struck by how
familiar I felt with much of what she wrote about –
realizing that much of what we experience in working
with individuals in employment services may not simply
be about their individual personality quirks, but
patterns embedded in something deeper, namely the
culture of poverty. What I offer below is a very cursory
overview of the issues at stake, and I encourage all who
are interested to read Payne’s work in full. In summary,
however, I urge you as professionals in the employment
and training field to take into account just how
profoundly a person’s experience i n the work world may
be affected by a distinct lack of resources in the
following areas:
1. Emotional Resources
This category refers to being able to choose and
control emotional responses, particularly to negative
situations, without engaging in self-destructive
behavior. This is am internal resource and shows itself
through stamina, perseverance, and making conscious
choices. In poverty, adversity is typically handled in
the moment and is often nothing less than a test of
wills in a survival of the fittest mentality. Fighting
and physical violence are a part of poverty. By
contrast, the middle class uses space to deal with
conflict and disagreement, i.e. they go to a different
room and cool off; they purchase land so they are not
encroached upon; they live in neighborhoods where people
keep their distance. But in poverty, separation is no an
option. The only way to defend oneself is physically.
Middle class culture assumes the language and
thinking of “negotiation” – looking at all sides of a
situation and creating a win-win for everyone involved.
What we often forget is that a person raised in poverty
has not had much exposure less experience in the
cognitive and culturally-laden strategies involved in
this kind of thinking. This is not an issue of
intelligence – it is a matter of learned response to
adversity. What we may view as “emotional outbursts”,
“rudeness”, “a total lack of respect for authority”, or
“quitting without provocation” may, from the culture of
poverty, be considered simply sticking up for oneself.
2. Support Systems
Support systems represent the friends, family, and
backup resources a person has available to access in
times of need. These are external resources which are
taken for granted by those in the middle and upper
classes but virtually non-existent in poverty. Consider
the support systems you have in place in response to the
following questions: Who sits and listens when you get
rejected over and over again in the job search? Who
celebrates with you when you do get the job? Who assists
you to get your ducks in a row before your starting
date? When the child is sick and you have to be at work
– who takes care of the child? Where do you go when
money is short and the baby needs medicine? When you are
upset, who provides relief for you? Who do you call when
the car won’t start or when you’ve been evicted from
your apartment? What if a family member calls you from
jail needing you to bail him/her out but you have to be
at work in the next hour? What choice would you make and
how would you make it?
Consider the mountain of choices, challenges and
crises faced by a person living in poverty for whom
resources and support systems are scarce. Rather than
scorn someone for taking time off or coming into work
late due to ongoing family emergencies, can we take this
as a sign that perhaps some additional support systems
are needed?
3. Information and Know How
Support systems are not just about meeting
financially or emotional needs. They are about knowledge
bases as well. Who helps you negotiate mountains of
paper when working on your income taxes? Who assists you
with your application or your resume? How about
insurance forms? Who knows the ropes in the legal
system, the school system, and the workplace? Where do
you go to pay a parking ticket, secure a work permit,
turn up for jury duty, or get your phone turned back on?
How do you sign up for classes in the community college,
get your child on the summer soccer team, or find out
where the local AA meetings are being held? The hoops
that prospective employees must jump through (e.g., drug
testing, personality tests, company orientation, etc.)
can be completely harrowing to the person who lacks
information and know how. I cannot help but wonder how
much we assume a person already knows based on our
middle class experience. How do we become aware of and
manage our expecta tions of what people should already
know based on the experience of the class in which we
were raised?
4. Knowledge of Hidden Rules
One of the skills in my book on job retention
entitled “30 Ways to Shine as a New Employee”, is Skill
#4: Understanding Workplace Culture”. When introducing
this skill I remind people of the old adage, “When in
Rome, do as Romans do,” and then I pose the question,
“Wouldn’t it be nice if you knew what Romans did?”
Knowledge of the hidden rules of a culture is crucial
to one entering that world for the first time. The
differences in culture according to economic class are
not just about the kinds of cars we drive, the food we
eat or our choices in entertainment. Distinctions among
the three economic classes revolve in great part around
varying perspectives on basic concepts like money, time,
work, education and family. Here are some examples from
Ruby Payne’s book, “The Framework for Understanding
Poverty”:
About Money: The clear understanding in poverty is
that one will never get ahead so when extra money is
available it is immediately shared or spent. There are
always emergencies and needs of some kind – one might as
well enjoy the moment! In the middle class money is
meant to be managed and saved with the goal of
self-sufficiency, security and personal achievement. By
upper class standards money is to be conserved and
invested. But think about it - how can you learn to
manage or conserve something you’ve never had? The
notion of using money for security is truly grounded in
the middle and wealthy class values.
About Food: For people in poverty the question is
whether or not there will be enough to go around, for
the middle class it’s about quality and taste, and for
the upper class it is about presentation!
About Clothing: In poverty clothing is about
individual style, while for the middle class it is a
question of dressing appropriately to fit the context.
For the upper class clothing is a question of artistic
expression and the designer label. (Consider the
ramifications of adhering to dress code for a person
from poverty entering a work environment based on middle
class dress norms. What goes unspoken because we expect
people to know the hidden rules?)
About Time: In poverty the present is most important
– decisions are made for the moment based on feelings of
survival. The middle class concerns itself with the
future and decisions are made against future
ramifications while for the upper class traditions and
history most important and decisions are made in the
context of tradition and decorum. (Consider how the
classic interview question, “What do you think you will
be doing five years from now?” sounds to the person who
wonders where they will be living five days later. Let’s
not suggest to the person to plan and save who just
yesterday traded his shoes for a meal. Surely the
imagination is lulled to sleep by the rumbling of a
hungry stomach. When I think back to my experience of
sleeping in a bus station in Spain, don’t’ think I don’t
shudder with the memory of a cold floor, the non-stop
buzzing of the fluorescent overhead lights which never
turned off, and the steady hum of strangers walking
around me whispering in a language I could not
understand. But hear me loud and clear when I tell you
that I never truly despaired because I had support
systems in the form of family and friends I knew I could
call on if and when I got that desperate! I had deep
emotional resources to the point of stupidity in not
being able to call for help because I was too “proud”.
Unlike a person in true poverty, I never for a moment
thought I was doomed to the situation – I knew in the
marrow of my bones that it was simply a matter of time
before I was back on my feet or headed home on a 747.
(What I also had going for me at that time was the
naiveté and innocence of youth – there is no way I would
handle those same circumstances t oday with the same
nonchalance I did at nineteen years old!)
As if I needed further convincing that I have been
lulled into middle class complacency, the astonishing
and illuminating book, “Nickel and Dimed”, (which I
review as this month’s Suggested Reading) landed in my
lap a few weeks ago. At turns delightful and
devastating, author Barbara Ehrenreich took me on an
unforgettable odyssey into the real-world struggles of
the working poor, shaking me out of comfortable
disillusionment that I have ever had a clue as to how
what it means to be poor in Spain, much less in America.
The truth is that I will never fully understand what it
is to live in poverty than I will know what it is to be
gay, Jewish, Chinese, paraplegic or male. What I do
have, however, is the presence of mind to know that I do
not know. It is from that place of ignorance but genuine
interest that I want to learn much more about the
realities of my brothers and sisters who live in poverty
in this country, on this continent, and in this world. I
hope you will join me in that sincere desire to know and
comprehend more, and from that deepened understanding to
be a stronger voice for social justice and economic
equality in the ongoing struggle for “living wages”. May
our desire to learn and understand more about the
culture of poverty and the realities of the working poor
spur us to the kind of self-reflection that results in
greater tolerance, truer humility and deeper love.
In the rich spirit of community,
Denise
© Denise Bissonnette, June 2004 (If not used for
commercial purposes, this article may be reproduced, all
or in part, providing it is credited to "Denise
Bissonnette, Diversity World - www.diversityworld.com."
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