There are character-building moments, I feel, in everyone’s life. Moments, which demand every part of one’s person, that demand for an entire allocation of one’s vital energies to that specific point of time, in which they present themselves. Coincidently, I have recently experienced one of those moments, one of which I’m proud to announce. However, I deem it necessary to provide a background of my struggle before I discuss the fruits of it. I began work at an early age, filling in the role that my father choose to abandon. My first jobs were horrid, working in construction with family friends on the weekends, earning only $40 a day for my low level of output. Those jobs were exhausting, and I do not miss them, but there is something beautiful in sitting down after a long day’s work, with your worn out clothes, with pulsing hands due to exhaustion, and eating a warm meal. Things fall into perspective. Things appear simple. Poverty does not appear to be so mean.
The recession hit and the economy took a turn for the worse, and hence my weekend part-time job in construction. Work becam...
When nothing is going right in life, what do you do? Do you just quit and hope for the best or do you pick yourself up and work even harder to succeed? Iliana Roman, a single mother of three children and an owner of a hair salon, kindles the message that individuals who face adversity can still persevere in life. According to Roman’s memoir “First Job”, it is never too late to turn your life around. At seventeen years, old Roman unexpectedly became pregnant. This event led to Roman’s life changing completely causing her to drop out of high school. She was nearly to the point of no return, she simply could not hold down a proper job, and the only way to support herself and her child is working three to four odd jobs every week. Roman presents her message of persevering in life by incorporating hyperbole, repetition, and pathos.
After reading Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, I observed that both these texts share a few similarities in the way the authors portray the difficulties their characters have to face, in order to get to where they are now. After researching a few rags to riches stories and using Slumdog Millionaire and The Pursuit of Happyness as my primary sources, I found out that successful individuals from harsh backgrounds shared similar complications, yet they had the will and perseverance to get to where they are now. They faced difficulties such as dealing with poverty and hardships of everyday life, struggling to overcome the effects of addiction and abuse. They found ways to overcome these difficulties through things like having some form of education, and utilizing their knowledge, to manipulate opportunities to their advantage in order to bring about success.
In today’s society you either have to work hard to live a good life, or just inherit a lump sum of cash, which is probably never going to happen. So instead a person has to work a usual nine to five just to put food on the table for their families, and in many cases that is not even enough. In the article, “Why We Work” by Andrew Curry, Curry examines the complexities of work and touches on the reasons why many workers feel unsatisfied with their jobs. Barbara Ehrenreich writes an essay called, “Serving in Florida” which is about the overlooked life of being a server and the struggles of working off low minimum wages. Curry’s standpoint on jobs is that workers are not satisfied, the job takes control of their whole life, and workers spend
In the process of reading and completing the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian it became quite clear to me that me and Junior had similarities in our lives. Junior grew up in a household that didn’t have that much income. As readers we found that out early in the book. Some nights Junior wouldn’t have a meal to eat. When Oscar Juniors dog got sick the family didn’t have the money to pay for his medication so they had to shot their sons dog. As the book went on there was numerous more examples about the role poverty played in Juniors life. I myself grew up in a household that didn’t have that much income so I related to Juniors experiences. Growing up there were countless times where I would want new clothes, games,
In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich, a prominent and prolific journalist in Florida, posed an interesting question to her editor: “How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled” (Ehrenreich, 2001, p. 1). In this idea, Ehrenreich set out on a journey to discover just how “the other half” lived on the low wages that they receive. During her project, Ehrenreich set out playing the role of a divorcee hoping to re enter the workforce by taking on the task of finding an unskilled, low paying job in hopes to see just how the poorer class made it with such low pay. Throughout the book, Ehrenreich takes jobs that pay typically between 5to 7 dollars per hour. It is interesting to look into how the attitude of Ehrenreich changes in respect to the
There are a lot of reasons motivating people to work, such as their happiness, interests and self-esteem. However, it is important that jobs can influence people to keep their ambitions to achieve their goals, to satisfy their basic needs and to focus on one thing with their passion. Florence Nightingale gave up financial support from her family since she had an ambition to improve England’s medical and healthcare environment in the 19th century. And during my high school, “my job” offered me a suitable chance to reach my aim, too. In “Workers” by Richard Rodriguez, undocumented physical labor who comes from Mexico works in the U.S. to earn money for their basic needs. Furthermore, in Carl Rowan’s short story, “Unforgettable Miss Bessie,” Miss Bessie, a high school teacher with a plenty of knowledge, uses her passion to educate Africa American. According to these three people and me, jobs are so important for everyone because people need some ways to satisfy their ambitions, money for basic needs and passion on doing something.
There are some who claim that the real reason why poverty exists in the U.S. is not because there is a problem with the labor market that makes it difficult to earn adequate wages, but, instead, that the poor are simply unwilling to work. One such proponent of such a view is Lawrence Mead. Mead claims that “the hallmark of today’s poor adults is that “they seldom work consistently,” and “are notably less self-reliant” (211). Furthermore, that, while “much of poverty could be blamed on the fact that unskilled wages were too low for many people to escape poverty” in the past, nowadays it is a “simple fact that rising wages has pulled most of the working poor out of pover...
In the book, Ehrenreich documented her experiences working a series of minimum wage jobs as a waitress, a maid and a nursing home dietary assistant. Ehrenreich found that in order to make ends meet and afford a place to live and food to eat, she needed to work two jobs, which left her in a constant state of exhaustion and pain. She also observed of her fellow servers that, “everyone who lacks a working husband or boyfriend seems to have a second job” (2001, p. 48). Many of her co-workers shared the same challenge with affordable living arrangements, some living in a van, with their mother, sharing rooms with strangers or even living in a dry-docked boat (Ehrenreich, 2001). Not only did Ehrenreich find that the wages offered unskilled workers were not enough to meet the basic needs of food and shelter, but that there are a “host of special costs” (2001, p. 27) incurred by the working poor. For example, workers are required to invest their own funds in partial uniform and pay ...
What is your prototypical poor person? When I think of poverty, a dirty individual on the side of a freeway or someone cramped on the side of a bridge comes to mind. Today, the poverty icon has dramatically changed. This individual is an overworked, single mother. She is someone who works numerous hours to survive and to meet the basic needs for her family; however, her job is not paying enough no matter how many hours she is working. As a young adult, I realize that work ethic is one of the most important characteristics of the United States of America. Studies have shown that our people are working harder and more years than people in any other country. The harder a person works, the more money they expect to obtain, but this is not the outcome for everyone. The economy is booming; however, there are many hardworking individuals who are still struggling to survive from their minimum income. The Living Wage movement was established to combat and help several low-wage workers in the 1990’s. This movement gave them
Today I have to wake up at 3:30 am in order to be at the factory by 4am. Then I found out that my mother had a cold over night and I have to look after her and do all the washing, cooking and cleaning. By the time I got to the factory it was 4:30. And when Mr. Bob sa...
Wilson, William J. "Jobless Poverty." The Inequality Reader: Contemporary and Foundational Readings in Race, Class, and Gender. Ed. David B. Grusky and Szonja Szelenyi. 2md ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2011. 159-69. Print.
My story began on a cool summer’s night twenty short years ago. From my earliest memory, I recall my father’s disdain for pursuing education. “Quit school and get a job” was his motto. My mother, in contrast, valued education, but she would never put pressure on anyone: a sixty-five was passing, and there was no motivation to do better. As a child, my uncle was my major role-model. He was a living example of how one could strive for greatness with a proper education and hard work. At this tender age of seven, I knew little about how I would achieve my goals, but I knew that education and hard work were going to be valuable. However, all of my youthful fantasies for broader horizons vanished like smoke when school began.
At one point in her career, Barbara Ehrenreich thought that it would be a good idea to get into the life of a person who works for the minimum wage and tries to live of it. As she went through her quest, Barbara met many people who were in fact, struggling. Unlike her, these people had to work multiple jobs, cut down their eating, live in terrible places, and just suffer all because of the lack of money and the need for as much of it as the could get. Some of these employees had others that they had to support, and some only needed to provide for themselves. Nonetheless, millions of people across the US are forced to work jobs where they are miserable in order to be able to give their families what they need, no matter what they have to give up in order to do so. Some of the people she meets are very similar to the characters in George Saunders’ story Pastoralia in the terms that they too work hard, don’t get the best treatment, and are only working because of their need to provide and sustain themselves and others. Saunders subtly depicts his characters as minimum wage workers, much like those in real life, who are struggling to give their loved ones what they need.
find a job.” The last class is the undeserved poor, “ those who could work but instead turned to a
While there are many things standing in my way, my experiences have prepared me. My mother’s kidney disease shows me the importance of being financially prepared for the unexpected. My dad’s hard work and sacrifice has shown me how to be a hard-working woman and to put others before myself. And most importantly, I have learned that no matter a person’s race, gender, or class, you never truly know a person’s