Socioeconomic Status and Class Disparity Impact

Socioeconomic Differences Socioeconomic status is the measure of the influence that the social environment has on individuals, families, communities, and schools (Brogan). The concept considers other influences, such as the chance for social or economic advancement, influence on policy, availability of resources, and prestige of the primary occupation. (Brogan).
The novel identifies the three main social classes which are the upper class (Da Ros), the middle class (Arroyo Blanco residents) and lower class (Mexican immigrants), and this further explains the characteristics of the people in each class. The lower classes is associated with the poor, people who have little control over resources, power and prestige, compared to the middle class who are better off than the former. The novel focuses on two main class which are the middle and the lower class and the effect of socioeconomic status on people. The people in Arroyo Blanco Estates who fall in the middle class were in the position to provide the resources that the lower class (Candido, America and the other immigrants) will need for their survival. They provided the labor exchange which enables the immigrants to get jobs for their survival, in turn the resident of AB would also got cheap labor. The existence of the gap between socioeconomic classes has

“Oppression: the imposition of systematic disadvantage on members of a social group (or ‘identity’), such as a gender, race, class, etc., generating a pattern of unfavorable ratios of benefits to burdens, and impaired opportunities to establish and maintain positive relations-to-self.”(Darcy). The immigrants were chased out of Shoup and the labor exchange was created when the need arose for cheap labor, they are used and dumped when