These questions aren’t so different from what playwrights, producers, and actors ask themselves every day, so it’s no surprise that this semester has also included so many examples of class, race, and gender in theater. The plays we have read and discussed act as primary and secondary source historical documents, depicting moments in time and cultural mindsets. They also allow us to explore the very different ways that theater artists challenge people to think about their privileges, assumptions, and actions. And so we have the detailed realism of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, the post-modern emotional rollercoster of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, and the part-Brechtian analysis, part-documentary style theater adaption of Nickel and Dimed. Each affected us in different ways, each provoked discussion, and each, I like to think, changed us just a little.

But, I hear people say, what can theater really do? It’s just entertainment, right? And that’s what people want; it’s not like anyone riots at theater these days. [1] Sure, there’s some truth to that. The top three grossing Broadway productions as of 2012 were, respectively, The Lion King, Phantom of the Opera, and Wicked, none of them exactly critical in their analysis of, well… anything (she says while ducking to avoid blows from fans). [2] More than once in class, we’ve had a strange gut reaction: that’s just too serious for theater.

But I still stand with theater (and, by extension, with museums, which I have long held are a sort of theatrical production) as a venue for discussing difficult ideas – as, perhaps, one of the best venues we have. Aristotle famously described theater as an opportunity for collective catharsis, a chance to examine our, and society’s, foibles on a gut level. [3] That is still true today. Plenty of people flocked to see the film version of Les Miserables last December, and while many of them probably assumed that its lessons about poverty and violence against women have nothing to do with today, I found it incredibly significant that during Anne Hathaway’s acceptance speech for her role in the film, she reminded those watching, “Here’s hoping someday in the not-too-distant future the misfortunes of Fantine will be only found in fiction and not in real life.” [4] Can such a nod in the direction of social justice seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things? Sure. But can emotions and empathy also lead to change? Absolutely.

Not all theater can be cathartic. Not all museum exhibits and programs can ask hard questions. And that is certainly all right. Sometimes we do just want to have fun. But people are creatures of passion and emotion. If museums can find a way to tap into that the way that good theater (or any good art) can, then we can become part of the difficult but necessary conversations about our history and culture.

[1] Paul Ketchum, “Off-Broadway Shows: A Brief Guide to Understanding Curious Plays (and Starting Riots),” PolicyMic. Accessed 13 May, 2013. http://www.policymic.com/articles/19591/when-theater-started-riots-a-brief-guide-to-finding-and-watching-curious-plays

[2] “5 Top-Grossing Broadway Musicals,” Investopedia. Accessed 13 May, 2013. http://www.investopedia.com/slide-show/top-musicals/

[3] Aristotle, Poetics.

[4] “Anne Hathaway’s Oscars Speech: Actress Wins ‘Best Supporting Actress’ for Les Miserables,” Huffington Post. Accessed 13 May, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/24/anne-hathaway-oscars-speech_n_2727529.html

Flying across the country can teach you a lot about our society.  When I flew from New York to California for family vacations I always wondered why my family could not sit in big comfy chairs in first class at the front of the plane.  Why would anyone want to spend 6 hours sitting in third class when the best seats were clearly in first class?  My parents told me that we would sit up there as soon as I got rich and famous.  Still, I always wondered what life must be like for the people who sat up there.  We were comfortably middle class, but it just felt like our lives just weren’t as important as other peoples.

 Class is more than money; it’s an entire way of life.  In Nickel and Dimed, the author enters into a different world.  Her education and career mean nothing when she must stock shelves, serve meals, or clean up poop at rich peoples’ houses.  Somehow she just felt different from her co-workers.

 Minimum wage work requires a unique set of skills.  When I got my first job working for a grocery store I failed miserably.  I hated the work and was terrible at it.  My AP scores and knowledge of Hamlet, A Doll’s House, wars that most people have never heard of, Prussian monarchs, and Chester A. Arthur meant absolutely nothing.  I had good grades and was on my way to a good private college, but I just couldn’t make change for people at a grocery store.  I barely lasted two weeks before getting fired.

 Fast forward a few years, and I found myself doing the same work again, but this time at a movie theater.  My first several weeks were challenging to say the least.  I had just written a lovely paper about the influence of gender in the narratives for missionary martyrdom in seventeenth-century New France, but had trouble serving popcorn.  The other staff thought that I was an idiot and I didn’t think I would last, but I persevered and stayed on.

The biggest lesson I got out from all of this was that I was privileged.  Like many of my co-workers, I was a student who was only doing the work to get more spending money.  It meant having more money to explore England for a semester; it wasn’t about paying rent or buying food.  We all did the same work, but there always seemed to be a big divide between the students and older employees.  We did the job to have a little extra money and to have something to do, they did it to survive.

 I was raised to be middle class.  Both of my parents had attended graduate school and college was never a choice for me.  I had to go.  But were we really that well off?  I always noticed that my father’s boss had a much bigger house and nicer stuff than us.  Rich people are just different from the rest of us.  They have bigger homes, nicer cars, and get to go to all the best parties.

 As museum professionals we will have to depend on rich people’s generosity.  Their money will pay our salaries, keep the lights on in our offices, and heat our buildings in the winter and cool them in the summer.  People write entire books about how to ask them for money.  We might never become rich, but like the maids in Nickel and Dimed, we will always be fascinated by rich people.  They’re just as human as us, but they’re just different.

Ehrenreich’s experiment may have been a flawed one that didn’t authentically imitate how people who spend their lives working for minimum wage live, but she did prove what we already know: that it is hard to live on so little money. If Ehrenreich’s experience was not quite authentic, she did meet a number of people in Key West, Portland, and Minneapolis whose lives do reflect the real difficulties of living on $7-9 an hour. She describes Joan the restaurant hostess in Key West who has to live in her van; Holly, the Maid service worker in Portland was afraid to take a day off to get medical attention for her injured ankle; and Alyssa, the Walmart “associate” who couldn’t afford to buy $7 polo shirt on clearance at Walmart on her $7 an hour salary. [1]

This made me think about the implications for museums if at least 15% of Americans live in poverty and 80% of Americans own only 7% of the nation’s wealth. [2] With that in mind, it seems absurd to charge a $20 per person admission fee to institutions that are supposed to serve the general public. Many people could be forgiven for thinking that museums were exclusively for the wealthy, only for those who can afford to get in.

Museums might not be able to fix the poverty problem in America, but they should at least do something to make sure they are at least easily accessible to people whose time and money might be scarce. We do not need be arguing that museums need to charge entrance fees because the masses are ruining the monied visitors’ view of the Cezanne. It is absurd to think that having one free day a month or even a week is making museums that accessible to people who cannot afford full admission. So how should museums respond when their communities are made up of people without much money and people who work long hours? How can museums be more sensitive to the needs of people with differing financial means?

[1] Nickel and Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich, 26, 110, 181

[2] National Poverty Center http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/ and http://mashable.com/2013/03/02/wealth-inequality/

photo from http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/05/10/philadelphia-cab-drivers-demand-in-cab-cameras-to-deter-assaults/
credit: Mike DeNardo

This morning as I was reading my twitter feed, I stumbled across an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer about a rally that was held by around 300 of the city’s cab drivers on Friday, May 10. [1]  Earlier this week, a cab driver was robbed and killed, in West Philadelphia, while on duty.  As a response to this traumatic event, Philadelphia cab drivers held a protest demanding increased safety measures, such as video surveillance cameras, within the city’s taxi cabs.  In addition, the disgruntled cab drivers were also calling on state lawmakers “to create a fund that would help drivers who are injured on the job and the families of slain drivers.” [2]  In reading this article, I learned that a lot of the struggles of these cab drivers align with the major themes that we addressed in our class discussion about Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed.

Similarly to the people that we read about in Nickel and Dimed, many of the cab drivers who participated in the rally do not have health coverage or worker’s compensation, and so there is very little money to be offered to families of injured or murdered cab drivers.  To make matters worse, the country’s dangerous or undesirable professions, like domestic service and taxi cab driving, are disproportionately held by our immigrant population.  The subpar working conditions that American immigrants face also reminds me of our assigned reading from a few weeks ago by Ha Jin and Edwidge Danticat.  In these different weeks’ readings, we are able to see the abuse that low wage workers face from their corporate employers.  Such workers do not have the financial benefits and protections that many other American workers possess; furthermore, their wages are so low that they are difficult to live off of, let alone use to provide a comfortable life for an entire family.  For this reason, it is good that cab drivers have been able to unite and create the Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania.

The Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania works to “promote the civil and human rights of low-income taxi workers, including improving their health, safety, and wellbeing.” [3]  Such an organization is necessary to ensure that cab drivers, who are oftentimes unfamiliar with American life, are not being taken advantage of by their employing corporations.  As we have discussed in class, the immense hardships of the working class poor are oftentimes overlooked by the general population.  People do not think about the major difficulties that this country’s working poor must face within their everyday jobs, such as issues of safety and improper pay.  For this reason, it would be interesting to create exhibits that could address these issues.  Throughout the year at CGP, all of my classes have discussed the need for museum professionals to address the needs of their organization’s community.  In this sense, I think that it would be beneficial for a Philadelphia museum to work with the Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania to raise awareness about the struggles of immigrant taxi drivers in the city.  Perhaps such exhibitions could further encourage lawmakers to acknowledge and address the demands that cab drivers made at the Philadelphia rally on Friday.

Works Cited:

[1] Clark, Vernon. “Cabbies call for increased safety.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 11, 2013. http://articles.philly.com/2013-05-11/news/39188326_1_ronald-blount-drivers-taxi-workers-alliance (accessed May 12, 3013).

[2] Clark, Vernon. “Cabbies call for increased safety.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 11, 2013. http://articles.philly.com/2013-05-11/news/39188326_1_ronald-blount-drivers-taxi-workers-alliance (accessed May 12, 3013).

[3] “Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania.” http://www.TWAPA.org. http://www.twapa.org/ (accessed May 12, 2013).

‘Actual Reality – Act Up – Fight AIDS!’

I first saw RENT when I was 16. To say it had an impact on me would be an understatement. There’s a lot of reasons teenagers flock to RENT; the rock opera sound track, the gorgeous 20-something actors, the pure unadulterated angst, and the overall message of “be yourself; fight the man!” all make it quite appealing to adolescent theatre nerds, myself included. But there’s a lot in RENT that your average 16 year old misses, including the reality imbedded in the theatrics. The HIV infected characters all take AZT, when they can afford it. They sing and shout about “ACT UP.” What did these words mean to 16 year old me? Not a damn thing.

After reading Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, I decided the time had come to look into the culture and activism of AIDS at a deeper level. I watched the documentary How to Survive a Plague, which I highly recommend. This stirring film follows the history of the early epidemic and the activism of the organization ACT UP.  ACT UP (or AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) was formally founded in 1987, and it’s goal was to bring about legislation, medical research and policies to ultimately bring an end to the disease by mitigating loss of health and lives [1] It was through the action of AIDS activists that AZT, the first drug to treat the HIV/AIDS infection, was released on the market in 1987, a mere 25 months after it’s first demonstration of efficacy. The release of AZT onto the market still holds the record of shortest drug development time in FDA history. [2]

ACT UP also worked to spread medical information throughout the community. The organization created pamphlets and documents based on countless interviews with doctors an

d other health professionals. These people were also invited to come speak at ACT UP meetings, and share their knowledge and research about the disease with the people battling it daily. Those facing AIDS were frightened and often misinformed about the disease and their options for treatment. ACT UP sought to clarify the mystery surrounding AIDS and in the early years of the epidemic, was one of the first groups to take on the role of education for the HIV+ community.[3]

The work done by activists to speed up AIDS research and get the desperately needed drugs into the hands of patients was

and continues to be heroic. Considering the oppression and violence faced by gay men and women, HIV+ men and women, and people who fit into both categories, one cannot help but marvel at the courage of these folks to stand up in front of congress and the world and demand to be heard.

16 year old me me thought “actually reality! ACT UP! FIGHT AIDS!” were just lyrics in a song; a beautiful battle cry for the ignored and persecuted. 26 year old me now knows that these words mean so much more than that.

[1] http://www.actupny.odrg/

[2] Cimons, Marlene (21 March 1987). “U.S. Approves Sale of AZT to AIDS Patients”. Los Angeles Times. p. 1.

[3] How to Survive a Plague, Directed by David France, 2012.

In 2001 Barbara Ehrenreich’s interview about the book aired on the radio, and inspired Bartlett Sher to research the book further. Bartlett Sher is the artistic leader at the Intiman Theater in Seattle, WA. He contributes to the theater’s mission; “Intiman Theatre produces theatre that is relevant to our time and as diverse as the community in which we live,” by encouraging artists to take an “authorial stake in their work.”[1] Bartlett Sher did exactly that in 2001 when he approached Joan Holden and asked her to write a stage version of Nickel and Dimed for the Intiman’s 2003 fall appearance at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, CA.[2] The production of Nickel and Dimed by the Intiman included a series of programming that focused on the struggles of the working-class. In theory, programming events and this theater production would allow for Sher to “focus his audience’s attention on working-class community members whose labors, subsidize the lives of the middle and upper classes.”[3]

The show has received mixed reviews, but Holden thinks it achieved her goal of encouraging the viewer to address “questions of a living wage, fair housing, and the increasingly female face of poverty,” and to have “people leave ready to vote for living wage laws, for subsidized housing and child care, and to realize that the market does not afford a huge number of our fellow citizens a decent life for their very hard work.”[4] These goals may be lofty for a theater production, but when done right many reviews suggest it is possible. However, plays written with such lofty intents create pitfalls for less experienced directors, which lead to reviews that claim that the play “distances the viewer rather than forge an emotional connection.”[5] Because of its political message Nickel and Dimed by Joan Holden is often performed by theater companies whose mission has to do with social and political justice. One example is the 3 Graces Theater Company whose mission statement explains their goal to present theater that “expos[es] and explor[es] the power of women’s experiences.”[6]

While many theater companies, like the 3 Graces Theater Company or the Bank Street Theater in New York City, may struggle with their presentation of the play it still tends to be successful in emphasizing and expanding the effects of Ehrenreich’s book. With the books overarching success it seems overwhelming to take up such a task as writing it as a script, but Holden believes that this journalistic task pulls “the audience deeper into the economic and emotional landscape of these workers,” which provides the viewer with a deeper understanding of the lives of these women.[7] While the book focuses primarily on Barbara’s journey the play provides a deeper investigation and understanding of the emotions and lives of some of the workers Barbara encountered.[8]

After reading both the play and the book and researching reviews and journal articles about the theater production, I agree that the play helps to emphasize Ehrenreich’s message. Sher explains that she could align with Barbara because like her, she came from a middle class background that was established by her family work history. One of the most encapsulating quotes from Ehrenreich states: “I wasn’t born in the middle-class: I watched my father get us here. I think, if you’re born in this class, it’s easy to ignore that lucky accident, and attribute all your happiness and your achievements to your own superior talents. You forget you’re here thanks to some recent or long-lost ancestor’s amazing gifts, or grit, or rapacity. And we all forget how it is we eat fast, live in a shiny clean house, and buy everything we want cheap: thanks to other people, who drew lower numbers in the birth lottery. We forget to thank the real major donors.” Regardless of the varied reviews of the play, I think it is successful in one way or another by encouraging conversation about the political, economic, and welfare history of the country.

[1]Intiman Theater: Purpose

[2] Hansel, Adrien-Alice. “Subsidized Living: Reflections on Bringing Nickel and Dimed to the Stage: Joan Holden and Barbara Ehrenreich Interviewed by Adrien-Alice Hansel.” Theater, 33(3), 97.

[3] O’Connor, Jacqueline. “Nickel and Dimed by Joan Holden.” Theatre Journal, 55 (2), 342.

[4] Hansel, 103.

[5] Stevens, Andrea. “Evoking Lives Struggling to Exist on Bare Minimums,” The New York Times, October 2006. < http://theater.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/theater/reviews/11nick.html?_r=0>

[6] 3Graces Theater Co. < http://threegracestheater.org/about/index.htm>

[7] Hansel, 99.

[8] Holden, Joan. Nickel and Dimed. NY: Dramatists Play Service Inc. 2005. Based on Nickel and Dimed, on (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.

More Blogs and Reviews of the Production:

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/09.11.03/nickel-0337.html

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/minn/minn43.html

But I did have one blind spot, one that I suspect is shared by many of the people who grew up around me: I never thought that people I saw in the grocery store, or who sat in their cars at the stoplight next to mine, or who passed me on the sidewalk might be homeless. Though homelessness often goes unseen, it can be particularly invisible in a place like Ventura County, where most travel happens by car, there are few spaces where the homeless can congregate in public, and camping year-around (often out of sight on deserted beaches or in dry river bottoms) is a possibility. That’s something that happens in cities, where people walk around, is a thought that I am embarrassed to say I’ve probably had. Nevermind that as of 2011, 1,872 people in Ventura County are homeless on any given day. [1]

Lift Up Your Voice, an advocacy program founded and run by the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ventura, is doing what it can to

At one of many “cleanups” of the Santa Clara river bottom in Ventura (this one took place in February, 2011), a city official tries to persuade a homeless man to leave his camp. http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/mar/01/ventura-clears-out-illegal-homeless-camps-in/

change these kinds of assumptions. [2] It all started with an exhibit. In 2009, local photographer Linda Kennon took studio photographs of twelve volunteers living in homelessness (in the interest of full disclosure, Linda is a family friend, and my parents played a major role in this project). With the help of the UUCV, she then created a traveling exhibit that paired these thoughtful portraits with quotes from their informal oral histories. The varied portraits contained within the exhibit seek to emphasize the diversity of the homeless experience in Ventura and “[address] the fact that 80% of the homeless are hidden and trying appear that their lives are normal by going to work or to school, but struggling daily to find restrooms, facilities to stay clean and presentable, and searching for a safe and warm place to sleep.” [3]

When the simple exhibit was first staged in Ventura’s E.P. Foster Library, it quickly became not only an educational tool, but also a source of strength for the homeless community. “I had no idea that hour after hour, day after day, month after month, people visiting the E.P. Foster Library would examine the photographs of local homeless individuals and read their stories with great interest,” noted librarian Mary Stewart. “I expected to achieve a little community education with the display. What I didn’t realize is that many of the homeless people who use our library would read these life stories and see them as inspiration for their own lives.” [4] Since then, the exhibit has been shown at events and community buildings all over Ventura County, including the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, the Oxnard Community College Library, the Ojai Public Library, the Conejo Valley Unitarian Church, Ventura City Hall, Temple Beth Torah, and the 4th of July Street Fair. [5]

The exhibit has acted as a catalyst for ongoing advocacy. Along with continuing to show the exhibit, those involved with Lift Up Your Voice have lobbied city and county governments for more affordable housing opportunities and better shelters, worked with the homeless who camp on public land and are periodically displaced by the police and government officials, and continued to educate the public about the need to end homelessness.

“We are not content to manage the crisis, or to maintain the effort, or to accommodate the response. We were called to one goal, one objective, one mission – to abolish homelessness. Now is the time to forward the advocacy, fashion the strategy, and to fulfill that mission.”

-Philip Mangano, Executive Director United States Interagency Council on Homelessness [6]

[1] Ventura County Homelessness and Housing Coalition, “County of Ventura 2011 Homeless Count.” Accessed 8 May, 2013. http://www.vchhc.org/images/PDFs/2011_VenturaSurvey.pdf

[2] Unitarian Universalist Church of Ventura, “Life Up Your Voice: About.” Accessed 8 May, 2013. http://www.uuventura.org/lift-up-your-voice.html

[3] Lift Up Your Voice, “The Faces of Homelessness Photo Exhibition.” Accessed 8 May, 2013. https://sites.google.com/site/uuventuraluyv/Home/the-lift-up-your-voice-photo-project

[4] Unitarian Universalist Church of Ventura, “Action Opportunities: The Photo Project.” Accessed 8 May, 2013. http://www.uuventura.org/lift-up-your-voice/action-opportunities/photo-project.html

[5] Ibid.

[6] Unitarian Universalist Church of Ventura, “Lift Up Your Voice: Action Opportunities.” Accessed 8 May, 2013. http://www.uuventura.org/lift-up-your-voice/action-opportunities.html

Photo credit: Linda Kennon, 2009.

Him: So me and my buddy, we met in high school.

Me: Oh, did he move to town then?

Him: No. It’s just…I mean, we went to different elementary schools.

Me: But he didn’t move? You didn’t move?

Him: No, Abbie…my district has more than one elementary school. We all feed into the high school.

Me: What?? Why? Is that normal?

Him: Wow.

Above is a conversation that happened when I was 18 years old. This would be embarrassing if it wasn’t so funny, and so fantastically illustrative of my growing class consciousness, which finally consolidated the autumn I left my small, rural, upstate New York home town and started college.

So where was I leaving from? Morrisville New York. Population 1,500, median household income $35,000, with 19% of us living below the poverty line. Don’t get me wrong, I was one of the fortunate ones. I wasn’t included in that 19%. But a lot of my friends were; in fact, 50% of my class mates were on free lunch. [1] This was my world for 18 years, and I was convinced that this was average.

So why did I think that, other than the fact that I didn’t get out much? Because Americans believe in the middle class American dream. Because poor people don’t talk about being poor, about sharing beds and bedrooms, living in cars, or skipping lunch to save money. [2] My friends never talked about free lunch. I never talked about growing up in a trailer. Why would we? That was life. Either you thought it was normal, so why bring it up, or you thought it was shameful and thus never mentioned it. Money, or lack thereof, is not discussed often in American culture.

It was when I encountered people not just of a different economic level, but a completely different social level, that I began to understand class consciousness. So what is class consciousness? According to scholars, it is “a term used in social sciences and political theory, particularly Marxism, to refer to the beliefs that a person holds regarding one’s social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests.” [3] To me, it means realizing that the amount of money in your world directly shapes the culture you live in, and how you move the society at large. It changes the opportunities you have, the people you meet, and the things you learn. It was why my suburban friends can talk about orchestra and 18 year old me had never even seen a violin in person. It’s why the wealthy and middle class can share tips for putting together a great college application, and the working poor aren’t even sure what the steps are for getting in.

This is what Nickel and Dimed made me think of. This 2001 work by Barbara Ehreneich explores an upper middle class journalist’s time as a member of the working poor in pre-recession America. Ehreneich’s interactions with her fellow waitresses, Wal-Mart employees, and domestic workers shows how the working poor are socialized in such a way that discourages social mobility. The lessons of blind obedience and stretching tasks to “look busy,” are necessary skills in low-wage work, but they would harm an employee in the white collar world. Furthermore, Ehreneich’s work demonstrates how the initial lack of capital, the cushion of starting with wealth, harms the poor. Without even the money for the deposit on an apartment, Ehreneich is forced to live in a motel, with higher weekly rent than an apartment. The cycle of poverty continues, as she continues to waste money at the hotel and thus never save enough for deposit on a cheaper apartment. This is an excellent example of how the  knowledge and resources required to move out of a lower socio-economic class are completely unavailable to those within that group.

Nickel and Dimed is a book that poses many questions and gives no answers. I don’t think it’s meant to. For me, it’s a look at how the world view the working poor. It’s interesting to see the people I know, grew up with, and am, studied and dissected. It makes me wonder if wealthy and upper-middle class folks have similar moments of realization regarding their own social class. Whatever class you view yourself coming from, did you have a similar moment? What sparked it? And how can we make it easier for those from lower socio-economic statuses to move outside their world?

[1] Federal Education Budget Project, http://febp.newamerica.net/k12/NY/3619920

[2]  Ehreneich, Barbara, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Henry Holt and Company: New York, 2001, 25-26.

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_consciousness

The premise of Ehrenreich’s experiment was to see if it she could survive for a month on low-wage earnings.  She repeats her experiment three times in different locations within the United States – first in Key West, Florida as a waitress, then Portland, Maine working for a maid service; third in Minneapolis, Minnesota as a Wal-Mart associate.

“When I wake up at 4 A.M. in my own cold sweat, I am not thinking about the writing deadlines I’m neglecting; I’m thinking of the table where I screwed up the order and one of the kids didn’t get his kiddie meal until the rest of the family had moved on to their Key lime pies.” [1]

Ehrenreich’s surprise at how much she cared about the job and how much she came to care about the people she met at these jobs carries through each of her experiences.  The relationships she builds with her co-workers reflect the inter-dependency that exists among the employees which I myself experienced.  While working at Wal-Mart, her description of how the fitting room attendant could make life difficult for her by simply putting wrong items into her carts highlights the way a small problem can become a time consuming endeavor to fix.  But there is also trust that builds between the co-workers – knowing that when you are having a particularly rough day, there is someone there to help, as the women at The Maids showed repeatedly.

“In my interview, I had been promised a thirty-minuet lunch break, but this turns out to be a five-minuet pit stop at a convenience store, if that.” [2]

In Ehrenreich’s time as a server, a maid, and a Wal-Mart associate, she conveys the physical and mental exhaustion that ensues within each job. Breaks become a luxury not everyone receives as the quote above suggests.  While waitressing at Jerry’s, she makes clear the lack of break room and breaks for employees.  In my own time as a server lunch breaks were only viable if you had no tables, often times eating habits consisted of running into the kitchen to deposit dirty dishes followed by a quick stop in the break room to grab a bit from a sandwich, promptly followed by running back out the door to deliver food, refill coffee, or other tasks that require attention.  Breaks became a matter of calculation for Ehrenreich. At Wal-Mart, she struggled to determine the best way in which to use them to combat the weariness that sets in at the end of her nine-hour shifts.

Nickel and Dimed proved the extreme difficulties many American’s who work in low-wage jobs faced on a daily basis.  While Ehrenreich’s experiences are a compelling at times, it is the stories of numerous individuals whom she encountered and met that truly express the realities of this working class. For Ehrenreich there was always an out after 30 days, but for her co-workers the struggle to get by never stop.

“… for servers, slow times can be as exhausting as rushes.  You start dragging out each little chore because if the manager on duty catches you in an idle moment he will give you something far nastier to do.” [3]

[1] Barbra Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (NOT) Getting By In America, Kindle Edition, (New York, Henry Holt and Company: 2001), 18.

[2] Ibid., 76.

[3] Ibid., 22.

Where were you?

Where were you when the first plane hit the Twin towers?  Where were you when JFK was shot (if you were alive then; I was not)?  Where were you when Michael Jackson died (OK, so I really only remember this because I was on my honeymoon and everyone was talking about it).  What you don’t often hear is where were you when you first learned about AIDS?

After reviewing the We Make the Change website and the subsequent discussion in class, I began to think about the first time I learned about HIV and AIDS.  Being born in the very early 80s I remember the AIDS scare fairly well.  The first time I recall hearing about AIDS and truly was when I learned about Pedro Zamora, a member of the cast of an early season of The Real World.   His time on the show and his subsequent death, reported on and discussed on MTV, brought AIDS to a larger, younger audience.  No doubt I heard something about AIDS in school, I was old enough to understand the virus and fears about it spreading abounded.  What The Real World accomplished that no class could is provide a living, breathing example of the effect AIDS had not only on a person but those around them.

Perhaps it was the first time a face was put to AIDS that made it memorable to me.  I remember Keith Haring’s paintings – my aunt had a print in her room – but I do not anything about the artist.  I also remember the controversy around Magic Johnson playing basketball.  It was seeing and hearing Zamora’s story for the first time lead me to ask questions.  This personal connection came back to mind as I reviewed We Make the Change.  I imagine some people, when asked when they first learned about AIDS, will refer back to the first time they visit this site or view the mobile exhibit with great clarity.  The compelling stories the participants tell the viewer transforms AIDS from some elusive killer to someone who could be your next-door neighbor or relative.

Though in the past, the AIDS scare is not gone.  We Make the Change reminds the viewer we need to remain vigilant in prevention to prevent the major spread of this virus again.