dancerjodi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dancerjodi) wrote2004-01-12 10:42 am
dancerjodi) wrote2004-01-12 10:42 am
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Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams
I was very, very touched by this book. I think that anyone interested in class issues, anyone from a working-class background or anyone that grew up in NYC would really enjoy this book by Alfred Lubrano.
Long rambling and book notes:
In a nutshell, the author describes how his working class upbringing (being the son of a bricklayer in Brooklyn) has impacted his education, career and life. He went on to interview 100 other "straddlers" who are living in the white collar world but came from families in which their parents did not have education, had physical labor jobs, and struggled financially. He describes all of the things that go along with this: ideals, prejudices, strong wills - he describes the good and the bad. As expected these individuals would go on in life (as anyone would) to find these things impacting their later educational and career experiences.
There are so many things in myself I've taken for granted. I never really saw them as "working class" qualities but just things that were in me. It was nice to see many, many things in me (that friends, my husband and others may not understand) echoed in the sentiments of people in this book. The role of family and community is emphasized. A strong work ethic, emphasis on making do with what you have and not wasting things is touched on, family prejudices are described - there is so much in this book that I thought "oh my God, that's me" or "oh my God, that's my family/neighborhood/whatever". I can't even summarize those things here because there are too many.
Both sets of my grandparents were blue-collar. My papa worked in a machine shop and got up at 5 AM to make teeny little metal parts (he owned his own business, so Gram was able to be a stay-at-home mom and take care of the kids and his books). My grampy was a custodian for the Waltham schools for years (dying of cancer which came from the Asbestos that he worked around for all that time). He had other jobs I'm sure (I don't know what they were). Nana worked at supermarkets and restaurants as a waitress. My mom went out to work at 13 to help support the family (dad went out to work before legal working age - he'd have to hide with all of the illegal immigrant workers at the factory when the labor guys would come around).
My parents made the first transition to white-collar life so I had much more than some of the people discussed in this book. My mom worked as a secretary (not a good or high paying job, but one more cushy than working on an assembly line). Dad decided he wanted to be an artist, so while working full time put himself through most of college (is like, 2 classes short of a BA) and went to art school. My papa was very upset by this - he didn't acknowledge my dad's studies (dad wasn't going to end up taking over the family machine shop after all). Dad had a kind of graduation ceremony for a certificate he earned; my grandfather didn't come because he was "at beano" at the Son's of Italy.
That led dad to a job in printing and graphic design, which was successful for a while. He wore suits to work every day and saw clients in a conference room. The 80's brought the PC though, and people didn't need to pay for all that printing work anymore. What was a company with 15 employees that made a lot of money dropped down to he and my mom in our basement not making enough to pay the bills anymore. Dad became the blue-collar guy once again and got licensed as a contractor. Finally, years and years and years later my dad has found financial success (again - he had a bit of it in the 80's in the graphics business before it bombed). He's showing paintings in galleries, being interviewed for newspapers and selling prints of his stuff. I wonder what my papa would think of it if he were alive today.
Yep, I grew up having ramen soup for supper, playing kickball in the street (home plate was a manhole cover, first base was a tree in front of the Shomphe's house). My mom dragged me out to get my working papers at the ripe old age of 14 (when I was legal) and filled out an app for me to bag groceries at Star Market immediately. Salary from Burger King paid for my first car (the 79' Monte Carlo, RIP) and paid the insurance. Any clothes that I bought in HS were from this money too. The only reason I was able to go to Simmons was due to my parent's crappy financial situation (though they had to kick in some cash freshman year and a bit sophomore year junior and senior year tuition - all $15K or so per year of it (no Room and Board, I was commuting) was financed through need-based scholarships or my own stafford loans. I worked around 30+ hours a week to pay bills and was very bitter about those that didn't need to do this kind of thing.
After graduation the salary at my first (Secretary) job was more than my parent's combined made in my last year of college (I knew this because one job of mine was in the financial aid department and I got to see everyone's tax returns - I'll tell you, hearing a friend complain about not getting a subsidized stafford loan when I knew that her parents made $140k a year and mine made a little over $20k makes one kind of bitter).
I don't get so bitter anymore. I'm thankful for the upbringing I had because I know I wouldn't have gotten where I have without it. I'm thankful that my parents saw value in education, and wanted their children to pursue what was right for them (rather than the family trade, a traditional mommy-hood alone, or just whatever paid the most money). My parents drink Coors light, wine from a box, watch Judge Judy, wear flannel shirts with paint stains on them, and don't really know what brie is. I'm still very, very proud of them and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I'd like to share the conclusion of the book with you - I think he does a good job summing up his ideas (its on pages 225-227).
"for Straddlers, life's ultimate goal is reconciliation: finding peace with the past and present, blue collar and white, old family ways and the new middle-class life. That is a challenge. Different values and different views often seem to get in the way. Now-vegetarian Loretta Stec will never be able to talk about the fine points of cooking meat with her family. Manhattan resident Rebecca Beckinham will probably only exchange polite, perfunctory chat with her folks on the farm. Doug Russell has gone far in his company, but he knows that his blue-collar background will forever hold him back. "I want to fit in and grow with the organization," he says. "But I feel people will always talk about me in a different way: 'Will he be running the company in five years? oh, no, he's a little rough, he's a little loud.' And I think, 'Why wouldn't you want to have people like me'? "
The phrase "people like me" is telling. Limbo folk remain aware of their otherness through their lives. Often out of step with their parents, their coworkers, and even their born-to-the-middle-class children, Straddlers can feel like perpetual outsiders.
Still, as tough as limbo can be, it does not have to be debilitating. The more successful Straddlers - and by this I mean people who are comfortable with their lives - embrace their middle-class reality while honoring their blue-collar roots. Though they live in limbo, they choose to concentrate on the upside and what makes them unique.
Another straddler, Jeffrey Orridge, always knew that he was just as good as those prep-school kids he ran with years ago in New York City. His working-class family imbued him with a strong sense of self. Living a profitable corporate life that includes international travel and major responsibility, he exudes confidence without being pretentious. People feel comfortable around Jeffrey because he's bright, accomplished - and grounded.
Joe Terry had his doubts about his worthiness and his suitability in white-collar America. A carpenter's boy and an avid fisherman, he believed his right hand would always to be too rough to shake in the boardroom. Nowadays, he celebrates the successful blending of his past with his day-to-day life. He looks at his working-class background as the strong foundation upon which his life is built. Possessing both calloused hands and corporate smarts, Joe has become a balanced person - more accomplished than his parents, more complex than his colleagues.
Some straddlers will tell you that they are successful *because* of their working-class roots. "I sometimes think that I'll never be what I could have been if I were born middle class," Doug Russell says. "on the other hand, I might not have gotten anywhere if I'd come from the middle class. I had such drive and ambition to get somewhere because of where I came from. I pushed and got somewhere." Straddlers can take pride in a resilience born of relative deprivation. As battle-tested as marines, Straddlers have no doubt they possess the stuff to get themselves through the hard times. that's because they've always had the hard times. Limbo folks carry within themselves a "strength-from-struggle" ideal that can keep them afloat and move them forward. "I was never afraid of my employers," working-class studies scholar Charles Sackrey says. "I was always willing to say, 'Take this job and shove it' because I knew I could survive no matter what. And most of my white-collar colleagues seemed not to know that at all." I too have always planned for the potential "crash." I've survived as a temp and a secretary at different times in my life. My years in newsrooms have honed my typing skills. If I had to, I could get by on my own.
I think that Straddlers enjoy the advantage of knowing they are self-created. "My identification is rooted in the family," says Peter Ciotta. "But I made my own identity." I take satisfaction in that notion myself. I don't work in my father's law firm: I'm not a third-generation surgeon. I am the bricklayer’s son who made himself into something new.
Straddlers come to the table without the same assumptions or the same take on life that middle-class people have. There's an independence of thought that makes for interesting perspectives. It’s a kind of diversity that human-resources types don’t normally strive to achieve. A mixed-class workplace is more energized and dynamic than a same-class shop; the dialogue is much richer.
Ultimately, Sackrey says, white-collar people from the working class can consider themselves lucky because they have escaped the drudgery of "real work" in which their parents engaged. That's an advantage we have over people from elite families. We will always believe that we got to some place better because we became educated. We will always know that we avoided the construction site and the coalmine, the bus route and the assembly line. We will always understand that whatever we do for a living is safer, cleaner, usually more profitable, and often more engaging than the truly hard jobs at which are parents were compelled to toil. We won't take ourselves for granted and we won't stop working hard to avid the alternative lives we could have lived.
My father was a bricklayer. I am a newspaperman. He got his wish - that I graduate from college and not live the life of the outside man, excluded from life's better buildings.
I got my dream - that I leave the neighborhood and get a chance to write about the world.
We Straddlers know there are costs and consequences for all the wishes and dreams. They are inevitable. Limbo folk can consider themselves fortunate if they can be upwardly mobile but still rooted in the blue-collar world. Peaceful reconciliation comes to us when we can finally meld the two people we are."
Long rambling and book notes:
In a nutshell, the author describes how his working class upbringing (being the son of a bricklayer in Brooklyn) has impacted his education, career and life. He went on to interview 100 other "straddlers" who are living in the white collar world but came from families in which their parents did not have education, had physical labor jobs, and struggled financially. He describes all of the things that go along with this: ideals, prejudices, strong wills - he describes the good and the bad. As expected these individuals would go on in life (as anyone would) to find these things impacting their later educational and career experiences.
There are so many things in myself I've taken for granted. I never really saw them as "working class" qualities but just things that were in me. It was nice to see many, many things in me (that friends, my husband and others may not understand) echoed in the sentiments of people in this book. The role of family and community is emphasized. A strong work ethic, emphasis on making do with what you have and not wasting things is touched on, family prejudices are described - there is so much in this book that I thought "oh my God, that's me" or "oh my God, that's my family/neighborhood/whatever". I can't even summarize those things here because there are too many.
Both sets of my grandparents were blue-collar. My papa worked in a machine shop and got up at 5 AM to make teeny little metal parts (he owned his own business, so Gram was able to be a stay-at-home mom and take care of the kids and his books). My grampy was a custodian for the Waltham schools for years (dying of cancer which came from the Asbestos that he worked around for all that time). He had other jobs I'm sure (I don't know what they were). Nana worked at supermarkets and restaurants as a waitress. My mom went out to work at 13 to help support the family (dad went out to work before legal working age - he'd have to hide with all of the illegal immigrant workers at the factory when the labor guys would come around).
My parents made the first transition to white-collar life so I had much more than some of the people discussed in this book. My mom worked as a secretary (not a good or high paying job, but one more cushy than working on an assembly line). Dad decided he wanted to be an artist, so while working full time put himself through most of college (is like, 2 classes short of a BA) and went to art school. My papa was very upset by this - he didn't acknowledge my dad's studies (dad wasn't going to end up taking over the family machine shop after all). Dad had a kind of graduation ceremony for a certificate he earned; my grandfather didn't come because he was "at beano" at the Son's of Italy.
That led dad to a job in printing and graphic design, which was successful for a while. He wore suits to work every day and saw clients in a conference room. The 80's brought the PC though, and people didn't need to pay for all that printing work anymore. What was a company with 15 employees that made a lot of money dropped down to he and my mom in our basement not making enough to pay the bills anymore. Dad became the blue-collar guy once again and got licensed as a contractor. Finally, years and years and years later my dad has found financial success (again - he had a bit of it in the 80's in the graphics business before it bombed). He's showing paintings in galleries, being interviewed for newspapers and selling prints of his stuff. I wonder what my papa would think of it if he were alive today.
Yep, I grew up having ramen soup for supper, playing kickball in the street (home plate was a manhole cover, first base was a tree in front of the Shomphe's house). My mom dragged me out to get my working papers at the ripe old age of 14 (when I was legal) and filled out an app for me to bag groceries at Star Market immediately. Salary from Burger King paid for my first car (the 79' Monte Carlo, RIP) and paid the insurance. Any clothes that I bought in HS were from this money too. The only reason I was able to go to Simmons was due to my parent's crappy financial situation (though they had to kick in some cash freshman year and a bit sophomore year junior and senior year tuition - all $15K or so per year of it (no Room and Board, I was commuting) was financed through need-based scholarships or my own stafford loans. I worked around 30+ hours a week to pay bills and was very bitter about those that didn't need to do this kind of thing.
After graduation the salary at my first (Secretary) job was more than my parent's combined made in my last year of college (I knew this because one job of mine was in the financial aid department and I got to see everyone's tax returns - I'll tell you, hearing a friend complain about not getting a subsidized stafford loan when I knew that her parents made $140k a year and mine made a little over $20k makes one kind of bitter).
I don't get so bitter anymore. I'm thankful for the upbringing I had because I know I wouldn't have gotten where I have without it. I'm thankful that my parents saw value in education, and wanted their children to pursue what was right for them (rather than the family trade, a traditional mommy-hood alone, or just whatever paid the most money). My parents drink Coors light, wine from a box, watch Judge Judy, wear flannel shirts with paint stains on them, and don't really know what brie is. I'm still very, very proud of them and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I'd like to share the conclusion of the book with you - I think he does a good job summing up his ideas (its on pages 225-227).
"for Straddlers, life's ultimate goal is reconciliation: finding peace with the past and present, blue collar and white, old family ways and the new middle-class life. That is a challenge. Different values and different views often seem to get in the way. Now-vegetarian Loretta Stec will never be able to talk about the fine points of cooking meat with her family. Manhattan resident Rebecca Beckinham will probably only exchange polite, perfunctory chat with her folks on the farm. Doug Russell has gone far in his company, but he knows that his blue-collar background will forever hold him back. "I want to fit in and grow with the organization," he says. "But I feel people will always talk about me in a different way: 'Will he be running the company in five years? oh, no, he's a little rough, he's a little loud.' And I think, 'Why wouldn't you want to have people like me'? "
The phrase "people like me" is telling. Limbo folk remain aware of their otherness through their lives. Often out of step with their parents, their coworkers, and even their born-to-the-middle-class children, Straddlers can feel like perpetual outsiders.
Still, as tough as limbo can be, it does not have to be debilitating. The more successful Straddlers - and by this I mean people who are comfortable with their lives - embrace their middle-class reality while honoring their blue-collar roots. Though they live in limbo, they choose to concentrate on the upside and what makes them unique.
Another straddler, Jeffrey Orridge, always knew that he was just as good as those prep-school kids he ran with years ago in New York City. His working-class family imbued him with a strong sense of self. Living a profitable corporate life that includes international travel and major responsibility, he exudes confidence without being pretentious. People feel comfortable around Jeffrey because he's bright, accomplished - and grounded.
Joe Terry had his doubts about his worthiness and his suitability in white-collar America. A carpenter's boy and an avid fisherman, he believed his right hand would always to be too rough to shake in the boardroom. Nowadays, he celebrates the successful blending of his past with his day-to-day life. He looks at his working-class background as the strong foundation upon which his life is built. Possessing both calloused hands and corporate smarts, Joe has become a balanced person - more accomplished than his parents, more complex than his colleagues.
Some straddlers will tell you that they are successful *because* of their working-class roots. "I sometimes think that I'll never be what I could have been if I were born middle class," Doug Russell says. "on the other hand, I might not have gotten anywhere if I'd come from the middle class. I had such drive and ambition to get somewhere because of where I came from. I pushed and got somewhere." Straddlers can take pride in a resilience born of relative deprivation. As battle-tested as marines, Straddlers have no doubt they possess the stuff to get themselves through the hard times. that's because they've always had the hard times. Limbo folks carry within themselves a "strength-from-struggle" ideal that can keep them afloat and move them forward. "I was never afraid of my employers," working-class studies scholar Charles Sackrey says. "I was always willing to say, 'Take this job and shove it' because I knew I could survive no matter what. And most of my white-collar colleagues seemed not to know that at all." I too have always planned for the potential "crash." I've survived as a temp and a secretary at different times in my life. My years in newsrooms have honed my typing skills. If I had to, I could get by on my own.
I think that Straddlers enjoy the advantage of knowing they are self-created. "My identification is rooted in the family," says Peter Ciotta. "But I made my own identity." I take satisfaction in that notion myself. I don't work in my father's law firm: I'm not a third-generation surgeon. I am the bricklayer’s son who made himself into something new.
Straddlers come to the table without the same assumptions or the same take on life that middle-class people have. There's an independence of thought that makes for interesting perspectives. It’s a kind of diversity that human-resources types don’t normally strive to achieve. A mixed-class workplace is more energized and dynamic than a same-class shop; the dialogue is much richer.
Ultimately, Sackrey says, white-collar people from the working class can consider themselves lucky because they have escaped the drudgery of "real work" in which their parents engaged. That's an advantage we have over people from elite families. We will always believe that we got to some place better because we became educated. We will always know that we avoided the construction site and the coalmine, the bus route and the assembly line. We will always understand that whatever we do for a living is safer, cleaner, usually more profitable, and often more engaging than the truly hard jobs at which are parents were compelled to toil. We won't take ourselves for granted and we won't stop working hard to avid the alternative lives we could have lived.
My father was a bricklayer. I am a newspaperman. He got his wish - that I graduate from college and not live the life of the outside man, excluded from life's better buildings.
I got my dream - that I leave the neighborhood and get a chance to write about the world.
We Straddlers know there are costs and consequences for all the wishes and dreams. They are inevitable. Limbo folk can consider themselves fortunate if they can be upwardly mobile but still rooted in the blue-collar world. Peaceful reconciliation comes to us when we can finally meld the two people we are."
Re: holy crap, I can totally relate there
I do too sometimes (though its gotten better over time) - I think it was a way to make me feel better in those bitter times I mentioned. He does touch on this in the book too - its comforting to know I'm not the only one that feels this way (I feel like such an asswhole sometimes).
"I think I'll check this book out. Seems very interesting."
Given what you said about your upbringing, I think you'd like it. I laughed out loud at a lot of parts, and shared a lot of it with Brian since I just had to talk to someone about it and he happened to be there at the time.