De Colores Means All of Us

When I was younger I asked my mom if I was Mexican-American she said yes but when I asked her if I was a Chicana she said no. I didn’t understand at the time but to her it was something very important in her struggle for acceptance. In all reality there is still no set definition to what exactly a Chicano is other than a Mexican-American. To her it meant a struggle of being accepted by the United States Anglo-dominated society. Her definition is that to be a Chicano you had to be part of the Chicano movement of the 1960s. My mother is a strong advocate for the United Farm Workers and La Causa and she struggled during the 1960s and 1970s to help Mexican-Americans in the civil rights movement. The cultural aspects that contributed to the Chicano movement were the literature, arts and musical movements. Elizabeth Martinez like my mother is a product of that time. She guides the reader to a path of a revolutionary based compassion for equality and justice. For me the book was not just for women or minorities but also for all people in general. This book gives all people including the Anglo community a chance to walk in the shoes of a revolutionary struggle for justice. I am glad people of all socio-economic statures can read this book and find something even the slightest thing to relate to. I found an interesting article from 1991 that shows how underrepresented Latinos and Chicanos are on the Stanford University campus http://news.stanford.edu/pr/91/910429Arc1429.html

Nickel and Dimed

This book uncovers a part of life that has been masked by members of the upper-middle class and beyond. It is an eye opener to the struggles people, including college students, are having to deal with everyday and the way they cope. Although Ehrenreich was fortunate to have a safety net, the people she was trying to understand didn’t. It did bother me a little the way she gave herself allowances. I did find it a little offensive and exploitive because she always knew what she had to go back to. At times I felt like she was using the less fortunate situation for her own benefit. People rely on public transportation everyday, she made it seem like only poor people use public transportation as if it was so terrible. Though she does empathize with the people around her like her co-workers who can’t afford rent and live in hotels or trailers. Ehrenreich did an excellent job in showing that without basic shelter and standard of living everything else in their lives are effected and therefore can never move up the ladder, somewhat like a feudal system. Everything from time and cost of commute to sleep to lack of stove or refrigerator sometimes leads to starvation. I may not agree with how she went about this book but the story is great and it is a real eye opener to what working class America is really like. My first year transferring I decided to go to Arizona State University with no help financially. I worked full time, went to school full time all with no car in the Arizona summer. I got a huge dose of reality that semester and I didn’t want to live on the edge. I was constantly worrying about something whether it was rent, bills, food or out of state tuition. I decided to move back with my parents in California where I didn’t have to live as the working class citizen and just as a student. I found an article related to college students at the University of Washington that are using food banks because they just can’t afford to buy food with the near 5 percent increase in the price of groceries in the past year. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=5451082

De Colores Means All of Us

Elizabeth Martinez is very opinionated in her book, De Colores Means All of Us. I like how the reader can tell that she’s very passionate about human rights and the fight for equality. Chapter 10, “Levi’s, Button your fly – your greed is showing!” talks about how women working in maquiladoras struggled for human rights. The union, Fuerza Unida, asked for support from the public by cutting off all Levi’s tags/labels and mail them to the company headquarters. This brought me back to high school because a student did the same thing, but with a different company, Forever 21. Around 2002, 2003 there was a huge campaign about Forever 21 not paying its workers the proper wage or making them in harsh conditions. My friend asked all of the girls to cut off their Forever 21 tags and give them to her because she was going to add them to their even bigger collection that to include a letter and pictures of workers. The Garment Worker Center fought on behalf of the maquiladora workers and stated their facts, which are on this link:
http://www.garmentworkercenter.org/media/f21/Fact_Sheet_on_Forever_21%20.pdf

Nickel and Dimed

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich is an interesting read. At first, I thought it was going to be a snobby white woman who thought that the labor she was submitted to was not her cup of tea since she’s a journalist living at a comfortable pay. But as I kept reading, I noticed that her target audience was not big industry professionals who look at Wall Street or watch FOX Headlines all day. Her tone throughout the book is comedic and conversational, I could not stop laughing because of the small anecdotes she would add about her daily experiences. For example, while working in the Convalescent home and housekeeping/maid service in Maine, she wrote about how hard it is to find a place to live for cheap. The only places to live were motels and we found that to be a common theme throughout the three states she experiments, but I found that it’s also a theme here in Los Angeles. My friend moved to Los Angeles from North Carolina and had to move right back home after three months because she could not find an affordable place to live. She was paying $175/week at a motel with a bed and shower. Most of the apartments only rented singles for about $900/month or a one bedroom for $1200/month. She had to move back home because she was living with her parents in a four bedroom house in with rent of $750/month. I just found it all amazing… I also found this article from Virginia, which showed that more people are becoming homeless, but it doesn’t include those that are living in motels.
http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/022009/02282009/448316

Van Nuys

I was considering changing my topic to something else that's relevant in Van Nuys, I feel like it is a bit more appealing, and hopefully easier to tackle. I remember The Daily News covered this story last summer about how a bungalow in Van Nuys that's been around since 1921, and was declared a city historic cultural monument in 1979, serves as a store for underprivileged children to come get new clothes for school at no cost to them. Sometimes local teachers made the trip with students to the bungalow so they could shop. As written in the article, "It is owned by the Volunteer League of the San Fernando Valley, a group of 19 dedicated women who raise funds to buy new clothes for more than 1,400 needy kids in the community every year. "
With the current economic situation, I'm sure there have been more families in need of these services and I'd like to see if there has been a steady flow of money and donations so that the community's needs are met or if there has been an influx of need so as to cause some sort of shortage or scarcity of supplies or clothing.

Here is a link to the full article


14603 Hamlin Street,
Van Nuys, CA 91411

De Colores Means All Of Us

From Chapter eighteen and on...this book gets amazing!

Part five talks about the pursuit of Latina liberation. The main goal is to demolish the stereotype of the "passive Latin woman." Elizabeth Martínez talks about many Latina leaders, one of them is Micaela Bastides. For those who don't know, she was an Inca who led the revolt against Spain's rule in the eighteen century, along with her husband Tupac Amaru. As Gutierrez said: "In Mexico, many women helped to launch and later participated in the Mexican war of independence from Spain (from 1810 to 1821) and the Mexican Revolution."

Martínez also recalls how the Mirabal sisters from Dominican Republic, known as "the butterflies", gave their lives to end the long Trujillo dictatorship. Nowadays, the day they were assassinated  in 1960: November 25, is commemorated all over Latin America as the Day Against Violence Towards Women. And Rigoberta Menchú, a Mayan from Guatemala who is an activist and also became the first indigenous person to win the Nobel Price for peace. The author recalls that Rigoberta lives on as a symbol of defiant survival.

I'm telling all these because the question is: Why do we usually hear all the brave stories about male heroes? Example : César Chávez. I don't have anything against him, but Martínez is right when she writes that many times, even within our own race, we as Hispanics, Latinos, Chicanos or Chicanas, give little or no credit to the merits of women...as if it is our obligation to protect others, as it is in our true nature. I now started thinking about one of her statements: "Mexican women and Chicanas have been confronting male supremacy during the past 25 years." 

Also, she mentions the lesbian Latinas liberation. The author says that they would have stayed in the closet longer without the national women's movement which encouraged them to come out. How important was, is and will be the role of women in the society!

When she talks about working women there was a formula that the author mentioned that got my attention: The corporate strategy: hire them young, suck out the best of their energy, exploit their inexperience as workers as they fear of angering the boss--then toss them aside like so many rag dolls when they become pregnant, injured or "trouble-makers." 

This is so true! Especially with maquiladora women. But I understand that these bosses, who are abusers, also abuse from the economic need of these women, most of all. I think that is one of the main reasons why they get themselves get exploited like that, and not because they don't realize that they are being abused...they just need to feed their families.

As a woman, these parts of the book reached very deep inside of my consciousness and my unity to fight for women respect and rights grew! My respect to all the women who fought throughout history!

De Colores Means All of Us

De Colores Means All Of Us

Author Elizabeth Martínez is the Chicana voice for her book "De Colores Means All Of Us." She has more than thirty years of experience in the movements for civil rights, women's liberation and the empowerment of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. 

Reading through her first two chapters I can say that yes, too many Americans only see recent Hispanic or Latino immigration arrivals, forgetting about earlier roots and their significance to the people...but once again, I have to say that the job of governments around the world was to always move people from one place to another, sometimes wanting to change their cultures to keep up with their policies. Those actions always create conflict among the people involved within the new territory lines. Look at the Middle East for example. 

I´m not Mexican or identify myself with the majority of the Latino population in the U.S because in South America, the way of thinking is very different, but I do see a lot of discrimination here in the U.S. It seems that everybody needs to have some type of label attached, and I consider that very wrong.

But going back to the book, I can say that yes, identity continues to be a major concern of youth in particular, and as Martínez writes: "with reason." 

She explains that "obsession with self definition can become a trap if that is all we think about, all we debate."

She goes on to explain that "People of color were victimized by colonialism not only externally but also through internalized racism_the 'colonized mentality.' On the poverty scale, African Americans and Native Americans have always been at the bottom, with Latinos nearby."

But a 1997 U.S census found that Latinos have the highest poverty rate, at 24 percent.

The Black-White model was based on the need for the primitive accumulation of capital with the enslaved Africans as a crucial labor force (as the author explains), and to serve as the foundation for the very idea of whiteness, with the concept of blackness as inferior. A very wrong and inaccurate concept. Martínez also listed three other reasons, such as numbers, geography and history. But she also explains that while "people who learn at least a little about Black slavery remain totally ignorant about how the United States seized half of Mexico or how it has colonized Puerto Rico."

There is a lot of ignored history portrayed when the author explains that "the average citizen doesn't have the foggiest notion that Chicanos have been lynched in the Southwest and continue to be abused by the police, that an entire population has been exploited economically, dominated politically, and raped culturally."

Another point that she makes and that I never understood until now is why the United States calls itself  "America" when America is a continent, and besides that, the dominant languages are Spanish and Portuguese, and not English. Martínez answered my question as simple as this: "The nation lacks any global vision other than relations of domination." "It arrogantly took for itself alone the name of half the western hemisphere, America, as was its 'Manifest Destiny,' of course."

To get more information on the biography of this controversial author, you can go to:

http://world.world-citizenship.org/wp-archive/2532

  

Nickle and Dimed

I'm glad this book was written, because it brings people back to the reality of how hard it is to survive out of a minimum wage income. I believe we owe respect to all employees at Walmart and other commercial chains...just because they are working hard, very hard for their money. Barbara Ehrenreich clearly explains why these low wage workers don't just leave their jobs for better paying jobs. The answer is simple: the poorer they are, the more constrained their mobility usually is. Also, a change of the place they work may also mean problems getting a ride, a babysitter, distance (as some workers ride their bikes to work), among other things.

Ehrenreich clearly showed that while rents are sensitive to market forces, wages are not. 

There is a very interesting  article on the low wage life style and lack of resources, such as medical care and its costs. Just go to the cnn site below to check it out!

www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/25/minimum.wage.workers/index.html

Nickel and Dimed: Something caught my attention...

I just remembered reading the "Evaluation" section of "Nickel and Dimed," and how Ehrenreich touched on employees being fired for discussing wages with other employees and the gap between male and female earnings. I read the 2000 New York Times article that Ehrenreich mentions in the book and it's a very interesting article. I'm not sure how much has changed since this article was published, but the question I ask myself is: Should employees be free to discuss their earnings with other employees and should employees be free to complain to their employers/managers/supervisors if they believe they have a problem with their earnings and if they believe they are not being treated the same as their male workers WITHOUT getting fired?

I never encountered any problems or witnessed any employees getting in trouble or fired for discussing their earnings to one another in retail stores I used to work in, but I remember people being very hush hush when it came to talking about wages and wanting a raise.

Here is the link to the article if anyone is interested to look at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F05E3DF173DF93BA15754C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/02business/02walmart
Look up this site to see shocking facts about Wal-Mart....

Lizette Gomez

Nickel and Dimed

This book has given us much insight to what we don't take the time to think about.  Many of us discussed after reading the first chapter, that we "couldn't believe" these types of wages existed for these types of jobs that Barbara Ehrenreich was taking on.  We "couldn't believe" that there is an everyday struggle to afford to live, not just for those who are homeless, but for those who actually have a job.  It doesn't seem right, that there are many people who fall in this category that Barbara put herself in.  The category of a working class of people who maintain a small living with not much left in their pocket.  

One thing that I would like to point out, that maybe some of you haven't realized, was that this truly was a courageous experiment.  It was something that Barbara took on that would be very hard for many of us to do.  We "couldn't believe" that she worked as a maid, housekeeper, waitress, and did many of those types of grimy jobs, where you work with your hands and it's as physical of a job as it gets.  Not to mention, the very low pay that you get.  But the point that I want to make is that even though we couldn't picture ourselves doing this type of experiment, when it's all said and done, it is an experiment.  She was able to go home.  The people that she met along the way are still living their lives in the same way and are struggling to get by.  The things that we "couldn't believe" are most peoples reality's that they can't just so easily get away from.  They fight to survive, to have a place and to have food to eat.  

The Wal-Mart chapter was eye-opening because I started to remember how many times I grew up going to Wal-Mart and putting things away in the wrong places, or leaving clothes unfolded. Someone's job was to clean after me, as well as many others.  I posted a link to the recent wal-mart results.  Most of these articles show Wal-Mart in the limelight, with talks about their recent sales.  I also posted a link for Wal-Marts law suits and how many people have had to fight to get what they were cheated, through a legal matter.     

Lizette Gomez

Nickle and Dimed

I believe Barbara Ehrenreich did a great job on her book "Nickel and Dimed." Even though I didn't finish reading it yet, I believe her decision to do this type of investigative reporting is awesome, a hands on experience. The task must have been difficult for her, specially on a personal level. Now, this type of work is great to show the government that we, the people, are in great need of policies and social programs updates. Obviously, living under a minimum or low wage income is not fun, but rather a hard and difficult lifestyle, one that can make any human being fall into depression or desperation. Just like the horrible and recent case of the husband and wife with five kids who killed themselves because they lost their jobs at Kaiser Permanente. Even though government agencies step forth to announce that there are programs that can help families to get through this hard economic times, maybe it is time they realize that it is not true. I understand that anyway there is no justifiable reason under a right state of mind to commit such an act like suicide, they probably didn't want to live the miserable life of the unemployed or low wage income. I believe that case was only one of the many happening on a daily basis in our country, and that is a consequence of an incompetent system that is failing and has been failing for a long time. This book should be translated to other languages, so people in third world countries can finally see the reality of the United States of America: that everything is far from perfect here. I'm going to keep reading this book to keep understanding the reality of a lot of people in this country.

Thoughts on "Nickel and Dimed"

When I first began to read "Nickel and Dimed", I thought I was going to be reading a book about a woman who thinks she knows how the "working" class lives, but really has never experienced it herself. The book was completely different than what I expected.
Although Barbara did not fully live the life as a minimum-waged worker living paycheck to paycheck, she pointed out important issues that many people do not discuss. She was able to experience enough through the jobs that she acquired to understand that minimum wage is not something anyone can live off of, but many (especially families) are expected to.
I liked how she gave accounts of people she worked with and encountered and how they were struggling to make ends meet. In the Evaluation, I glorify Barbara for saying that the people in the working class do jobs that help keep up the lifestyles of those in the middle and upper class. While housekeepers, maids, and nannies are cleaning and watching other people's houses, their own houses and children are being neglected. They work harder and harder everyday to NOT get any further in what they expect to be a better life.
The book definitely helped me appreciate people who give me my food at a drive thru or who ring my purchases up at Wal-Mart. I am one of the many minimum wage workers, and I understand the hardship of trying to get by and being treated unfairly by customers and employers. The book was a huge eye-opener and should be read by more people.

First Impressions of "Nickel and Dimed"

After reading the introduction and first chapter of "Nickel and Dimed," I don't think I would have made it the first day in trying to make a living with minimum wage and just going out there on my own, trying to find affordable housing and purposely find a low paid job knowing the amount of education I have and spending two years to find out if I can survive on wages available to the unskilled. Ehrenreich admitted she cheated a little, but if I were the one writing the article and book, I wouldn't have survived and would have cheated through the whole experience.

I hope the rest of you enjoyed reading the first chapter of the book as much as I did since Ehrenreich describes a lot about the people she meets and the restaurants she works at. What were your impressions of the first chapter?

Ehrenreich has her own blog if anyone is interested in reading. She talks a lot about poverty, the economy, and feminism. Read her blog at http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/barbaras_blog/

Barbara Ehrenreich's comment

The author of Nickle and Dimed explores in this article the media coverage of poverty, and the way in which we don't see how the current crisis affects the people at the bottom. Read the full comment at The Nation.