05475cam a2200421 i 4500 1262138995 TxAuBib 20231024120000.0 231110s2023||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u bl2023175347 9781642599657 PAP 19.95 1642599654 PAP 19.95 TxAuBib rda Going for broke [BOOK] : living on the edge in the world's richest country / edited by Alissa Quart and David Wallis. Chicago, Illinois : Haymarket Books, 2023. 360 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier "An anthology from the Economic hardship reporting project.''. Includes bibliographical references (pages 342-350) and index. Introduction -- Section 1: The body. Introduction ; Love and war ; A stay at Kings County ; I did my own abortion because Texas used COVID-19 as an excuse to shut down abortion clinics ; "Women afraid of dying while they are trying to find their life" ; Medicaid has been good to my body, but it has abandoned my brain ; My disability is my superpower - If only employers could see it that way ; A trip to the nail salon with missing fingers ; Traumatic pregnancies are awful - Dobbs will make them so much worse ; The twisted business of donating plasma ; To help the homeless, offer shelter that allows deep sleep ; Inequity in maternal health care left me with undiagnosed postpartum PTSD ; Anything of value -- Section 2: Home. Introduction: The organized abandonment of shelter ; Homeless in a pandemic: the housing poetry of Jennifer Fitzgerald ; Meet Tomeka Langford ; Unaddressed ; Evictionland ; 37,000 US veterans are homeless - I was one of them ; Why I choose to live house-free in Alaska ; I was wrongly detained at the border - It's part of a larger problem ; I watched war erupt in the Balkans - Here's what I see in America today ; A fierce desire to stay: looking at West Virginia through its people's eyes -- Section 3: Family. Introduction ; Don't be this way forever ; When my father called me about his unemployment ; I took in a homeless couple - would you? ; My marriage was broken - The coronavirus lockdown saved it ; P.S. 42 ; My sister is a recovering heroin addict - I can't fix her, but she also can't fix herself ; In the pandemic, cooking connected me to my ancestors ; The underground economy of unpaid care ; The worst part of being poor: watching your dog die when you can't afford to help ; Nomen est omen -- Section 4: Work. Introduction: To make work visible, again and again ; How the taxi workers won ; My pandemic year behind the checkout counter: on working amid paranoid customers, hungry shoplifters, sick coworkers, and people who just need a bathroom ; From academic to assembly-line worker ; Once upon a time, waitress was a union job - could history repeat itself? ; Why I check the "Black" box: I learned racial ambiguity was not something I could afford ; My life as a retail worker: nasty, brutish, and poor ; What it's like riding along with a valet driver at a San Francisco strip club ; You talk real good ; The secret lives of adjunct professors ; The poetry of labor: on Rodrigo Toscano and the art of work ; Zen and the art of uber driving -- Section 5: Class. Introduction ; The difference between being broke and being poor ; That sinking feeling ; Off our butts: how smoking bans extinguish solidarity ; Never-ending sentences ; The dignity of the thrift store ; Class dismissed ; For years, I've tried to work my way back into the middle class ; What does it mean to be "bad with money"? "Going for Broke, edited by Alissa Quart, Executive Director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and David Wallis, former Managing Director of EHRP, gives voice to a range of gifted writers for whom "economic precarity" is more than just another assignment. All illustrate what the late Barbara Ehrenreich, who conceived of EHRP, once described as "the real face of journalism today: not million dollar-a-year anchorpersons, but low-wage workers and downwardly spiraling professionals." One essayist and grocery store worker describes what it is like to be an “essential worker” during the pandemic; another reporter and military veteran details his experience with homelessness and what would have actually helped him at the time. These dozens of fierce and sometimes darkly funny pieces reflect the larger systems that have made writers' bodily experiences, family and home lives, and work far harder than they ought to be.". 20240516. Poor United States. Poor United States Personal narratives. Poor Government policy United States 21st century. Working poor United States. Working poor United States Personal narratives. Working class United States. Working class United States Personal narratives. Poverty United States. United States Social conditions 21st century. United States Social policy 21st century. United States Economic conditions 21st century. Wallis, David, editor, (David R.) Quart, Alissa, editor.