Linda Tirado

Before I review this book a brief account of my bona fides are in order. I am a child of privilege and I have really always lived in privilege. There have been times when "money was tight" but that was because of mismanagement of resources, not because the resources weren't there.

I worked as a volunteer with battered women in the mid-80s, professionally at a food bank in the mid 90s and then more recently again as a volunteer for residential program for homeless men and for a feeding show more program for seniors. (I have also worked professionally with school systems--educators and students--many of them in inner cities or poor rural regions.)

While Linda Tirado is probably better educated and more articulate than a lot of the people I've worked with, she is telling their story or a version of their story. This is the truth about what it means to be poor in the US and why it is so profoundly difficult to get un-poor even with a bunch of advantages like some education.

This is a gorgeous, honest work. If everyone who automatically thinks anyone who is poor is a lazy loser could set that aside for a moment and read this book with an open heart, it could change the world. show less

Linda Tirado presents her story of daily life as a poor person in a direct, matter-of-fact manner, full of insight and sharp humor, also full of depression and anger (which she points out are logical feelings to have in her situation, a situation she shares with many other Americans).

She highlights the inequality in this country and shows how the "haves" receive many advantages that they take for granted, and which help them stay ahead; the "have-nots" are accorded neither the same show more advantages nor are they treated with basic human decency much of the time, compounding their condition, and they struggle to keep their heads above water.

Two of the most pressing problems are (1) access to quality health care, and (2) improving terrible working conditions. Lack of access to preventative care means worse problems and bigger (crippling) medical bills later, and it also means that health concerns have a detrimental affect on the quality of daily life - many people work through constant, chronic pain that could be helped with proper care.

Working conditions are also terrible in many ways: unpredictable scheduling makes holding two jobs (a necessity for many) nearly impossible, the minimum wage is inadequate (and in the food service industry, restaurants often don't make up the gap between the hourly rate and tips if the total doesn't reach the minimum wage, even though they are required by law to do so). Further, workers aren't treated with respect by either the employers or the customers.

Universal health care and a living wage (or basic income) would go a long way toward balancing the problems of poverty. Quality, government-sponsored daycare would also help (and create jobs!). The one fix that doesn't cost anything at all and can be implemented immediately is for people to start treating each other with humanity and decency, kindness and compassion.

Quotes

From Barbara Ehrenreich's foreword:
"Poverty is not a "culture" or a character defect; it is a shortage of money. And that shortage arises from grievously inadequate pay, aggravated by constant humiliation and stress, as well as outright predation by employees, credit companies, and even law enforcement agencies." (xii)

I haven't had it worse than anyone else, and actually, that's kind of the point. This is just what life is for roughly a third of the country. (xx)

This is a huge societal problem, and we're just starting to come to grips with all the ways that a technological revolution and globalization have vastly increased inequality. (xxi)

If we could just agree that poor people are doing the necessary grunt work and that there is dignity in that too, we'd be able to make it less onerous. (xxii)

Poverty is when a quarter is a fucking miracle. Poor is when a dollar is a miracle. Broke is when five bucks is a miracle. Working class is being broke, but doing so in a place that might not be run-down. Middle class is being able to own some toys and to live in a nice place...and rich is anything above that. (definitions, xxiii)

And honestly, I wouldn't even mind the degradations of my work life so much if the privileged and powerful were honest about it. If they just admitted that this is simply impossible...In exchange for all that work we're doing, and all our miserable work conditions, we're not allowed to demand anything in return. No sense of accomplishment, or respect from above, or job security....Being poor while working hard is fucking crushing. It's living in a nightmare where the walls just never stop closing in on you. (25)

It's not like mental health clinics are thick on the ground, like the people who need their services. Being poor in and of itself is an aggravating factor in a lot of mental illnesses; the stress is pretty brutal....In short, I need the kind of mental health support that many people with quality insurance take for granted. (46-47)

Being poor is something like always being followed around by violins making "tense" movie music....Eventually, you just know that something bad is going to happen. That's not paranoia or pessimism; it's reality. (59)

It doesn't make sense to hire people at wages that guarantee they'll be desperate and then be disappointed when they're not always capable of pretending otherwise....I think you'll find that the happier employees are in general, the happier they are at work. (60-61)

The attitude I carry as a poor person is my armor...that armor has become a permanent part of me. (67)

I think the sorts of people who honestly think that service workers should be more smiley and gracious just don't get it. They don't get it because they can take so much for granted in their own lives - things like respect, consideration, and basic fairness on the job. Benefits. Insurance. (75)

Maybe feelings are something that only professional people are allowed to have. My friends and I know that no one gives a shit about ours. (76)

Rich people get way more from the government than poor people do...but the poor are the only ones getting shamed for it. (85)

The reason that poor people wind up coping in ways that seem pointlessly self-destructive is that all the constructive stuff costs money. (91)

The question is, how can the rest of the country live knowing that so many of us have to live like this? (91)

I think what a lot of people see as bad parenting is simply that our kids have different expectations. (123)

Let's stop saying that poor people are irresponsible parents and start admitting that society doesn't seem to believe that if you are poor you are entitled to be a parent at all. (125)

What it comes down to, then, is the idea that the very same situations and behaviors are treated completely differently depending on how nice your stuff is....The only reason it looks like our kids misbehave more is that we can't afford to cover up for them when they do. (126)

During WWII, we had government-sponsored daycare facilities. It was generally acknowledged that single-parent households, which the families left behind by the soldiers were, needed extra support. Maybe, and this is just a thought, we could do that again. Child-care crisis solved. Plus, it's another jobs program. (127)

It's amazing that the things which are absolute crises for me are simple annoyances for people with money. (132)

Because our lives seem so unstable, poor people are often seen as being basically incompetent at managing their lives. That is, it's assumed that we're not unstable because we're poor, bur rather that we're poor because we're unstable. (133)

It actually costs money to save money. (133)

The real reason poor people have bad credit is that life is more expensive than we can tolerate....The vast majority of the poor people I know have terrible credit, and this affects every aspect of our lives. [e.g. rich people pay less than poor people for car insurance because they have better credit] (138)

Being rich is like being white...It's not that sometimes your life doesn't suck even if you're white. It's that you're not allowed to complain about the two times being white is unhandy, because all of your alternatives are much unhandier. Your other options are any race or ethnicity but white, all of whom face normal human shitty existence and racism of the entrenched or overt variety. (176)

You cannot cut access to birth control and then act surprised when people get pregnant. (181)

Money doesn't buy happiness. It buys ease. You can make your life pleasant and enjoyable, get yourself a decent mattress and thus a decent night's sleep. (186) show less

I was really enjoying this book when I decided to read some Goodreads readers' reviews of Hand to Mouth. After my journey down the reviews rabbit hole, I found myself just as angry as Ms. Tirado. For fuck's sake, now none of us are the "correct" kind of poor to suit the Secure. Reading the reviews, I recognized some of the Blessed I sat next to in university espousing strong opinions about public policy without considering the consequences of the policy because they have been pretty much show more handed fucking everything their entire fucking lives. I also recognized some of the Sanctimonious who may have struggled in the past but decided all poor would make it beyond the struggle if they would only do what they did. (For me, I got tired of hearing the preaching of these Sanctimonious and subsequently chose spend my time in other company). If you have never struggled, quit being a judgmental asshole (a judgment I feel I have the right and the privilege to make). If you made it out of the struggle, quit being a judgmental asshole (a judgment I feel I have the right and the privilege to make). Here's the thing about Tirado's 195-page polemic: it is her experience and, therefore, requires not one bit of your blessed and sanctimonious permission to relate her experience and express her opinions. Period. Tirado's account of her experience is autoethnography. Perhaps you were absent or asleep the day they discussed the genre in Anthropology 101, Humanities 101, History 101, or Sociology 101 when you were attending your freshman year of college. (I know how inconvenient it is to give your attention to learning amongst all the frat parties and football games.) To remind you:

Autoethnography is a form of qualitative research in which an author uses self-reflection and writing to explore their personal experience and connect this autobiographical story to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings.

If you wish to present your argument to me substantiating your review dismissing the value of Tirado's autoethnographic style, please set up an appointment. I am Christina E. Mitchell, Ph.D., a researcher grounded in the social sciences, published scholar, certified nonprofit professional, volunteer for a women's domestic violence shelter, and former single, teenage parent on welfare and food stamps.

As for the book, I can not relate to all of what Tirado says, but I can relate to a lot of it. I left the hospital with my new baby daughter under the suspicious, watchful, judgmental eye of a nurse. I encountered a nasty checkout clerk at Safeway when I dared patronize their upper-class store using food stamps to buy milk on my way home from work instead of driving the three extra miles to the grocery warehouse accepting of my kind of poor, white trash. I have worked for bathroom-regulating fast food and retail, which caused back problems that leaves my left foot chronically semi-numb. I've lived in Section 8 housing. I can still relate to Tirado because after acquiring $279,000 in student loan debt by listening to the Blessed and the Sanctimonious rattle on that an education is the ticket out of the struggle and into security, I am post-dissertation, graduated, unemployed, and living with my children. I have not seen a dentist or a medical doctor in I cannot tell you how long. (For a full run down of how fucking mad I am about this, you can read my polemic here.) The fact is the Blessed and the Sanctimonious and the Secure do not want any redneck trailer trash, or any other of the Struggling, messing up their clean, white, pleasant little worlds. If the Struggling try to cross the boundaries, they are immediately told, once again, to mind their places, which is exactly what I hear in the Goodreads reviews of Tirado's book. (Forgive us silly, silly, insignificant Peasants for daring to speak out loud.)

I'm sure if one looks hard enough in order to discredit me as several tried to discredit Tirado, one will find that, like Tirado, I was also the benefit of familial generosity during my struggle, which gratefully eased the pain a bit. I once rented a single-wide trailer owned by my parents, and my mom once bought me a washer and dryer. I was tremendously grateful for both gifts. I finally got off of welfare by going to community college to acquire secretarial skills. My daughter and I continued to struggle because of low wages, but my secretarial skills kept us housed (I even bought a USDA Section 8 home at one point), bought me a used 2001 Nissan Sentra (that I still drive), kept gas in the car, kept food on the table, and provided health insurance. I was tremendously grateful for the work. I was also tremendously grateful for the extra money I earned cleaning houses, bartending, and working for a caterer that gave us a few really fun vacations. (And, I offer a grateful Hallelujah! for the wine and beer I had to drink after my daughter went to bed.) But, being grateful does not mean I, or any of the Struggling, should have to put up with fucking Blessed, Sanctimonious, Secure assholes...which we must on a regular basis...seemingly until we die. Do the Struggling a favor, dear Blessed, Sanctimonious, and Secure, and put yourselves in the shoes of the Struggling for a minute and try to understand the lens through which you are seeing things. It is called reflexive practice. In research, this is the way researchers fight bias in their analysis. Not being honest about what one brings to the conversation - all of one's privileges, biases, discriminations, lived experiences, identities, etc. - means the opinion of the one brings nothing in substantive argument to discredit Tirado's sound advocacy through her own experience.

_____________________________
I wrote the above review in September 2016. It is now November 2016. Trump won the U.S. Presidential Election: a horrifyingly dystopian outcome that puzzles nearly everyone. We know white men overwhelmingly voted for Trump. We know many more than expected women, particularly white, educated women, voted for Trump. We know the upper middle-class to rich voted for Trump. We know many in the media are wondering why the white working class came out to vote when they hardly ever bothered to vote before.

I can read much into the election results, as are others (my social media accounts explode with my and others' opinions and diatribes), but I think what I read most is the same that I attempted to reflect in my review of Tirado's book: Blessed, Secure, Sanctimonious...and now add the Struggling... white people (mostly men) do not want "trash" infiltrating their beautifully white, pristine, privileged lives. The vote was to keep out people of color and the morally questionable (from a Sanctimonious, narrow-minded, seemingly though questionably faith-based point of view) from having even a small working-class portion of what has been drastically reduced amongst the Struggling in terms of living wages and economically secure opportunities, while the Blessed and Secure do not want any attempt at egalitarianism. So, the white working class (men) and the white uber rich (men) partnered up to bring the carnage we have today. And, where does that leave the rest of us? The working class people of color, the LGBTQ community, the immigrants, the refugees, the women, the poor...the marginalized "trash"? It leaves us more marginalized. With the election, we were told on no uncertain terms to mind our places. Well, fuck you! You did nothing in this election to help your narrow-minded, bigoted, misogynist cause. Rather, you exposed it, and we will fight it. What breaks my heart is the Sanctimonious, Struggling white working class had so much more power if partnered with us other "trash" leaving behind psuedo-polite, Blessed and Secure society (particularly since Trump IS "the establishment" fooling y'all so he can grab more for himself, his family, and his rich friends). What breaks my heart worse is those who should know better, the educated, refused to come down from their Ivory Tower to welcome the Struggling working class and "trash" of society into the hallowed halls in order to listen and give credence to their voices.

Heaven forgive us for what we have done. show less

A daisy-chain of disaster

Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado (Putnam Adult, $25.95).

This is the must-read book about poverty for those who think they know what poverty looks like: It is a memoir from Linda Tirado, author of an essay called “Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, Poverty Thoughts,” which went viral earlier this year.

Simply put, it makes clear one very true thing: It’s impossible to manage money well when there is no money to manage.

Beyond that, it show more also provides—in compelling and well-told personal experience—an upfront view of what being poor in America really amounts to, and it’s not what you think. Instead of trying to stretch disability or welfare support for a full month (and that’s true for many poor Americans), most poor Americans don’t just work; they work a helluva lot harder than the rest of us. In fact, as Tirado’s story makes clear, most of the working poor—who make up most of the poor people in America—work more than one job.

The problem starts with minimum wage, which isn’t a living wage at all; it’s merely a bulwark against which we can measure the better off as those who make more than minimum wage. Even a single person needs two minimum-wage jobs to make a decent living.

But Tirado’s real gift comes in explaining the catastrophic snowballing effect that one setback can have on the working poor. Her tale of how she lost, not only her car, but two jobs, is a story that all Americans need to understand. If you’re poor, there’s no safety net. Once something goes wrong, the carefully-balanced platforms on which most working people in this country base their lives quickly go askew, setting off a daisy-chain of disaster.

Read this book, and perhaps lose some of the worst mistaken ideas about poverty that linger even among the compassionate well-off.

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com show less