Class lives
Subtitle: stories from across our economic divide
By: edited by Chuck Collins, Jennifer Ladd, Maynard Seider, and Felice Yeskel
Contributors: Class Action (Organization)
Publisher: ILR Press, an imprint of Cornell University Press; ILR Press
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Ithaca; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 228
ISBN-13: 9780801479656; 9780801453281
Subjects: Intergroup relations; Class consciousness; Social classes
Description: "Class Lives is an anthology of narratives dramatizing the lived experience of class in America. It includes forty original essays from authors who represent a range of classes, genders, races, ethnicities, ages, and occupations across the United States. Born into poverty, working class, the middle class, and the owning class—and every place in between—the contributors describe their class journeys in narrative form, recounting one or two key stories that illustrate their growing awareness of class and their place, changing or stable, within the class system. The stories in Class Lives are both gripping and moving. One contributor grows up in hunger and as an adult becomes an advocate for the poor and homeless. Another acknowledges the truth that her working-class father's achievements afforded her and the rest of the family access to people with power. A gifted child from a working-class home soon understands that intelligence is a commodity but finds his background incompatible with his aspirations and so attempts to divide his life into separate worlds. Together, these essays form a powerful narrative about the experience of class and the importance of learning about classism, class cultures, and the intersections of class, race, and gender. Class Lives will be a helpful resource for students, teachers, sociologists, diversity trainers, activists, and a general audience. It will leave readers with an appreciation of the poignancy and power of class and the journeys that Americans grapple with on a daily basis."--Publisher's website.
Notes: "A Class Action book."

Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Caviar, College, Coupons, and Cheese / Felice Yeskel; title: PART I. POOR AND LOW INCOME; title: Cleaning Up the Trash: Fighting Shame / Linda Stout; title: North American Peasant / Fisher Lavell; title: I Work with Worn-Out Tools / Janet Lightfoot; title: Mexican Girl from Fontana / Geneva Reynaga-Abiko; title: What They Say about Poor Girls / Stephanie Jones; title: Better Than / Patience Rage; title: No Yellow Tickets: The Stigma of Poverty in the School Lunch Line / Wendy Williams; title: PART II. WORKING CLASS; title: Reflections; title: Those of Us from Rio Linda / Dwight Lang; title: The Cost of Passing / John Rosario-Perez; title: The Floors of the Met /  Karen Estrella; title: Washroom Class Politics / Timothy Harris; title: Artichokes / N. Jeanne Burns; title: Here's How to Drive the Poor Crazy / Michaelann Bewsee; title: Red Datsun Security / Karen Spector; title: Working Class and College; title: A Box from My Grandfather / Janet Casey; title: Vacuum Cleaner Truth / Sierra Fleenor; title: I Am Working Class / Michelle M. Tokarczyk; title: Hitting the Academic Class Ceiling / K. Stricker; title: Blue-Collar Heart, Ivy League World / Jennifer O'Connor Duffy; title: Between Scarcity and Plenty / Camisha Jones; title: A Nuyorican's Journey to Higher Education: Toward Meritocracy or Internalized Classism? / Jim Bonilla; title: My Parents' Hands Are on My Back / Christine Overall; title: PART III. MIDDLE CLASS; title: "Better Be Street": My Adventures in Cross-Class Romance / Polly Trout; title: It’s Who You Know and How You Talk / Betsy Leondar-Wright; title: Childhood Friendship: When Class Didn’t Matter / Pamela Burrows; title: Finding Myself in the Middle / Monica Crumback; title: A Privileged Path in a Class-Shattered World / Anne Ellinger; title: Oreo?: A Black American Experience / John Vaughn; title: Class Is Always with Us / Kyle Harris; title: PART IV. OWNING CLASS; title: Born on Third Base / Chuck Collins; title: Money Was Never a Worry / Catherine Orland; title: The Women Who Cared for My Grandparents / Sarah Burgess; title: What Was It Like Growing Up Owning-Class? / Jennifer Ladd; title: A Day of Traveling across the Class Spectrum / Charlotte Redway; title: Social Capital / Sally Gottesman; title: PART V. MIXED CLASS; title: Coming Clean / April Rosenblum; title: Ferragamos: A Cross-Class Experience / Zoe Greenberg; title: Girl Scout Green / Mariah Boone; title: Living beyond Class: My Journey from Haiti to Harvard / Jacques Fleury; title: Afterword: The Power of Story / Chuck Collins.