Class Lives: Stories from across Our Economic Divide(A Class Action Book)

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.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Caviar, College, Coupons, and Cheese by Felice YeskelPART I. POOR AND LOW INCOMECleaning Up the Trash: Fighting Shame by Linda StoutNorth American Peasant by Fisher LavellI Work with Worn-Out Tools by Janet LightfootMexican Girl from Fontana by Geneva Reynaga-AbikoWhat They Say about Poor Girls by Stephanie JonesBetter Than by Patience RageNo Yellow Tickets: The Stigma of Poverty in the School Lunch Line by Wendy WilliamsPART II. WORKING CLASSReflectionsThose of Us from Rio Linda by Dwight LangThe Cost of Passing by John Rosario-PerezThe Floors of the Met by Karen EstrellaWashroom Class Politics by Timothy HarrisArtichokes by N. Jeanne BurnsHere's How to Drive the Poor Crazy by Michaelann BewseeRed Datsun Security by Karen SpectorWorking Class and CollegeA Box from My Grandfather by Janet CaseyVacuum Cleaner Truth by Sierra FleenorI Am Working Class by Michelle M. TokarczykHitting the Academic Class Ceiling by K. StrickerBlue-Collar Heart, Ivy League World by Jennifer O'Connor DuffyBetween Scarcity and Plenty by Camisha JonesA Nuyorican's Journey to Higher Education: Toward Meritocracy or Internalized Classism? by Jim BonillaMy Parents' Hands Are on My Back by Christine OverallPART III. MIDDLE CLASS"Better Be Street": My Adventures in Cross-Class Romance by Polly TroutIt's Who You Know and How You Talk by Betsy Leondar-WrightChildhood Friendship: When Class Didn't Matter by Pamela BurrowsFinding Myself in the Middle by Monica CrumbackA Privileged Path in a Class-Shattered World by Anne EllingerOreo?: A Black American Experience by John VaughnClass Is Always with Us by Kyle HarrisPART IV. OWNING CLASSBorn on Third Base by Chuck CollinsMoney Was Never a Worry by Catherine OrlandThe Women Who Cared for My Grandparents by Sarah BurgessWhat Was It Like Growing Up Owning-Class? by Jennifer LaddA Day of Traveling across the Class Spectrum by Charlotte RedwaySocial Capital by Sally GottesmanPART V. MIXED CLASSComing Clean by April RosenblumFerragamos: A Cross-Class Experience by Zoe GreenbergGirl Scout Green by Mariah BooneLiving beyond Class: My Journey from Haiti to Harvard by Jacques FleuryAfterword: The Power of Story by Chuck CollinsAbout the Contributors Resources About Class Action

About the Author :
Chuck Collins is a board member at Class Action and a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies. He is the author most recently of 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It. Jennifer Ladd is cofounder of Class Action. Maynard Seider, author of A Year in the Life of a Factory, has retired as a Professor of Sociology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. The late Felice Yeskel was cofounder of Class Action.

Review :
It does a good job of highlighting the implicit class biases and prejudices that often infect progressive movements and institutionslimiting their popular appeal and undercutting their stated commitment to inclusion and diversity. The book's compassionate and inclusive ethos, and its detailed consideration of complex ways that class inflects the whole spectrum of identity and everyday experience, offers a welcome respite from the sanctimonious hothouse of much contemporary liberal identity politics. - Dennis Soron (Labour/Le Travail)