Matthew Desmond Analysis

At the age of ten struggles had become my reality and my parents did their best to shield us from its brutal force. My parents that were immigrants from Haiti barely spoke English and clerked the miniature market business that they started. However, after many attempts trying keeping the business afloat, they needed to close their store. Shortly after, we received a thirty day eviction notice, and my mother was pregnant with my youngest sister. We were already struggling financially with many bills. When I stared at my father’s eyes I saw a man who felt hopeless. It was the first time I saw him cry. All our burdens were placed on him. He did not find support through Cambridge Public Housing. I watched my father’s hopelessness turn to desperation. Although all odds were against him, he had to fight and developed an insatiable desire to not quit. The same fight that was instilled in me at an early

A hardship that many people have to endure is poverty. The characters in the short stories, Angela’s Ashes, by Frank Mccourt and The Street, by Ann Petry, both experience living in impoverished conditions. In the story The Street, Petry shows the life of a single mother who lives through the struggles of being poor. In another story portraying poverty, Angela’s Ashes, the author uses kids to paint the image of indigence. These kids are burdened with the task of caring for themselves. It is evident that both stories share the theme of living in poverty and it is presented in the events, setting, and characters..

The Working Poor: Invisible in America David K. Shipler is a book that could be most accurately described as eye-opening. Shipler opens up the book on his claim that “nobody who works hard should be poor in America.” America is built upon the idea that the harder one works, the better off one will be. Shipler then goes on to explain how the poor, often times, work the hardest jobs and are put into the worse conditions, but still do not grow to become the most successful.

In Bell Hooks’ essay, “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor”, Hooks addresses and clarifies the misinterpretations that people have of the assumptions made of the poor, how poor individuals are viewed in human culture and how the poor are represented on television. She helps the audience understand how these assumptions are wrong.

Have you ever overcame problems that you thought you never could? Well many people have also. A man named James J. Braddock and his family in the film “Cinderella Man” struggled and overcame challenges brought on by the Great Depression in the 1930’s. The Great Depression was the most darkest and long-lasting downturn in American history. And it all began after the stock market crash in October 1929. Many families suffered from economic hardships as well as emotional distress. Therefore the Braddock family overcame there challenges which are not having much to eat, not having money, and not having a place to live.

Matthew Desmond’s Evicted takes a sociological approach to understanding the low-income housing system by following eight families as they struggle for residential stability. The novel also features two landlords of the families, giving the audience both sides and allowing them to make their own conclusions. Desmond goes to great lengths to make the story accessible to all classes and races, but it seems to especially resonate with people who can relate to the book’s subjects or who are liberals in sound socioeconomic standing. With this novel, Desmond hopes to highlight the fundamental structural and cultural problems in the evictions of poor families, while putting faces to the housing crisis. Through the lens of the social reproduction theory, Desmond argues in Evicted that evictions are not an effect of poverty, but rather, a cause of it.

In the article “How I Discovered the Truth about Poverty” Barbara Ehrenreich gives her view in poverty and explains why she think Michael Harington’s book “The Other American” gives a wrong view on poverty. She explained that Harrington believes that the poor thought and felt differently and what divides the poor was their different “culture of poverty.”

In Chicago, and all over the nation, the effects of gang activity have been displayed, specifically in low income and poverty torn communities. Poverty is measured depending on a family’s annual income and determining if the amount falls below the poverty threshold for the family’s size. If the annual income does fall below the threshold, then the family and every individual in it is considered to be in poverty. Gang activity is more visible in the areas specifically in major cities similar to Chicago where poverty is a commonality in communities. although gangs might add structure in order where the government fails to do so in the projects and and similar low income communities the negative effects such as the distribution of drugs, violence,

The Appalachian cultural group has faced many adversities related to low levels of education, poverty and health issues. In the following discussion, the Appalachian disparities will be examined and how these inequalities affect their health status, employment and education. Finally, two nursing interventions will be addressed to decrease the health disparities and the biggest nursing challenge that occurs when implementing these nursing interventions.

In a New York Times article, “Too Poor to Make the News,” author Barbara Ehrenreich focuses on the impact the recession has caused to the lives of the working poor. She begins her article by describing how the newly group, known as Nouveau poor, have to give up valuables where as the working poor have to give up housing, food, and prescription medicines. Ehrenreich’s purpose is to inform her readers who are blessed enough not to suffer like the working poor. Barbara Ehrenreich’s article examines the impacts the recession has on the lives of the working poor, by demonstrating pathos, and makes readers aware of the sufferings the poor have to face.

A lingering question to many of the less fortunate in America pertains to the existence of the so-called “American dream.” Does this American dream exist and is it attainable? The American dream inspires many immigrants move to America, hoping to better their lives and those of their families. However, in the novel, Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich’s attempt achieve the American dream deems it not possibly attainable. Likewise, today, in the twenty-first century, the American dream is still not attainable. Ordinarily, no one would go through such physical and mental challenges to achieve a just barely attainable dream, but many of disadvantaged families still do, even today during the twenty-first century.

Poverty has been around for numerous years. Poverty can be a generational problem if people let it. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” and David Joy’s “Digging in the trash” both show that families in poverty do not have it easy, the children will live in poverty unless something is done, and people either find a way of escape or stand up against it.

The novel, The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives by Sasha Abramsky is about how he traveled the United States meeting the poor. The stories he introduces in novel are articles among data-driven studies and critical investigations of government programs. Abramsky has composed an impressive book that both defines and advocates. He reaches across a varied range of concerns, involving education, housing and criminal justice, in a wide-ranging view of poverty 's sections. In considering results, it 's essential to understand how the different problems of poor families intermingle in mutual reinforcement. Sasha Abramsky brings the results of economic disparity out of the shadows and recommends ways for moving toward a

Society is a whole lot different than it was sixty years ago, but there are still things that haven’t been fixed in today’s lifestyle. De facto segregation is still at large today De facto segregation is when a person or family chooses to move to a segregated area. They are practically forced out of their former town because they usually can’t afford bills and taxes and move to a town with lower bills. De jure segregation is the type of segregation that happened sixty years ago when blacks had to use different facilities and were limited to different jobs. African Americans are the number one race that is usually featured in the lower income class, segregated education and poor housing. Poverty is the new segregation because of poor housing, jobs and segregated

Children are like a plain paper who can be easily influenced by the environment of their living. The environment can affected the pattern of change in emotions, personality development and social relationship between people. In fact, the children purposely try to develop a better understanding of the environment and explore the world to fulfill their curiosity.