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Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams
Limbo is a thought-provoking treatise on the lasting consequences of class mobility in America. Drawing on his own story as well as on dozens more from individuals who share his experience, award-winning journalist Alfred Lubrano sheds light on the predicament of some 13 million Americans: reconciling their blue-collar upbringing with the white-collar world they now inhabit.
The profiles here show a remarkable consistency of emotion and experience across a diverse demographic that crosses all boundaries of sex, race, and religion. Opening a long-awaited dialogue, Limbo reflects the reality of a unique class struggling with an all-American brand of cultural isolation. There is something for everyone in these honest and eloquent stories of life in our modern meritocracy.
248 pages, Paperback
First published October 17, 2003
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2,424 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 123 reviews
January 6, 2011
I am a first-generation college graduate and a complete mystery to many of my blue-collar relatives. My Mom told people my BS degree stood for "Bull Shit" and that when I achieved my Master's, it was because I was finally a Master of Bull Shit. I have a very loving family, but my college pursuits were perplexing to my family. After I left college and began my career, my income illustrated that maybe all that college stuff was worth something. My 10-years-younger brother now has the benefit of parents who think college is wonderful. All that aside, Lubrano's book was like a mini-visit with a counselor. I found myself saying "YES! That's exactly how it was!" and feeling like I wasn't alone out there. I read this several years ago but it seriously changed my life and the ways in which I interact with my family.
May 28, 2008
We all have moments when we read a work that captures our experience in a deeply moving way. The kinds of works that leaves us shaking ours heads because someone has written what we have felt but hadn't heard someone else say before.
Every person I've recommended this to has had the same experience I did. I was grateful to have someone explain the ups and downs of moving from the working class to the professional middle class, of becoming a class "straddler."
This isn't a "woe is me" book. It's a series of observations about what is positive about growing up working class (e.g. strong work ethic, loyalty to family and community) and what's limiting about it (e.g. narrow life/work experiences, aversion to jobs that aren't "practical" or that are purely enjoyable), as well as the two sides of becoming a professional, such as a wide array of work/life options, but also the loss of community.
In particular, Lubrano, who draws both on his own experience and on dozens of interviews with other straddlers, examines how making that class leap opens new worlds but leaves one feeling not fully at home in either setting.
For example, it's a shock to go to college and meet people look and talk differently, who talk of spring break travel and internships, and who have no idea about the day to day realities of blue collar life. One assimilates, finding enjoyment in the academics and the exposure to new people and ideas, but then going home a "college boy" (or girl, in my case) is disconcerting when the conversations and daily concerns are completely different.
Lubrano interviews men and women, people from urban and rural areas, and people of color. He touches on how, for example, African Americans straddlers feel a responsibility to help those back home who still struggle.
I recommend this book to other "straddlers", but also to those who don't identify with the concept to better understand why some of us may be a little too blunt at work or have low tolerance for coworkers/employees who talking (and talking) about finding a "fulfilling" career instead of just getting to work. Or for blue collar people getting a college degree or aspiring to professional careers, it would be helpful, I think, to understand that moments of "where the heck do I belong?" are par for the course.
Every person I've recommended this to has had the same experience I did. I was grateful to have someone explain the ups and downs of moving from the working class to the professional middle class, of becoming a class "straddler."
This isn't a "woe is me" book. It's a series of observations about what is positive about growing up working class (e.g. strong work ethic, loyalty to family and community) and what's limiting about it (e.g. narrow life/work experiences, aversion to jobs that aren't "practical" or that are purely enjoyable), as well as the two sides of becoming a professional, such as a wide array of work/life options, but also the loss of community.
In particular, Lubrano, who draws both on his own experience and on dozens of interviews with other straddlers, examines how making that class leap opens new worlds but leaves one feeling not fully at home in either setting.
For example, it's a shock to go to college and meet people look and talk differently, who talk of spring break travel and internships, and who have no idea about the day to day realities of blue collar life. One assimilates, finding enjoyment in the academics and the exposure to new people and ideas, but then going home a "college boy" (or girl, in my case) is disconcerting when the conversations and daily concerns are completely different.
Lubrano interviews men and women, people from urban and rural areas, and people of color. He touches on how, for example, African Americans straddlers feel a responsibility to help those back home who still struggle.
I recommend this book to other "straddlers", but also to those who don't identify with the concept to better understand why some of us may be a little too blunt at work or have low tolerance for coworkers/employees who talking (and talking) about finding a "fulfilling" career instead of just getting to work. Or for blue collar people getting a college degree or aspiring to professional careers, it would be helpful, I think, to understand that moments of "where the heck do I belong?" are par for the course.
September 19, 2008
This is one of my favorite books. It is about how individuals deal with their own social mobility in the United States. I wondered why I felt so uneasy after moving to the city and getting a good job after putting myself through college and grad school. Lubrano gives case studies and analyzes the experiences of those people like me who came from modest roots, but got a good education, a little bit of money, and some broader cultural exposure. He writes and I agree that people like this still feel ties to both worlds - where they came from and where they went - never fully belonging to one at the exclusion of the other.
All in all the book didn't give me any easy answers about how I should proceed, but did awaken me to the fact that the conflicted feelings i had were being experienced in nearly the same way by a tide of people in similar situations. I never realized that the things I stumbled, fought, and struggled to learn about how to get a good education, job, professional contacts, sophisticated interests were not such a struggle for people who had affluent, educated families and communities behind them all along. I just figured that the only difference between myself and the Yale kids was money. It's a totally different set of experiences, mentality and environment. There is a huge group of people from places like my rural Pennsylvania that never got that, so when they achieve success, bring a different perspective to the table. I think it's productive, even if it's hard for both sides to adjust to one another.
I could identify with something on almost every page. So many stories and statements mirrored my own experience that I had to remind myself that I didn't get them from reading the book and our collective experiences were just that similar.
I recommend this for anyone who was the first in their working-class family to go to college and to those trying to understand why they act that way.
All in all the book didn't give me any easy answers about how I should proceed, but did awaken me to the fact that the conflicted feelings i had were being experienced in nearly the same way by a tide of people in similar situations. I never realized that the things I stumbled, fought, and struggled to learn about how to get a good education, job, professional contacts, sophisticated interests were not such a struggle for people who had affluent, educated families and communities behind them all along. I just figured that the only difference between myself and the Yale kids was money. It's a totally different set of experiences, mentality and environment. There is a huge group of people from places like my rural Pennsylvania that never got that, so when they achieve success, bring a different perspective to the table. I think it's productive, even if it's hard for both sides to adjust to one another.
I could identify with something on almost every page. So many stories and statements mirrored my own experience that I had to remind myself that I didn't get them from reading the book and our collective experiences were just that similar.
I recommend this for anyone who was the first in their working-class family to go to college and to those trying to understand why they act that way.
Want to read
May 11, 2012Lubrano writes, “Social class counts at the office, even though nobody likes to admit it. Ultimately, corporate norms are based on middle- and upper-class values, business types say. From an early age, middle-class people learn how to get along, using diplomacy, nuance, and politics to grab what they need. It is as though they are following a set of rules laid out in a manual that blue-collar families never have the chance to read.�
Open expression of anger is verboten in the office workplace: “American corporate culture is based on WASP values, whether or not WASPs are actually running the company. Everything is outwardly calm and quiet. Workers have to be reserved and unemotional, and must never show anger. It’s uptight, maybe even unhealthy, and all that pent-up aggression comes out in long-knife ambushes at the 2 P.M. meeting.�
Compared to people who wear button-down shirts five days a week, it seems that � gender stereotypes be damned � I am actually in the top 25th percentile of angry people. Once, in a conversation with a boss I talk to openly all the time, I said in what I thought was a reasonably diplomatic way that I wasn’t interested in working on projects involving a particular person whose demeanor I found condescending. I realized from his reaction that I had said too much. Even this is over the line: every office interaction must be smooth like butter. Incredibly fake butter. He also writes about blue-collar people’s incredible discomfort with networking. One interviewee actually became nauseated at a seminar on how to network, feeling that it was just a class on how to be fake and dishonest.
Open expression of anger is verboten in the office workplace: “American corporate culture is based on WASP values, whether or not WASPs are actually running the company. Everything is outwardly calm and quiet. Workers have to be reserved and unemotional, and must never show anger. It’s uptight, maybe even unhealthy, and all that pent-up aggression comes out in long-knife ambushes at the 2 P.M. meeting.�
Compared to people who wear button-down shirts five days a week, it seems that � gender stereotypes be damned � I am actually in the top 25th percentile of angry people. Once, in a conversation with a boss I talk to openly all the time, I said in what I thought was a reasonably diplomatic way that I wasn’t interested in working on projects involving a particular person whose demeanor I found condescending. I realized from his reaction that I had said too much. Even this is over the line: every office interaction must be smooth like butter. Incredibly fake butter. He also writes about blue-collar people’s incredible discomfort with networking. One interviewee actually became nauseated at a seminar on how to network, feeling that it was just a class on how to be fake and dishonest.
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November 9, 2016On the morning after Trump’s shocking victory, I am reminded of this book I read in 2004. Alfred Lubrano does a good job of exploring the confused loyalties and insights that result from having been inside two different cultures. You know how each world can be deeply affirming � and you see, better than the life-long natives, the terrible darkness each holds.
While I have grown up to be a card-carrying member of Blue America, I still remember the provincial small towns in fly-over country where I spent my childhood. If you did not and need some help in understanding the fury of Red America, this blog posting (ignore its click-bait title) is a thoughtful, reality-based, comprehensive discussion of what Trump-world believes and feels.
While I have grown up to be a card-carrying member of Blue America, I still remember the provincial small towns in fly-over country where I spent my childhood. If you did not and need some help in understanding the fury of Red America, this blog posting (ignore its click-bait title) is a thoughtful, reality-based, comprehensive discussion of what Trump-world believes and feels.
October 18, 2015
I started this book expecting to love it; I found it almost unreadable in places.
Lubrano clearly does not consider the idea of intersectionality, and his discussion of race is consistently painful as a result. It's probably a mercy that he doesn't even attempt to talk about gender. That was my major problem with the book, but the Boomer perspective felt really outdated and irrelevant. Not sure whether it was that perspective or something else that led to his romanticization of working class roots, but I also found that aspect off-putting.
Lubrano clearly does not consider the idea of intersectionality, and his discussion of race is consistently painful as a result. It's probably a mercy that he doesn't even attempt to talk about gender. That was my major problem with the book, but the Boomer perspective felt really outdated and irrelevant. Not sure whether it was that perspective or something else that led to his romanticization of working class roots, but I also found that aspect off-putting.
December 14, 2011
I started reading Limbo when a professor who identifies as like the Straddlers explored in Limbo recommended it to help people in a position of privilege at the college begin to understand or at least empathize with a generally misunderstood, alienated, and under-served population. The way she put it, people in the Ivory Tower often avoid the "C" word, class, and Lubrano provides an approachable window into the struggles he explores that are often shared by people raised in blue-collar families who go to college and take on white-collar careers and identities.
It's an approachable, easy read on often-avoided subjects; the book explores the experience of "status dissonance" through the perspectives of multiple insiders to Straddlerhood (including Lubrano himself).
Coming away from Limbo I find myself better equipped to see and analyze class and educational inequalities as fundamental sources or informing elements of some conflicts or relationships. It's an easy pop-nonfiction read that sparked a lot of thought, conversation, and "aha!" moments, and it is definitely worth reading as a means of casual exposure to major cultural divides that can create a profoundly alienating experience.
It's an approachable, easy read on often-avoided subjects; the book explores the experience of "status dissonance" through the perspectives of multiple insiders to Straddlerhood (including Lubrano himself).
Coming away from Limbo I find myself better equipped to see and analyze class and educational inequalities as fundamental sources or informing elements of some conflicts or relationships. It's an easy pop-nonfiction read that sparked a lot of thought, conversation, and "aha!" moments, and it is definitely worth reading as a means of casual exposure to major cultural divides that can create a profoundly alienating experience.
December 3, 2017
Lubrano, a journalist from a blue-collar background, argues for the importance of paying attention to how class operates in American society. His particular interest is in what he calls 'Straddlers,' people from blue-collar backgrounds who experience ongoing duality after they cross over into the middle class, which he sees happening through their attending college. It was a broad-brush, largely anecdotal approach, and significantly shaped by the author's own trajectory, so I think it leaves some important complicating things out of the analysis, but it's an interesting topic and some of it definitely resonated.
March 3, 2024
Embarrassingly eye opening. Explores the internal and external consequences and challenges of upward mobility from within the working class in the US. An academic text, but being a journalist Lubrano does an amazing job of captivating the reader and making his points all the more compelling. Gonna get preachy- would mark as a must read for anyone, but particularly for people with Jesuit/LO type upbringing
December 31, 2016
A fascinating look at the class divide from those who have lived in both. Straddlers are born blue collar but through higher education have entered the white collar class. This book explores the pros and cons they face. Although the author admits in the introduction that there are other factors besides education that divide the classes, he chooses to dwell almost solely on that factor. I would have liked to see others as well: joining the army for example.
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October 22, 2014"Social class counts at the office, even though nobody likes to admit it. Ultimately, corporate norms are based on middle- and upper-class values, business types say. From an early age, middle-class people learn how to get along, using diplomacy, nuance, and politics to grab what they need. It is as though they are following a set of rules laid out in a manual that blue-collar families never have the chance to read" (9).
"Ideally, a Straddler becomes bicultural: Understand what made you who you are, then learn to navigate the new setting. If you were to leave your family and completely give yourself over to the new mainstream, disavowing your background in the process, you'd risk distancing yourself from yourself. It's a form of self-hatred. As Laurene Finley says, you internalize the stereotypes--believe you're trash without refinement--and wind up disowning yourself. How does that help? The best situation has people maintaining connection with their families, while simultaneously supporting the things they need for themselves in their new middle-class worlds. And they work to cut down on that imposter feeling" (193).
"Ideally, a Straddler becomes bicultural: Understand what made you who you are, then learn to navigate the new setting. If you were to leave your family and completely give yourself over to the new mainstream, disavowing your background in the process, you'd risk distancing yourself from yourself. It's a form of self-hatred. As Laurene Finley says, you internalize the stereotypes--believe you're trash without refinement--and wind up disowning yourself. How does that help? The best situation has people maintaining connection with their families, while simultaneously supporting the things they need for themselves in their new middle-class worlds. And they work to cut down on that imposter feeling" (193).
July 16, 2008
I bet you consider yourself middle class. That's the safe zone which almost everyone in our culture has been told they are a part of. The truth is, class is less about money and more about mindset. Do you go fishing? Have you or anyone in your family ever said, 'You do what you gotta do' or 'it's a rough job but someone's gotta do it'? Do you eat sushi? Do you gamble at casinos? Do you vacation out of the country? Do you dress your children in gender specific clothing? Do you listen to NPR? Do you think it's better to fit in or stand out? These are the types of nuances that came to mind when I read this book, which was such an enjoyable read. This really would be enjoyable for anyone interested in class and pop culture. But, for those who grew up poor or in a working class home, this is your book. It's about breaking from (and trying to stay in touch with) the "old school" values that must be left behind when first generation college go-ers leave home and ultimately, work their way into the middle class.
February 11, 2013
I have to say, this book made me think. At times I got impatient with the author's romanticizing working class people. It's fine to say there's a set of values unique to the group - hard work, don't take shit off of anybody, stay close to your family - and that no one always lives up to their group's values all the time. Lubrano lost sight of that nuance in his countless tales of blue collar people behaving nobly and middle class people being worthless weaklings and parasites. He is a fine writer, however, and drew a very persuasive portrait of Straddlers - blue collar people with white collar dreams, as the subtitle of the book suggests. I recognized much of what he was saying as absolutely true to my observations of class difference, and thought he was particularly astute to point out that US Americans lack a language for talking about class. Apart from one chapter - the one about former blue collar peoples' unwilllingness, sometimes inability, to play office politics - which was repetitive and overstated, the rest was quite good.
June 5, 2008
This is a great book for Buffalo kids--you know who you are. Not to mention many of the references are from UB professor Pat Finn and his sidekick Gillian. I had the pleasure of taking 2 course with Gillian in graduate school. This book rang so true on many levels.
There are many of us who feel our jobs, compared to our parents and grandparents, don't exactly constitute "work" in the blood, sweat and tears sense. Also, we feel more connected to the waitstaff and grounds crew at the country club than to our co-workers and bosses who invited us there for dinner.
However we also believe that the education we've received and put into daily practice is valuable and important "work." This book does a fine job of bringing these ideas to light, and makes those of us who experience this phenomenon feel a little more understood.
Lubrano crystallizes many nebulous emotions I believe many people of our generation are feeling. Good job!
There are many of us who feel our jobs, compared to our parents and grandparents, don't exactly constitute "work" in the blood, sweat and tears sense. Also, we feel more connected to the waitstaff and grounds crew at the country club than to our co-workers and bosses who invited us there for dinner.
However we also believe that the education we've received and put into daily practice is valuable and important "work." This book does a fine job of bringing these ideas to light, and makes those of us who experience this phenomenon feel a little more understood.
Lubrano crystallizes many nebulous emotions I believe many people of our generation are feeling. Good job!
May 12, 2018
I first read this book almost 10 years ago in college. It changed my world view back then, and it was a very powerful and emotional read for me this second time through. So much has changed in my life since the last time I read this, but I being in class limbo is not one of them. I can’t wait to read this book again in another 10 years to see what still rings true and what does not.
If you have ever felt like an outsider because of your socioeconomic class or class mobility of some kind, I cannot recommend this book enough. Some pieces are a bit outdated, but the descriptions of what life is like in limbo are pretty timeless.
If you have ever felt like an outsider because of your socioeconomic class or class mobility of some kind, I cannot recommend this book enough. Some pieces are a bit outdated, but the descriptions of what life is like in limbo are pretty timeless.
May 21, 2008
The only downside to this book was that there was never that "in defense of the blue-collar way" section or theme. There was some pride, but mostly the theme was people who moved into white-collar lives were "bettering" themselves. That's the only issue I had with it. Otherwise, it kicked my butt with enlightenment. Things I'd never thought about. All that racism "work" I did in the 90s, we never dealt with issues of class. I may even agree with my friend who considers class a bigger issue than race in our country. Maybe. I highly recommend this to anyone!
February 14, 2020
Like what Brooks� Bobos in Paradise did for bourgeois bohemians, Lubrano does for straddlers. If you’re born to a blue collar family but now live a white collar existence, this is a MUST READ.
Being a first generation low income student at Stanford who could only afford it through full scholarship and afterward a straddler in tech organizations, I saw something in every page that made me understand the struggles I have had balancing the duality of my identity - between my working class roots and my upwardly mobile aspirations.
Being a first generation low income student at Stanford who could only afford it through full scholarship and afterward a straddler in tech organizations, I saw something in every page that made me understand the struggles I have had balancing the duality of my identity - between my working class roots and my upwardly mobile aspirations.
April 9, 2019
While I appreciate what went into this book and the author sharing personal experiences, those personal experiences are specific to geography and culture, and at times sound like stereotypes and excuses. The book also jumps around a lot.
November 15, 2017
Interesting exploration of how it feels to be in a class different from the one you were raised in. That visceral sense of not-belonging, the despair of never-will-belong. The longing for the old, familiar class and yet, by education and/or profession, no longer fit there either.
On the critical side, the author does not provide as many differing perspectives as surely exist. All the ex-blue-collar folk look upon their white-collar peers with a mixture of envy and mild contempt, seeing them as too soft, too pampered, lacking grit, etc. What about those who did manage to fully assimilate? What caused them to do so compared to those who did not? What about those who managed to compartmentalize their lives into different class segments? What about those who managed to return to blue-collar roots while maintaining white-collar profession, taking the best from both worlds? The stories included became repetitive after a while and lost some of their individual impact.
It's essentially the story of cultural assimilation, equaly applicable to immigrants and ex-pats and migrants. It's good to extend that lens to examine what is closer to home, and is the underlying cause of the political and cultural divide in our country.
On the critical side, the author does not provide as many differing perspectives as surely exist. All the ex-blue-collar folk look upon their white-collar peers with a mixture of envy and mild contempt, seeing them as too soft, too pampered, lacking grit, etc. What about those who did manage to fully assimilate? What caused them to do so compared to those who did not? What about those who managed to compartmentalize their lives into different class segments? What about those who managed to return to blue-collar roots while maintaining white-collar profession, taking the best from both worlds? The stories included became repetitive after a while and lost some of their individual impact.
It's essentially the story of cultural assimilation, equaly applicable to immigrants and ex-pats and migrants. It's good to extend that lens to examine what is closer to home, and is the underlying cause of the political and cultural divide in our country.
April 8, 2020
Really important book - helped clarify questions I’ve always had about a lot of my own life experiences that I didn’t realize I had been asking. Social class shapes our world and it merits far more attention than we give it.
That said, the book is clearly missing important discussions of how social class intersects with other elements of identity, such as race and gender. It’s a great primer to think about class, but only the tip of the iceberg.
That said, the book is clearly missing important discussions of how social class intersects with other elements of identity, such as race and gender. It’s a great primer to think about class, but only the tip of the iceberg.
December 30, 2020
As someone going through a similar transition, I really needed to read this book.
August 1, 2022
A book for a very certain kind of person
This was a good read. Nothing earth shattering, no deep psychological research, simply anecdotes and musings from someone who switched collars.
It’s a read that will resonate with other people who came from a background of Hamburger Helper, cheap beers, and “This is My House� and found themselves in a much more globetrotting, mentally and emotionally oriented life later on.
This was a good read. Nothing earth shattering, no deep psychological research, simply anecdotes and musings from someone who switched collars.
It’s a read that will resonate with other people who came from a background of Hamburger Helper, cheap beers, and “This is My House� and found themselves in a much more globetrotting, mentally and emotionally oriented life later on.
September 6, 2019
I didn't expect a white man writing in 2003 to be able to handle race and sex so adroitly. An amazing read.
June 10, 2022
Thanks to my son, who recommend I read this book after reading it for a college sociology class, to help me understand my lifelong struggle with being in "limbo". For someone who grew up working-class, this book is life changing. For me, it gave me peace to finally reconcile my blue-collar life, living in a white-color world.
I underlined so much in this book, it's hard to just share a few of the stories that I related to the most. I'll start by what national philosophers say, "for someone to get ahead it's because they worked harder. Statistics show that there are people who worked just as hard, but were unfortunate enough to have been born on the 2 yard line and not the 42. If your parents are in the upper tier of white-collar folks, there's a 60% chance you will be, too. If, on the other hand, your parents are manual workers, your chances of getting into those clean and well-paying jobs are less than 30%, no matter how many hours you put in. Even if the blue-collar-born person winds up with the same job as someone originating from the middle class - thanks to college scholarships - the middle-class person would not know the journey the working-class person made. That odyssey, some say, makes all the difference in how one ultimately views the world."
"Class is one of the things people will try to make you alter and try to teach you how not to be. African Americans aren't expected to blanch Caucasian when they deal with the white world. Yet, working-class people, steeped in their own culture and standards, must leave that identity behind and live as a middle-class people in a middle-class world. We must be saved from our state of original sin...
Of Course, for many of us, the goal is the middle class-specifically, a more comfortable life of less backbreaking work and greater reward than our parents know. But we don't want to have to totally reject who we are and where we came from to become educated and live in nicer houses. There is, then, unease in the transition...making for a difficult journey, that is invisible to the middle class, who don't have to cross class lines to become educated. We are simply supposed to assimilate...no one want to hear about what we've had to give up to join the middle-class. You still agonize about what you lost? Tough. The middle class doesn't care. After all, you volunteered to leave your background behind. You must change who you are, then spend a long time becoming someone else."
Thanks to this book, "people like me" - who have spent their entire life in LIMBO - can find peace in the awareness this book reveals, strength and a sense of pride in our working-class roots, patience for our families of origin and begin to work on healing in the gap.
I underlined so much in this book, it's hard to just share a few of the stories that I related to the most. I'll start by what national philosophers say, "for someone to get ahead it's because they worked harder. Statistics show that there are people who worked just as hard, but were unfortunate enough to have been born on the 2 yard line and not the 42. If your parents are in the upper tier of white-collar folks, there's a 60% chance you will be, too. If, on the other hand, your parents are manual workers, your chances of getting into those clean and well-paying jobs are less than 30%, no matter how many hours you put in. Even if the blue-collar-born person winds up with the same job as someone originating from the middle class - thanks to college scholarships - the middle-class person would not know the journey the working-class person made. That odyssey, some say, makes all the difference in how one ultimately views the world."
"Class is one of the things people will try to make you alter and try to teach you how not to be. African Americans aren't expected to blanch Caucasian when they deal with the white world. Yet, working-class people, steeped in their own culture and standards, must leave that identity behind and live as a middle-class people in a middle-class world. We must be saved from our state of original sin...
Of Course, for many of us, the goal is the middle class-specifically, a more comfortable life of less backbreaking work and greater reward than our parents know. But we don't want to have to totally reject who we are and where we came from to become educated and live in nicer houses. There is, then, unease in the transition...making for a difficult journey, that is invisible to the middle class, who don't have to cross class lines to become educated. We are simply supposed to assimilate...no one want to hear about what we've had to give up to join the middle-class. You still agonize about what you lost? Tough. The middle class doesn't care. After all, you volunteered to leave your background behind. You must change who you are, then spend a long time becoming someone else."
Thanks to this book, "people like me" - who have spent their entire life in LIMBO - can find peace in the awareness this book reveals, strength and a sense of pride in our working-class roots, patience for our families of origin and begin to work on healing in the gap.
January 28, 2012
Book helped me understand the duality of class. Jut as the paradigm for race is limited in our American worldview--despite the efforts of the authors at the margins challenging popular conceptions of black versus white and other binaries--this book describes the paradigm of class in a black and white lens, as middle class and working class. So much of who we are is defined by our class and I appreciated the ability to explore this in the anthropological stories and interviews.. My good friend recommended it many years ago, when we were in college, and it has certainly shaped our conversations and thinking. We refer to ourselves as Straddlers, as people born to working class parents bfut living a middle class existence, with middle class jobs, often unablento relate to our parents. The chapter on straddler parents is particularly interesting, even for people without children because it allows you to see the class differences between parents and how that shapes the privileged identity of mixed-class kids. Theres apart of you that wants to give your kids everything you never had, but a part that doesn't want your kids to grow up into spoiled brats that you despised in high school, either. What was missing from the book was the experiences of more minorities and immigrants (author had interviewed just 1-2 Hispanic Americans).
January 21, 2018
The book describes the second generation of immigrant kids growing up in labor class families, being the first to go to college or university and getting an office job or a white-collar job - how this affects the psyche, how the relationships between the all grown up children and their parents get all complicated, the same with childhood friends. The same goes to the new friends - again they don't feel quite as one of them. They seem to constantly to live between the two worlds - the hard physical working class they've grew up in versus the office environments, and the new set of rules that that world is asking for. It's interesting to see and think about, how much education influences your thinking & feeling, and how your roots never truly leaves you.
The quote that stuck with me, was originally from another book, but cited in this one. It goes like this:
"It sears your soul to finally decide to talk like your teacher and not your father," Rodriguez says. "I'm not talking about anything less than the grammar of the heart." Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez
The quote that stuck with me, was originally from another book, but cited in this one. It goes like this:
"It sears your soul to finally decide to talk like your teacher and not your father," Rodriguez says. "I'm not talking about anything less than the grammar of the heart." Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez
July 30, 2011
Have been thinking more about this book since writing the somewhat dismissive review below. This book is extremely valuable for demonstrating the substantial downside of what society would generally laud as the quintessential successful life trajectory in America. Clawing your way out your hardscrabble roots into the cushy office job is not just difficult, but can carries longterm emotional punishment, both self-imposed and external.
***
Lubrano recounts his own and others' experiences as a white collar worker from a working class background. Their stories are mostly characterized by pain, remorse, confusion, alienation, grief, etc., as they try to navigate the strange, stifled, often insincere social rules of professional environments and try to stay connected with family who can be baffled by or hostile to their personal transformations. There were many stories that they blurred together after a while.
***
Lubrano recounts his own and others' experiences as a white collar worker from a working class background. Their stories are mostly characterized by pain, remorse, confusion, alienation, grief, etc., as they try to navigate the strange, stifled, often insincere social rules of professional environments and try to stay connected with family who can be baffled by or hostile to their personal transformations. There were many stories that they blurred together after a while.
May 11, 2009
When I found out about this book I was really excited to read it, but it didn't live up to what I had hoped it would be. Some aspects I really enjoyed and some I could relate to, but I found the organization of the narratives confusing and fragmented. For example, I would've liked whole chapters on one profiled "Straddler" person versus snippets scattered throughout the book related to a particular theme or topic. Or maybe separate sections for the research and then narratives; the way they are woven together wasn't useful. Also, the book lacked the experiences and voices of younger "Straddlers" (Gen X or younger). That being said, the writing was more professional and interesting than most of the essays from a book on the same topic, "Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class."
July 30, 2020
Bought it 2 years ago, when I was still in college, in June 2018.
Cost me 22 bucks 147RMB on Amazon Overseas shipping.
30/07/2020 after 1 year of entering workforce, I finally read it from cover to cover. It turns out I can't savor it enough. This book really spoke to me. Hope one day I will be in right mood and at right time and place to go over this journey rife with soul-shaking epiphanies again. It's mind-boggling and putting my vague ideas, frustrations in workplace into astounding words and pins these confusions down.
Cost me 22 bucks 147RMB on Amazon Overseas shipping.
30/07/2020 after 1 year of entering workforce, I finally read it from cover to cover. It turns out I can't savor it enough. This book really spoke to me. Hope one day I will be in right mood and at right time and place to go over this journey rife with soul-shaking epiphanies again. It's mind-boggling and putting my vague ideas, frustrations in workplace into astounding words and pins these confusions down.
January 28, 2008
If you grew up in the working class and are currently living a mid-to-upper class life, don't miss this book. (And if you think the USA is a classless society...for sure don't miss this book!) All sorts of things I thought were just personal quirks or problems turn out to have come from being raised in a class I no longer identify with. This book completely changed how I see myself in the world - it's the most significant thing I've read in the past 20 years.
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