Tag: politics

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive

~ rachelbenzine ~ Leave a comment

Review:

“My daughter learned to walk in a homeless shelter.”

And so begins Stephanie Land’s chronicle of poverty in America. Land had dreams of being a writer, but an unexpected pregnancy prompted her to postpone her plans of college. Instead, she worked as a maid to support herself and her daughter, scrubbing toilets and washing countertops to provide for them. Maid is a story of a woman tenaciously attempting to work her way out of poverty. Land shares her experiences of navigating government assistance programs, trying to find safe childcare, and living in dismal housing conditions, all while making a less-than-livable wage.

I minored in economics while earning my undergraduate degree, so I did a fair amount of learning about government programs. However, it’s one thing to look at programs like Temporary Assistant to Needy Families (TANF) from a macroeconomic perspective; it’s quite another to hear the experience of someone who relies on it to be able to feed her daughter. Maid is a magnificent exploration of class in America, and I would recommend it to any adult who is willing to learn about the challenges faced by the lower class.

Favorite Passage:

As I pushed my cart away, my hands still shaking, the old man nodded towards my groceries and said, “You’re welcome!”
I grew infuriated. “You’re welcome for what?” I wanted to yell back at him. That he’d waited so impatiently, huffing and grumbling to his wife? It couldn’t have been that. It was that I was obviously poor, and shopping in the middle of the day, pointedly not at work. He didn’t know I had to take an afternoon off for the WIC appointment, missing $40 in wages, where they had to weigh both Mia and me. We left with a booklet of coupons that supplemented about the same as those lost wages, but not the disgruntled client whom I’d had to reschedule, who might, if I ever needed to reschedule again, go with a different cleaner, because my work was that disposable. But what he saw was that those coupons were paid for by government money, the money he’d personally contributed to with the taxes he’d paid. To him, he might as well have personally bought the fancy milk I insisted on, but I was obviously poor so I didn’t deserve it.

What I Loved Most:

Land doesn’t pull any punches in her writing. At one point, she tells the story of when her daughter (Mia) attended a birthday party. Mia came home and eagerly exclaimed that there were tons and tons of berries at the party, and Mia could eat all the berries she wanted. Stephanie reflects on how much she wishes she could regularly buy berries for her daughter, but the cost is far out of what she can afford. In our current culture, people who are on government assistance programs are often criticized for using food stamps to buy unhealthy food. Stories like this one help humanize the people who utilize government programs. It’s harder to criticize someone when you understand their story. In my opinion, Maid will go a far way toward increasing empathy and decreasing judgment of people who use government programs.

Read this book if you like:

Economics, the American dream, heart-wrenching stories of struggle, humanizing politics

Book Details:

The Truths We Hold

~ rachelbenzine ~ Leave a comment

Review:

Kamala Harris was raised by parents who instilled a love of justice in her from a young age. Her mom (a breast cancer scientific researcher, originally born in India) and dad (an economics professor at Stanford, originally born in Jamaica) met through the civil rights movement while they were in graduate school. They taught Kamala that it was important to stand up for what was right, and she has been dedicated her life to doing just that. Harris has worn many hats throughout her career – District Attorney of San Francisco, Attorney General of California, and Senator on behalf of California. As of her recent announcement, she is adding Presidential Hopeful to that esteemed list.

In her book, Harris discusses everything from her political opinions to her industrious career to the pain of losing her mom to cancer. She gives us an in-depth look at major events that have happened in her career – the housing crisis, prison sentencing reform, the Back on Track program she spearheaded to reduce recidivism, the family separation policy at the U.S. border, and Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court were just a few topics she touches on. Harris is eloquent in her writing, and is both well-informed and passionate as she shares her opinions on political issues.

I love voting and elections. I think I am probably in the minority on that, as most people I know find politics exhausting. While I definitely don’t appreciate the vitriol that tends to characterize American elections, I find it absolutely thrilling that we as citizens get to have a hand in shaping what our government looks like. In considering who I want to vote for in the 2020 election, one of the best ways I have found to learn about candidates is to read their memoirs. The Truths We Hold is the first in what is sure to be a long line of books I read from presidential hopefuls before the 2020 election.

Favorite Passage:

A patriot is not someone who condones the conduct of our country whatever it does. It is someone who fights every day for the ideals of the country, whatever it takes.

What I Loved Most:

Harris discusses the American tendency toward false choices. For example, she states that most people feel you can either want the police to arrest dangerous criminals, or you can want the police to stop using excessive force. Harris says that you can and should want both – that you can support the brave men and women serving their country as police members while also wanting to hold them accountable for using unnecessary violence. Our current political system often says that you have to choose one side of an issue, even though most issues aren’t black and white enough to divide into only two choices. I personally hold the utmost respect for police officers, and I also believe that black lives matter. I appreciate Harris’s approach to criminal justice reform, stating that we need to hold our police officers accountable for using ethical tactics while creating an environment that supports our men and women in uniform.

Read this book if you like:

Being politically informed, memoirs, successful women of color, learning more about the legal system

Book Details: