"I'm here fo my So-cal Suh-cur-iddy number," she says.
Class is alive and thriving in America.
Americans, true Americans, upper-middle class white Americans with homes in the suburbs and a car for each member of their household don't come here.
I scan the hundreds of people waiting with their number for their chance to see a social security officer. The white people are outnumbered one hunder to one.
The down and out, the poor, the old, the handicapped, the unemployed, the Black, the Mexican, the Asian, come here. These are the Americans America doesn't want.
As a student from Canada, I feel more foreign here than anywhere I've been since I arrived. The discrimination of class is palpable.
From the outside, I see those on the margins, here, to fight their way out of obscurity, to the heart of the American dream.
There is no security in the social climate of America.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Great words. I felt this way when I was recently in Philadelphia. It's amazing how much can change when you cross a border. In Philly, the racial and economic divisions seemed to hang in the air like smoke.
ReplyDeleteKeep writing, and noticing.
It intrigues me that when I look at the written pronunciation "so-cal" it looks so much like "so-called security number" as if the speaker herself doesn't really believe the words she is saying. She knows what's truth.
ReplyDelete