Poverty v Playing Poor (PSO Part 1)

So it's been a while, but I've been meaning to post some thoughts about my Pre-Service Orientation in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

As a requirement of AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), I was required to attend a four-day Pre-Service Orientation. My PSO was in Albuquerque, New Mexico and housed about 150 new VISTAs who will be working in places as far apart as Washington DC, Arkansas, Colorado, California, New Mexico, Arizona and Nebraska. It was great to meet so many new people who are dedicated to social justice - even though I was hesitant to become friends with anyone working super far away from me because, let's be honest, I'm not going to Arkansas anytime soon... And I can't even begin to imagine how much money the federal government spent to fly us all to Albuquerque for the week and put us up in the hotel.

Because so many different people attend PSO, it is more of an orientation to the VISTA program than to any of our actual jobs. I was expecting a pretty boring week, but was interested to learn a little more about this program I fell into. And that was basically what I got. It was pretty cool to learn more about the history of AmeriCorps, and VISTA in particular (a topic for another day), and to see who else participates in this service program.

I was pleasantly surprised at the diversity of race, age and socioeconomic status among the group. After listening to T tell me that the only people who can afford to do AmeriCorps are well-off white kids whose parents are helping them out (of which I readily admit I am one) and believing this to be true, it was good to see that not everyone was right out of school, not everyone came from a privileged background and that not everyone would be taking a pay cut by taking this position. There were a fair share of kids who just graduated from school and were so excited because they looovvveee volunteering and have been waiting to do AmeriCorps their whole lives, but there were also people who fell into their AmeriCorps position after doing other things and having other life experiences. Thank goodness.

The string that connects all AmeriCorps VISTAs is that we are all supposed to be working towards the alleviation of poverty in the United States. As a result, there was a lot of talk about poverty throughout the week. Did I say a lot? I meant A LOT. Too much. There were a few good discussions but mostly it was just interesting to see the different ways people defined poverty, depending on whether their experience with poverty was personal or something learned in sociology class.

The conversation I thought was the most interesting began when our instructor (mediator?)brought up Barbara Ehrenreich's book, Nickel and Dimed, which is an account of the author's quest to live for a month on minimum wage. He commented that the book is very controversial and opponents feel it is unrealistic because Ehrenreich is merely "playing poor," knowing that, if she fails, she won't experience any of the consequences someone actually living at the poverty line might face.

This analysis was accepted without complaint by the majority of the group. But it infuriated me. Here we were criticizing Ehrenreich for playing poor in her book when, in reality I (and most of the other people in the room) were just beginning a year of the exact same thing. For me, living on minimum wage is a challenge. It is stressful and at times seems impossible to manage. But I'm just "playing poor." Living on minimum wage for a year is not necessarily going to make me more a member of my community by teaching me what poverty really means (this is the reason AmeriCorps gives for setting its stipend at minimum wage and forbidding participants to find other, supplemental work). It seems more likely to produce the opposite result; to show me and my neighbors that I have a strong family and friend network and that, if I do fail, I have somewhere to go and people to help pick me back up.

Living at the poverty line provides a unique understanding of the challenges of everyday life, but I do not for one second feel that I am poor or impoverished. I chose this job. And the fact that I was willing and able to choose it separates me from those who are truly living in poverty and struggling to find the resources to survive day to day.