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People
Around Us
edited
by
Holly Lachowicz and Barbara Seyda
Book Review by Larry
Sakin
February 19, 2007
They say good things
come in small packages. The new book People
Around Us is certainly a small package- it will take you
around ten minutes to read, but those ten minutes may well change
your life.
People
Around Us is published by the Southwest Center for Economic
Integrity, a Tucson non-profit which is dedicated to improving
the lives of low wage earners. Featured recently in The Progressive
magazine, the book is a collection of stories from low wage earners
from across the Southwest, depicting attitudes of employers and
customers alike from the point of view of the workers. But People
Around Us also informs the readers about employment practices
that don't make the headlines of local newspapers. An example
is an essay from Leonora Anne McBride, who cleaned hotel rooms
for $1.25 per room. McBride writes:
"I
had worked weekends for six months and cleared $70.00 for 200
hours. We were not paid for the time it took to put together the
cart used to carry sheets, towels, cleaning supplies and other
essentials from room to room, waiting to be assigned a room or
waiting for it to be inspected after the job was completed."
In pencil, below the
essay, McBride adds "I wasn't Nickeled and Dimed- I was Pennied
to death!"
People
Around Us is a vivid expose of a number of industries
in which people are exploited. It is the dark underbelly of Barbara
Ehrenreich's Nickeled
and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, in which Ehrenreich
goes undercover working at Wal-Mart, Merry Maids and other service
industry jobs. While Ehrenreich does a great job showing how poorly
low wage earners are treated in her book, she was able to return
to a professional life with a future. The authors in People
Around Us may never have a future beyond what they write of.
In another eye-opening
essay, Danielle Sottosanti writes:
"It's
7 p.m. and I'm in the final stretch of a triple shift. In other
words, I've been working since 7 a.m. and have been serving breakfast,
lunch and dinner in the dining room of a health resort and Spa.
I'm greeting and pouring water for my newest table of six, and
one of the guests - a genteel, elderly man- looks at me and grins.
""You must consider yourself pretty lucky,""
he tells me. I sweetly smile back "Why is that?" ""Imagine
getting to work in a place like this"" he says, ""It's
amazing your employers don't make you pay them for such an opportunity.""
The book is accentuated
with pictures taken by workers and advocates, showing living conditions,
families on the economic edge, and disparate circumstances. The
graphics are simple yet extremely powerful; a small dirty stove
with a frying pan and pot on the front burners; an old white two
door Chevy Impala; a broken down easy chair in the middle of an
outdoor camp for one.
"I have a college
degree" writes an anonymous mother, "I have good references.
You would think that I was asking for an appointment to the Supreme
Court but I am not. I simply want a job for which I am qualified
that pays a decent living wage. I want to support my daughter
without abandoning her to inhuman hours."
Nationally acclaimed
author Nancy Mairs wrote the foreword, which includes a pertinent
anecdote about a neighbor's message mistakenly left on Mairs phone
machine, warning her to "shut her back gate" because
police are surrounding the area around the free kitchen run by
the Catholic Workers. Mairs believes the call is about a potential
"bust" at the kitchen that might drive some of the homeless
into her backyard. Known for her extraordinarily literate essays,
Mairs carefully examines the perceptions people have about the
poor and working classes in her introduction to the book.
The only problem with
People
Around Us is its limited distribution. The book is available
through the Southwest Center for Economic Integrity's website,
www.economicintegrity.org.
It's worth the effort to look at the website though, because it
features more stories and photographs not included in the book
and features a wealth of information on the group's initiatives.
All the proceeds from the book are given to the writers and photographers.
People
Around Us is among the best of things that come in small
packages. It will enlighten, anger, and motivate you into action.
Mostly, it will forever change your view of the people we regularly
find on the periphery of our vision.
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