When I turned five, we lost everything. My mother was an Azorean immigrant who traveled to the United States in an attempt to achieve independent living status. She married for residency to a man twenty one years her senior, soon after I was born, the oldest in his second batch of five. The marriage was turbulent, a clash of jealousy and the culture of two worlds. Five years into my birth one spring afternoon, our house was sold and with nowhere to go we collapsed from middle class to abstract poverty. The house which we previously resided within was located in a quiet forested community in Tewksbury; from here we made our way to Weymouth where we believed our aunt would offer assistance.

Our aunt lived in a cul-de-sac which made up very wealthy families of which we never associated. My aunt considered our presence more-or-less to be a nuisance as we could not provide any particular material contribution in exchange for our residency. Upon moving in, we were ordered to take up residence in the basement which would now consist of a large bed situated in a small room to accommodate one adult and five children. We spent our days in the shadows of our wealthier cousins who were largely kept away from us, often times we would only meet during breakfast and dinner. Breakfasts consisted of waiting for our cousins to enjoy their name brand cereals and sweets so they could make their way quickly to school. Once they have made their way out of the house we were given a loaf of bread and a bowl of milk; this was a common meal for the Portuguese who had little to no money and had to ration their food. We would shred the bread into the milk and sprinkle sugar over it before consuming the soggy concoction. I don’t think I ever grew a taste for it.

After one year, our father came to visit us. My mother summoned him to see me after I had developed Scarlet Fever. I don’t know why but I was never taken to a doctor. I was given a drink by my mother which held a small amount of liquor, while my father bundled me up in blankets.  I spent the remainder of the week sweating in a delirious fever. My father hadn’t stayed throughout the duration of my illness and I spent my recovery largely in isolation. Once I had recovered,  the situation had gone from bad to worse. My mother began suffering a deteriorating mental health status. In a nervous breakdown, she fled the house and had herself committed; trusting us solely to the care of our mistrustful cousins and aunt. For the following two years, my brothers and sister forged a particularly close relationship in response to an increasingly alienated atmosphere growing from within the household. We slept together, played together and ate together, often reminiscing on how much longer we would wait until “mom and dad came back to take us home”. Time, however, came and went and we were never taken back “home”

Winter came and went, each passing day tightened a bond between us, but it was not as some may believe a bond of family. This was a situation of a split in family, a split among a largely traditional ethnic group which values family orientation. This was a split of class as our wealthy cousins and aunt considered us a blight upon their space and resources; the rough treatment led to the collaboration of the lower class, my siblings and I, as we fashioned a closer bond in defense. One particular night, my brother began complaining about his hand being so cold he couldn’t move his fingers. My Grandmother brought him to the bathroom, with me trailing behind, and turned on the faucet. My brother reeled back in protest as she tried to soothe him, thrusting his hands under the water. She apparently hadn’t realized anything until she drew his hand back; she had burned his entire hand with scalding water. She gave us an ambiguously stern stare for a moment before allowing a hollow “I’m sorry”; we were then sent to bed.

Another morning we found ourselves feeling particularly adventurous and decided to explore the second floor of the large estate, making our way into a second lounge where a Super Nintendo entertainment system lay idly. Excited, we started up the cartridge already inserted and enjoyed for the first time since homelessness a round of video games. Unfortunately, our excitement was not mute. Our cousins, roused by our joy, entered the lounge in frustration, demanding that we return to the basement and keep our mouths shut.

Some theorists believe that poverty increases communal values with an emphasis on family, I argue differently. Poverty increases the collaborated values of those who suffer beneath it. Impoverished communities band together, impoverished families tighten their bonds. However with the presence of two separate classes, wealth and poverty, there remains a split between them, as each side feels alien to one another. Poverty creates and promotes the communal structure of the oppressed classes while nurturing an antagonism to the upper-classes. Wealth increases the standards of living and the feeling of self-justification; a sense of “I have a right to be wealthy” attitude is conceptualized and often turns to “you are poor because you make yourself poor”. Having fallen in between the economic cracks of America I tumbled to a perspective so humble as to sleep on the hardwood floor while condemned for bringing this upon myself. Of course, then I could not understand the meaning of unfortunate consequence, sophisticated financial contracts or the ‘red tape’ of the social program. Back then I could only perceive and speculate from the most rudimentary perspective available.

My mother had left, we had no money, we had no home, we had no food, our aunt was feeding and clothing us.  Our aunt and cousins hated us for it; we were poor.

A child’s perspective on hardship and struggle for one such as myself serves as the central basis for the radicalization of their life-perspective. Poverty therefore becomes more than just the absence and physical need for the acquisition/maintenance of currency, but it also serves as a way of life. Poverty creates its own communities, values and its own school of thought.

Eventually, our mother did return, to our delight our father was with her. We spent the following year in Malden, in our own rooms, in our own apartment. Life for a time returned to what we were originally birthed to believe was ‘normal’. We attended a new school, one with compulsory uniform policies, and I was placed in a special branch of my class to accommodate those with ‘special’ methods of learning. Good or bad is interpretive, the program was known as the Renaissance Program, the classes were no harder or easier. However, it focused more on philosophical or whimsical approaches to the standard core curriculum. It was here I heard for the first time the story of a Holocaust Survivor, an elderly woman, recruited by the program to speak to the class. I listened through the re-telling of the ghetto’s, the mass starvation, the hatred, the prejudice, the scapegoat function of the Nazi Party. It drove me to the conclusion that in all things we are divided by class and all class are divided by antagonism which is kept in check with authority. A teacher-student hierarchy is a good example; a teacher commands an authority over her students which create an atmosphere of civility in regards to a group of learners to the classroom authority. With the absence of this authority from the teacher comes the absence of respect which promotes the unruly behavior of the lower classes. Poverty, as I have come to believe, consists of the largest ‘lesser class’ in civilized society which has become so engrained throughout history that it now encompasses its own philosophical and theoretical approach to life and governance.

 

 

Criticisms among the impoverished sector of society are few and I shall speak against them. The criticisms range from attacking the low rate of productivity to the lack of contribution for society to the “mooching off the Government” argument perpetrated among the right-wing of America.  The fact is the highest percentage of the impoverished sector of America are members of the working poor. These are people who are faced with the choice of working one forty plus hour job a week yet relying on food documents to continue feeding yourself, or living self-reliant by spending virtually all of your social time at work, often relying on two full-time jobs to make enough to live as you would in the latter position. The critique that the impoverished sector is simply too lazy is false, the low end of society in fact work harder, especially in terms of labor, than those at the top of the hierarchy. In fact, it is said that the highest earning employer out-earns the average worker, not the Janitor, but the bank teller, by three hundred eighty times. Improper national budget distribution and economic ups and downs contribute to the financial hardships the impoverished face. So the Just World hypothesis is a fallacy, “The idea that people need to believe one will get what one deserves so strongly that they will rationalize an inexplicable injustice by naming things the victim might have done to deserve it,” does not work in practice in America. (Grinnell) We live in a society where the hardest workers are the least paid workers.

One common remark is that “the presence of a Union is the surest sign that Government is failing”. This remark does not make sense when dissected, as a Union is the representative collaboration of the laborer for reform in the workplace. Indeed when examining the growth of the largely decentralized Government post-Revolution to the modern day Federal Government today, then compare such growth with the deterioration of poverty and the rise in standard education, social welfare, and health and literacy rates. It gives one the idea that the larger the Government has become the generally well-off the lowest members of its society, and that socialized resources, like Schooling and Military, yields the efficient management of this resource. This is intriguing to keep in mind as the debate over Healthcare continues to stand as a hot-button issue. The argument here is not that we need the largest Government possible with all resources nationalized; the idea is that to consider that we should dissolve the Government to free the private sector is traveling backwards in time. The idea that no Government will eradicate poverty is an absurdity, poverty has not increased lately, it decreased, however the average earnings for the wealthy have dramatically increased as well.

“Poor people don’t create jobs”. This isn’t an entirely false statement, but one-sided. When a factory is constructed to process Uranium, the resource is not processed by CEOs and Stock investors. The lower-end of the hierarchy maintains and produces the commodity which is to be dictated by those at the top of the hierarchy. In return, the lowest end of the hierarchy is given the smallest portion of the profits yielded by this commodity to continue keeping the laborer in contract. This creates a system which markets your worth and prices your skill; it turns you into a commodity itself. A job created cannot be sustained without the lower class to manage it, and the means to continue production to produce the necessary commodity to meet the production quota to yield the appropriate profit is dictated from top to bottom, alienating you from your labor. So perhaps when you tell someone that the poor people do not create jobs, you should also remember that they’re the reasons those jobs continue to exist.

The attack of tax consumption distributed into social programs to prevent abstract poverty piques a curiosity. Tax consumption budgets a vast array of programs throughout the country, among them the defense budget, funding a Nationalized Military service to represent the country through imperialist warfare, or war by proxy. Do these detractors believe that to fund health and support programs are a waste, yet to fund warfare and ideological imperialism is necessary? Taxation itself is also a system under criticism, but it does not change the current fact that you cannot reserve a legal say in the distribution of your tax dollars, but that doesn’t mean you have no say. You cannot tell the Government to spend on Military, but you can refuse to support the war to spend on to deter the spending. Taxation played a key role in the establishment of public bypasses, highways and railroads, linking city to town. Such a step allowed the transporting of materials with far more efficiency and sharply increased production rates.

Through the depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt established a slew of Socialist reforms to improve the lives of the laborers and combat the crushing poverty caused by the stock market crash through the thirties. This increased the possible subsidy options the Government could manage to gradually bring us to the civilized society we inhabit today.

The final complaint I will look at is that the poor sector just so happens to be the most crime infested. The complaint is actually true, but it shouldn’t stop there, the examination of the causes of poverty should elaborate the statement. When you live in a society which boasts a GDP above any other nation it leads one of take pause that the “poor” would actually be quite so poor. The issue is not the money making, or the national wealth massed by the Nation. The issue is the free market, which finds it offering the necessities of life for a price, thereby delivering success through the ability to pay. Quality education, healthcare services, these services which almost all of the industrialized world enjoys remains to this day an unregulated, unfettered option to the masses to be purchased. As was education once upon a time ago and again, when you examine the benefits reaped by society with the rise of an overall education standard, one is called to question how any of this is not yet common sense.

 

 

Works cited

Renee, Grinnell. “» Just-World Hypothesis – Encyclopedia of Psychology.” Psych Central.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 May 2014.

They have a propensity to remain within an ethnocentric disposition, hardworking and largely traditional, fiercely devout and protective parents. They’re the proud Portuguese community of Bristol County. Unusually enough, the race of the Portuguese becomes a more alien term the farther away from this area you travel, where did they come from? The Portuguese connection with New Bedford developed from eighteenth-century whaling. Prevailing winds made the Azores first port-of-call. As ships took on supplies and crew in the Western Islands, as they were traditionally known, the stage was set for Portuguese immigration to New Bedford.The first to arrive in significant numbers after 1800, were the Azoreans. Eager to find economic opportunities or to escape conscription into the Portuguese army, they left their islands as crewmen on Yankee whalers and settled in New Bedford. Cape Verdeans began arriving after the 1850s. A significant part of the population was descended from white Portuguese colonists and black African slaves and spoke a dialect of Portuguese known as “creole” or “cabo-verdeano”. As Portuguese immigrants settled into their new city they built their own distinctive communities, created social and fraternal groups, schools, newspapers and businesses.  They contributed to the entire New Bedford community through public service and cultural activities. New Bedford enjoys a sister city relationship with the city of Horta, Fayal, in the Azores, while Dartmouth is linked with the Azorean town of Povoacao, Saint Michael.

I had decided to examine the Portuguese community in its modern incarnation by observing them in the appropriate environments to which they seemed to gather. I had begun with visits to a local church known as Mt. Carmel where I had frequently taken note of large unreal recessions taking place. The community upon investigation was predominantly Azorean, from Saint Michael; the church was home to luxurious tapestries and extravagant ornate stained glass windows depicting revered religious characters and scenes from the bible. Incense hung thick in the air and there was a tense weight of uniformity in the service. Every patron to the church was dressed exceedingly well, woman in dresses, men in suits, none of the sermon took place in English, I later learned upon verbal examination that this service was specifically designed to accommodate the Portuguese speaking community who, although the younger generation have Americanized themselves, remain largely isolationists. Most of the attendants appeared to have brought their own holy books for the sermon, many didn’t actually have them open, but were rather listening to the sermon with the attentiveness of one who sits before a television set. The children of the families, also dressed in their Sunday best, appear coerced into attendance; the youngest of the children make faces quietly at one another when their mothers or fathers are not looking. The silence was occasionally punctuated with a loud, “SHH!” sneeze, or cough.

The Portuguese community has been observed to be particularly devout; a common sight upon the front yard of many Portuguese neighborhoods remains a small statue of Maria, or Mary, Jesus’s mother. Child rearing stands between a path of take-in-hand relationships and over-protective coddling, with the mother and father assuming the each role in a traditional manner, young man joked that he had to inform his father his non-Portuguese girlfriend was pregnant, to which he was hit with a belt for three reasons; For “getting into this mess”, for “talking about sex”, and for “making God angry at his house”.

Road rage appears to be particularly common, upon examining my encounters in the back seat of cabs and through the accounts of others. Loud sudden bursts of commotion, either because the car up in front isn’t putting on its blinker signals, beeped at them, not moving quite fast enough, cut them off, or even if they simply recognize the person in the adjacent car. I took a cab from my home in the south end to my husband’s place of work in the west end, as I anticipated; I was picked up by a Portuguese cab driver. There was a pungent aroma of cologne and cigarettes, a crucifix danged from the rear-view mirror and he peered at me through the glass in greeting. Within five minutes he had beeped the horn, “Hey Jiao!” he called, waving at a car nearby, the window was rolled down a crack and the driver beeped in response. Several minutes had passed when the driver began speaking in his cellphone, he appeared to be having a casual conversation, but it sounded as though he were entranced in a fierce argument. Though oblivious to his surroundings and the flow of traffic, he appeared in full control of his vehicle with the ease of someone who’s traversed this road a million times to a degree when one’s journey can be memorized. Upon arrival my tab had come to the result of seven dollars and twelve cents, I have him the precise change and watched as he meticulously counted out the change. It has been said that the Portuguese are particularly frugal with their finances and spending habits. The man was courteous as most are, and we parted ways.

I traveled next notebook in hand to a family get together at my husband’s mother’s house. There was no special commemorative holiday, but rather it was a planned meeting with wives and husbands arriving with their children, all of whom remain well dressed. The gathering was divided among men, woman and children who each claimed their own portion of the house. The apartment was filled with the pungent aroma of baked potatoes, and boiling kale, staple foods among the Portuguese along with gratuitous amounts of bread. Religious portraits adorned with walls, the furniture appeared to all be covered with sheets or tablecloth, and certain sofas were inaccessible to the children. These get together were a fairly common occurrence, and the house was booming with a mixture of both the English and Portuguese languages. As dinner was served, the men and woman ate together in a special, more luxurious dining room established for the adults while the children were restricted to the everyday common areas. Furniture previously held in reserve for special occasions was in use now through the adults, wine glasses clinked as they enjoyed a special port reserved for these forms of get togethers. The children too received their own sips of wine, there appeared to be a traditional symbolism revolving around the art of consuming wine at special events and at dinner time in general. Despite their overly devout disposition, there was no religious ritual before eating, however I did take note that any form of dish consumed was always done so with bread in your left hand.

Death is a situation handled both grievously, and expensively. Vast funeral processions are held, with car-lines extending often for quarters of miles. Widows and Widowers often wear black until their final days out of respect for a deceased loved one, in particular a fallen spouse. The Funeral procession remains predominantly of family, reflecting the deep rooted ethnic generational ties the Portuguese– Azoreans in particular have rooted in New Bedford. Tears are shed and the body is laid to rest before an afternoon dinner party. Here, as before, the party is separated into men, woman and children, each having consumed some, or are consuming yet more wine, a different port to suit the occasion. There is very little commotion this time, and rowdy children are quickly taken in hand. This form of gathering continues into the early night as families disperse leaving behind money, food, wine, and their best wishes.

Through my observations I have sought to examine the habitual devout behaviors of the Portuguese observed through their religious adornments, pictures and symbols, church attendance and funeral processions. I have sought to examine their habits via interactions observed through day-to-day interaction and family get-togethers. I have sought to broaden my knowledge of the Portuguese Communities and their respective individual members who work and labor hard and save their pennies carefully. I have sought, simply put, to examine the causes behind their ethnocentric disposition and have reached my conclusion. Through protective parenting and community oriented interaction, through shared language, customs, and an extended family that all seem to keep in touch. The Portuguese community continues to remain a generally ethnically isolated community in that they tend to associate better and marry amongst themselves. Outside marriages are seen by some traditional Portuguese families as disdainful and the Portuguese youth continue to maintain strong ties in accordance with maintaining family appearances.

These factors in combination with their rich generational history of the neighborhood seem to conclude the observational motivations which directed my examination of these peoples.

Hello, my name is Krystal Peters. Growing up I had dyslexia, which caused problems with reading comprehension since the letters would randomly change.  I became uninterested in writing due to this. Over time, however I became an avid reader. I started small reading a few novels here and there.  My first real pull into the wonderful world of reading was when I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling. I soon found myself reading book after book all the way to the completion after my high school days. I also started to read ­the Lord of the Rings series by J. R. R. Tolkien. I was reading through the books in between the release of the Harry Potter series. I know have a book collection of over 1000 books not including e-books, though most of them are romance novels. I find myself reading many articles online as well.

As for writing, expressing myself via words has always been difficult for me. I would right, review and revise making sure everything was perfect. Sometimes my sentences do not make sense. I just cannot think of a way to revise them. I use my husband as a sounding board for my writing. I write mostly in debates I engage in online; using wit and sarcasm, heavily. I use writing as a way to express myself. Actually, one random talent I used a lot when I was younger was the ability to write in code. I used the Phoenician alphabet to pass secret letters back and forth to my best friend in high school. I still can till this day after decade has passed. I used to write blogs to help clear my mind and still occasionally type things out to clear out my head. I usually do it with music on.

Out of all the writing utensils I use. I prefer keyboards since I can type almost as fast as my thoughts pour through my head. As for writing paper I like to right on parchment or graphing paper. Since I can also doodle on graphing paper and let’s face it parchment paper is cool. I think my strengths as a reader is if something pulls me in I will read it from start to finish; getting completely absorbed into the story. I actually prefer fiction to non-fiction as I find most non-fiction to be dull and not riveting. My motto is if I cannot get past the first page of a book, I cannot read it. The book has to pull me in. My weakness is takes a lot of me to sit down and type out papers. I need to be inspired to do them or else I hit a mental wall. It blocks my ability to write anything or my sentences are jumbled and confusing. I would like to learn to transition a bit better. I have always had a problem with it.

As for the paper versus screen issue, I prefer paper. It’s better for my eyes. However the Kindle Paperwhite looks just like paper and is a screen. So if I have to read a doc, I will convert it to a .mobi file and read it on my Kindle.