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.