Life Chances

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses issues of class and race through a review of Barbara Ehrenreich's book, "Nickel and Dimed". The paper contends that the absence of racial divisions does not mean that there is free and easy access to social mobility. The paper describes Ehrenreich's experiences, as she tells them in her book, concerning race and class.

From the Paper:

"Ultimately, class is the most important demarcation in America. Race can intensify class divisions, and predominates as to other factors as opposed to language barriers. But the absence of racial divisions does not mean that there is free and easy access to social mobility. "I chose Maine," said Barbara Ehrenreich, "for its whiteness." (Ehrenreich, p.51) Writing in her text Nickel and Dimed, the author makes one of her starkest references to race in this book subtitled On Not Getting By in America in the book's second section entitled "Scrubbing in Maine." She portrays a virtually all-white world where class and occupation still create divides between peoples."

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