This week, I began reading a book recommended to me by a former newspaper colleague.
“Limbo: Blue Collar Roots, White Collar Dreams,” by Alfred Lubano – a journalist who grew up in the Bensonhurst borough in Brooklyn – chronicles life for what he terms “straddlers.”
Straddlers are those who grow up in a working-class home, but graduate college and work in professional environments – often the first generation in their families to do so.
Out in their working world, straddlers find themselves feeling lost between two very different ways of life. The foundation they were formed in is often at odds with the foundation of others with more affluent backgrounds, who might have had more opportunities along the way, simply because of the home and family into where they were born.
The difference of experiences between what Lubano terms blue-collar and white-collar people are distinct and permeate every part of their lives, down to the topics of their conversations, and the ways they spend their leisure time.
While the straddlers’ foundations inform the way they exist in the world, there is always an invisible barrier that keeps them from “fitting in” to the social world of those with whom they work.
So, they live in a land of limbo, not fully fitting in with the world from which they came, nor the one in which they work and live.
The book is a real page-turner for me. I find it fascinating and relatable in many ways.
It is also a challenge for me to read, as it awakens my awareness to some of my own life experiences that I had never considered prior.
Class structures are a social construct.
As one who engages with others based on the notion that we all have a beating heart and a unique, unrepeatable soul, regardless of who we are or what we do, I hate that class structures exist on this Earth.
And yet, they do. They have existed throughout the history of civilization.
When I worked at State Farm Insurance, I did not think any of the executives I spoke with were any different or better than I, either because of their title, their education or whatever privileged background from which they might have emerged.
And I still don’t.
I simply saw our conversations as one heart and mind speaking to another heart and mind. From my perspective, my engagement with anyone was based on an intuitive curiosity about who they were and what their thoughts were.
As much as I value the world of silence, I do like to talk, after all. Just ask my family and friends.
And yet, as I read this book, and look back over my work experiences not only there, but in other positions, I can see clearly the reality about which Lubano writes.
Class structures often inform us about what we thing we deserve, and what we think we don’t deserve.
In general terms, the unspoken implication in working class families is to get a job that will put food on the table, and not even consider pursuing an education, as it is a waste of time and money. And, if they do pursue an education, they have to find a way to do it themselves, either through working part time jobs while going to school, or securing high-interest loans they will be repaying for the rest of their lives. And, working-class families often don’t know how to navigate the ins and outs of applying for college and everything else being a college student entails, which can be a big hurdle to cross.
Members of working-class families are respected among their own for working 60- to 80-hour weeks. Those who don’t live this ideal out, and entertain the idea of working with ideas, rather than their hands, are seen as suspect, at best, and just plain lazy at worst. It is difficult for those who don’t fit into the norm of the blue-collar environment to move into the white-collar world they imagine, without support or encouragement from their families.
Meanwhile, those who come from a more privileged background often are afforded opportunities their working-class peers aren’t. From the time they are born, they are given the means to engage with the world through extracurricular activities that groom them for achieving goals similar to those from whom they formed. Often, they don’t have to put in the “sweat equity” to finance their educations, and the social networks they have been part of since they learned to walk assist them in climbing higher and faster than their blue-collar counterparts.
The result when people from two very different backgrounds interact can be, in borrowing a Biblical term “a Tower of Babel,” where everyone speaks a different language and no one understands what the other is trying to say.
As I continue to read this book, I expect I will find resonance with many of the experiences of the people interviewed.
And yet, as a spiritual columnist, one who recognizes we are all products of stardust and Divine Intelligence, and Grace has a way of getting us all where we need to be, I cannot help but think these trials of class distinction are ultimately, in the words of Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!”
SPIRIT MATTERS is a weekly column that examines experiences common to the human spirit. Contact Jerrilyn Zavada Novak at jzblue33@yahoo.com to share how you engage your spirit in your life and community.