The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives by Sasha Abramsky Read Free Book Online Page A

“legitimate” immigrants as for their undocumented neighbors. But for Pearce, a onetime sheriff’s deputy in Maricopa County, it was a call to arms. “I will not back off until we solve the problem of this illegal invasion,” Pearce averred during a National Public Radio interview in 2008. “Invaders, that’s what they are. Invaders on the American sovereignty and it can’t be tolerated.”
    For Fox News pundit Glenn Beck, “If there’s a reason to suspect that you’re in the country illegally, why wouldn’t I ask? Citizenship is valuable; the Statue of Liberty says I hold my torch before a golden door. You don’t put a golden door on an outhouse. You put it on someplace special. Citizenship is something to be cherished. We’re not citizens of the world; we’re citizens of the United States. At least right now, we still are.” 23
    Life, though, is rarely as black-and-white as men like Russell Pearce and Glenn Beck make it out to be. Like it or not, the reality is that many millions of undocumented migrants consider America to be their home; that no deportation program could possibly deport so many people; and that unless their children are schooled and provided healthcare and other vital assistance, the effects will be felt throughout society over the decades to come. Any meaningful anti-poverty movement will, therefore, have to first convince a majority of Americans that the undocumented ought to be worthy of help; and, second, ensure that immigration reform—through moves such as the DREAM Act—is a core part of its strategy. For whatever one’s theoretical take on immigration—whether one favors a route to legalization, or an emphasis on border control and the deportation of the undocumented; whether one believes that the initial act of illegal entry into the United States renders all subsequent actions moot, or whether one judges the undocumented by how they act and live once in the country—in reality many millions of undocumented residents will likely continue to live in America for the foreseeable future. And thus, for the foreseeable future, any discussion of American poverty is going to, in part at least, overlap with discussions on immigration.
    Talking about the events that led to her arrival in the United States as one of the millions of undocumented immigrants fleeing violence and economic devastation south of the border in the 1990s and 2000s, Maria explained, “I came because my daughter died,” speaking in Spanish, via a translator, in a community center in downtown Albuquerque. “My youngest daughter and myself were threatened with our lives.” In Albuquerque, Maria eventually found work caring for an elderly person as a live-in help. She and her teenage daughter Yasmin found themselves on call pretty much around the clock.
    I worked to have a place to live and for food. The church, the family I worked for, gave me clothing, articles I needed. Sometimes the service providers who came to the person’s home, the nurses, would bring gift certificates, things they bought at Walmart. I don’t speak English, have education. I don’t have a grand thing that I can say is mine. I don’t have a house. I don’t have a bank account. I don’t have any money saved. There’s not enough. I’ll keep working while I can. My life scares me. I look at the people I work for and think about how I have seen some people treat them. I worry, because what will happen to me when I’m old? I want to study; I want to be a nurse. That’s my biggest dream.
    Dotted through the West and Southwest, illegal immigration encampments have been built up in recent years. Cumulatively, many hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children now live in these communities. The buildings are basic: third-hand trailers; wooden, cardboard, and tin shacks. The amenities are improvised: some are hooked up to the power grid, water delivery systems, and sewage lines after the fact—a de facto acknowledgment by local