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Oregon Humanities is a journal of ideas and perspectives published three times a year by the Oregon Council for the Humanities. Each issue includes essays and articles that explore a particular theme from a variety of perspectives, broadening the ways in which readers think about a subject and providing a basis for further thoughtful discussion.

Oregon Humanities Summer 2008

Posts: Readers Write about Class

For this issue of Oregon Humanities, we decided to try something a little different with the Posts section. We enlisted radio producer Dmae Roberts to ask Oregonians from across the state three questions: What social class do you belong to? What does it mean to be of that class? Why don't Americans talk about class? Here are some of the answers she received. --Editor

The American Dream has haunted me since high school. Growing up in the '70s, I felt a strong urge to reject all the material possessions of the middle class--a car, a house, 2.5 kids, and a nest egg for retirement. Throughout my adult years, I was a member of what is now called the "creative class"--artists and writers who would rather save pennies for happy hour than plan ahead for the future. Then a funny thing happened: I bought a house that was dirt cheap and found myself saddled with a thirty-year mortgage. Suddenly, I needed to take my work seriously so I could make the monthly payments. I lived this way for many years and then got married--something I thought I'd never do. Somehow, I was fulfilling the notion of the American Dream: that no matter one's humble roots, anyone has the ability to succeed.

This investigation into class also led me to question my own confused status. I too have taken pride in my American Dream story of coming from working-class, sometimes-impoverished roots and working my way through college with mill and cannery jobs, then earning a degree and a profession that didn't entail getting my clothes dirty. And in the last few years, my husband and I used an inheritance to pay off our mortgage and now have that sought-after nest egg. Am I now in the upper class?

No one I contacted for this project was eager to talk about the meaning of class. I found women more willing to talk. Most men really didn't want to think about status or class; one man wrote, "I have nothing of value to add to this discussion." Ultimately, most people considered themselves middle class. For some, this means that they are not poor, and for others this means owning multiple properties and sending their kids to good colleges. Here are some of the responses.

--Dmae Roberts, Portland

I believe the issue of social class in the United States has become more an issue of self-perception than societal assignment.

My income has been below poverty level for almost all my working life. I probably could have earned lots of money, but I kept making decisions that enhanced my life, rather than my income. I've never identified as poor, although I've gone through many periods of [having] no money. I used to dismiss my poverty as a temporary situation.

Why don't we talk about class in America? Maybe because financial status has become too polarized and the extremes too embarrassing or too distasteful to mention in the media. Maybe social class isn't as obvious as it used to be because we can dress the part of whomever we want to become by charging the heck out of credit cards. Maybe because class is more about how we perceive ourselves rather than a label imposed by society.

--Carla Perry, Newport

As far as what class I consider myself, that's a hard question. The short answer is: middle class, like everyone else in the country.

I went to an Ivy League college and spent the end of my high school years at a prep school. That indicates to me upper middle class, except that the kids who went to high school with me had more class, even if their families didn't have money. One of my parents is an immigrant, the other a first-generation American, so it always seemed like we didn't have class even when we had money.

I make far less money than my parents. My partner and I have two kids and our family makes well below the median income for a family of four. But we still identify as middle class.

Why don't Americans talk about class? I think this is a function of capitalism as it is practiced in the United States. There is very much a myth in this country that we all play on a level field, and with enough hard work any of us can succeed financially. In actuality, there are a lot of political, financial, and social structures that protect and nurture those with capital--everything from tax structures to "old boys' networks" to assumptions people make about the rich and the poor.

Were we to talk about class, we might have to do something to address the inequities in the distribution of capital in this society. We might have to redefine what's valuable to society in terms of something besides money. So it stems from the system protecting and perpetuating itself.

--Sharon Stern, Portland

What class am I? UC-Berkeley, '48. My wife says I don't have any. Seriously, I am upper middle class, if the measure is net worth. If location is the measure, then I am now upscale urban. (I was upscale suburban, before I retired.)

Why don't we talk about class? Americans do talk about class, but quietly and privately. The reason is that it is politically incorrect to classify people.

--Norm Winningstad, Newport

I consider myself middle class. In my mind that means I have a decent education and enough money to live without worrying about being hungry and not having a place to live. I still watch how I spend my money. I try to save something every month and don't feel I can just do whatever I want regardless of the price. However, I have shelter and food, and not too many worries about keeping those. In my mind I think that if I were upper class, I would be able to let go of any thought of money and buy whatever I wanted, go anywhere I wanted any time I wanted to--secure in the knowledge that I didn't have to ask myself if I needed it or could afford it. If I were lower class, I might not have a place to call home on a permanent basis. I might not be able to pay my bills. I might have to choose between eating and paying a debt.

So, in my mind, class is directly related to economics more than anything else. And with economics comes education. But even a poor person can get an education if it is important to them. I think people don't talk about class in this country very much because it is theoretically a classless society, meaning that you aren't stuck in the class you are born into. You can do anything. Move up or down depending on your choices and your luck. Supposedly a child from a log cabin can become president.

--Sandra Samuelson, Portland

I started out poor, working poor. No electricity, no plumbing, one cow, a kitchen garden, and a few chickens. The meat we ate was whatever my dad shot with his .22 rifle or caught in the river. We read books we got at the town dump. Mom made our clothes on a treadle sewing machine. Mine were made from flour sacks mostly. Now I'd say I'm middle class, even though I live on a fixed income. That's because I'm educated and worked in white-collar jobs long enough to have a small retirement income. And because of the education, I know about culture and privileges and make sure my children knew about them and now my grandchildren. I've traveled. I write. I write about class and class differences. I honor my roots, my people, because I know their struggles and difficulties, and I know that no one comes into this world with a desire to be poor, uneducated, hungry, sick, and kept down.

No one wants to be laughed at because their teeth are crooked or their hair isn't clean, or because their clothes are worn. I remember all too well standing in the front row of the school picture because I was one of the shortest, and worrying that my shoes would be seen and that somehow "they" would know that I had cardboard inside because the soles had holes in them. When I look at that picture all I see are the holes in the soles of my shoes. So, why don't we talk about class? Too painful. It's all about the money and how we spend it. How hard we hang onto it if we have any, how hard it is to accept it from anyone if we don't. Pride. Fear. Anger. Judgment. For some of us who never had it, it's very easy to share it when we do. For others, not so much. I don't know the answers. I'm not sure I even know the questions.

--Sandra De Helen, Portland

I consider myself middle class, though I'm from ancestral working class. American clarification of class is basically by money. Old better than new. Lots better than little.

--Gordon Caron, Portland

I grew up in the 1960s in a middle-class household near the Jersey shore and Fort Monmouth. My mother was a night-shift nurse from western Pennsylvania and my neighbors' parents were business owners, Bell Labs physicists, lawyers, small-town police, machinists, and retirees with nice lawns. One friend's mother was a Superior Court judge. Another was an Italian bride who married a GI.

My friends and I never talked about class, but it was always evident in the dialects, accents, and grammar of our parents and other adults. We never talked about class, but we noticed its symbols--language, culture, travel, and toys. We felt a limitless future was ours to shape--that we would study, that we could learn, that we would go to college, and that whatever we did would open new opportunities and never close them off. We never talked about class because we felt that education and the American Dream provided endless possibilities.

Today I'm older and still middle class, only more so. My neighbors are dentists, entrepreneurs, managers, and retirees. I still don't talk much about class, though its symbols are evident in my speech, in my home, in my valuables, and in my values.

Why don't I talk about class? I think it's because I still see life as having a limitless frontier and that every new thing I learn explores and expands that frontier. There were occasions in my life, though, when class seemed to matter a lot. Those were times when I felt my choices were limited and none led to opportunities for growth and new understanding. When Americans don't worry about class, perhaps it is because they see their lives as journeys they can direct; when they do worry about class--theirs or someone else's--perhaps it is because they sense those possibilities dwindling.

--Edwin Battistella, Ashland

What social class do you belong to? That's an interesting question, because I never really think about social class. I can put myself into several boxes--I am a '70s kid, a black female, left-handed, a performer, a Democrat--but when you ask about class, I think of "graduating class" and usually high school. What class? 1988. I think most Americans would ask, "What are the classes? What are my choices? Is there a checklist?" American classes are pretty much based on income-tax brackets. Upper, middle, lower.

--Ithaca Tell, Portland

I'd classify myself (as painful as that is to do) as that freaky emerging creative class. I'm educated, my family has money, but I don't have much because of the lifestyle I have chosen. I guess that's the key: I have options and opportunities, but I've chosen, for the most part, to do work that is not monetarily valued, but extremely socially and creatively valued. Even morally valued. So the "creative" in creative class is not necessarily identified with being an artist (though I do identify that as one of my "jobs"), but rather creatively defining how I live, how I make a living, how I spend my time, how I prioritize what I do vs. choosing one path or career.

Americans don't talk about class because Americans have a taboo around talking about money. Class is intertwined with money--how much, from where, what you do with it. So, in a way, it's kind of invisible, intangible. Yet class is not just money. Instead of talking class, we often judge others based on race, taste, and attitude to define who we're down with and who we're not. Those are things that seem more visible. And it's most often in a derogatory way--"That's so ghetto," "She's such a princess," "nouveau riche," "gaudy," "white trash," etc. In these ways, class does come into discussion, but more from an aesthetic, superficial notion of what class looks like.

--Maritoni Tabora-Roberts, Portland

I guess I am middle class, and, with luck, not bourgeois. Our family income is in that range generally accepted as middle class. I come from what I call white-collar working class: secretarial for my mother, sales/buying for my stepfather--never really comfortable. Always three or four paychecks from tragedy. Now, we probably won't wind up in a shelter, and we won't have a private jet plane, either.

Americans still like to pretend that we live in a classless society, with upward mobility. This is nonsense. The upper classes have convinced the culture that talking about class is, um, low class.

Marx said that the necessary condition for a class war is that we perceive that we are working class. Our economy, generally, provides so much in the way of creature comforts that we perceive ourselves as middle class whether we are close to poverty or close to rich. Rich people may have some guilt issues; poor people have self-esteem issues--so middle class covers both conditions. Since we're all middle class, why talk about it?

--Ed Goldberg, Portland

I think Americans don't feel the need to make class distinctions because the foundations of this country are democratic. People come here to avoid labels or to "start from scratch," so achievements and accomplishments are paramount. I come from England, and where you went to school or how you speak makes for a hierarchy.

--Sidone Caron, Portland

I'm probably a middle-class blue-collar person. It is a title that elitists tag us with to somehow show they are better than us by way of education or birth. Oh, I think some Americans talk about class. For the life of me, I have never understood why a doctor always refers to himself or herself as doctor so-and-so when you are introduced to them away from their work environment. To my way of thinking, this is a prime example of class superiority and elitism.

--Randy Robinson, Eugene

I consider myself to be middle to lower middle class. I think part of it has to do with the town where I live and where I moved from. Ashland is a fairly affluent community centered in the not-very-affluent state of Oregon. But within Ashland, given my salary, I certainly wouldn't consider myself upper or even upper middle class. A lot of it has to do with where you're living. Perhaps if I lived in the rural countryside, I might have a different answer.

Why doesn't America talk about class? I think it's because it's not proper. Many people are very sensitive to where they fall along the spectrum of class, and if someone refers to themselves as "upper class," I think that has a negative connotation. I think most people like to think of themselves as part of the middle class whether they are or not--just for modesty's sake. Here in Ashland, everybody has that sort of Gap-chic or Docker-chic look--wealthy but casual. Sometimes you can tell by the car they drive, certainly where their house is... . If you live above the boulevard you have more money than people below the boulevard. But just meeting someone in a store or restaurant, it's not easy to tell, and there's expensive casual and there's expensive casual.

--Eddie Wallace, Ashland

I consider myself middle class. To me, middle class is having your home, your house. We raised a family of four kids. They all finished college. We live in a relaxed condition. We can afford what we'd like to have. We can travel. That to me is middle class.

I'm an American citizen now, but come from a different country where class differences are very divided. Where I come from (Mexico), I was also middle class, but there's quite a difference within these classes. Poor people in Mexico are really poor. Poor people in this country are not really poor. They are poor, don't get me wrong, but there are ways they can get food here. There are organizations like Food for Lane County--there are ways they can get their food. But in Mexico you don't have that. You have to work for what you get. Sometimes there is no job and everything is expensive. I mean, poor people there are very poor. They barely have a roof. They don't have clothing. However, when I moved to this country, I was in shock when I saw poverty in Texas also. You find poverty everywhere. You can tell rich people in Mexico are rich by the way they live and by the way they act. Rich people here are little more conservative. They're not as flashy or as showy as they are down there.

--Rebeca Urhausen, Eugene

My background is working class, and pretty traditional. Dad was a union carpenter; Mom didn't work outside of the house. When my father was working, things were OK, but the building trade wasn't very steady in the '70s, and I remember long periods of time when there was no work, and things would get very strained.

Both of my parents were raised poor/working poor. My dad lived in the Midwest, his teen years defined by the Depression, and my mom lived in England, her adolescence defined by rations and World War II--both were middle kids in large families, so they both identified as middle class, because they both felt miles away from where they had started.

I was the first person in my immediate family who went to college; it was not expected of me, and while my folks were proud, I was also challenged by my mom. "Why do you want to go on to university? You think you're better than us?" There was no college fund or financial support.

Currently, I would define myself as working class/creative class. Both my partner and I work, and are able to support our kid, and are buying a house. I have spent my working life at relatively low-wage jobs, the vast majority of which were at nonprofits. I have never been motivated by money, but more by the social importance of the job to be done. I do not equate class status with success or failure, and have never felt the need to "better my circumstances." I spent three years at university--I ran out of resources before I finished a degree.

I have never wanted a new car or other common consumer items. I rely a lot on community sharing of resources (barter services, hand-me-down computers, clothing swaps, free bins), and love to keep my own resources (time and money) within a supportive community as much as possible--bettering circumstances for all.

--Ani Raven Haines, Portland

I felt like I grew up middle class, but I don't sustain the same level of income my parents did. I don't live the same lifestyle. I work for a nonprofit. But I've always felt, as an artist, that artists can kind of flow in a different way in society than other people, and so I've always felt like class wasn't such an issue for me. There's a lot of poverty in this community and [people] live on tight incomes. Americans pretend that class doesn't exist, but I think it does. We're supposed to be the "classless society." Everybody's supposed to be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get out there and Horatio Alger and all that. But I don't think it's true. I do meet people [who], in terms of their actual means and upbringing, [are upper class], but they keep that submerged. Through my life I've had occasion to be around people who had a great deal of inherited wealth, and they do indeed live in a different world. That was a real eye-opener. There is class in America. No doubt in my mind. My mom has a house. I don't have a house. Where's my house? But when she bought her house, houses were $12,000. They're not $12,000 anymore.

--Elizabeth Black, Corvallis

I think we have two classes in this country: middle and lower, with no upper. Class is actually the subject of my latest play, Jim Crow and I, about growing up white in the Jim Crow state of Oklahoma. My mother couldn't afford a house of our own, so we lived with my grandmother in an inexpensive house in an inexpensive neighborhood. My grandmother lived on the largesse of her well-to-do sister and one of her sons and daughters who made money in lumber and oil. This was during the Depression, when everyone was poor except the oil-rich. Still, we had black women and men who did most of the chores around the house and got paid seven dollars a week with Thursday and Sunday afternoons off. Although these black women also provided most of my mothering, they were decidedly lower class because they were even poorer than we were and mostly illiterate. And then I went back East to Wellesley due to the generosity of my mother's long-time beau, a wealthy widowed attorney with no children. In my sophomore year a black man walked into the classroom and sat down at the professor's desk. I was quite taken aback. I thought he was the janitor. During that semester with him as my professor, I came to understand that class in this country has little to do with who your parents are--my mother's snobbery and bigotry notwithstanding. This black man was educated and probably well compensated at Wellesley; in other words, the same class as I.

To this day I am comfortable with people who are at about the same economic and educational level as I, no matter their color, faith, orientation, or the size of their bank books. All the candidates in this election year are middle class. In that sense, none of them offer any real change in our social structures. We have never had representation in this democracy outside of the middle class. Some have had millions and were born to a certain rigid social status like the Roosevelts, but I think they were just at the top of the very large middle class, defined as having dollars and degrees. So inclusive is the middle class that I am hardly aware of the lower classes--those working poor without education. When I do encounter someone, it's usually an immigrant, struggling to make ends meet and get her children educated.

--Ellen West, Portland

I'm a white, college-educated male, thirty-six years old, who owns a home and has a "white collar" research job. Thus I've never been a minority or disenfranchised person, in large part because of the immediate world I live in--a small college town in the Pacific Northwest, which tends more or less to reflect the world I grew up with. At the same time, I've deliberately chosen a simpler existence than the one my upbringing provided me. Specifically, I'll never earn my full income potential in this sleepy college hamlet, a fact my parents are quick to point out, and while living costs are more manageable here, the services we can expect are commensurately reduced. I've made a choice to live with that, with the potholed streets and the shorter hours at the city-owned facilities like parks and pools. I don't own a cell phone, and my car can't be called late-model. I guess you could call that "class escape," if that's possible. They used to call it "downsizing." To me, class is primarily an economic distinction, although I find the term "middle class" close to meaningless. I presume I belong to it, having a college degree and owning a home. At least those provide some measure of future financial security.

But it's more than having clean fingernails every day. A truly meaningful discussion about class would include, for me, some discussion of education, language, religion, and of course, race. Since I work at a research institute associated with a university, I've experienced the stigma of not having an advanced degree. The assumption is that I haven't stretched myself. Or worse, that I might be unqualified for the work.

Our national story emphasizes the importance of a middle class: we have no set definition about what a U.S. middle class means. Some models put the middle class at half the U.S. population; other models, half that. All we seem to agree on is that a member of the middle class would likely have enough financial stability to get by, but without too many of the trappings money can bring. Comfort is emphasized over power and influence. There's a sense of dignity and goodness in achieving the middle class in America, something that other countries, especially ones that emphasize a spiritual life, probably find confusing.

Another reason Americans don't talk about class is because we're averse to its connotations. The word "class" still has echoes of refinement and hereditary rule. However vaguely, it still has an air of aristocracy, of the old, feudal two-class system of landowners and their laborers. That either triggers the false thinking that we're a classless society, or intimidates us to the point that a meaningful discussion never happens.

I guess I would be curious to know what transformation, if any, the concept "class" has undergone in the United States. These days, we tend to talk about class emotionally, and by inference we include economic status, but the debate, to the extent that there is one, isn't about any specific criteria that I know of. We're such a passive citizenry. Maybe our thinking reflects the old adage: If you have to ask, you probably don't have it. So people tend not to ask.

--Jason Blair, Eugene

Published in the Summer 2008 issue of Oregon Humanities.

© 2008 Oregon Council for the Humanities

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