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Reviews / Comptes Rendus
| Daniel Dohan, The Price of Poverty: Money, Work, and Culture in the Mexican American Barrio (Berkeley: University of California Press 2003)
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| POPULAR IMAGES of poverty in America are typically associated with black ghettoes and white trailer parks. Mexican American barrios are rarely included in images and discussions of American poverty. Scholars have not done much better. Not since the early studies of Joan Moore, Ruth Horowitz, and Martin Sanchez-Jankowski, have social scientists concerned themselves with Mexican American experiences of poverty. Anthropologist Daniel Dohan seeks to fill this void in The Price of Poverty, an impressive ethnographic study of two urban barrios in California during a two-year period (1993–1995). He begins his fieldwork in Guadalupe, located in San Jose, California, populated by Mexican immigrants who work multiple jobs in the shadows of high-tech Silicon Valley. He then moves to Chávez, located in East Los Angeles, populated by long-established Mexican American residents, many who live in housing projects and face joblessness in a region that has experienced a loss of manufacturing jobs and rise of low-wage service jobs. |
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The problem of relying on structural forces and individual motives to explain barrio poverty, according to Dohan, is that these overlook "the role of social institutions in the creation and recreation of urban poverty in contemporary America." (4) He identifies three "institutions of poverty" that shape the ability to generate income in the barrios. In Parts II, III, and IV, the author closely examines each institution. The first is informal social networks used in finding and holding down jobs characterized by lack of union representation, low wages, inflexible working hours, poor working conditions, and lack of benefits. The second set of institutions are local organizations that help residents participate in the informal economy and illegal activities. For those shut out of the formal economy, street corner day labour, unlicensed street vending, and selling drugs and stolen goods have become sensible and routine illicit activities among barrio residents. The final institution is the public assistance programs. When residents have experienced tragedy, bad luck, or a severe loss of income, they have sought assistance from Aid to Families with Dependent Children [AFDC] and General Assistance [GA] while at the same time negotiating the negative stigma associated with welfare. |
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Even though these two communities shared similar experiences with poverty, they differed in their responses and expectations. To explain why Chávez residents view job opportunities as a glass half empty and Guadalupe residents view them as half full the author relies on theories of transnational immigration and social networks. US-born Mexican Americans of Chávez who faced limited options turned to "hustling," combining low-wage work with crime and public assistance to make ends meet. Guadalupe's Mexican immigrants worked multiple jobs or "overworked" to send remittances "back home" and save enough money to retire in their homeland. As Dohan suggests, "Social network connections to Mexico gave the dollar a value in Guadalupe that it did not have in Chávez, where dollars were earned and spent exclusively in the United States." (91) The negative aspects of transnational networks were the enormous demands and expectations imposed on families that took an emotional and physical toll. Remittances could also impede economic mobility over time, especially if families decided to remain in the United States. |
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Dohan makes an important contribution in revealing how the exploitation of Mexican immigrants has become entrenched in American society and contributed to the impoverishment of Mexican Americans. Silicon Valley employers routinely turned a blind eye to false documents and sometimes encouraged law-breaking since the responsibility rested solely on the shoulders of undocumented workers. Even jobs typically associated with immigrants were rejected by Chávez residents because they were too demeaning and "as US Mexican Americas, they should not endure those conditions." (68) The privileges of US citizenship and the expectations of upward mobility are evident in the testimonies of Chávez residents, even though they find themselves stuck at the bottom of the economic ladder. |
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The author pays less attention to the racialization experiences of barrio residents. This is surprising since the author describes a racial profiling incident in which he and several Chávez residents were detained by the police for simply hanging out on the sidewalk. A few testimonies of workplace discrimination combined with a long history of strained relations between the Los Angeles Police Department and Mexican Americans in East Los Angeles could also explain why Chávez residents developed an "oppositional culture and viewed job prospects as a glass half empty. |
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This shortcoming aside, The Price of Poverty advances our understanding of how poverty is experienced in the daily lives of Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americas. This fine study should be required reading not only for scholars interested in urban poverty but also for labour unions, immigrant rights groups, living-wage campaigners, and public policy officials dedicated toward improving the lives of the working poor in urban America. |
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José M. Alamillo
Washington State University |
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