The Priviledged Poor: How Elite Colleges are failing disadvantaged students, by Anthony Abraham Jack. Chapter 1: Come with me to Italy! pages 25 – 78v
Listen to Code Switch Podcast titled A Glimpse at How the Other Half Eats
The Priviledged Poor: How Elite Colleges are failing disadvantaged students, by Anthony Abraham Jack. Chapter 1: Come with me to Italy! pages 25 – 78v
Listen to Code Switch Podcast titled A Glimpse at How the Other Half Eats
I connected really strongly with the chapter from Anthony Abram Jack’s “The Privileged Poor”.
From Kindergarten to 6th grade, I attended Title I public schools (for those who don’t know, Title I schools are schools that are federally designated as high poverty/proportion low income based on % free and reduced lunch). Though the Title I grant money certainly helped the state of affairs (or at least I imagine it did, I was 5-12 at the time and not super conscious yet) and for the most part, my teachers seemed to care about us as students and our education very deeply, this didn’t change the fact that the classrooms were generally overcrowded. It didn’t change that the books were old, and it definitely didn’t change that there weren’t enough books for everyone to have one, or even for them to be shared in pairs, one for a table of 4, 5 or even more students was pretty typical. We didn’t have a gifted program and we barely had special ed: if you were ahead, you’d either be given a worksheet for a grade or two up, or maybe be pulled into an older class for an hour or two on an irregular schedule. If you needed additional support, one special ed teacher spent her time shuffling from classroom to classroom trying to provide, but there was no such thing as a dedicated special education environment.
None of this felt out of the ordinary to me while I was there, it was just the way school was. This all changed in 7th grade, when I transferred to a private school 30 minutes away in 7th grade. I attended this school from 7th grade through high school graduation. Though this school and my old school were separated by under 15 miles, the transition was nothing short of a culture shock. Classes were small, and rigorous by default. The library was an entire building, with multiple floors, all of them full. I went from sharing a copy of a beat up textbook from the 90s to everyone having a laptop as a required thing. In the high school, traveling abroad was commonplace part of curricular experiences, as was getting set up with internships. My junior year I interned on Capitol Hill in DC, and I went to Spain for a month my senior year for language immersion—to this day it blows my mind that these were possibilities. Academically, it was everything I could have ever hoped for. I was challenged and engaged, I couldn’t coast on being generally good at school anymore so I learned real study skills, and I got individual attention to set me up for not just getting into college but thriving there. Socially, however, the perfect fit was a different story. It would not have been possible for me to afford this school without the full scholarship I was fortunate enough to receive. My school took great pride in advertising the fact that they had such scholarships, that a whopping 15% of their students were students like me, much Abraham Jack described Piper’s school did. I am deeply grateful for the opportunities this scholarship provided, but for me, “looking from the other side of the statistic” as Piper did was a profoundly othering experience. Now I had the same academic opportunities as my peers, but that did not make us the same. I’ve not gone longer than a month without having a job since I was 15, which made me one of the only members of my class who had worked before graduating high school, and as a result, my extracurriculars looked very different from theirs. I also noticed that just how well-resourced a school we attended was lost on a lot of my classmates. Many of my classmates who went to Spain with me actively avoided speaking Spanish and diving into the immersion; Europe was a vacation spot to them, somewhere they’d been many times before and would go many times again, rather than the unfathomable opportunity it was to me. I was not very comfortable talking about class in high school, though I gained a consciousness of it early as a result of attending this elite private school. I never had people over with the excuse of living far, though really I was embarrassed of what my friends might think comparing their McMansion of a house to mine. I knew I lived a very different life than most of my classmates and, though it feels really silly now, wanted so desperately for no one to know about it.
Prior to reading this chapter, I’d never heard the term Privileged Poor. I was cognizant that my high school experience was wildly different than someone of a similar economic background, but I didn’t have a name for it. Even though poor is not quite the right word to describe my background, at least by the standard of the federal poverty line, growing up definitely not upper income in an elite, wealthy environment simultaneously afforded me both massive privilege that continue to provide me with advantages to this day and a bit of an identity mismatch. My experiences don’t match up quite right with my upper income peers even at Grinnell who I’ve heard call hitting the 20 hour work week cap “brave”, but I also don’t share the educational background of my peers who grew up neither with money nor in an environment with money, who Abraham Jack would describe as Doubly Disadvantaged. It’s a weird, liminal space to inhabit.
This is already very long winded, but it has me thinking a lot if education is really the great equalizer it is espoused to be. On one hand, my academic odds of success, of graduation, are all much more similar to an upper income student from an upper income environment than they are a doubly disadvantaged student, but at the same time, there’s a social gap, where imposter syndrome falls, that I suspect might look a little different for me than for someone for whom attending an elite, expensive institution like Grinnell was always part of the plan for. Class identity is theoretically transient, it can change through social mobility, and education can certainly allow someone to make a lot more in their adult life than they grew up with, but is the feeling of being poor, or at least far from upper-income, something that really ever gets outgrown?
Class is definitely the aspect of identity that I connect to most thoroughly, largely because of the various experiences I have had with class throughout my life. While reading “The privileged poor,” it was striking how the feelings of each group of people resonated with me. I am as middle class as they come, but my high school experience—in a school district where a vast majority of students qualified for free and reduced price lunch—gave me some idea of what being of a higher class meant, and also some insight into the day to day lives of those with fewer resources. Many of my friends came from working class families, so learning how to encounter and navigate those differences (Think maybe lack of access to reliable transport or money to spend eating out) allowed me to experience things I may not have otherwise. Contrast this to Grinnell, where a much larger subset of the population is upper-middle class to wealthy. I find myself relating to the thoughts of the lower classes in “The Privileged Poor,” marveling at or chastising the affluence of some peers. Although my true status is not the same, I find the sentiment of each different class mentioned in the reading reflected within myself, and in turn I feel more prepared to understand the experiences of different people.
While many organizations pride themselves on creating a diverse space, diversity does not necessarily imply inclusivity, where the tendencies, culture, and structure of some institutions can actively negate inclusivity. Anthony Abraham Jack’s The Privileged Poor is a great analysis that pushes back against the trend of colleges marketing themselves as having a diverse and therefore inclusive space for students to work and socialize in. Socioeconomically disadvantaged students attending an elite institution struggled to incorporate themselves into the culture, resulting in many students isolating themselves from their larger college community (p. 38). As Jack explains, much of this disconnect between socioeconomically disadvantaged students and their wealthier peers was differences in culture, perspectives on scholarships, assumptions regarding what others can afford, and more (p. 43). As this analysis explains quite well, it is not enough to simply include groups of different backgrounds to build a space of inclusivity, where comradery develops between all groups of people regardless of their background. Due to familiarity with the environment, higher socioeconomic groups have a better ability to navigate academia, allowing them to obtain positions of power with more ease and control the social environment of academia. On the other hand, vulnerable groups in society may have been conditioned to adhere to these social practices. For example, in the traditional work environment, lower class workers are encouraged to abide by the desires of their usually higher class employers as a means of supporting themselves and their family. Thus, social environments that are not mindful of differences in socioeconomic power can end up being controlled by those with more social standing, further contributing to disparities in socioeconomic power.
When reflecting on both The Privileged Poor and A Glimpse of How the Other Half Eats, many common themes emerge. The main theme that I wanted to discuss was how minority groups of race and class in schools and America feel isolated and try to fit in by erasing and/or suppressing parts of their cultural and/or ethnic identities. With the podcast, they discuss how mothers more and more are making trade-offs shaped by their backgrounds and environments when it comes to feeding their children and themselves. They discuss the story of how Teresa, a Mexican Immigrant, discusses the Americanization of immigrant palates, and how Leticia, a Black single mom, had to alter how she ate growing up to feed her kids as per the standards of how upper-middle-class people should be eating (Fielding-Singh, Bates). Moms of color are concerned with how stereotypes may be held by people regarding their children’s diets and bodies, and so to beat the punch, they are teaching their kids “to eat the white way” (Fielding-Singh).
When it comes to what Anthony Abrahan Jack calls “The Doubly Disadvantaged, poor kids from segregated communities and schools,” their attempts to fit in had much of the same efforts––they attempted to erase and/or suppress parts of their cultural and/or ethnic identities. In this sense, however, these efforts pertained to them refraining from discussing those aspects of themselves rather than ignoring them as a whole. When it came to being surrounded by students in the one-percent or upper middle class, the Doubly Disadvantaged found that most of their interests and perceptions of money did not align with their peers, so as a result they found themselves more silent, with nothing to say.
Ultimately, whether it is in fitting in in school or fitting in with the food culture within the social environment that they are immersed in, people who are considered a minority are finding themselves trying to emulate whiteness, to the detriment of their racial and cultural expression.
I like that the reading from The Privileged Poor ended with an example of what can be done about the issue at hand. I thought it was interesting that students had come from racially diverse backgrounds and then came to find a different kind of diversity at Renowned. Class diversity takes more of a trained eye to detect, and I have never trained my eye to spot designer brands in public. I do have a trained eye when it comes to running apparel and what not, I can kind of see class differences in runners. It’s not the same at all, but that’s the one area where I have the knowledge to tell how much money somebody has put into their wardrobe. I am wondering if Grinnell has any activities that facilitate learning and connection across class lines without erasing class lines. I am probably privileged to say that I don’t really see social class at any Harris function.
“Come to Italy with Me!” reminded me of how effectively large differences in class can isolate people and discourage them from interacting in a larger community. I went to a magnet, public arts high school in Florida. Students from all over my county were eligible to attend as long as they were accepted, so the student body was not determined by the surrounding demographic. Students pretty much fell into three buckets: white, suburban, and middle class; black/latino, from nearby lower-income neighborhoods; or white, lived in wealthy communities nearby, or in the north or south, and upper class. This mixture of backgrounds caused expressions of wealth to be very noticeable. It was not uncommon for some kids to have to take the bus well beyond driving age because their family could not afford for them to use their family’s car, and another to arrive at school in a Mercedes Benz on their 16th birthday. In one class I sat near one peer with a father whose net worth was in the billions and another who depended on free and reduced meals to eat at school. At first, these garish displays of wealth irritated me and concerned me. Looking back, though I felt I came to accept the circumstances for what they were, I definitely was excluded from a decent portion of our school’s total community. I remember certain friends or friend groups going on vacation together for a birthday, going out to expensive restaurants, and other extravagant affairs that were, in my eyes, so wasteful that it would be offensive to even bother to ask my parents about participating. Coming here, it does feel like more of the same economically, and I think my comfort or complacency with a similar environment allowed these huge differences between me and others of higher income to pass through me instead of hitting me.
The Privileged Poor really resonated with me since I come from a low-income background and had to adjust to the increased demands of college and the social pressures that come along with it. The book also includes different people’s experiences dealing with the same situation, which made me feel understood and not alone. Another thing I noticed about the new college culture was the focus on clothes and how much money people put into them. Since most students at my college were low-income, clothes and accessories weren’t a concern for me. But at college I noticed a decent number of students had the newest phones, cars, and clothes. It didn’t make me feel like an outsider, but it was something I noticed going to a college with significantly different socioeconomic backgrounds.
I come from an upper middle class family, so I’m in a position where I’ve been fortunate enough to not have to think about my class a lot. I didn’t experience the culture shock many in the Privileged Poor did when I first came to Grinnell (although you could argue “Renowned” has a different campus culture). I grew up in a college town, surrounded by other upper middle class white and Asian kids, so I didn’t have too much trouble assimilating into the culture of wherever I was. Later though, I attended a private high school where I started to better understand the wealth disparity between some of my peers and others. I started to see Teslas for birthdays, second homes and mansions, and complaints about housemaids. It made me uncomfortable, and even disgusted sometimes how out of touch these kids were, but some of my good friends from lower-income families truly felt out of place, and seeing this excess of wealth really affected their mental health. I didn’t know how to engage in conversations about class, and I still have trouble, so I had difficulty consoling them. I think, as seen from some of the upper-income students in the reading, that a lot of upper-income people try to defend or diminish their upbringing because it reveals uncomfortable truths about class in America. But conversations need to be had about class, and I along with others need to acknowledge our place in that conversation.
The Code Switch episode was super interesting to me, as my family has always put a huge emphasis on food in our lives. My mom grew up in a poor immigrant family, and told us how she grew up eating only the same Korean food and, on very special occasions, TV dinners. When my brother and I were growing up we also ate the Korean food she grew up with, especially with our grandparents, but my mom always put a lot of effort in to feeding us a wide variety of foods and always wanted to cook for us. I think this was a response to her own experience of almost never getting what she wanted to eat and not getting to try new foods in her youth. Not until I was an adult did I start thinking about how my relationship with food is connected to my class. Now I think a big reason my mom put an emphasis on a variety of foods was that food literacy is connected to how you are perceived: what you eat and how you eat is viewed by others, which in turn affects how you are viewed in relation to class and race. When she was going to college, my mom felt super out of place because she hadn’t tried a lot of the stuff her peers had. I’m reminded of the girls discussing espresso at the beginning of the Privileged Poor chapter, and how one girl admitting she’s never had espresso warranted a reaction from the friend group, and potentially shifted her status among them.
In recent years, there has been much public attention directed toward the unjust nature of college admissions, highlighted by the Varsity Blues scandal in 2019 and the recent Supreme Court decision on affirmative action. What is less discussed is how poor students and students of color actually fare once accepted, which is the subject of Jack’s book.
What I loved “Come with Me to Italy” is how deeply the author attempted to connect with his research subjects. Rather than just parsing and analyzing statistics about diversity and inclusion at elite colleges, Jack spent countless hours interviewing and getting to know these students. In this way, he’s able to lift their experiences from mere data points to complex stories with emotional weight.
Jack finds that the fate of these students is inextricably linked to class. At Renowned, wealthy black students don’t experience the “culture shock” that the Doubly Disadvantaged feel. For students in the Privileged Poor, the story is more complex. Since they have more experience adjacent to wealth, they don’t find college life surprising, but they still sense the class- or race-based microagressions from wealthy students.
The distinction between the experience of the Privileged Poor and Doubly Disadvantaged is crucial, since it suggests that success at elite colleges depends on one’s experience with “blending in” with the behavior of the wealthy. Indeed, those who can do so more easily can more easily find a social group and succeed academically.
Both the articles reminded me of Bourdieu’s idea of Habitus. Through his writing, Bourdieu talk about how class differences (which are definitely inflected by other identities such as race) come to be reified as physical actions, habits, and choices. So- similar to the example of the Longchamp bag given by one of the students interviewed in the Privileged Poor- the way people dress, or the particular ways in which they talk, comes to be a marker of their social class. Through our own socialization and the knowledge of our particular culture that we glean through it, we come to develop a taste in things such as clothes, food, sports, etc. So, to Bourdieu, Habitus is the means by which we come to value certain things and, ultimately, gain embodied cultural capital. A sense of shared cultural capital (social assets that are valued by a given culture) gives us collective identity, influencing belonging. Although every culture has cultural capital, the discussion of the various Doubly Disadvantaged and Privileged Poor individuals and their differential sense of belonging in their college community gives us insight into whose culture is considered to have capital in larger society. Through elite institutions being more easily acclimatized to by the privileged poor or upper class individuals, we see a damning illustration of the cultural capital institutionalised as necessary to succeed in our modern society being one embodied most easily by the white and upper class. Then, social mobility is dependent on the acquisition of this capital, often at the expense of other cultural capital, as is also seen in the example of Leticia in How the Other Half Eats.
Both articles have mentioned the difference in social classes particularly “The Privileged Poor,” where social classes can also be a way of segregating between people and I thought this was very interesting to learn more about. I was definitely aware of this situation as coming from a middle-lower class the experiences were very similar to those from Privileged Poor, where I would be influenced by the different brands that people around me wore. Even in the modern day, I would say that people would be more influenced by social media as well now. As influencers show what they wear, I feel like people become interested in wanting to wear clothes similar to that as I was like that too. I thought it was very interesting to read different perspectives of incoming students to Renowned, where we see the perspective of lower-end social classes and how they feel and interact in a high-end college. I thought it was also very interesting to see that there are 2 types of lower-end social classes, Doubly Disadvantaged and Privileged Poor. These 2 classes show that there is a difference even in the lower social class and how the interactions they’ve had throughout their lives can make them differ. Depending on their different experiences in life, they tend to have different outcomes in college and how they interact. I also find it so much more interesting how even social class can change their perspectives as well as who they are in the future. By reading about the different problems that students have while being in such a different social, it was concerning to read how they affect the students in how they interact in classes and with other students. These events can possibly lead to how these students interact with others in the future and can directly affect them in negative ways. Both the reading and podcast allowed me to be able to consider myself as well as how I can think of ways that can reduce the amount of discomfort that goes around within communities.
From the podcast, I got a sense of how daily things are well-connected with privilege. The food could act as a way to show their social status. As mentioned there is a mother who reached high status and now has a Stanford Ph.D. degree, who wants her children to get rid of the identity of low class, and thus does not want them to eat certain food. And, the food hierarchy is become more prominent with the involvement of the Internet. The status represented by the food is also a prominent thing in China. One of the great examples is the boba shop. When I was a child, the boba teas were only 4 yuan and were simply made with bubble, milk tea powder. but I enjoy it a lot. However, these days, with the marketing and internet involved, milk tea have been covered with layers and layers of decoration before being sold: some milk tea create their own songs and are exposed everywhere to let everyone know; they set their brand to only locate in a specific region so that they binding the boba with the tourism, and they also use some extreme cup to create the memorable points to attract people on and offline. In various ways, the price of boba also increased at least 4 times. And since college students are one of the largest potential customers for boba tea, it becomes a thing that occurs whenever you meet friends or have parties. They then use “peer pressure” to make college students buy the bubble teas as if you do not buy to show that you are with the group, people may not play with you later. This forces college students to buy fancy boba and creates a financial barrier for those who cannot afford the daily boba.
The podcast really resonates with me about food Access and inequality. To be more specific, Fielding-Singh’s research challenges the notion that food deserts (areas with limited access to fresh and healthy food) are the primary drivers of food inequality. She found that while food deserts are a concern, they only account for about 10% of the dietary gap in America. Instead, she highlights how broader inequalities, including socioeconomic status and cultural factors, shape differences in dietary beliefs and behaviors across families. This point emphasizes the need to address systemic inequalities in income, education, and access to nutritious food, which can have a profound impact on public health and well-being in the United States.
Moreover, food inequality in the United States is closely tied to socioeconomic disparities. Higher-income families often have greater access to fresh, nutritious food options. They can afford to shop at upscale grocery stores like Whole Foods and have the time and resources to prepare healthy meals at home. On the other hand, lower-income families may rely on cheaper, processed foods that are readily available but often less nutritious.
Food choices are also influenced by cultural and ethnic factors. Immigrant families, for example, may want to maintain their cultural food traditions while assimilating into American society. This can result in a complex interplay of food preferences and choices.
Besides that, food companies often target lower-income communities with advertising for unhealthy, processed foods. These marketing efforts can contribute to poor dietary choices and perpetuate food inequality. In contrast, higher-income communities may have greater exposure to advertising for healthier food options.
In the Code Switch podcast, assimilation to food was important to some mothers when raising their children. By teaching their children to eat what was considered upper-middle class food due to concern over stereotypes, they hoped this would provide a sense of belonging for their children. I think The Privileged Poor reading provides more background to this, as well. The Double Disadvantaged students felt isolated at Renowned due to stark differences in customs and social belonging (as well as other factors—a good amount related to social class/socioeconomic background). In contrast, the Privileged Poor felt differently, due to experience with affluent schools and the students who attended them. They had years of exposure to norms in “elite academic spaces,” allowing them the knowledge to figure out the culture and social life at a college with a similar population.
Jack made a good point of how Double Disadvantaged students usually must learn and assimilate to the customs of upper-income students, and rarely does it go both ways. Even though they’re at an academic space, I think others’ perception of lower-income students being their as a “privilege” whereas it’s a given for upper-income students damages their academic experiences and future social lives. He proposes that we must make an effort to teach students about each other, so that they can understanding each other on a higher level—in this way, upper-income students can learn “to be more accepting of other students’ ways of life.” This acceptance must be more than a mental understanding of students’ lives that differ from their’s, but should be apparent in their interactions with the people in their communities.
The reading and podcast for today discuss class and point to two instrumental things in most children’s lives, schooling and food. While it may not be considered renowned compared to Ivy League schools or elite public universities, Grinnell College carries many of the same “renowned” characteristics. The privileged poor, doubly disadvantaged, and upper-income all are found at Grinnell College. I identify somewhere in between the privileged poor and upper-income. While my family did well, relative to others in my area, we never went further West than the Mississippi or East past New England and often had to hear “no” in the store or at home when asking for the same things my friends were getting. I was very much middle-class. Since I had seen extreme wealth in my area though, I was by no means put into culture shock and had a grasp of what extreme wealth can look like. Grinnell may not have quite the wealth that is as prominent at “Renowned”, but Grinnell still has its socioeconomic divisions.
I see that while Grinnell brags about its socioeconomic diversity and financial aid, the students who are most catered to and protected seem to be upper-income students. As a student worker, I notice the small differences I have with people based on their class. Although I may be their peer, I am treated as less while I am working by those who know that they are above me. Additionally, a note about Grinnell’s parties should be made. Often, the students who host parties are the members of a sports team. In my experience at and outside of Grinnell as an ex-athlete myself, sports in America have a high pay curve that favors the upper income. Therefore, the people often hosting Parties are upper-income athletes who can sustain damage done to their homes or provide alcohol. Additionally, as mentioned in the Code Switch Podcast, food is a sign of wealth. The people eating outside of d-hall and going to McNally’s daily for groceries are often the ones with more financial security. For marketing purposes, Grinnell likes to brag about their socioeconomic diversity, but like any institution of higher education, Grinnell is prominently for the upper income.
The reading offered a wide range of perspectives/ personal experiences of students at an “elite” college. Coming from a public school in Minneapolis, the prep / private school experience is completely foreign to me, and reading about the ways it can mirror the experiences at expensive colleges and universities. I remember hearing something about how only half / 40% of incoming first years one year had held a job before Grinnell (honestly unsure of the accuracy of this, but the experience nonetheless is the same), and being not surprised, but kind of fully grasping the class difference. I am also having thoughts about the way class and whiteness interact, because as discussed in previous readings, marginalized identities tend to be more salient, and I think white people sometimes cling to class differences in part to distance ourselves from whiteness. I think this happens more among people who are lower middle class, or who have had some proximity to extreme wealth, and I don’t think this applies to those truly living in poverty. That is definitely not a fully formed thought, but is conceptually something I’m sitting in. In regards to the podcast, I was not aware of the failure of the food desert concept to explain food related inequality/ other related concepts. Cost is of course a major barrier when it comes to food access, but I really appreciated the discussion of time cost and the burden on especially working mothers.
This is the first reading of the class I do not have empathy for people in the text. There are a lot of people in the universities/colleges. Their lifestyle including their sense of value, how they choose to spend money, what they eat, and what they do are totally different. Even people of the same color have totally different lifestyles based on how they grew up. It is free to feel not belong to the school, not connected to the community, “shocking, painful, maddening, or some combination of all three”. However, no one forced you to feel that way. Most people understand the differences between each other and accept as it is. I believe that upper-income and majority students accept and understand low-income and minority students’ lifestyles and vice versa.
Personally, I do not feel any negative culture shock or feel segregated from people who have totally different “lifestyle” than I have. I came to the United States for high school. There are tons of people who have different lifestyles and I could not understand them sometimes, but I accepted those differences as it is because they are different human beings from different cultures, families, etc. I had the same feeling in the Grinnell too. All of the people in Grinnell have different lifestyles than I have. However, I never felt “shocked” or “painful”, and accepted it as a “good difference”, because it is obvious that each person has a different lifestyle than mine.
As the author argues, it is important to have an understanding of the other between high-income and low-income, majority and minority, but I do not think it is something that universities/colleges need to make an effort since students can find the differences and understand those by communicating and interacting each other.
The Introduction and first chapter of The Privileged Poor really made me think of the transition I had from my K-12 public school in Philly to the overwhelmingly white and rich Minnesota public school I attended in middle school and high school. As a kid I never knew what Title 1 was or really understood the reasons behind the differences between my experiences at the two, but they were vast. The Code Switched episode has me thinking about food, so I guess I’ll start there. I remember the school lunches in Philly, the single window for the rubbery eggs and pancakes or soggy pizza slice or those Bosco Cheese Sticks, always in a waxy cardstock box with holes to let out the steam from the microwave. I was lucky to have parents who more often than not had time to put together a bag lunch for me and my sister, but remember being a rare exception in that cafeteria that was also our gym. In Minnesota, the lunches were provided in a a-la-carte style, with multiple stations for meals on a rotating schedule as well as a custom salad bar (where a worker would put it together for you) and lots of options to grab as a quick snack or add on to the meal (uncrustables, parfaits, chips, fresh fruit). Bagged lunches were a rarity there too, but for a very different reason.
My family has taken pride in eating together, playing cards after dinner, and cooking communally when we can. I know it’s really important to my mom because my grandpa would always eat in his study while my grandma dealt with the kids, and was aware that other families didn’t do things that way. We’re lucky in that aspect and am ashamed how often my sister and I complained about having to do it, especially since these days it’s one the things I look forward to most about going home over breaks. Finally, I found the idea that parents might have to say “no” to many things but junk food is one of the things they can probably say “yes” to, to be really fascinating and really genuinely something I hadn’t considered. I think I’m guilty of thinking “why don’t people just not feed their kids so much junk?” but it is really a lot deeper than I’ve given it credit for being and felt that the podcast did a great job of tackling that.
As an international student who experienced culture shock when coming to the US and took a long time to adjust to college life myself, I strongly relate to most experiences recounted in the reading. College is not the first time that I had to navigate the differences between classes and wealth among my peers. Back in my country, I went through that transition at the beginning of high school, after I had spent 9 years of my life in private schools with friends from much more affluent backgrounds, to enter a much more mixed environment where some of my friends came from lower-income households while others were very financially privileged. Although we all tried our best to help each other fit in and make the transition as seamless as possible for everyone, these differences still sometimes showed, especially when we decided on a place to eat lunch or voted between thrift markets and shopping malls for clothes. The wealth gaps that I witnessed and experienced in Vietnam eventually proved to be nothing compared to when I came to the US, where the currency exchange rate drastically widened the gap between me and other domestic friends. For my entire first year, I was stressed about my finances, pushing myself to work longer hours on campus for extra cash and saving up every single penny on trips with friends, which did end up causing a lot of arguments. The pressure of having to earn through on campus jobs while navigating all other equally challenging and culturally bewildering aspects of college like social etiquettes, academics and interpersonal relationships, made my first year of college an overall unpleasant experience.
I thoroughly enjoyed the reading because I was really glad experiences like this are seen, talked about and carefully researched. I like the distinction between the Double Disadvantaged and the Privileged Poor, and how they experienced cultural shocks differently yet faced struggles of fairly similar nature. I like how the author took the time to interview such a diverse group of students with a variety of backgrounds and experiences, and put effort into getting to know the research subjects. I also like the attempt to single out this specific aspect and show how much impact class has on one’s college experiences.
Come with me to Italy” explores the transition to college life from the perspective of students belonging to different social classes. It is evident that those from higher social classes find it easier to adapt to the college environment, as they have access to many more opportunities compared to their counterparts from low-income backgrounds. I found it interesting how the term “privileged poor” is used to describe students coming from low-income backgrounds who face unique challenges adapting to an elitist society where certain behaviors that are not considered normal are normalized.
I attended a private school in Colombia for 14 years, and it wasn’t until I was 16 that I began to realize that the lifestyle I and most of my classmates led wasn’t typical. I feel that in places like Colombia and other third-world countries, the gap between social classes is more pronounced than in places like the US due to the high percentage of people living in poverty. While many colleges in the US strive to create a diverse student body by offering opportunities such as financial aid and scholarships, in Colombia, such opportunities are extremely scarce. Consequently, the gap between social classes continues to widen. Additionally, students from low-income backgrounds often have to forgo these opportunities because, even though their scholarships may cover tuition, they may not be able to afford the cost of living, leading to many of them dropping out.
Regarding the podcast, I resonated deeply with the idea that one’s perspective on food can vary greatly depending on their economic background. For many years of his life, my father didn’t have enough to buy a proper meal, and he always emphasized the importance of valuing food to me and my family.
I agree with Peter in that a lot of classism manifests itself on sports teams, and my (brief) time on a sports team at Grinnell was frustrating because of the ignorance towards socioeconomic class I felt like seeped into a lot of the culture. And of course, ignorance towards class engenders ignorance towards race relations and elitism in higher education.
I really loved listening to “How the Other Half Eats.” I have been thinking about a lot of what Xaykaothao and Bates put into such succinct words about food and class. My family is West African, specifically from Mali, and a lot of meals are eaten by hand instead of with utensils. It’s a lot less messy than it sounds. So that’s how I grew up eating, and a lot of my friends when I went to my public zone elementary school also grew up in immigrant households, so this wasn’t a strange thing. But once I started going to school in Manhattan, I remember getting weird stares from students and questions from teachers about how I ate, and also food I would bring in from home. And coming to Grinnell I have definitely gotten unsolicited advice about my diet when talking about foods I eat at home typically. I don’t really have a synthesized conclusion about all of this but it definitely relates to class, exclusion, and perceptions of deviancy.
I enjoyed listening to the Code Switch podcast because food to me has always been one of the things I pride myself and my culture on when coming to the U.S. The idea of having to adapt to the upper-class’s food and eating culture, while understandable for the purposes of raising children and avoiding potential issues like alienation and bullying due to cultural differences, has always been foreign for me to think about. I have always loved and cherished my mom’s and grandma’s home-cooked food, and whenever I make Vietnamese food here in the U.S., I am reminded of their cooking and my time with them. Therefore, I have and will never feel ashamed to bring out a lunch box filled with Asian-smelling and -looking food. With that said, it is interesting for me to ponder whether I would encourage my kids to do the same as the author in the podcast. While cultural and personal pride is definitely important, whether or not it could trump the importance of having a “normal”-feeling childhood and feeling a sense of belonging in a new community as an alien is doubtful. In the ideal world, I would be able to teach my kids to appreciate their culture, but also be able to assimilate into the new environment. This would require a lot of tact and sensitivity.
The issue of socioeconomic disparities in higher education is something that matters a lot to me. Students who are low-income, people of color, queer, etc. are often treated as tokens by well-off schools like Grinnell. I don’t think many people notice it either because it is so deeply normalized to a student body that is predominantly high-income and privileged. I do appreciate the gesture of trying to enroll students who may not have the opportunity otherwise, but little thought is put into what these students go through being in an environment that is so unlike them. I am really grateful for the opportunities that Grinnell has afforded me. But I still find it jarring to see some students working twenty or more hours a week and others partying all the time. I know a student here who paid for an expensive car in cash, others who are barely making it by and constantly worried about money. I know there is not much a single school or student body can do about it, but it is the lack of recognition and acknowledgement that bothers me the most.
The Privileged Poor reading brought up a lot of points that I have had to educate myself on here at Grinnell. I came from a private school myself, and there are definitely times when I find myself falling into and contributing to the shows of wealth. I play tennis and run cross country, and I have noticed more and more the base level of wealth that is required for people to experience a sport like tennis. The wealth disparity between the two teams is definitely felt through the different cultures. My teammates on the tennis team are often going out to eat twice or maybe more times a week, traveling or training in exotic places over the summer, or flying home frequently. Meanwhile, team activities such as a couple of days in cabins over fall break often need to come with a conversation about financial support from the XC team’s budget to make sure everyone can be included in this experience. I feel like Grinnell does a better job of giving financial aid to its student body because of its need blind admissions process, at least for domestic students, which means we have a better representation of socio-economic statuses than most private colleges, but that does not mean it is any less difficult to navigate the wealth coded social interaction and fell like you belong as a student from a poorer background. The lack of financial support in other aspects of a student’s life can also make it difficult at times to focus on studies.
The NPR podcast also showcased an interesting blindness in our understanding of food. I think it is interesting that nationally we focused on the issue of food insecurity through a lens of access without understanding the personal and psychological reasons behind unhealthy eating habits. I think the fact that parents were often found giving their children junk food as a way of providing physical gits that they could afford is both heartwarming and also a great example of how difficult it can be to raise kids poor in a capitalistic, money obsessed world. I think the podcast summed this idea up well when it talked about the motherly or parental guilt felt by poorer parents.
In reading Jack’s account of his interviews with students from Renowned, I can’t help but reflect on my own experiences of culture shock and belonging at Grinnell. I certainly can’t relate to paying $30 for lobster and eating out frequently like the affluent students at Renowned, but disparities between my class and other Grinnell students’ was not something I noticed much. My family would probably be described as middle class by most – my parents are both teachers – I don’t think anything they own screams wealth, and they’ve had their fair share of financial problems and complaints about not being paid enough, but I would never have described them as struggling to make ends meet. Here at Grinnell, I’ve noticed that some students need to work many more hours than I do. For me, I take care in trying to save money where I can and not splurge on unnecessary things, but for the time being I have the privilege to not work and be a full-time student, and to transition to working after I graduate. I don’t perceive the average Grinnell student as being particularly more affluent than me, and I also don’t perceive my status as rare. With regards to feeling like I belong at Grinnell, that had a lot more to do with gender for me. I can relate to the frustration the doubly disadvantaged students had with the normalcy with which their peers responded to the culture on campus, and the way the transition was seemingly effortless for them, though for me this did not constitute culture shock, because my high school was largely the same way with regards to gender, and the only thing that changed is I went from hiding my transgender status to coming out. I expected to not belong, especially coming from a small town, but I did not anticipate that feeling of not belonging to stay with me for this long.
Sometimes I think about how strange it is that before college I was engaged in conversations about politics, race, and oppression without having an understanding of what intersectionality is. The idea that the combination and connections between multiple identities can affect you uniquely sounds obvious when stated, but still, in many aspects of life intersectionality is not considered. I think these readings did a good job of explaining the importance of looking at things through an intersectional lens. People have been discriminated against, hurt, or killed without being heard due to a lack of intersectional thinking. One of my favorite examples from the Narrative Initiative reading was with the PCUN in Oregon: an understanding between two communities and how they intersect affected positive change for everyone in the area.
The Ted Talk with Kimberlé Crenshaw displayed how intersectional thinking can change the national narrative to include more people previously unseen. I was surprised with myself how I knew the names of the men mentioned, but not the women. I was especially shocked, and kind of ashamed, how I didn’t know the names of the women at the end included from Michigan, one from my home town. I’m not sure how I didn’t know this injustice took place where I lived; I was young at the time, but it never came up in school or at home. The injustices committed towards Black women in this country are too often unheard of. Intersectionality and intersectional thinking are ways in which we can reveal stories that deserve to be heard.