The Invisibility and Shame of Being Poor

 

I was recently driving along an area of SE Portland near where my sons and I grew up. On the corner of the street was a church and seeing it brought back a memory of standing in a long line, waiting to receive "Government Cheese." I was so happy to receive such a boon.  I was given cheese and butter and pasta and flour and powdered milk. And that night my sons and I feasted on the sweetest macaroni and cheese around.

My sons and I lived in poverty for many years. When their father left, I was the sole supporter of my two sons. At our divorce, it was decreed that their father would give me $200 a month in child support. At the time, I had no other income and applied for welfare and food stamps. 

I've always been the kind of person who does what she needs to do in order to get through whatever needs to be throughed (yes, I made up that word); therefore, I took what I could in order to feed my kids and pay the bills. I plucked on. 

Food stamps are interesting. They came in a little packet/tablet like the tickets used to come for rides at Disneyland--"A" rides, "B" rides--but instead they were one dollars of play money, five dollars of play money, or 10 dollars of play money. And I would tear what I needed out of the packet. We also received in return as change "food stamp coins," just to make sure we were spending all our stamp allotment on food.  I was grateful of these stamps because they assured my sons would eat.  Of course I was grateful but we who had "government handouts" needed to demonstrate that gratefulness. Otherwise, we just looked like a gimmiegimmielazyscumbags. This show of gratitude was an unwritten rule when in the Welfare Office, the grocery store, on the street in line for government cheese.

The unfortunate thing about food stamps was that the people in line behind you were aware that that you were using food stamps to buy groceries. I could hear the people behind me whispering (just loud enough for me to hear), as they looked over my groceries, "Hmmm...wish I could afford to buy some of these things..." or "Huh huh living off my money...." Food stamp people need a thick skin, needed to be able to smile and simply take their groceries out to the car.

The boon of government cheese was such a wonderful thing. We really did eat well from this give-out. Driving past the church the other day, I remembered the long line outside the building. I remembered how people driving past would either stare or purposely not look.  Like the signer-guy near the freeway entrance.  Most people don't look at them, hoping eye contact isn't made. Or the person riding the bike carrying bags of cans, the man wearing dirty clothes that don't fit very well, the thin dirty-faced young teen. Our behavior is truly a bimodel distribution of interaction. We who are poor are either ignored or people felt they had the right to stare or make comments. From this experience in line for government cheese, I learned to smile and pop a peace sign to the "signers" to let them know they are seen and are a human being.

In those days of mid-1970s, I mostly just plucked along, trying to ignore the stares and the comments. You do what you need to do. I eventually found placement through Welfare with Portland Public Schools Special Education Program as an aide. Welfare set me up with C.E.D.A., a program that was created in the early-1970s through President Johnson's Economic Act of 1964. 

This gimmiegimmielazyscumbag worked as an aide, got a part time job across the street of our house at Minit Mart (which became Candy's Kwik Shop), collected newspapers to take to the recycle center (they used to pay for papers), swept the store parking lot, became the weekend aide for my partner, who was a quadriplegic, started college and worked in the Speech Communication department office. 

Did I do all this in order to overcome the stigma of poverty? Maybe a bit. I was happy to get off welfare and delighted to stop using food stamps, to be judged by the community because of my income status. I was glad that my sons no longer heard the not-so-veiled comments about our food choices. But the reality was that I was also a woman who did what she needed to do in order to take care of her family. I have always been a take-charge-of-my-life person who didn't want circumstances to rule my life. 

Next time you pass a guy holding a sign near the freeway entrance, give him eye contact, a smile and the peace sign. Tell him that he is seen, that he is a human being. Show the world some love.

and so it goes
peace~~