Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
They don't stand out from the other kids that do have the stuff. They don't know
who I am and I don't know who they are. That's the thing: they get boy age ten
with a list. They don't know who I am. The only person who knows who I am
is the school nurse. Nobody else knows who I am. You know … You know, it's
good because my kids can go to school and wear what their friends are wearing.
They can do what their friends are doing. It's really, really good.
Access to these material resources enables Leanne to shield her children from the
stigma of being welfare dependent because their class status remains hidden due to the
fact that they have the same clothes, toys,andnutritional experiences astheir friends. In
other words they can pass as middle class or at least as not welfare dependent.
Joy: Upward Social Mobility and Privileged Networks
Joy is a fifty-eight-year-old, Jewish lesbian mother of two daughters and self-described
“loud mouth Dorchester woman.” Joy grew up in a working-class to lower middle
class Jewish community in Mattapan, Massachusetts. After graduating high school, she
earned her bachelor's in education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Unlike
theotherwomeninthisstudy,Joypurposefullychosesinglemotherhood.Usingasperm
donor, Joy became pregnant with her first child in 1985. After losing her teaching po-
sition, shortly after becoming pregnant, she applied for welfare, food stamps, and Sec-
tion8housingassistance.Whilereceivingthesebenefits,sheearnedhermaster'sdegree
in community organizing at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. She eventually
worked at several nonprofit and grass roots organizations in the Greater Boston area. In
1999, Joy, using another sperm donor, gave birth to her second daughter and reapplied
for welfare assistance. Shortly after, Joy was hired by a local welfare rights organiza-
tionasanexecutivemanager.Althoughfundingforthepositiondisappearedafewyears
later, Joy continues to volunteer her services as a grant writer.
Joy raised her first daughter primarily in Newton, Massachusetts and her second
daughter in Brookline, Massachusetts. When asked why she decided to move out of
Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts with vibrant queer, working-
class, and multiethnic communities, she explains,
[Jamaica Plain]'s where I want to live. That's where my people are. [Laughs].
It's all mixed in a way: racially, economically, and queer. Lots of activists there.
It really is my community but the school system there is Boston Schools, you
know? I tried for a long time, for years, trying to find a place. When my older
daughter was little we lived in JP and when she became school age I found a
