Growing Up Poor

by Coles, Robert; Testa, Randy; Coles, Michael H.

• ISBN13: 9781565846234
• ISBN10: 1565846230
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-01-01
• Publisher: New Pr

Summary

A searingly candid look at growing up "without," edited by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Children of Crisis series. In a land of seemingly endless plenty, Growing Up Poor offers a startling and beautiful collection of stories, poems, and essays about growing up without. Searing in their candor, understated, and often unexpectedly moving, the selections range from a young girl's story of coming of age in the slums of New York at the turn of the twentieth century and a southern family's struggles during the Depression, to contemporary stories of urban and rural poverty by some of our foremost authors. Divided into four thematically organized sections (on the material circumstances of poverty, denigration at the hands of others, the working poor, and moments of resolve and resiliency), the book mixes the work of experienced authors--many of whom write autobiographically about poverty they have experienced first-hand--with the work of students and other contemporary writers. Edited and with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning child psychiatrist Robert Coles, Growing Up Poor gives eloquent voice to those judged not by who they are, but by what they lack. Contributors include: Sherman Alexie Dorothy Allison Raymond Carver Sandra Cisneros Ralph Ellison Richard Ford Langston Hughes Zora Neale Hurston Luis Rodriguez Betty Smith Gary Soto Mildred Taylor Sylvia Watanabe William Carlos Williams

Author Biography

Robert Coles is a child psychiatrist, Pultizer Prize-winning author, and professor at Harvard Medical School. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he lives in Concord, Massachusett Randy Testa has taught literature and medical ethics at Harvard University and Dartmouth Medical School Michael Coles is a writer and photographer and has taught and coached inner-city children

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Randy Testa
Introduction	xv
Robert Coles
PART ONE To Come Into a World Like This One
Mother to Son	3	(2)
Langston Hughes
From White Mule	5	(10)
William Carlos Williams
From A Tree Grows in Brooklyn	15	(10)
Betty Smith
From The House on Mango Street	25	(12)
Sandra Cisneros
Big Boy	37	(14)
Jesse Hill Ford
From Invisible Man	51	(18)
Ralph Ellison
No Way Out	69	(6)
Max Moran
PART TWO They, Those People Over There
A Question of Class	75	(12)
Dorothy Allison
Who Will Speak for Lizzy?	87	(6)
Danielle Joseph
From City Kids, City Teachers	93	(6)
Deborah Stern
From The Beat Within	99	(6)
Love Shiloh
Young Tay B2
Indian Education	105	(10)
Sherman Alexie
Mother and Daughter	115	(8)
Gary Soto
From Children of Crisis: A Study of Courage and Fear	123	(14)
Robert Coles
Optimists	137	(22)
Richard Ford
PART THREE I Took My Place, Bent My Head and Went to Work
The Grammar of Silk	159	(4)
Cathy Song
Cannery Town in August	163	(2)
Lorna Dee Cervantes
Field Poem	165	(2)
Gary Soto
Night Shift at St. Regis	167	(8)
Luis J. Rodriguez
Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-second Year	175	(4)
Raymond Carver
PART FOUR Take a Stand on High Ground
From Their Eyes Were Watching God	179	(14)
Zora Neale Hurston
Doing What It Takes to Survive	193	(8)
Dean Torres
From Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry	201	(14)
Mildred Taylor
The Ghost of Fred Astaire	215	(20)
Sylvia Watanabe
Full Circle	235	(22)
Lori Arviso Alvord
From Children of Crisis: Migrants, Sharecroppers, Mountaineers	257	(6)
Robert Coles
Show and Tell	263	(14)
Andrew Lam
Permissions	277