I was raised on a South Western Ontario near a very tiny village of 43 people. It was a very conservative area, of Scottish/Irish/English descent. My parents came from large farm families of 8 & 9 children. They were married during the Depression and worked very hard to buy a 25 acre farm. The year I was born(1944) they bought a 100acre farm. We were not rich by any means but we always had penty of fruit & veggies from the garden, meat from our own pigs, cows & chickens, pleanty of milk,cream & eggs, clothes sewn by my mother. I went to a larger town school because our rual school had closed with too few students 10 years before. There were 8 of us crammed into a neighbour’s Station Wagon.He was paid by the Board to be our "bus". His car was old and rusted. The town kids teased us almost every morning getting out of what they called the "old rusty rattle trap heap". Then I noticed that all the town children were wearing store bought clothes. Some of the girls teased me because all my socks, hats, mitts, scarves and sweaters were knit by my Grandma and my dresses,a little old fashioned,sewn by my mother. One day my mother came to a special concert at the School and heard 2 ladies sitting behind her talking about the length and fashion of my dress when I came out on stage. My mother waited until the concert was over, took me by the hand and went up to see the 2 ladies. She invited them to come for tea the following Sunday! The ladies arrived on time and loved all the goodies she had baked. When they were leaving, my Mother said to them both together"I hope you enjoyed my hospitality, but I need to tell you that I did not like your comments on my sewing at the concert. In the future please do not expect me to sew anything for you. And this is the last time you will be invited anywhere with my family." After that I was teased much less at school. When I was in Grade 2, there was a very poor family of 6 move into town. All the children had home sewn clothes, most of them only one outfit for school. I told my Mother about them and she made up huge boxes of clothes which we didn’t need, also some from her 3 sisters’families, and took them to the family in town. They were so grateful to get the clothes and shoes, but when the town kids recognized something of mine on the girls, they teased the poorer girls about wearing someone’s "second hand rags", then refused to play with me because we had helped this family. I had 2 friends who stuck up for me. They were the only 2 who would sit with me for lunch for several years. Skating on Saturday night at the local arena brought out more of the mean class comments. in the tiny village near our farm there was a very poor family of 7 living in a old rundown building which was a hotel in its former life. The mother hitch hiked every day to work at her mother’s restaurant in a distant town. Every year at Christmas the local church would give the family food and one gift for each child. But the rest of the year they would talk about the poverty they lived in. One summer my Dad hired the 6 oldest children to help pick stones in his fields, so we fed them lunch and dinner for 2 weeks and he paid them each $2.00 a day which was considered a lot in the early 50’s. The local store keeper started to make odd comments to us. The second week when my Dad went to town to cash in one of his grain crops stored at the Mill, he was asked to wait to speak to the Manager who told him that they preferred he stop helping poor families because"it set a bad example for the other families". My Dad sold his grain crop and went down the street to the competing Mill, signed a contract with them for ALL his future crops and asked that they buy what he had left at the other Mill. They gladly did so and my Dad carried the papers back to the first Mill. He asked to speak to the Manager, showed him the papers and said "This is what I think about your poor family business practices." These and many other incidents formed the basis of our family life and was most influential in my choice of career in teaching followed by many years of Volunteering and Social Activism. In spite of Candaians convinced that prejudice does not rear its ugly head, it does….. the working poor, those who have lost jobs and homes, some forced to live in cars & tents, overcrowded Shelters, lack of affordable housing, landlords who refuse to rent to families with more than 2 children or where one person is on Disability &/or Social Assistance, no heat in some Aboriginal Schools, whole Reseves being forced to move to rundown motels in a city because the Gov’t’s new sponsored Hydro changed the natural course of rivers and flooded their land, Downtown Food Banks who have to turn people away empty handed because their shelves are bare. The world does not think of Canada as having these problems. It does. I know. My second career is Social Ministry and I see it on the streets every day. All the items I quoted above I have documented in the last 3 years alone in an urban area of 750,000. Some manage better than others. But this is 2009, not 1839. This and Global Warming we need to change. This planet and its people are only on loan to us for one short lifetime. We can change it. One person, one act at a time. Anyone interested in lending a hand? 

It was the first day of first grade and my mother dropped me off at South Elementary in a windblow West Texas town.  Stading alone at the door to the school was a thin, big eyed scared, spiffed to the nines black girl.  My mom noticed her and as I opened the car door, chubby, heart racing scared, she said to me:  "Be nice to that girl Vicki Lynn".  I bailed out of the car and scrambled to the door and said hi to Nelda. It was the first day of desegregation in our school system.  My mother knew this and of course at that age I did not.  We were both just anxious little girls on the first day of school and took comfort in each other’s presence.  I love my Mother for that.  As the years went by Nelda and I would lock eyes and say hi to each other in the school halls not best friends just kindred spirits.

I grew up for the first 9 years of my life in low income housing.  Being surrounded by neighbors in the same socio-economic class and all of us attending the same school, I thought this was how the world lived.  One weekend we were taken to ‘the country’ to see our uncle’s new house. I was shocked to see that you could actually own your own home with your own backyard and a driveway to park your car.  And then we were surprised to find out that our parents had scraped together and borrowed some money and had bought a home for our family. I was so happy to know I did not have to go back to that ‘other life’ that I was shocked to know that I had lived.  However, not too long after I found out that we were on food stamps, the free lunch program at school, and even received the ‘Thanksgiving Dinner Basket’ from social services.  Not much had really changed.  We were just ‘packaged’ differently.  What you see is not always what you get.

How can one go back to a place and time where ugliness lives? Well I suppose it still lives. It’s sad that it can be asked to recall when class difference in our society took place. It’s even sadder because I can recall so many a times when this ugly demon was and is a part of my life. My father moved us from Arkansas to Chicago when I was six years old. My father said that he did not want his children to work in the cotton fields that dominated the south. When we travelled back to Arkansas we could not use the restroom when my dad would stopped for gas. After we left the gas station my father would drive a little ways down the highway and pull off onto the shoulder and my mother would take us between the doors of the car (that was our restroom) to let us relieve ourselves. There were a lot of frightening experiences we encounterd on those trips just for "being black". At that time I did not understand why and I am not sure at what age that I realized the reason. It could be that I figured it out when out grandmother would drill us about saying "yes mam" and "no mam" or "yes sir" and "no sir" to the white man when she sent us to the store. It doesn’t matter when my first experience was but what does matter it that it still exist. Difference in class didn’t start at my experience. I know it still exist and will continue to exist long after I am gone. But we all can work toward doing what we can to be fair toward all mankind regardless of class. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you"

My first experience with class difference was when My father moved us to Vermont.  I was 16 and the town we lived in was small; there were 50 in my high school class.  Everyone was coupled except me and one boy.  As high school dances etc were the big time for our town, we naturally went together.  We became solid friends.  That christmas my family came up from Mass.  I was in my bedroom doing homework and heard a convo going on between my mother, grandmother and uncle.  They were appalled because my friend was Puerto Rican.  Within an hour they had us married and laying out every problem I would have for the rest of my life.  I could not believe there prejudism.  Flash forward today I live in Va.  racism is very prevalent here.  When are people going to remember that our families came here to avoid just this influence.  My great (4th) grandfather came over here on the Mayflower, we all come from somewhere else unless we are a Native American indian.  Guess what I found out when I was 55 that I am just that American indian a descendant of Pocohontas and John Smith who was taken from my tribe at birth.  The state that has my papers so I can know my truths has conveniently lost them or ignored my request to have them.

As an artist I have made it a focus to not see class divisions because all that does is encourage negativity and build ignorance. We as a Nation are facing a very serious issue of poverty, coupled with war, and recent natural disasters… If we as a people don’t start working together for solutions, our prosperous society and Nation will be gone. Please take some time to visit my art/blog at simpletownUSA.com I am auctioning and donating 100% of my profits from the sale of The Eagle, a painting I created for Our People to make sense of a tragedy that should have been avoided on 9/11. It’s reality has made us stronger as a People by making us more aware that terrorism can happen here too. And thank you Ladies of wowOwow.com it’s time to make our voices heard. Sincerely, Amy Stewart Hale PennDragon Studios

I was born right into the Depression. I got it about age 4 or 5. Everything out there was grim ,and the needy and hungry were all around us.   My dad lost his money to bank failure.    Then went the house. Then my dad worked two jobs for many years. We moved every year to a new apartment as 3 months free rent was offered with each year’s lease. We moved at least 3 times within 3 years.

Now we are headed towards the same destiny. We don’t even have decent healthcare offered by every civilized country.   Wall Street runs America, and lobbyists and Wall Streeet run Congress.

Unless our youth get behind a movement for real change and take the money out of the elective process ,as most democratic countries do, we will continue to become irrelevant as a propspering democracy.

Depressions and recessions are the result of improperly managed Capitalism without limits or controls. Really.

 

 

I first realized it when I was in Jr. High School. They opened a new school on the border of the working class area & the upper class (Doctors & Lawyers). My house fell in that school area & when we started there were kids who went to ski on their winter break & to Europe on their summer vacation & we were lucky to go to the beach or maybe Disneyland.. That was my first experience but it was VERY telling!

I’ve always been aware of people and mentalities of differences or even perceived differences.  Living in a 3rd world country for 5 years of a young life.  The difference between have’s and have not’s was clearly drawn.  All it took was a trip off base to see the difference.  Growing up with a single mother after that I was aware that other kids had "things" I didn’t however it never bothered me if it bothered them I wasn’t aware of it. 

When I was trying to get scholarships and a certain group, which at that time prided themselves on being the wives of doctors and lawyers, decided I was not worthy of their scholarship.  Before the women would continue my interview they stopped me to ask, "Since you don’t have a father, who would walk you down the aisle during the ball?", well first of all at that time I had a father but I was so proud of myself and my GPA because I grew up in a single mother household.  That day I realized why none of the girls from my school were ever allowed to spend the night at my house and why I was never invited to be a part of any of their elite groups.  This left a sour taste in my mouth about high school and my now boyfriend doesn’t understand (since we attended the same high school) why I don’t have such fond memories of high school.

When I was a child, I became aware that my cousins and most schoolmates lived in houses.  We lived in an apartment - a basement apartment.  My parents, my brother & I all slept in the one bedroom.  I remember one schoolmate in particular who came to my home and was shocked at how we lived. She must have told her mother, because she was never allowed to visit again. I felt ashamed.  That feeling comes back even today, 50 years later. 

I guess I  was clueless because I only became aware of class and societal distinctions after I graduated from Nursing School in Jersey city , New Jersey.  I was brought up in a proud family of Scottish emigrants who never discussed social class or ethnic problems.  As with many people  born into the depression it is a cliche but I never realized we were poor and not very well dressed etc. Moving to California and working in a Veterans Hospital I really woke up to the difference in social classes.  Also grew up in a small  town where everyone went to the same schools and there did not seem to be any distinctions.

Born in the South in 1941 I of course noticed the difference between blacks and whites, but I was always taught by my mother that we were all equal.  The deference that affected me the most was between male and female.  I noticed at a very young age that boys were being prepared to participate in the world and females were being prepared to take care of the men that were going to take care of them. 

I love that I live in a country where we can debate and disagree.  I have found it more difficult to discuss politics because my friends on the right have begun to treat people on the other side as if they were ignorant and being swayed by a  devious black man.  Give us a break, any group of people that can agree with the venom that comes from the mouths of the right wing pundits need to take a look at themselves and what they truly believe in.   

 

 

When I was in grammer school a girl was driven to school each day in a limo with a black chauffeur, who got out of the car & opened the door for her. I was amazed that I walked to school & had never seen nor heard of chauffeurs. Then on Sundays we went for a "ride". That’s what families in the 30s did for entertainment. We always had to go to Grand View Drive, where there were huge homes unlike any I had ever seen before. It was then I realized there were people who were way beyond what I was then.

I was about 7 years old, my family moved from Texas to Connecticut.  My sister and I were pretty much looked down on, stigmatized, by other children at school for note being from the ‘right neighborhood’.  That followed us all through school, right to HS graduation, regardless of income, or profession of our parents.

I made sure neither of my sons had that mindset. They were taught that you judge a person by their actions and behavior, not by their place of birth or dollar signs.  Seems to have worked, as I have been told I have two of the most level headed adult sons some have ever met.