Carol Cleaveland

A desperate means to dignity Work refusal amongst Philadelphia welfare recipients

Sentiments favoring a sweeping overhaul of the United States’ social welfare system culminated in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996 - a law that mandates states to move almost all recipients from cash assistance on welfare to paid work. This ethnographic study examined work refusal among women who left menial jobs to return to welfare, or to subsistence by other means. Seventy interviews and 18 months of participant observation revealed a pattern of confrontations with authority figures at various job sites as well as resentment of the subservience often demanded of workers in the lowest tiers of the primary economy. Confrontations in training programs and at work afforded impoverished women the chance to express their resentments about being relegated to unrewarding, low income work and to maintain vestiges of even a defiant dignity in the face of a hostile social order.

‘In this country, you suffer a lot’: Undocumented Mexican immigrant experiences

Facing poverty and an inability to support their families through work on small farms or in waged labor, Mexican workers have crossed the border in large numbers seeking work in the US. This study explores the experiences of Mexican workers who immigrated without authorization to find work in a US suburban community in construction and the service industry. Ethnographic fieldwork and semi-structured interviews reveal the relationship of macro-level policy choices in compelling impoverished, marginalized people to immigrate despite the real dangers of crossing the Mexican/US border.

“They Treat us Like Pests:” Undocumented Immigrant Experiences Obtaining Health Care in the Wake of a “Crackdown” Ordinance

This article presents findings from a qualitative study of Latino immigrant experiences seeking health care services in the wake of an anti-immigrant “crackdown” ordinance similar to Arizonas SB 1070. Prince William County, Virginias 2007 “Rule of Law” ordinance escalated law enforcement efforts that targeted this population for deportation and ordered staff to ensure that no one receive social services other than those required by federal law. This article sought to answer the questions: (1) Were undocumented immigrants able to obtain health care? (2) How do immigrants characterize their experiences with health providers? Data were gathered via semi-structured interviews (n = 57) with Latinos in a low-income neighborhood. Analysis of Spanish-language narratives found that many were dissuaded from seeking care because of high costs as well as lack of familiarity with the health care system. Others perceived that they were treated with insensitivity or outright hostility—and believed this treatment was a deliberate effort to discourage them from seeking help.

Parking lots and police Undocumented Latinos’ tactics for finding day labor jobs

■ Lacking access to legal residency and to regular employment, undocumented Latinos in the USA often find work as day laborers. Some suburban towns have tried to force Latinos out by enacting statutes to restrict their movement and their search for jobs. How do day laborers, who are conspicuous because of their racial-ethnic and language differences, find work by meeting employers in public spaces despite legal restrictions against their presence there? This comparative ethnography of day laborers in Freehold, New Jersey, and Manassas, Virginia, shows that workers engage such tactics as avoiding police and showing deference to white residents while battling for leverage when negotiating wages.

“A Black Benefit”: Racial Prejudice Among White Welfare Recipients in a Low-Income Neighborhood

ABSTRACT Welfare has been stigmatized as a benefit for poor African-Americans, in particular for blacks accused of sexual promiscuity and a weak work ethic. Stigma has been found to demoralize welfare recipients, alienate middle-class voters who resent tax expenditures for public assistance, and fuel conservative support for legislation limiting welfare. This article describes another aspect of the stigmatization of welfare as a “black benefit”—the belief by some poor whites that they have experienced racial discrimination when trying to access cash assistance and other benefits. Drawing on data gathered as part of a larger, 18-month qualitative study, this article examines how impoverished whites in Philadelphia view welfare receipt and race. Ugly racial epithets and stereotypes were typically used when describing frustration over lack of access to welfare and other social services.

Without Wages of Benefits Disconnected TANF Recipients' Struggles to Achieve Agency

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 allowed states to impose sanctions, that is, to revoke cash assistance for nonpregnant women on welfare as punishment for noncompliance with the new work requirements. In addition, the law called for womens benefits from Temporary Assistance for Needy Family benefits to be terminated after 5 years. This article, which reports on an ethnographic study of 29 women in two Philadelphia neighborhoods during an 18-month period, illuminates the womens struggles with the receipt of welfare and a new law that compelled them to find work, even when it meant earning wages that were below the poverty level. It examines how the women attempted to achieve agency after they were sanctioned or had their benefits terminated.

Borders, Police, and Jobs: Viewing Latino Immigration Through a Social Spatial Lens

An estimated 10 million undocumented immigrants now live in the United States, prompting calls for law enforcement crackdowns and pleas for stringent immigration controls. Social workers and agencies lack the resources to address the needs of this population and are often hindered in service delivery efforts by local anti-immigrant ordinances. This article argues that the sociological theory of social space can be used within a person-in-environment analysis to scrutinize the imbalances of power propelling migration by impoverished populations worldwide and to frame approaches for work with this population at the mezzo and micro levels. Sociologist Henri Lefebvres tripartite conceptualization of social space is advocated because of its potential to delineate the spatial practices inherent in the question of immigration.

‘Mexico City North’: Identity and anti-immigrant sentiment

This article presents data from a two-year case study using multiple qualitative methods to probe how residents of a suburban area interpreted the question of settlement by undocumented Latino immigrants in their neighborhoods. Though many residents framed their understanding of neighborhood problems via racialized portrayals alluding to ‘inferior’ countries of origin and culture, data here indicate that their hope was to restore both the worth of their properties and what they perceived to be an injured sense of place identity. Findings from this study suggest that non-governmental organizations could assist with mediating conflict and supporting immigrant incorporation into communities by serving as liaisons between newcomers and wary homeowners.

A Social-Spatial Lens to Examine Poverty, Violence, and Addiction

Although the associations among interpersonal- and community-level violence and substance use have been well-studied, the mechanisms of change that underlie each have not garnered the same level of attention. We offer an analysis that views both violence and addiction as the inevitable by-products of inequitably constructed social spaces, where poverty is a powerful structural force that erodes relational stability and undermines community health. Principles from the substance abuse recovery self-help and mutual aid group movements can be used to increase collective efficacy and strengthen social capital that enhances recovery commitment and decreases interpersonal and community violence.

I stepped over a dead body …: Latina immigrant narratives of immigration and poverty

This qualitative study examines the lived experiences of Latina immigrants who settled in an area that enacted one of the United States most draconian anti-immigrant initiatives—a law that would be a precursor for Arizonas SB 1070. Though this investigation was prompted by the laws adoption in 2007, interviews and 18 months of ethnographic observation with Latina immigrants (n = 16) found that it was only one in a patchwork of forces constricting work opportunity and threatening access to housing and food. Using critical phenomenology, I examine womens experiences of poverty both prior to immigration, and in the U.S. economy.