Sociology on Status

     Growing up I quickly caught on that you were labeled poor if you didn’t own brand name clothes.  You were middle class if you had the outdated brands and upper class if you had anything you asked for.  When I entered the working world, I realized that it was much broader than that.  Wealth depended on much more than money but also emotional and mental well being, stability, support group, network, family, schooling, and luxuries.  I will show how norms and taboos also will determine a person’s class.

     The people in my case study will be given a surname to protect their privacy.  The individual I chose for this assignment is my dear friend John Garcia.  I will dissect his life to come up with an overall status.  During our interview, he seemed very protective and bland in his descriptions of life.  It took me a while to get his confidence so that he could open up and get deep in conversation.  I asked him if he could be the center of my assignment when I first heard of it at the beginning of the semester.  He agreed, but still wonders why I chose him and not someone else like family.  My reason for choice in subject is because I want to get to know him and why he is the way he is.  How his social influences, such as family, socioeconomic standing and education have developed his guarded mentality.  I thought the best way to do this is by telling him that it’s for school so he agreed.  The first few interviews were short and in person.  The questioning was deeper when I emailed him one day about his life but still he wouldn’t answer more than a few sentences.  Finally, he poured out his heart to me in the last few days of May, I acquired greater insight into his thoughts and true feelings, which is stuck and controlled. 

     From my experience most lower-middle class individuals feel this way.  They feel as if they have so many roles to play and so many people to please but not enough time, energy or sometimes money to do so.  John is going through an identity crisis; he is experiencing role conflict and therefore does not know who he is because he feels that he lives to please everyone but himself.  The following are some of the roles he plays:

Therapist

Caregiver

Spiritual Guide

Maid

Chauffeur

Lover

Friend

Son

Christian

Rebel

Tutor

Comedian

Student

Volunteer

Artist

Overall Scapegoat

     John’s story is one that cannot be construed in the confines of this assignment, but I shall attempt to give an adequate synopsis.  There is much more dept in him that I will keep getting to know as the years go by but for the purpose of this assignment I will only cover what is necessary to describe my reasoning behind labeling him lower middle class.

     John is a 21 year old Mexican male born and raised in Pacoima, California.  His family has never moved farther than 5 miles from this place.  The most travel he has done is going to Mexico or Texas and that is only to visit family.  He has only gone a handful of times in his life.  He was raised as a Seventh Day Adventist but strayed away at the age of 14 and hasn’t come back to his beliefs until just recently yet he still doubts that there is a God.  John’s family has always struggled to make ends meet and is recently getting help from the state to pay for housing.  This is one of the role conflicts for him, the fact that he has to go to school fulltime to keep the housing for his family.  His family puts a lot of stress on him because they need him to be a good student or have a good job for them to survive.  He feels as if he is always being picked on and he doesn’t blame people because he wasted away most of his life failing in school and getting into trouble.

     John’s 8^th grade year, he began obsessing over death and different ways to end his life.  He had always been bullied about his weight because he is heavy set.  By this time, he began to speak up and defend himself but his grades began to drop.  Before entering High School he had already experimented with sex, drugs and alcohol.  His father was never home even when he was a child because he worked 3 jobs to support his family.  John explained with sadness and anger that his oldest brother, Peter, from his dad’s previous marriage came to reclaim his father’s money.  All their lives John and his older brother and sister, Christopher and Mary, always received hand-me-downs from their older brother because “Peter needs a laptop.  Peter needs name brand clothes.  Peter needs books.  Peter needs an iPod.  Peter this, Peter That.”  John explained that he and his siblings received hand-me-downs from distant cousins that had 2^nd hand unbranded clothes.  Unfortunately, according to the U.S., John and his family aren’t lower class but instead part of the middle class because at least they have a home, clothes, food, schooling, jobs but from the sound of it I would have labeled him lower class right away.

     While interviewing John, I realized that he doesn’t see a bright future for himself.  He sees himself as his family sees him which is a as a bum and mooch who will never amount to anything.  He’s heard it on a daily basis since a very young age but he has also heard what great potential he has from friends, family, and teachers.  For some reason he only hears the negative now that he says his family has given up on him so therefore he has decided to give up on himself.  John has such a small group of support from his friends only that he can’t believe it when we say he has what it takes to move out of his status and break the mold.  He feels like giving up because he can never seem to progress.  It saddens me to see that look in his face; the look of despair and complete loss at life, a complete and utter failure.

     Unfortunately, most of the U.S. is middle class because they aren’t poor enough to receive government assistance but not wealthy enough to dig themselves out of the ditch they are in.  Most are in a debt that they will work the majority of their lives trying to get out of.  People don’t get the help they need for mental problems, shortage of food, assistance with rent, money for school or even money for educational advances in culture enrichment.  Middle class families must make choices on a daily basis on luxury or necessity?  And depending on the decision, they will get schooling or a brand new car, food or new shoes, a roof over their head or air conditioning.  I strongly believe that everyone in the class has written a paper on a middle class person because a lower class wouldn’t be in school and an upper class would be in an ivy league.