A richly textured account of what it means to be poor in America
Baltimore was once a
vibrant manufacturing town, but today, with factory closings and
steady job loss since the 1970s, it is home to some of the most
impoverished neighborhoods in America. The Hero's Fight
provides an intimate look at the effects of deindustrialization on
the lives of Baltimore's urban poor, and sheds critical light on the
unintended consequences of welfare policy on our most vulnerable
communities.
Drawing on her own
uniquely immersive brand of fieldwork, conducted over the course of a
decade in the neighborhoods of West Baltimore, Patricia
Fernández-Kelly tells the stories of people like D. B. Wilson, Big
Floyd, Towanda, and others whom the American welfare state treats
with a mixture of contempt and pity--what Fernández-Kelly calls
ambivalent benevolence. She shows how growing up poor in the richest
nation in the world involves daily interactions with agents of the
state, an experience that differs significantly from that of more
affluent populations. While ordinary Americans are treated as
citizens and consumers, deprived and racially segregated populations
are seen as objects of surveillance, containment, and punishment.
Fernández-Kelly provides new insights into such topics as
globalization and its effects on industrial decline and employment,
the changing meanings of masculinity and femininity among the poor,
social and cultural capital in poor neighborhoods, and the unique
roles played by religion and entrepreneurship in destitute
communities.
Blending compelling
portraits with in-depth scholarly analysis, The Hero's Fight
explores how the welfare state contributes to the perpetuation of
urban poverty in America.