6 GROUNDCOVER NEWS POVERTY OCTOBER 6, 2023 American made: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond on how society’s well off benefit from other people’s poverty NATHAN POPPE Editor, Curbside Chronicle Matthew Desmond has lived through or lived alongside poverty for much of his life. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author and sociology professor has made it his latest mission to focus not only on the lives of the poor in America but also how the rest of the country persistently benefits from them. His new book “Poverty, By America” lays out how many lives are made small to make room for others to grow, while making the case for ending poverty sooner rather than later. Think of it as a call for a healthier country — one where a car accident or a medical bill doesn’t lead to financial hardship. Desmond has been touring the country and leading discussions around his new book, which was released in March. On the road to a tour stop in Connecticut, Desmond spoke to The Curbside Chronicle about how he’s trying to spark a new kind of discussion around poverty. “I think that it’s to all of our interests to end poverty in America,” Desmond said. “I feel like so many of us are hungry for this conversation. I think audiences are interested in engaging this book even when it challenges them or pushes them. … I’m really trying to make this both a political project and a personal one, too.” The Curbside Chronicle: You’re no stranger to experiencing the trappings of poverty. How did it shape your upbringing? Matthew Desmond: Growing up, there were parts of my life where I didn’t really stop and think of myself as poor, right? I knew that when my family went out to eat at Denny’s, I was asked to order the least expensive thing on the menu. We’d get our gas shut off, so it turned into a little camping adventure where mom cooked over a fire. As I got older, I saw how poverty put pressure on my parents’ marriage. Losing our home when I was Matthew Desmond started studying housing, poverty and eviction in 2008, living and working alongside poor tenants and their landlords in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Illustration by Abbie Sears in college was a sobering reminder of how poverty builds up. At Arizona State University, I met people who had a level of economic security that nobody in my hometown did. Even the things other students talked about were different. I didn’t know sushi was something you could eat. I remember getting a scholarship and wanting to celebrate at a sushi place. My friend and I had no idea what we were doing, and we ate a big spoonful of wasabi and got headaches. What was it like losing your childhood home? Desmond: Our home wasn’t a shanty. It was a small ranch home on a two-acre plot in the country, but it was ours. There were parts of it that my family all loved and felt connected to. I didn’t have a car, so I asked a friend to drive me back home to help my parents move. I remember being embarrassed. Something I’ve seen during the eviction process is how people carry the weight of that experience on their own shoulders. I think my job as a sociologist is — I’ll quote C. Wright Mills — to turn personal problems into political ones, right? To help others see this problem isn’t just on us. "Poverty, By America" points to a lot of problems. What would you say is the biggest obstacle to ending poverty in our country? Desmond: The biggest myth about In his latest book, Matthew Desmond interviews a man named Julio who was balancing two jobs and almost no sleep before collapsing in a grocery store at the age of 24. Julio would later join protests against low wages and worked to successfully raise the minimum wage in his community. Illustration by Abbie Sears poverty today is that we have to abide by it and tolerate all this suffering, hunger and homelessness in our midst. But we don’t. I think that a big obstacle is having the political imagination and moral courage to envision an America without poverty. The next step is translating that into action. Not only big political action but also personal action as well. Early in your new book, you write, “If America’s poor founded a country, that country would have a bigger population than Australia or Venezuela.” When you encounter a statistic like that, how does it feel to weave that into your narrative? Desmond: I have a lot of friends and family members below the poverty line. I feel accountable to them when I write. A lot of the people I met in Milwaukee are still very much in my life and a lot of my friends back home. I feel like I have a responsibility when writing about these issues to make you feel it and to draw you emotionally into a problem. If I can’t do that as a writer, then I’ve failed in a way. What I’m trying to do on a page — even when the evidence is statistical studies, appendices from government reports or technical, even technocratic, boring stuff — I’m still trying to look for that point that has emotional power as much as a scientific or intellectual one. I’m thinking of my audience as including people who I love living below the line. That motivates me. One concept that really stuck out to me while reading "Poverty, By America" was how economic security leads people to make better choices for themselves. Has that concept always been obvious to you? Desmond: Not at first. I spent time with a woman named Lorraine who lived in a trailer park. One day, she blew her whole monthly allotment of food stamps on groceries for one anniversary meal. I remember when that happened. I thought to myself, “How am I gonna write about this? Are people going to use this to make see DESMOND page 10
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