Many of these people view their transient status as a lifestyle choice. Their most expensive cost was housing, so they elected not to have a permanent dwelling, but to live in motorhomes and travel trailers, and follow temporary employment around the country.
An article on the Gothamist https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/chloe-zhaos-nomadland-will-be-centerpiece-2020-new-york-film-festival blog has this to say:
"From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon’s CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that Social Security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming a growing community of nomads: migrant laborers who call themselves “workampers.”
"In a secondhand vehicle she christens “Van Halen,” Jessica Bruder hits the road to get to know her subjects more intimately. Accompanying her irrepressible protagonist, Linda May, and others from campground toilet cleaning to warehouse product scanning to desert reunions, then moving on to the dangerous work of beet harvesting, Bruder tells a compelling, eye-opening tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy—one that foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, she celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these quintessential Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive. Like Linda May, who dreams of finding land on which to build her own sustainable “Earthship” home, they have not given up hope."
The subjects of "Nomadland" made it clear to the author that there were two things they didn't want. They didn't want to be portrayed as losers deserving of pity, but to be recognized as having agency and being in charge of their lives. The other thing they didn't want was to be classified as "homeless". They self-describe as "houseless", saying they have homes, but they are on wheels, and don't stay in one place.
One requirement of being houseless is that you have to be "domiciled" somewhere, for vehicle registration and to arrange for mail forwarding. Several states have very easy requirements to establish residency. One of these, which many houseless people choose, is South Dakota.
Coincidentally, this Sunday I noticed a battered motorhome with lots of duct tape, seemingly holding things together, parked in our church's parking lot. It had South Dakota plates. I wondered if it belonged to one of the nomadic clan featured in Jessica Bruder's book.
Nomadlands has been made into a movie by film maker Chloe Zhao, to be featured at the New York Film Festival 2020.
Feel free to describe your own summer reading.
Finished three of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's interesting experiments in genre fiction. One more to go. There's a horror story, a thriller, a dystopia of the future, and a fantasy.
ReplyDeleteMoreno-Garcia is a Mexican national living in Vancouver, fairly young. All of her novels are set in Mexico, and her female protagonists are often boxed in by the conventions of Mexican society in ways that outsiders either do not understand or exploit. (I did not know until I read "Mexican Gothic" that the federal government did not enforce the law that allowed women to vote, effectively disenfranchising them until 1953.)
While she can be critical of Mexican social customs and the way women are boxed in by them, Moreno-Garcia is also appreciative of the layers of culture in Mexico. The way indio myths are enmeshed with Catholicism and superimposed on attitudes that linger from Old Spain is fascinating.
None of the cultural elements ever overshadows the stories, but they're so interesting that you find yourself googling all kinds of things you want to know more about: Ynes Mexia, botanist; the ubiquitous home shrines of San Judas Tadeo; the movies of Bunuel; the myths of Huehuecoyoti, coyote god of the Aztecs.
Also finally got around to Kate Atkinson's "Life After Life." It's a very good story about a young woman living through the London blitz and her family before and after the war. However, there is a pretty gimmicky reincarnation thing going on with the narrative and an idiotic plot to assassinate Hitler that struck me as gratuitous. I'd give her A's for storytelling and character development but and F for the muddled experimental elements.
I haven't read anything by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Will have to check it out, sounds interesting. I would probably get more interested in the cultural angles than the actual stories, though "Mexican Gothic" caught my eye on Amazon. I went through a phase, once upon a time, of devouring gothics.
DeleteI tried "Life after Life", and actually gave up on it when I came to the Hitler segment - completely agree about its being gratuitous. But I love her Jackson Brodie series, and think she's an outstanding writer - one of the best I've read in recent years.
DeleteAtkinson was worth reading if only for her horrid older brother, Maurice, who never gets any better no matter which life she's living. He gets knighted, and her older sister remarks, "God, what's the world coming to?" Little bits like that were funny.
DeleteI did not know she wrote a series, so thanks for the tip. I am not usually high on cop stories, but I am unable to do any serious reading right now.
Your Lincoln project report (below) makes interesting reading, though.
"Life After Life" sounds vaguely like a vintage YA novel I had, "Song of the Pearl" by Ruth Nichols. It also had a reincarnation theme; was lyrical but flawed.
DeleteJean, I also like the Jackson Brodie books that Jim suggests. Good escape reading. Well written and not too dark and gruesome.
DeleteI see Atkinson's "Behind the Scenes at the Museum" is described as humorous. I might pick that one up.
DeleteI am still working my way through Sidney Blumenthal's five volume political biography of Lincoln. Currently on volume 3, "All the Powers of Earth". It covers the years 1856-1860. I'm in 1859: Lincoln, attempting to resurrect his moribund political career, had given Stephen Douglas a run for a Senate election in 1858. The odds against Lincoln were very long, as Democrats weren't much less dominant then than they are now in Illinois. Lincoln was a Republican by then, a political identity (and party) which then was brand new. Republicans were still trying to figure out their identity. This was the campaign in which Lincoln and Douglas had their famous series of debates. Public debates for a senate seat was an innovation; in those days, senators were elected by the state legislatures rather than directly by the voters of the states, so the idea of a public campaign for senator was virtually unprecedented. Lincoln's goal was to move public opinion sufficiently to get a slate of Republican state legislators elected who would then vote to send him to Washington. Douglas had no political imperative to even agree to debate Lincoln - it was a near certainty that Democrats would win a majority in the state legislature - but his ego wouldn't let him turn down Lincoln's invitation. Debates also were a made-for-newspaper-coverage format. Interest was high among the national press for several reasons: Douglas was nationally prominent and a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1860; and the Republican Party was a new-fangled entity and nobody was quite certain whether it would achieve luanch velocity or flash in the pan and then dissolve. So transcripts of their debates appeared in newspapers in New York, Washington and elsewhere. Lincoln used the opportunity to eloquently articulate his views on slavery. Those views contributed to the definition of the Republican Party as a party that supported the elimination of slavery. Ironically, those views also contributed to Lincoln's 1858 defeat; the districts in southern and central Illinois, populated by immigrants from Kentucky, were pro-slavery and anti-abolition, and Douglas's populist (and racist) rhetoric played to their prejudices. The Know Nothings, who were primarily nativist rather than pro-slavery, came over to Douglas; Blumenthal notes that, when push came to shove, racism trumped nativism.
ReplyDeleteBut the newspaper coverage propelled Lincoln to national prominence, and he developed a following across the North. Abolitionists invited him to come to their states to speak, and Lincoln clubs sprang up outside of Illinois. The foundation of his 1860 presidential nomination was laid by his losing race with Douglas in 1858.
You folks are more ambitious than I. Most of my coronavirus reading has been rereading. Of new books, I did like Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead and hope to read more of him. I enjoyed The King at the Edge of the World (about a Muslim who winds up spying on King James of Scotland for the English) by Arthur Phillips, but I can't say why. I have Lawrence Wright's pandemic novel, The End of October, but haven't dived in yet. His book on Bin Laden was terrific; we'll see if he can write fiction as well. I just started my man Gerhard Lohfink's new book on prayer, so I can't tell you much about that, other than that he had to explain the Trinity to start with. He says things will get easier.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I've been reading Peter May's mysteries set in and around the Isle of Lewis. They are making me rethink my wish to live out my years in the Outer Hebrides.
My Aunt Ellen was from the Isle of Lewis. My cousin Ian went there and said it was awful unless you like to drink whiskey with Presbyterians. (I think Trump's mother was from there.)
DeleteI read "The Black House". Pretty dark. The Isle of Lewis didn't sound like a very inviting place. We watched all the "Shetland" episodes, which are north of the Hebrides. But similar landscape and harsh weather. It is said that some of my mom's ancestors came to the US from the Isle of Skye by way of Belfast. Speculation was that it was to do with the Highland Clearances.
DeleteKatherine, I had read about the nomad phenomenon. I would like to read that book as well as "Evicted" and a few others about American poverty, but not right now when it's too easy to want to blow your head off thinking about COVID and Trump.
ReplyDeleteJean, yeah, enough depressing stuff right now. I liked Nomadland a lot better than Evicted. I felt that Evicted was too long and poorly organized. The characters in Nomadland were interesting, and were definitely serious about living life on their own terms.
DeleteEscape reading - Richard Jury mysteries by Martha Grimes. May try one of the Peter May mysteries, but they sound awfully dark and gruesome. Jury mysteries are about as lighthearted as murder mysteries get.
ReplyDeleteAnne, if you like Martha Grimes, you may like her Emma Graham series. Hotel Paradise is the first one.
DeleteI tried it. Left me cold. I couldn’t get past the first few chapters. We’ve spent a whole lot of time in England over the years. Her characters, dialogue, village names and village life descriptions are caricatures - amusing to me because of our many trips and experiences in England. My husband traveled there frequently on business years ago, and we developed a 40 year friendship with his Brit counterpart on the project. They have always lived the quintessential English country village life and we have stayed with them many times. We took our sons there a couple of times just as tourists. .One of our sons participated in some athletic events there, and later spent two years in grad school there. The Jury mysteries are a bit like Midsomer Murders, although not quite as over the top as MM. still, pretty tongue in cheek. A light distraction from the grimness of the news.
DeleteP.S. I should probably read Hotel Paradise because apparently Martha Grimes based the setting on her own experienceS as a child at a popular lake resort that we might go to in a month or so to take a break from suburbia. We don’t want a hotel and right now there seem to be few houses for rent. It’s much cooler there than here, and I would like to be able to breathe again! It’s in Maryland. The New England states won’t let us in, so we need to find a place close to home.
DeleteEmma Graham is a teenager who isn't treated very well by her family. I admired her and wanted to smack the adults upside the head. But what I liked about the series was the moody, haunted atmosphere; where events from the past were still affecting the present.
DeleteJim, finally responded to your comment on the virus thread that Hillary would have done as bad a job as trump in handling the pandemic. I disagree, and now have a comment there in response to yours.
ReplyDeleteAnne, thanks -that's not exactly what I said, but we can pick it up there :-)
DeleteWith all the monuments coming down, I thought I'd read de Las Casas' "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies". I know times were different but jeez.
ReplyDeleteWasn't Las Casas's basic argument to stop killing and enslaving Natives because they're almost white, bring over some Africans instead?
DeleteI have not read it in its entirety, but it sounds depressing.
Earlier is year, I got stuck on Aphra Bean's "Oroonoko," which does something similar. I found myself fascinated with Suriname, though. Fascinating place, but hard to find books by Surinamese writers in translation (Dutch is still the official language).
That argument for black slavery wasn't expressed in the book. The extensive preface by an historian made no reference. But Las Casas had other writings. He definitely admired the Amerindians and was horrified by their genocide, plunder and enslavement. The conquerors were intent on getting rich.
DeleteYes, it's like reading about the holocaust. It IS depressing. Las Casas put the death toll in the millions. He does not name names of the killers but the editor names them in footnotes.
I am reading "Terra Nullius," a fictional account of the extermination and virtual enslavement of Australian aboriginal tribes. Author Clair Coleman is of native Australian descent. It's pretty good.
Delete