Fresno is a city where financial struggle is as common as the pavement we walk on. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 20.6% of Fresno County residents live in poverty, more than 1.5 times the rate for California and the United States. I was one of them. I was born to a single mother in the lower class. I grew up the eldest of a poor, hungry family.
As I grew older, my family’s financial situation mobilized. When I was 14, my mother met her partner who received fairly high wages at his job. With his help, we ascended to the middle class, got a car, and moved into the suburbs of Clovis, Fresno’s more “prestigious” sister city. I had achieved what so many Fresnans crave; escape from the economic injustice that plagues the Central Valley. I was technically out of the gutter. We were not rich, but we were comfortable. Yet, I felt a lingering anxiousness. The memories of dinnerless nights, unpaid electricity bills, and frequent eviction notices shrouded my mind, leaving a deep sense of unease. How could I, as someone no longer grappling with economic injustice, still feel the mental toll of someone who is?
People often view poverty as merely an economic standing, the material state of being poor. In reality, poverty has much grander implications. When I think back to my life before we became financially stable, I remember an anxious little girl who was keenly creative and an excellent student. But at the time, I only saw myself as poor. When you live in poverty, it trumps all other aspects of your identity, minimizing them until it feels as though you are nothing else. Your skills, interests, goals, and aspirations are unimportant when you don’t know whether your next meal is guaranteed. Before anything else, before you are a person, you are poor.
Poverty is trauma. And like any other trauma, it is not easily forgotten. The constant stress of financial instability I came to know in my developing years eroded my sense of security and hope. Though I was a child, bearing witness to my mother’s chronic stress as she tried to balance a full-time job and childcare for four kids branded its painful mark on my mind as well as hers. I was left feeling insecure about my financial situation, and I was and remain hyper-aware of my financial habits at all times. I have and continue to compare my situation to those around me, which is an exhausting habit, as the middle-class neighbors I moved next to share almost nothing in common with my family. They go on 3-week vacations in the summer, and I still worry about budgeting for toiletries.
When I began to understand the broader social implications of economic injustice, I realized that this unease was not just personal; it was systemic. Those who have experienced economic injustice often find it challenging to envision a future untainted by the past, a self whose worth isn’t tied to a bank account. Along with alienation, I have grown familiar with a feeling of survivor’s guilt. The simple fact that I made it out of poverty purely by chance continues to leave me uncomfortable, like a ghost that follows me through the social classes. I have felt undeserving of my newfound status, but this is no fault of my own.
The presence of such a deep-rooted, recurring feeling only proves that the ultimate goal of social perception and public policy is to make the impoverished feel hopeless and unworthy. The cycle of poverty persists, not because the poor are lazy or undetermined, but because the poor are accustomed to hard work with no payoff. Thus, they feel that no effort will ever be sufficient. This trampling of the spirit for years, decades, and even generations, produces a complete and utter hopelessness of change in the future. The very essence of meritocracy – the idea that your economic and social status reflects your abilities and worth – causes the visceral emotional vulnerability that keeps lower-class families in their predetermined destination and limits social mobility.
By addressing these feelings, I and other individuals who find themselves in better financial situations than their origins can shed light on the lasting emotional and mental effects of poverty. There is no tidy, instantaneous way to eliminate the traces of poverty, but there is power in finding that it does not define its victims. The impoverished, the poor, and the downtrodden are deserving of the same comfort and security enjoyed by the masses. My humanity is not spelled out by the money in my wallet, and neither is yours.