Survival Mode
There are two types of people from the most general aspect: those who have learned to live and those who only know how to survive and all the discriminations and stereotypes are initiated with these particular living experiences of people.
It seems like you can choose how to live a life, however the reality is far different from making just a tiny decision. And confrontations of people from different backgrounds and lifestyles make it easier for us to see how many parameters are there for people to experience life differently.
That is what happened when poorly educated Puerto Ricans and white-collar office workers started to share a common workplace according to Philippe Bourgois (Bourgois, 2012,pp. 127). Because of the disappearance of manufacturing jobs, poorly educated people of Puerto Rican started to find jobs from service-sectors and that led them to be the alienated one in “the other”s play zone. Furthermore, according to the research that Bourgois conducted, the minimum-wage jobs that Puerto Ricans are able to find and the alienation they have experienced led them to find easier ways to make more money such as selling drugs and by that acknowledging “street culture”, the term that he uses to refer the life style of Puerto Ricans. "Why should these young men and women take the subway downtown to work minimum-wage jobs - or even double minimum-wage jobs - in downtown offices when they can usually earn more, at least in the short run, by selling drugs on the street corner in front of their apartment or schoolyard?" (Bourgois, 2012,pp.126). It is being discussed later in the article that how the economic system of the U.S. shaped the living experiences and job employments of people of Puerto Rican and how their challenges and lifestyle have changed through other generations.
People make sense of their life as long as they can afford the needs of themselves and their families. According to the article, the youth of Puerto Ricans first legal factory-based employment was to access the “childhood necessities” such as a pair of shoes (Bourgois, 2012,pp.127).
They have embraced hard work as a dignity so that a working-class ideology has been distinguished. Although how can be expected from Puerto Ricans to keep working if the extraordinary work they put on was not worthy of the wage they earn.
Especially, when there is an alternative for them to make easy money by being a crack dealer, it is becoming impossible for these people to be motivated for a different lifestyle rather than “street culture”. In addition, Puerto Ricans, as they chose hard work over education, are becoming less able to choose an alternative rather than living in a “street culture” either. Furthermore, Bourgois points at an increasing generational conflict and varieties of understanding of culture that it creates by saying "... upon reaching their mid-twenties, they discovered themselves to be unemployable high school dropouts. This painful realization of social marginalization expresses itself across a generational divide."This statement both clarifies that these people are unavoidably dragged into their own ways to survive and shows that there might be a psychological dimension of this realization as they accused by their elderly relatives, who believes in the dignity of hard work, as being slothful and 'vago bons' (lazy bums) (Bourgois, 2012, pp. 128).
When you consider the lifestyle and the street culture of Puerto Rican, the office workplace is a foreign land for them to be themselves. "Behavior considered appropriate in street culture is considered dysfunctional in office settings." (Bourgois, 2012,pp.130). According to the article, they are often called as 'illiterate' publicly and it is fair to say that a humiliating ideological sphere has been created in these workplaces for service-workers (Bourgois, 2012,pp.127). Furthermore, even an alternative solution was asserted for decreasing the conflict in workplaces: "...to become bicultural: to play politely by “the white woman”s rules downtown only to come home and revert street culture within the safety of one's tenement or housing project at night." (Bourgois,2012,pp.130).
It is expected from Puerto Ricans to be more alike (maybe even lookalike) to the white-collar workers. While there is a place for them to be willingly themselves, not to be in a situation that they have to act like or accordingly, why should these people choose to exhaust themselves to serve this sector? Therefore, the only job opportunity they have in their hands fails to supply their needs and makes them feel alienated in a way that makes them insecure about their ethnicity and culture. It leads me to think, was there even an assurance for Puerto Ricans to learn to live in order to fit in -the place they live in- New York?
The fact that even the new immigrants (Mexicans) calling Puerto Ricans 'Brutes' to refer to their “unsatisfactory” and “unfaithful” habit in the article shows that not just the system blames the individuals for their failures but even the other immigrants do it as well. "Mainstream society's 'common sense' understanding of social stratification around ethnicity and class assumes the existence of racial hierarchies and blames individual victims for their failures." (Bourgois, 2012,pp.132-133).
To criticize, what leads them - and the system as well – to failure is the society's expectation from Puerto Ricans, who represent the disadvantaged part of the society, to settle for what they have given and not wanting more. On the other hand, if a “white woman or man” would want more, it would seem as if they are so determined to walk through the stages of success. A Puerto Rican can only accomplish surviving while the other office workers were raising their living standards each day.
"The public is not persuaded by a structural economic understanding of Caesar and Primo's 'self-destruction'. Even the victims themselves psychologize their unsatisfactory lives." (Bourgois, 2012,pp.133) However, it seems like the hierarchy that is already accepted by society is manipulating people and psychologizing current circumstances that arise from the economy itself. So, people who have learned to live are building memories, lining up their awards, focusing on their careers while the ones that only know how to survive hang on to the only things that belong to them no matter what those are and always keep turning the survival mode on just in case. I believe, this vicious circle will not end, if we keep giving the disadvantaged ones what we assume they need instead of a chance.
Bibliography
Bourgois, Philippe. (2012[1992]) “Poverty at Work: Office Employmennt and Crack
Alternative,” In Conformity and Conflict, Pearson, pp. 125-135.
