At each stage of their lives-from infant cribs to teen dropouts to welfare dependents to basement shelters for the elderly-the people of the underclass are shunned by the rest of the population, even by the working poor. The cycle is vicious: Underclass children get little help in their own homes (when they have homes); they are shoved aside at school until they drop out like their parents did; they are unable to find decent work without an education; they have children of their own for whom they cannot provide adequate care; and finally, they are dumped into human (but inhumane) warehouses for the not-quite-deceased. America cannot afford to do this to its poorest citizens; we cannot afford not to rescue the underclass. In the richest country on earth, the people of the underclass are not merely a problem, they are a scandal.
"A thoughtful chronicle of the middle-class author's journey among some of America's extremely poor people."
Kirkus Reviews
"Eloquent, sometimes funny, and almost always self-effacing . . . stories which are so wrenching that the reader wishes they were fiction. There are plenty of first-person tales of life on the crack-infested, gun-riddled streets. . . . A good first step for those readers who are used to sweeping the poor under the Oriental rug."
