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Mobility

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Clarissa

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This is what the real lack of mobility looks like. In the US, mobility is insanely good, better than anywhere I have seen and can imagine. And I say it as an immigrant who moved to this country with one suitcase and a mountain of debt less than 15 years ago, married an undocumented jobless immigrant, and is at this moment lying in front of a fireplace in a large house, making a list of things to bring to yet another beach vacation in 2 days.

I know it’s fashionable to sigh about how feudal and oppressed we all are but for me that would mean denying my whole life.  

Maybe I should place all posts in Private mode before publishing them because it’s what anybody wants to hear anyways.

4 responses to “Mobility”

  1. DWeird Avatar
    DWeird

    I don’t follow your private posts – even though I flatter myself in thinking that you would give me the password if I were to ask – because, well, I guess I value the Clarissa that unabashedly speaks her mind no matter what a great deal and the private posts felt too much like gossip, nevermind what their actual contents are.

    You owe nothing either to me or the nameless internet hordes, obviously, but I’m sure any amount of self-censorship has to cut deep. So hope there’s a way out.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I’m not even very good at it because I hide old posts and two seconds later write new ones that are even worse. I’m out of control!

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  2. JProf Avatar
    JProf

    Yes, the possibility for mobility in the US is awesome. And no SJW would want to deny your “lived experience,” right? 🙂 So seriously, I do agree with you. And I also don’t agree with you. In other words, I think the “system” works well for many people and not so well for others. When I think about socioeconomic mobility in the US, I also think about the poor teenagers in poor families living in the inner society or in rural America where the public schools are crappy. For many of these folks, the American dream may be only a dream rather than a real possibility, and the cycle of poverty in which they’re trapped may be very difficult to break. But I do have to acknowledge that people from other countries who are looking for a better life are frequently trying to get into the US, and there must be a reason for this.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Here’s something to consider. Immigrants didn’t grow up here and they didn’t spend their whole lives hearing how hopeless everything is, how things are going from bad to worse, how they are doomed to fail, so they live up to their own expectations.

      Seriously, it’s impossible to go to a worse school in the US than my high school in Ukraine. We sat in class in winter dressed in coats, hats and mittens, shaking with cold. We never had toilet stalls so we had to do our business in full view of our classmates, always. My parents and I gathered used bottles to return them for spare change and buy bread. And so on. But nobody ever told me this was supposed to have an effect on my life. Honestly, nobody ever made the connection. So it didn’t.

      So I wonder,is it possible that this might at least be one of the factors at play? I’ve just been to a third world country, and by God, I didn’t see anybody pity themselves like so many of very comfortable academics here in the US.


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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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