I'm Chris. I live in Seattle with my spouse and 3 cats.
I grew up in Central Pennsylvania in the '70s and '80s. (Politically i've been shaped by both the Three Mile Island accident and the Centralia mine fire.) For much of the time my family (single mom, myself, my younger brother) lived below the poverty line, which certainly influences my interest in class issues. Altho' my grandparents helped to raise us and they were (to all appearances) relatively middle class, which muddies and confuses my own class identity.
(And in 2002 my grandfather died and left us with all of the credit card debt he'd run up while trying to maintain his comfortable middle class existence. I'm still coming to terms with that -- middle class existence with feet of clay.)
Anyway. I have very passionate feelings about the rural poor/working class. I'm still learning about what poor/working class means in urban areas. I'm still learning about the U.S.'s place in global class affairs. I'm especially interested in exploring intersections of class/race, class/gender. I'm also very interested in class and education/academia, because my mother was trained to be an elementary teacher and taught me to highly value education -- and i love education and i even love academia, but i'm also wary and suspicious of academia's place in class structures.
If it will help give you a better idea of who i am: I'm 37. I'm white. I am very definitely middle class these days. I'm hetero and have been married for 9 years (tho' i'd like to add that legal marriage is not the choice i'd make these days -- at the time i was merely following thru' with what i felt was expected of me by family and culture). I'm Christian (but "unchurched," as they say) and Quaker-leaning (i am very definitely NOT Evangelical). And i am (more or less) a cis-gendered woman.
If there's anything i haven't touched on that you'd like to know more about, please ask! :)
no subject
I grew up in Central Pennsylvania in the '70s and '80s. (Politically i've been shaped by both the Three Mile Island accident and the Centralia mine fire.) For much of the time my family (single mom, myself, my younger brother) lived below the poverty line, which certainly influences my interest in class issues. Altho' my grandparents helped to raise us and they were (to all appearances) relatively middle class, which muddies and confuses my own class identity.
(And in 2002 my grandfather died and left us with all of the credit card debt he'd run up while trying to maintain his comfortable middle class existence. I'm still coming to terms with that -- middle class existence with feet of clay.)
Anyway. I have very passionate feelings about the rural poor/working class. I'm still learning about what poor/working class means in urban areas. I'm still learning about the U.S.'s place in global class affairs. I'm especially interested in exploring intersections of class/race, class/gender. I'm also very interested in class and education/academia, because my mother was trained to be an elementary teacher and taught me to highly value education -- and i love education and i even love academia, but i'm also wary and suspicious of academia's place in class structures.
If it will help give you a better idea of who i am: I'm 37. I'm white. I am very definitely middle class these days. I'm hetero and have been married for 9 years (tho' i'd like to add that legal marriage is not the choice i'd make these days -- at the time i was merely following thru' with what i felt was expected of me by family and culture). I'm Christian (but "unchurched," as they say) and Quaker-leaning (i am very definitely NOT Evangelical). And i am (more or less) a cis-gendered woman.
If there's anything i haven't touched on that you'd like to know more about, please ask! :)