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The Poverty committee will be hosting a
Book Study and Discussion
Please join us
on Saturday, November 9th at 10am OR Tuesday, November 12 at 10am
in the Small meeting room off the large room where we have our large
family gatherings. We will be reading and discussing Maid: Hard
Work, Low Pay and a Mothers Will to Survive by Stephanie Land
(available on Amazon).
Description:
New York Times Bestseller. Evicted meets Nickel and Dimed
in Stephanie Land's memoir about working as a maid, a beautiful and
gritty exploration of poverty in America. At 28, Stephanie Land's
plans of breaking free from the roots of her hometown in the Pacific
Northwest to chase her dreams of attending a university and becoming a
writer, were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unexpected
pregnancy. She turned to housekeeping to make ends meet, and with a
tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life
possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a
college degree, and began to write relentlessly.
She wrote the true stories that weren't being told: the stories of
overworked and underpaid Americans. Of living on food stamps and WIC
(Women, Infants, and Children) coupons to eat. Of the government
programs that provided her housing, but that doubled as halfway houses.
The aloof government employees who called her lucky for receiving
assistance while she didn't feel lucky at all. She wrote to remember
the fight, to eventually cut through the deep-rooted stigmas of the
working poor.
Maid
explores the underbelly of upper-middle class America and the reality
of what it's like to be in service to them. "I'd become a nameless
ghost," Stephanie writes about her relationship with her clients,
many of whom do not know her from any other cleaner, but who she learns
plenty about. As she begins to discover more about her clients'
lives-their sadness and love, too-she begins to find hope in her own
path.
Her compassionate, unflinching writing as a journalist gives voice to
the "servant" worker, and those pursuing the American Dream
from below the poverty line. Maid
is Stephanie's story, but it's not her alone. It is an inspiring
testament to the strength, determination, and ultimate triumph of the
human spirit.
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Study