T HREE. . " Excavating "Globahzatton from Street Level Homeless Men Recycle Their Pasts Teresa Gowan . . atin with his firefighter coll eagues A San Francisco paramedic ts e gl . f)'et another call to haul . kitchen He comp ams o in the ftre stauon · · . f the gutter. "I should have . ·ed in vomtt out o a collapsed \Vll10 cover . ··I Some of the firefighters . thing" Eyes sh1ft uneast Y· slipped hm1 some · t d not to hear. chuckle, other s pre en f h h eless recyclers, Anthony. He h . dote to one o t e om k 1 tell t ts anec . n· dn 't 1 tell you we ran four mtsery I guess. 1 , laughs. "Put us out o , ;> Th t kind of attitude, that s h · th the stray cats. · · · · a down somew ere wt l ' ·k·tng hard right before . I r When m WOI the whole point Wit 1 ll drain on the public their eyes no one can say I m JUSt a sme y purse.". o not dwell particularly on smellincss, Studtes of homelessness d . . tage resultino- in a lit- . . d acy take centet s , o . yet stckness and ma equ . d . dent income-generatton. h lects to analyze m epen . l erature t at neg k th eir work very sen ous y, d of his colleagues ta e . Anth ony an many d . . bility should be my starung and I decided that work, rather than tsa ' point. . . . . . the roduct of several episodes of The material 111 thts chaptet IS p c.ve homeless recyclers liv- . . h with some twenty-u . ethnographtc reseat c . ·ghborhoods. Followmg . . · . ,. ious San FranCisco net . mg and working m 'ar , h d the recyclers m the . . ··t" e work I approac e my deciswn to pnot I JZ ' d . ther than through the . h . ·cling company yar s, ra street, or tn t e J ec) h h eless Using a combination of . t ing to t e om . service agenCieS ca er . . · g l got to know the . . . t observation and informalmtemewm , parttnpan 74 HOMELESS :vl EN RECYCLE T HEIR PASTS 75 me n by working with them and spending leisure time together, as well as through recorded interviews. Over time we climbed into dumpsters together, shared beer un- der the freeways, and met up for occasional fry-ups in my kitchen. They brought me pans, sweaters, and jewelry from dumpsters and acted as my protectors in dodgy situations. I helped with welfare and disability claims, giving them breakfast or a place to shower or visiting them in jail. In this fieldwork I focused pt;marily on th ose who were the most serious about their work, the most productive. And the interest was ofte n mutual. Approaching men as recyclers, and explicitly starting with a curiosity about recycling as work, I find that my work appeals most to those me n whose life-worlds suppo rt my· thesis. Men who a re investi ng recycling with a great deal of meaning, using scavenging to practi ce a specifically worker identity, respond instantly and enthusi- astically to my inquiries about the recycling life. Certainly some of the sample group, including Sam and Clarence, are champi on recy- clers, carrying some of the biggest loads in the city. I initially framed the homeless recyclers as survivors, making a place for themselves in a growing tl1ird-world-style informal econ- omy. Yet the work of homeless recyclers makes little sense outside the context of tl1eir general isolation and rejection by the broader society. As Anthony's comme nt suggests, the recyclers tend to inter- pret their work as an escape from stigma. But they do not escape, really. They are still homeless, mostly addicts and alcoholics, and few observers appreciate their efforts. The "they arc \vorkers too" angle, while providing legitimate posi- tive images, came to feel blinkered . One limi tation of doing etlmog- raphy with the ma rginalized is iliat it is hard to see the mechanisms of excl usio n. You can study the agencies trying to mop up the prob- lem, but you, like your subj ects, are cut off from the larger social turns-institutional, economic, political-that provide the context (although not necessarily the proximal cause) of their miseri es. In Castells's terms, people like the recyclers are stuck in a stripped, decayi ng "space of places," unable to hook into the "space of flows" of the information age. In this paper, the instrument I use to hook into the big picture is nostalgia, the nostalgia of the dispossessed for the lives they have lost. In each case, individual regr ets and losses connect to the large- TERESA GOWAN . . "Unlike many 7 6 ll " lobahzauon . . ff by wh at we ca g d have not always . l shifts set o d Desmon . lf r scale sooa Clar ence, an n aintam se - Am ericans, am, d h ·r attempts to I homeless d destitute, an t el learned in more \ · lized an l e systems . been margtna - . l bor" r eflect va u . because their . gh "h onest a . f this chaptei respect The)' are the subjects o b l. ation as loss, not us umes. lore glo a IZ or ..; prosper o t helps us to exp . " than oth er po ostalgia for the pas . l or mor e '·deservmg \ n re more mma' they a . Amen cans. . . inviting Its '-- ·1s agaztne qu1Z, ._, asks a Detat tn< f l . tory or the fast first-century rnan. h dustbin o 11S . "Are you a twenty- ·r ou' re headed fort e h ir adaptabihty: . ts to "see t y . . ised for t e hipster tal gef ture " High scorers at e pi a . •ou rely on no track to the u . and all organizauons .. ) e uide your . You' re wary of any . •ou let expechenc g ·r ·obs Congratulauons. . ani zed religion . . .. ) d sanguinely shl t J ' . P government, Ol org 1 think on your an \ h t ln other words, gt ou ' . ou are ab e to of a vJrtua a . \ifesrvle chOices, y "d 1ces at the drop ., . nd resl el I friends, \ovet s, rwenty-fn·st century. aging its ou' re ready fot t . . onorny, encour y . the mneues ec . bl career paths, · · sptn on d1cta e Details puts a postuve brace flexibility over pre . c but only with that young rnale The tone may a critical opportunity JO f gloss, w . -k The message prevat s. Generation X ktnd o smn smart, nder its raised ey ebr o - but you , dear reader, . You're money, baby. for sadsack enough to play to always with an eye to better and stellar careers can come economy offers u me the the Wild West of flex- Lke the man wtth no na ' nd self-rehance 111 est. I roving his courage a f1led in into his own, p . f ntrepreneurs pro . . r Sill The kmds 0 e d . the qUIZ, ible capita I : . b yish escapism. . ors celebrate 111 f Much of thiS IS o . the unattached warn e at top-tier o the magazine are hardly. ns of vital rent kind of risk tf you what their members.lt IS when things are not h elpful mvestrnents . Mom's apartment bu . can return to managmg more margina\i.zed _of ans? The vorK"er, migrant farm \alb. f yet the insecunt)· c -=b ·gasasex'< dlr or t1te , · flexible em dd. t panhan e ' uve 1 crack a 1C , a1one a h ome ess HOMELESS MEN RECYCLE T HEIR PASTS 77 mobility, fl ux, and fragmentation of Details' "nventy-first century" is far truer for the poor than for college-educated professionals. Broadly speaking, the lower you go down the economic scale, the less stability you find, and there is nowhere in America where the basic conditions of everyday life are more volatil e than on skid row. In the public soap opera played out endl essly in skid row streets across the country, only continued poverty and disappoint- ment can be relied on. Devastating stabs of ill-luck become mundane, and for those without shelter the knocks seem to follow faster and harder. Any time, almost any place, such naked lives lie open to predators biological, criminal, voyeuristic, bureaucratic. Pneumonia, arrest, AIDS, robbery, or the official confiscation of those personal effects carefully n ursed th rough the wilderness, maybe even murder: any or all become possible, even likely, for a person reduced to the status of homeless derelict. Indeed some homeless men respond to the unstable conditions oflife on""' .. I the street with a remarkable fl e_xibili ty. The bastard brothers of the entre- preneurialt echno-yuppies targeted by Details, such twen ty-first-century 1 (nineteen th-century? third-world?) have-nots adopt a "hustler" mode of homeless life. 2 They improvise their daily needs through combinations of 0 panhandling, plasma sales, selling the Street Sheet newspaper, dumpster-div- 1 ing for things to sell on the sidewalk, prostitution, using soup kitchens and 1 other charity organizations, petty theft, recycling, selling personal posses- sions, and small-time drug dealing. The "Hustler as twen ty-first-century man" fi ts the perspective on homeless workers developed by David Snow and his collaborators. 3 They describe the money-making strategies of the homeless as a set of improvisations for sur- vival, a constant ad-Jibbing for daily needs. And much of what they have to say about the unpredictability and constant crisis of homeless life rings true in the lives of t he men featured in this chapter. Yet man rarely lives on junk and booze alone. The stigma, assaul ts, and casual of street life knock away most eXternal referents for self· respect, making the_ prQj ect to be someone mor e crucial tban ever. But what ·n of someone feels like the real you? That depends in tl1e main on who you already are, on who you have been before. The homeless recyclers featured here-the "pros"- ar e most reluctant to see themselves as playing the system. Instead, they stride across the city, working hard and fast. Usually following established routes and stopping places, they sort their findings into great bags of bottles and cans tied on to their shopping carts, heaving up to two hundred pounds to the r ecycling companies each run. The most strenuous toile rs treat themselves as beasts of burden, harnessing themselves to pull two la rge carts at once. For otl1ers to use their work to reconnect socially with the non- '!?meless, or to assert th eir claims to public space as legitimate trash work- 7 8 TERESA GOWAN . 1 common is the resolve to turn their backs on l ers. But what the pros r f s they try with all their su·ength to ere- the painful boredom of s ' I row I e, .a - 11 "d t" ·n their own eyes. ate lives that are su ecen I . In comparison with homeless For these men have not always bhee n podoL share much more uniformly d dealers w o ten to f street vendors or rug ' . . y of the pro recyclers haYe su - d . , .·shed life hrstones, man d' marginal an 1!11pO\ eii d I earlier lives they were long- IS- . d · ·ncome an status. n ' . fered massrve rops m 1 . . . soldie rs industry electn- . . d kers mechamcs, career ' tance truckdnver s, oc ' . . f l had unionJ· obs, and most d d I' dnvers Many o t 1em cians, welders, an e Ivery ' 11 : 1 d t health benefits and some degree of those who did not were su enut e o of j ob security. 1 . 1 d . 1 a compound of poisons equal I . 1 . a ·e gone c rsso ve n 1 Those ear 1er rves 1 ' . . . . ·a! context of exc u- n lace \.Ylthm the cull ent soo . P arts unique and commo p . turnings surmountable m . 1 . misfortunes or wrong sion and mto ei ance, Tl . rable decline of the recy- life senten ces 1e mexo kinder times now serYe as - d nd multiplied with j obless- " , · Jce the 197 os has r eacte a . clers' prospects l" despair hallucinations, myopias ness, family trageches and unrave ·connections to insti- b 1 self-disgust or mcm . d d born of su stance ove, ' . . ·al fall have corro e ld v them from this dramauc soci tutions that cou sa e ble for day-to-day survival. and crumbled, leaving them to scram . bly overshadowed by their . 1 h 1 - of the pros are 1nescapa 1 Yet wh1 e t e 1ves . . . . their time spent in hust er . d h y do their best to mmimJze . immediate nee s, t e . . d tion in favor of the peculiar d I Ia)' down then espera b- mode. lnstea t 1 ey P 1 . their maior means of su f · · d hard labor Recyc mg, as :.o f comforts o routinize · . 1 mic floor the bare bones o nl}' an essenua econo , sistence, becomes not o. . d celebrate the routines, produc- survival, but a broad proJect to I ecover an . . . d r d . ty of blue-collar work. . UVIty, skill, an so I an . ali ty from sugma and to ere- The efforts of the recyclers to carve oul t no In: is b)' no means reflected in f th nomie of unemp oymen , . 1 ate routine rom e a . . . l melessness. The vast socla . 1 f h cademJC hte ratm e on l O . the mam boc y o . t e a d . g on the failures, sickness, I . d . 1ates the tiel ' convergm . welfare mac nne omn '- I ""'-""--'·vidual This perspective . of the ho me ess mm · or cult ral mcompete nce - . 1 ' text o lhe vast increase in home- "'-" "b k ts t e broaoer sooa con . tfierefore rae e . I authoritative r esearch proJects . h 'd sevenues La rge-sea e . b Jessness smce t e mi - ·. 1 thodological individualism Y on poverty are usually _seduced bread and butte r. the government agenCies ualitative research is that one does One advantage of cheap, sma_ . . q Th refore instead of using my d ·k 'thin these hm1tauons. e ' not nee to wor Wt th d ninant theories on home- . h h homeless men to test e OJ . . 1 spothg t on t ese . '11 mr' n ate their relationshipS Wtt I h · ·ounds I use 1t to 1 u lessness on t eu· own gJ . ' . h· in America, the world outside the the bigger picture , the piCture of cl ang gf t ... e l1uge shake up we call "glob- h 'd · t d'g up loca traces o 1 l' - - IS od. I h U "ted States as a systemic turn awayTrom the alization/ expen ence m L e m HO:vt ELESS MEN RECYCLE THEIR PASTS 79 Keynesian social contract among government, corporations, and unions of the postwar years toward the contemporary period of deregulation, welfare- state dismantling, and union busting. _!f we take globali zation to mean the transformations of locales by processes instigated or maintained from outside national borders, the United States has been at the center of vario us forms of globalization for hundreds of years, as both a site and an agent of raw collisions among Europe, America, and Africa. Today, in the richest and most powerful nation on earth, this new "globalization" does no t r epresent a new shatter- ing of the integrity of the local; our "locals" wer e already globally connected, expansive, reflexive. What Americans are experjencing is instead a gradual "t re placement of the previous military, Keynesian form of globalization with a fresh neoliberal coalition, one r epresenting changed forms of capi tal, dif- ferent sensibilities, new winners, and new losers, as well as a resurgence of traditional "conservative" discourse. Conservative theory defines men like the recyclers, able-bodied single as high-functioning deviants in rebellion against the market. The solu- tion, say the rhetoricians of market freedom, is to force the dependent poor to adapt to the current economi c structure by removi ng the safety nets that guarantee their subsistence. Severe penalties for crime will ensure that these newly stimulated energies toward subsist ence will be channeled to legitimate activities. Only then will such men be forced by their need for subsistence to learn new skills, or to take jobs at wage and status levels they might previously have found demeaning. Conservative policies have been put into practice at all levels of govern- ment over the last ten years. Financial entitlements have been transformed and safety nets removed, culminating with the 1996 abolition of the sixty- two-year old AFDC program, and the devolution of responsibility for the unemployed to the local level. States are sancti o ned with the withdrawal of federal support if they do not institute lifetime welfar e limits. Local governments increasingly require work in exchange for the bare subsistence all owed to prisoners and welfare recipients. The number of wel- fare recipie nts in compulsory work programs is expected to reach one mil- lion within the next few months. 4 As of june 1997 the re were nearly 3,0oo "workfare" workers cleaning San Francisco's streets, buses, parks, and hous- ing projects for roughly one tenth of the pay of r egular city employees. The new welfare laws could add up to 25,000 more workfare workers within the next two years. 5 Enti tlements to freedom of movement have also been withdrawn. Whil e a million and a half men and women swell the penal colonies, the space out- side is mo re subtly resu·icted. All over the United States public space is being redefined both forrJ!ally and Triformally as private space with selective access for people who do not look poor. New downtown developme nts use anti- ·\ ' ; u 8 TERESA GOWAN "' \ ';- • . o I· '' . ss o ln ' " br "space to off are encouraged to and the same commer cial stnps whei e co cited and arrested for encamp- ! . ger homeless people are moved on, t ,,'"Quality oflife" offenses not In ' f dom of movemen . . mak t" or "obstructing ree . ted all over Amen ca, - men ·on have been reacuva ) .II alto enforced since the de pressi . ( I ping urinating, and so on l eg . b ·c human funcuons s ee ' Ing many asi . . . ·c1 7 , nt was mltlated those outsi e. . . f" uality of life . . - Th e San Franosco versiOn o q kJ dan's admimstrauo n, start d - Mayor Fran , or . d to b h "Matrix" program un ei . h 1 ss people r eceive ten Y t e u de r Matnx, orne e ""d -ink ing in August of 1993· n c -offe nses such as "encampment, I - d 'tations a year t OI bl' , or "obstruct- fiftee n thousan Cl 1. " "urinating in pu IC, . . bl' ""aggressive panhand mg, , offi cial high-profil e mg m pu lC, " Wl 'le Matrix's status as an r h ing freed om of movement. . 11 rminated in 1996, the ticketing po tcy as \itical campaign was offioally t e . . . $76 rising to about $ t 8o and po . ted The nne for the average o tatwn lS I 'people are unable to pay pers1s · . id Most home ess 8 an arrest If left unpa . them with outstanding warrants. these fines, \eaVlng thousands of OS TALGIA OF T HE DI SPOSSESSED THE · · 1d . b' hical particulanues, ai Ther e are so many mediating or "neoliberalism" . ks of fate lying between the tor ces o . g . le causal line from struc- qlllr ·ndividual. It is ha rd to jusufy a simp h . dustrialized world and any one 1 d' Yet across t e m tural sea-change to Jsaster. increased corporate mobility across th are su-iking correlations among d cy and the return of mass ere . rti cal ascen an ' . . d'ffi national borders, conservative po I ts The conceptual and pohucal I - indigence, both on and off the relationship between the huge culties involved in actually provmgsol 'ts exploration. Othen-vise we have h ld not forec ose I d' per- c\ the person al s ou . r d some times degra mg, to work with but the : ; the social welfare institutions. sonal details revealed the dtsease concept of nostalgia. Kathleen The tool of expl oration l use her e lace oneself in time and place, Stewart defines !!ostalg_a as the alienation creating "an in terpreuve space m d' ""eren t forms of WIth m . . · n between two Ill' 9 She draws a disUncuo He. "late capitalism." I in the cultural landscape d· from one P ace . . . . it depends on whei-e ·_ . n of a ure present that nostalgia is a schi zophi-entc :;<-ht.latauo . . ·. a ; ined watchful desire - for their own sake; from an make of the relatton to an ropriated, refused, disrupted ot- made I " '-1 ob•i ect that can be seen, app a cu tura something of. " HOMELESS MEN RECYCLE THEIR PASTS 81 Stewart defin es the first ki nd of nostalgia as the act of taking possessio n: "He re, individ ual life narratives d ramatize acts of separation '"(fre·edom, choice, creativity, Imagination, the power to model and plan and act on life)." 10 In such a way the disappearing bl ue-collar lifestyle mourned by many homeless recyclers is appropriated as kitsch in front of their eyes by pseudo-Bohemi an multimedia programme rs wearing vintage work shirts with 'Johnny" or "Ray" sewn on the chest. In con trast to this fi rst nostalgia with its power to choose, to freely appro- p riate, Stewart presen ts her "other" nostalgia, which might be called the 122stalgia of the di spossessed. The "others," who live away from the highways of power and self-de terminatio n, experie nce nostalgia as a "painful home- sickness," which aims at "the redemption of expressive images and speech." l Those former 'tertain!ies and. thrown into ch<:los a nd loss use nostalgia as a way of p1aci'fig themselves inside a surrounding world which - - makes sense. 11 - As a collective attempt to reclaim a past world, nostalgia can sharply point up the places where a person's life-turns most clearly knit into a bigger fa b- ric of expe rie nces common to others in similar social locatio ns. For each of the recyclers, the past is a primary referen t. Al though their pictures of t he past are both similar and different, they all see the present in relation to how things "used to be." Each of t hem makes a life on the street where he can make use of skills, habits, and ways of thinking learned unde r quite dif- ferent conditi ons. In this they are no di fferen t fro m most of us. What is less commonplace about the recyclers is the massive changes in their social standing between the n a nd now. Stigma a nd extreme downward mobili ty make the m favor the past wi t h the intensity of dying men. Stewart's "nostalgia of the dispossessed" describes how I unde rstand J!:!s_ attempts of t he home less re2;Ie rs to recreate f<trn.iliar worlds oytof the dis- of life._§ the 7treeJ. They assert ;a lues and life- ways drawi1 t rom the past as both critinue and shi eld against the ali en land- ...... scape of t he new, that la ndscape we attempt to contain and describe with the encompassing ho t signifie r, "globalization." !2!_ the pros, the curre nt version of globalization feels differe nt from the Pax Americana of their past. This version has n otxace for the m, and con- "- ...... _ ..... sequently appears as a a 1en i'()rces. ... uonme-all a bout subj ect position. For the purp oses of this chapter, I focus on three of the pros, Sam, Clarence, and Desmond, taken from a broader fieldwork sample of twen ty-five. They ar e not composites, but discrete indi- viduals who happen to share certain histories, sensibili ties, and strategies with others of the group. As they mourn and try to keep alive the worlds of their earlie r lives, the particular nostalgias of each man point u p par ticula r elements of the shift ERESA GOWAN 82 T . -ld der. The homeless l .b a\ new wot or d . nism to the neo 1 er . b deindustrialization an from Keynes1a k S 11 has been marked for ltfe y has wit- ex-manual ' _vor ' e r -at lo ·me nt. The homeless _Yete1 an -· rovided by the decline 111 secLll e em_£ )_ I . nt work-creatwn program p ----ale closing on t l e gta . Desmond lamen ts - nessed ' ) d th e lomel ess ex-com·tct - d b)' the War on the postwar milttai)- . n working class rept esente 1 Af -·can Ame n ca civil war on t l e II - . _ Ou FREE· SAM ' T WJl L SET y . . \\ ORh. - . _ 1 c.f· s Hespenthis . -· n in hts em Y u ue · .. Sam is a a lot of youth working on h:s l hoo\. He never saw the need fo a highly ried mecha nic 1 al repairing says, . ld" down a coup eo 1 , d and then skilled mechantc, ho mg . before he became unemp O)e ' d . d stria\ machmes trucks an 111 u · · \lv . . . . he works conunua , , homeless. ld sports mJunes, but K ing his Sam's knees ache from o d d rarely stopping to rest . h . ·n two h eavy shifts every ay an d vn a nd leaning hard mto t c putung ' h road he steams along, head lm d cans he keeps his eyes on cart on t e r As he picks up bott es an One of th e less weight of the mg. . into th e proper category. " ( rung each ptece · " R bocan. his work, ast so h shares Sam's turf calls hun o l or ted because vigorous recyclers w o h ave his recycling alreac y s ' B ing Fo1 - Sam it is very important to < h u·tne at the recycling plants. he . ' · end n1UC \" than e IS he does not really ltke sp ho ar e less obsessively '.vorkaho I tc b" is of anY . - und homeless peop e w . . . othe r recyclers on t 1e as . ai o b th -s him He assumes lazmess m k - clers ar e particularly sus- .o r me after t "I just don t want any o . vi th the two of us. l m . PIeke . v had tried to initiate con,ver sauohn for fun . This is work." Sam h1m- nm : shit. I don t come e1 e . . Whe n Sam It . lass town in the East ay. d es not house in Pittsburg, a ended "badly," saying th at oarried. occasion that his "She couldn't bel_ieve h: not blame his wife for kJck1 g h 'ld n and two gr andch1ldren: bu " "I ' - ld I " He has four c 1 r e . --· e or death m the lam I )· f N01 cou · h r e 1s a mat n ag _ ult o n of them except whe n t . second marriage as a t es see a y lains the de te riorauon of k" (This is not unusual. The Sam exp heavy dnn mg. .. ·n fam- and higher than the divor ce rate ts around t t a j ob and cannot quickly ftnd . -· q engines ilies where the father fro m well-paid union work rcpau mg I'') First Sam was latd of on e. - HO:VI EL. ESS MEN RECYCLE T HE IR PASTS 83 fo r a utility company in 1985. He had been working on the same vehicles for years, a nd knew them inside out. But engi nes changed , and he could not get moti'"ated to learn the new technology. "Hit me hard, being on the scrap heap, I'll admit that. . .. You don ' t much conside r about unemployme nt, you know, till it happens to you. The n it's too late to get your bearings. " Electroni c tinke ring with new mod els "controlled by a stupid piece of plas- tic" offended his deep love of "r eal" cars, to which he had dedicated both work and leisure hours since he was a teenager. Sam found it very hard to deal with his declining position in the labor market. His last j ob was with a nonunion corporation specializing in brake repair, wher e he never actually got to work on cars, but instead had to fol- low a mono tonous and rigidly e nforced routine. Even though the pay was lower than ten years before, Sam sta rted spending half his income on cocaine. "My heart wasn' t with my j ob anymor e, and the manager was always pushing me. He gave us no respect ... . So I got to putting half my paycheck up my nose. o woman to check u p on me." [Sam winks.] "I was generally emoralized, you know. Everything had gone to shit." When ho meless recycl e rs like Sam express disbeli ef a t their decreasing abi l- ities to command either decent wages or respectful treatment in the years before they became homeless, they are pointing to a phenomenon bigger than their own personal shifts in social location. Call it what you will-a "space of flows," d isorganized capitalism, the conditi on ofpostmoderni ty, or late capitalism 1 : 1 -there are seve ral ways in whi ch the Bay Ar ea econo my of the nine ties manifests qualita tive breaks with the situation twe nty years ago. On the national level, large-scale, collective, wage-bargaining structures Monopolies have broken out of state regulation almost entirely, and manufacturingjobs have either gone elsewl1ere or been trans- formed into minimum-wage, temporary work-work designed for women, immigran ts, and young men who do not have the memories of better con- ditions that might make them mutinous. Californi a suffered the effects of this r estructuri ng later tha n the olde,- manufactu ring regions of the United States. The state was insulated from the manufacturing collapse of the early 1g8os by its disproportionate sh are of defense contracts, its large share of compute r and bio-tech compa nies, and a real-estate frenzy finan ced by the Los Angeles-based junk-bo nd boom. 14 The early ni ne ties r evealed the inability of these industries to sustain gen- eral prosperity. Working-class Califo rnians suffered from a prolonged and severe recession, losing 1.5 mi ll ion jobs in 1ggo-g2, including a quarter of all manufacturingj obs. Constructi on , always the best be t for unskilled male labor, practically stopped-the rate of housing in the early nine ties was the lowest since the Second World War. 15 Sevet-al white recycl ers have 8-t TERESA GOWAN mentioned that journeyman work used to earn them twelve to fourteen dol- lars an hour. By 1994 it was down to six or seven. In the Bay Area the dis- junction between the decimation of hea,y-industry work and the booming computer indusuy added to the problems of blue collar workers by bring- ing in large numbers of younger people with high disposable incomes who are able to pay increasingly fantastic rents and house prices. The unemployme nt crisis for manual workers has contributed to the blossoming of the local informal economy. Unlicensed and tax-avoiding entrepreneurs and their employees flourish, working as taxi drivers, carpenters, house cleaners, hair dressers, recyclers, mechanics, dog walke rs, electricians,junk vendors, garment-makers, psychi cs, roofers, man- ufacturers, nannies, and gardeners. Rather than providing competition for the more formal e nterprises, much informal work actually interlocks with it, increasing the profits_!.O large companies. 16 ln the case of San Francisco recycl ing, the garbage giant Norcal dominates both the legal and the informal economies in trash. Norcal holds the city contract for both garbage collection and curbside recy- cling. The company also owns the two largest recycling companies in the city, both of which buy the overwhelming majority of their materials from the scavengers of the informal economy. Sam and other ex-manual workers picking up bottles and cans on the streets of San Francisco are participants in a great slide from secure wage labor in the formal economy to insecure "survival strategies" outside of any protective regulation. But the pros will not accept the idea that recycling represents a reactive, hand-to-mout\1 existence, a desperate scrabbling at the bottom of the heap. Rather, they all appreciate and take pleasure in their work as a challengi ng, socially useful activity, which gives structure to their days. In Sam's case, vehicl e for himjo bring his old mechanic persona aliveJgillrl• But in order to convince himselfwith this act of will he needs to continuously distance him- self from the apparition of the lazy scam artist. Sam and most of the other white pros are quite explicit about diffe renti- ating themselves from Jess hard-worki ng homeless people. They often dis- cuss the hopeless dependence, laziness, and irredeemable "snakishness" of other poor men, me n who are not "worke rs" in their eyes. Some times they have good reasons for suspi cion. Sniping across the timeworn fronti er between the deserving and the undeserving poor, they effortlessly slip into a repertoire of contempt instilled in more prosperous former Jives. Their contempt is racialized: poor African Americans are the most com- mon targets. However, most of the -white recyclers make a point of express- ing respect and collegiality toward the black recyclers, as long as they are fi ercely gung-ho about their work. Derick, a thirty-something Afri can American vete ran, credits Sam with getting him going as a successful rccy- HOMELESS MDI RECYCLE T ' ' HEIR PASTS 8 - wouldn' t know it, but he's ti ht ) losmg ll, but he persuaded m . g ,.·Sam. There was a time I was reall)' mone , [H ] e t ecyc 111<T could mak ) · e ... ga,·e me a bunch of oodo ti s, e me some dece nt _Sam marches the streets to e gl p . 0 scape t 1e ghost fl . _eau_p_sr. the r pro - - - o. 1tmself as an undesening understandings ofthei . 11Jut e up more positive, even I. . h r vigorous work ethic. D· ,. d , . < tea , Wit a much more counte rcultural h. I a\ I , another whne recycler how the moment-to-moment s /story t 1an Sam, talks passionately of of it all, keeps him human. ense o purpose, the rhythmi c physical effort I don' t know about other peo le but if , I'd lose hope for being able top I wasn table to recycle, I' d lose hope ' t' h 1 putone footi nfro ftl · I 's a.c enge. Takes determination. . ' nt o 1e other. A lot of times It s hke It accelerates )'Ou S d .. I m not domg so well, I push hardei· . . . . . orne ays 1 g r . . mean, I JUSt get on with my work f . et eel hke the old Dave. . . I . , no uss,JUSt hke other guys. . Whtle the physical work itself is usuall . pro recyclers can become a II . ' y solitary, the cultural work of the talk about their workJive• ;., project. Many of the men naturally . ........... ....... nls o we " .al - l - - of recy·clt.J1g . , . , espeu y when appealing to the 'J: k' VIS-a-VIS Other · a mg time out under the freewa one d occupauons. of the homeless. cussed the superior morality of th y I. ay, Bill, and Javie r elis- e recyc mg hfe: Anthony: We' l·ejust trying to be dece dealel-, because I do happen to h nt, you know. I mean I could be a drug ave a connect' [L we want to choose the other road not - . ' IOn. aughter. ] But recycJe,-s something. Just cleaning up the hpbt eylm onto people's kids Ol" stealing o; 1g or10od. ]avil'r: But people disses us anyway. o res ect ' Bill: ot evervone d. p . ou re a bum, you' re scum. b ' tsses us. OK, those ig -- ut at least we know and peo I . I not ant mothcr-fuckers don' t see it o t I ' p e wiL 1 eyes know h ' ' u lere, the recyclers. The best w . ow we re doing a good j ob I"Ough. Well , most of us anyway. e can seemg as things are t11is fucking Anthony- Exceptj · . . , avler. [He shoves Javier affectionately.] Bdl: You tore inLO t11ose ba l'k . . d I gs I e a pack of co t own I 1e profession. . . . yo es, man. Definitely letting J avier: 1 e\'er kne I [G w was a professional Well 1 d eneral amusement.] · w 1 a claya know. I finall y made it! SERGEA TT TO SCAVE . GER: CLARE CE As he tells tt, Clarence was a mama' b . a tract in South Central Ratsed "strict" i.n a Baptist family in most ofhJs free time playing sports ; he was rarely m trouble and spent . ut e was not altogether a happy child. 86 T ERESA GOWAt': His fear of his father, a man who combined substantial drinking with hellfire sermonizing and righteous whippings, led him to escape the neighborhood as soon as he could. LeaY1ng his family for good, he j oined the army right out of high school and did pretty well. ot seeing himself as the macho type, he gravitated towa rd "wheelin' and dealin"' from his post as a supplies cle rk. ln his eigh t years stationed in Germany he built up se\'eral links to the local underground economy. '' 1 be nt the rules some, but didn't do no har m- everyone does it," he says. This made him plenty of friends, both on base and off. Clarence really liked Gennany and misses his German fri ends intensely. From wher e he is now, his years in Germany appear both impossibly far and close to his heart. The details of his life over there, his daily routines, the names of acquaintances, of local bars, shops, and parks, all are extraordi- narily fresh in his mind. Like many African Americans, he experienced living in western Europe as a release from the type of racism he had grown up with in Los Angeles. "You never know what 's your good time till it's all over. That was my good time, I guess." He some times dreams of getting together the air- fare, but he knows it would be real diffe re n t without the army. Clarence is now 4 2 and a h omeless recycler. He was discharged from the Presidio army base in the late eighties, after failing a second random drug test. In shock, he unsuccessfully floundered for subsistence and housing. All he knew was the army and its ways a nd means, and he had long lost touch with his fa mily. He considered u-yin g to find his mother. Maybe his fathe r was dead, or pe rhaps they had se parated. In the end, Clarence was so ashamed of his cocaine habit he could not face his mother anyhow. "I mean , I was the good son, you know, not the crackhead. Funny thing is, 1 still am, after all ." lot knowing other poor people, it took him six mo nths to find the soup kitchens and to get on Ge neral Assistance. During this time he Ji ved only a few minutes \Valk from his former base, camping on Baker beach and eating out of garbage cans. "1 was too depressed to get my shit together, too ashamed to ask for help. But one good thing, I got clean of cocaine, seeing as 1 had no cash . Didn' t last though . .. . Drugs mess you up, but o nce you' r e down , it's all you've got ." Most of the day Claren ce pushes two large carts aro und the city, follow- ing a recycling routine that he calls his "patrol." Several restauran ts save him bottles and boxes. Apart from the obvious be nefits of stabilizing income, such connections a re importan t points of pride, ways to convince himself and othe rs that people who ar e not h omeless rely on h.i_s services and trust him to keep to a routine. His manner is polite but preoccupie , '-_A. - "'-"""' , --....--..., contac . He often has a puzzled, distracted look, as if be cannot remembe r where he put somethin g. Clarence has made quite a success out of recycling, winning the respect of both suppli ers and peers for the size and quality of his loads. He consid- ers his work socially useful and insists that others reali ze this: HO:v! ELESS :-.1 EN RECYCLE THEIR PASTS 87 The company, 1'\orcal, doesn't mind us tal kin ' . mission to pick up their reC\·clit Th ,' . to the publt c and aski ng per- ' lg. C) I t: WOI ktng to\ , ·d · consciousness. 1 believe tl'e)' 1 k 'a 1 an ennronmental • vatu to ma ·e sure th 1 place. V\'e' re sorting it out so it d . b k d e 1 goes to the right . oesn t rca own an [ . k ' ] . contammous toxic waste in the soil. . . . ma e potsoned To put Clare nce's interpre tation i extre mely antagonistic relati o 1sh· n l coii1text, many other recyclers haYe 1 1ps wtt 1 t 1e same comp . h are sometimes physically viole nt to ho me! any, w ose work.ers to pe rsuade the Immigration and Nat Ot.1e manager tned ano ther of th - y, • . lll a tzauon Se rnce to prosecute with some has achieved a cordial relationship . < · • e\ en wor mg for th em as a -· d occasiOns Few "street" h 1 secunty guar on a few . ome ess people can m·tke th I e nough for wage labor but Cl . < emse ves acceptable • , atence manages to k h. f. rally clean and well laundered I eep Jmsel supe rnatu- , even t 1ough he sleeps · th out on the bare sidewalk ever ' . I f th . m e same clothes ) mg 1t o e year. Clare nce has a simil ar approach to his rei· . . . bureaucracy. Welfare offici I f auonshtp wtth the welfar e . · a s o te n act as though cr t I JObs, but no legitimate Jives outsid tl . l . ten s not on y have no for the m to treat such third clas· e. t .1etr c atmant status. It is therefore easy - s CJ tzens as though they h h . ter to do than wait in line £ l ave not mg be t- . or seven 10urs or spend ks \1 . n ght fo rms for entitlement t . . . wee · co ecung the o mamtam the tr bare s b · women on GA are pubr 1 ·I u stste nce. Men and their depende nt duties, which display common rol e of resen g . . pub he. Yet gstr e nce rejects the more thinking of himself more as dutJ- Umquely among the pros Cl d . h to the city: You know, with General Assistance we' re allo in our receipts once a month I' h. wed to make money, and we mail · m on t ts program now d . h sweep the streets and we can do recv . . . c on t ave to we' re allowed 1 ·k . . ' chng. Actually, we sttll go to workfare but 0 wot part-l!lne. We're allow d , . bucks-well even more act . 11 E . e to eatn up to four hundt-cd · ua Y· veq one hundred d 11· - mmus twentv dollars frotll 0 . G 1 A . 0 at s ""e earn we arc 1 lll cnera sststance b • · zone for, well, eighty bucks. · · · · ut we re 111 the plus I mentioned to another rec 'cler W· l s:nt in his recycling receipts GA. at 1 tlous " he said "that' . . amazed. That s not consoen- ' ' SJUSt msane. " V\ 1 alter thinks h · · · sue any legitima te relati onshi with the t at . • to pur- l'iO'f"fi-eated l·J.ke otl . . p Ci ty, given that homeless people ar e 1er Ci tizens "WI k.d Clarence not parti cipare in hi . 1Y J . was his take . But has to. One afternoon De rick was any more than he office. Clarence said "OK . b mp ammg o hts treaunen t in the GA • ' may e. But you can ' t · · d respectful and t ha t's what . . , D _. give .attttu e, brothe r. Act you get. en ck shook his head, incredul ous. 88 TERESA GOWAN . · ause for thought, )" Aftet· his characten suc p "Respect! Righ t! You crazy man . Clarence answered, "Not really. o t yet. f ll of homeless veterans. . . . 1 The streets a re u . . . Clare nce's stot-y ts not . . f the postwar years, the mthtary pt_o- As ilie biggest public works o d women, with j ob secunty . b c . 0 ·kmg-class men an L . "dec\ millions ofJ O s 101 w 1 Af · n American and a uno VI • 1 ns For many n ca · . a nd decent be nefi ts fot \ ete ra . . "ddle-class America. But warfat e l d ddoormto mt . d h me n, it opened a muc eh _ h-t ch highly mecha nized affatr, an _t is being transformed mto_ a eraciually shed, removing the m?st t ell- mass-empl oyment model '.s ?emg for the young me n of low-mcome abl e employment and trammg op communiti es. . . . the rest of tl1e American economy toward The changes mtrror the shtft m . b I' alysts on the one hand d f ll patd sym o JC an a dua e a no my -. rvice and assembly_ worke rs on the an mass o technicians land well-paid and sta- other A core of eli te miiJtat-y offi ce I" . d n e n and women clean fl oors · h "l ·1r ons of en tste ' k ble employment, w mt I . e level Basic military pay is $ t gg per wee a nd stand guard at mmtmum-wag . 1 "Article 15" punishments . ders freque nt y use .. before taxes, and unit comman c. • "tt1fractions. One in iliree recrUits lei ' . ' pay 10r mmor · 1 - to furthe r dock ilie so Jet.s . . he r fi rst term of e nlistment. ' . drops out before compl etmg OI . • . b tantial area of deindustriahza- . f the milttarv IS a su s . h d Th e resu·uctunng o ' C ld War mihtarv as use · es the post- o ' tion. Like the Fortune 500 redundancies. Started by the avy d testing to spread to other ran 0 " B I the m 9 ' a neavy t egi h ·u of"surprise and deterrence. ) ·1· unde r t e t1 e ·11 I d · g branches of the mt na ry, 1 . . g to have reduced t ega Ill . I p t on was c atmm I d" e nd of the eighttes t l e en ag d l"ke him dishonorab y ts- th. ds leaving Clarence a n many t use by two- tr ' chargec\. ' 8 . . . es as an unskilled for ty-someiliing :Uncan Making the best ofhts bleak chanc h ·tel usuall)l acting as tf sleep- b - e face to t e wot ' · American, Clarence turns a ' av d f' . hundred po unds of bottl es ts d h "ng aroun ou1 · 1 ing on the sidewalk an I f . l that othe rs will see htm as t l e J·ust fine wiili him. He tn es to have att 1 u· n es he gives signs of what . h is Yet some J upright, harcl-workmg l_nan e ." d Once I asked him why he slept out might lie unde rneath thts upbeat faca e. tl e r than finding a hiding place b ·c1 garment fact O!)' ra 1 " h , 0 o n the sidewalk est e a . I 'd , he answered . T ere s n "I ' got nothmg to 1t e, . "B like most of the others. ve I on him I asked htm, ut d keep some cas 1 ' 1-f need. " As Clarence ten s to h "'" H hook his head and paused . c d D ur cas - e s C o uldn' t you getjumpe or yo . . ' t be givin' them a reason , any . h" "Look you can d screwed up his eyes, stg mg. . . ' ickl l vVhat he meant, I later un cr- reason. " He changed the subJeCt I \ h er "decent" folk, let alone t he d ' "as that he didn' t want to gne o stoo , ·• HO.\IELESS RECYCLE THEIR PASTS 89 police, any reason to classif)' hi m as a furtive crimi nal. He is no smalltime dealer with a stash of rocks, no petty thi ef concealing his spoils, only a n hon- est worker of the unde nvorld, with nothi ng to hide but his pain. Clare nce is no t the deluded fool that Walte r thinks he is. He knows that his status as a homeless black crack-user is the archetype of the violent crim- inal in mainstream popular culture. His response to this dilemma is to cre- ate a transpar ent, strenuo usly legitimate life, which leaves no room for _ s1!§.g!_cion,__. In his struggle for respectabili ty Cla rence does his best to have the same kinds of rela tionships with his supplie rs, wi th t he church, even with gov- ernment that he would choose to have if he were not ho meless. This is an incredibly diffic ul t task. For exampl e, Clarence tried at one point to j oin a church congregati on, attending services for seve1-a1 weeks running. This attempt to j oin a community of ho used people on equal terms went into a spi n whe n t1vo companio ns from the street insisted on j oini ng him. They sle pt through most of the service, the n ran off with the collection mo ney. "That was just so depressing," he said. "I knew they were up to some thing, but I couldn' t be sure, you know.':_ Not only does Cla rence act as if he is not _j!!Homatically stigmatized as a homeless man, but he also giv(',.S his compan- benefit of the doubt he requests for himself. In his own woi·ds, "Yo u know, whe n you lose trust that 's it. You' re gone." Clarence's attempts to be "normal" mark his refusal to pa rticipate in the stigmatizing process by prete nding he does not see it. Tt-ying hard no t to "def:Oilllt" on his "schedule," he converts what most people consider a highly informal hand-to-mou th subsistence practice into a legal, transpare nt rou- tine. infom1alizjng the milita1-y, he has moved to formalizing the infor- !!Jal economy. Clare nce's proj ect of transpar ency and connecti on is quite different from Sam's compulsion to throw himself passionately into his physical la bor. Without r educing eith er man to racial ster eotypes, it seems clear iliat for ..... not to by back-breaking labor, Such donkey work is all-too-connected with the legacy of slavery to be a source of self-es teem. J ames, a nother African American pro, is equally dis- paraging of "pure" comme nting: "My old man slaved himself to an early death laying tarmac. He wan ted some thing better for me." Most of the African American recyclers underplay the physical effort involved, although many of them work very hard indeed. For them, ilie pure effort and bodily strength they put into recycling is no t the primat-y hon or in ilie work, not ili e part that they say makes them feel more human. They are more con- cerned to see themselves as skilled and able to make and maintain relationships with 'tlleir antithesis, draws on ilie longtime no ti on oftll e white Republi can worker, for whom vigorous, taciturn work habits form the corne1·stone of individual freedom and oppor- 92 TERESA GOWAN . . otTense several years before. Now he was the law being a I . t Once inside he suffe red the . f T' lea,1 ng them c esutu e. ' . ripped from hi s ami ), . first-time prisoners. He did not . huini' II'atio n and despair common to pamc, ' knmv how to fight: , I · , •orld there s a . f lk a nd then, well , I le musiC ' , . See, 1 grew up wnh women o d 't -ant to know the shil I went thmugh m bunch of me llow dudes. · · ·You on " f . 1 got myself thmugh by 1 1 1 n't the worst o tl. · · · there. Losing my 1, l w wash TV ... . Sta •ing out of certain people's reading and watchmg too muc ' I that 's a full-time occupation. u-ying not to rattle this or that psychos c lam, < bl k While the mili- 'f - a working-class ac man. It is easy to be a felon I you ai e ' I -col- unskilled working-class k · le as mass emp oye1 1' tary has cut bac on Its ro . . d t ' has taken up many of them. In I · ' ng pnson In us I) . men and women, t 1e nsi . I -· I d ince Jg8o while nauonally . h b - fpnsoners 1as t11p e s ' . Califorma t e num et 0 . . h _locked up or under supen'l- f th bl ck populauo n was eit ei ., 7·9 percent o e a ' th 1 ercent of the white . sion by Iggo, WI ·/ 1 of the military, the vast expansiOn of Taken together with the downsiZJI g d f I Cold War is emblematic of . . d . ce the en o L 1e the 111 of American governme nt. The gradual era- certain changes 111 the pnonues f tem of penal colonies has T , . d growth 0 a mass sys sion of the mass mi Ita!J an k' I . black Inen African Americans . · ' fi t for wor mg-c ass · been particularly sigm can . d . th lower ranks of the armed . - · tely represente m e . have been dispropOI uona d I . , at the same time been dispro- . h s d World War, an la\ e forces smce t e econ . . . . h . 'I'IaJl economy. They now . d . d u· ahzauon m l e CIVI ' . portionately hn by em us I . . victed of crack cocaine deahng, account tor over go percent of e Ameri can cities.22 and the majority of homeless m.en m . < g re the e ngine of the in car- . d t ·afficking COn\IJCUOnS a Drug possesswn an 1 th Af-· n Americans doing time , 86 to I 99 I e lJCa ceration boom. In the years . d b 465 5 percent.23 This law · t , pnsons 111crease Y . · for drug offenses m sta e d . . tl black and Latino crack h· · on the pre omman Y e nforcement emp asis d l t Until I g82 he roin was the . 1 · 1' -ecent eve opmen · cocaine trade ts a re attve ) I A (DEA) and local police . . f D - Enforcement gency . . pnmary target o Jug . h mass consumption o£ powdei . · · A- nd that t1me l e . 1 anudrug acuvny. 1 ou . . th 'ddle and upper-tmdd e d nanly among e mi cocaine mushroom: , pru these secto rs was quite hier archi ca!, and classes. The economic structure of I . f . k cocaine taking off m the . bl Tl popu an ty o cr<tc , therefor e relauvely sta e. le f th dJ·ug trade Anyone with cook- . . . "0 d" the structure o e · . . mtd-eighues, atte ne . d ld convert powder cocame mto ing equipme nt and bakm?. powTel r cou ·ng turf-wars became more and . . h peuuon 1e e nsut . rocks and JOlll t e com . · 1 . 1 . on this new more hon zon- . .fy. · easmg po ICe ocus ' mor e viole nt, jUStl mg mer k . d has consolidated the crack- 1 t as the crac · tJ a e ' tal seems t 1a d I' d The decline may, however, be too late related homt cide rate has ec me . HOMELESS ;vrEN RECYCLE THEIR PASTS 93 to change public opinion. Media pe rceptions of the problem were manip- ulated by the Reagan administration and the DEA, until most journalists, and therefore most Amel-icans, accepted as common sense the idea that street crack dealer s were the primary agents of the decline of the quality of life in the inner cities. 2 · 1 Desmond's experience would suggest a more complex relationship between devastated inne r city neighborhoods and the crack trade. For him dealing was a last resort rather than a longtime proj ect. He says that he cer- tainly had no ambition to rise in the business, only hoping to find something else and get out. That is why he was halfheartedly working a street corner at the age of forty. "It 's ironical how, well, I wasn't really suited to dealing. Not at all. For a start, I'm too softhearted. Some poor fiend come beg me for credit I found it hard to resist. Especially women. I' m a family man. " The mandatory sentencing required by the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act slammed down on Desmond and his companions in the vast pool of"clock- e rs" (street dealers), most ofthem African American and Latino me n. Drug arrests and convicti ons soared . Squeezed into dealing for subsistence by tight labor markets, long-te rm poverty, racial segregation, and incremental welfare destruction, thousands of nonviolent poor men and women were pulled into the j aws of the expanding penal-industrial complex. When she realized how long Desmond's sentence was, Shirley took the girls back to Trinidad, promising to come back when he was released. According to Desmond, his wife's mother, an evangelical Christian, was horrified by his offense, and put pressure on Shirley to divorce him during his fourth year in prison. He has never seen any of them since. On release, Desmond was parol ed to San Francisco, where he hoped to make a fresh stan in a place whe re no one knew him as a deale r. He did not contact his sister, hoping to surprise her with good news later on . "Donna was good to Shirley, but shamed of my fooling. I never could get her to visi t me in the joint," he said. Good news never reached Donna. Desmond's spiri ts were not high leav- ing prison, and he easily sank in the Te nderloin distri ct's sea of indigent ex- cons. Work seemed harder than ever to find, as he had no fri e nds among the working population. It was at this point, stayi ng in a welfare ho tel with a prison acquaintance, that Desmond developed a crack habit for the first time. "I knew what I was getting into. r was thinking, OK, things can ' t get any worse. May as well get high before I die." With no one to turn to, crack qui ckly exha usted his minimal income and he could no longer afford his share of the room. Recycling, he says, is the best street life offers. "Less of the bullshit, maybe a fraction more of the respect. " Keeping his cart in the mouth of one of three all eyways, Desmond can sit out on one of the main drags, retrieving containers as soon as people discard them. Every fifteen minutes or so, he 9-1 TERESA GOWAN makes a sma ll collection with a plastic bucke t from the nearby public trash- cans and sorts it into his cart. The rest of the time he sits on doorsteps, read- ing the paper or talking. A few wo rkers from the Italian restaurants will bring him bottl es, all stopping to discuss the weather or the news. He has great "people skills," a low-key charm and an ability to connect with a great vad e!:)' of people. "Yeah, I' ve always been sociable," he explained. ''1 used to wo rk the audience real good. It was a pity I wasn' t a great singer." Most days Desmond sets offwi.th his heavy load in the early evening, toward a recycling company three miles across town. This is one of the few places where he can sell his wine bottles. vVith the money he can usually afford two hamburgers, a five dollar hit of crack, and some bourbon to get him through the night. Compared to many homeless men , Desmond's crack habit is quite well con- trolled. He gets the crack and bourbon in the Te nderloin on his way back to North Beach. Desmond's fri end Julio, a Salvadora n bus boy at one of the upscale Italian restaurants, arrives every coupl e of days with a load of empty wine bottles and a spliff of marijuana to share in the alley. Sometimes he brings leftovers. When they first became fri ends, Julio was convinced he could eventually get Desmond a j ob as a dishwash er. "Have to keep trying, amigo. You' ll do good, 1 know." Desmond wo uld play along, "Maybe, we' ll see," but told me privately that Julio \vas a great guy but he did not understand America yet. Not black America anyway. I' m not saying it's im.possible for blacks to get ahead, because l sec plenty of them every day up here. £\·en those traveling college kids the sucker bags [back packs], some of those arc black kids for us it's always been one strike you' re out. Me, I' m out, literally. [Desmond laughs.] A couple of months afte r this conversation, julio got Desmond an inte r- view with his manager. Desmo nd was ambivalent about going, but eventually came to my place to spruce up, saying he did not want to hurt .Julio's feel- ings. By the time he had to leave, he seemed optimistic, cracking j okes about those free meals he would serve us whe n he was promoted to waiter. Apparently the manager spe nt only about one minute talking to Desmond and said he thought h e already had someone for the j ob. Julio and Desmond came away with different sto ries . .Julio seemed fr ustrated that Desmond acted too une nthusiasti c, telling him, "You got to look like you want tlwt j ob." Desmond was softly unyielding: Look, hombre, 1 knew he wasn' t interested. He took one look at my face and knew I was on hard times. 1 doubt they ever hire blacks in those j oints any more, even if I wasn' t a bum and a felon .... But my mouth doesn' t help. 1f I was really serious about employment, I need to get me Medicaid and see about some dentures. MEJ\i RECYCLE THEIR PASTS 95 Like all the , 1 I reC)c ers, Desmond feels that the . c 1anged , not just his own circumstances: nature of "society" has I'm sm-e of it p 1 • , cope m general, across the b . ·d themsekes. Proud to be selfi I y. h . oat , now they more out fr>r d I s 1· ou ear tt all over rk "I' . . an a I that bullshit 1' II 1 . ' 1 e 111 gemng me mine" . · · · · m a or self-help vou k b unity, people. ' now, ut, hell, we need some Another ex-con ·e 1 . . I eye er, a white man called George f, I h way. , ee s muc the same I went to prison in 'S t Wh I . · en got out m ·ss I r. d changes in pri son, but when }'Ott con , oun the change. ot hing 1 1e out you kno· · · a ways changing. Vll1en I came om If, d,. w, mto soo ety, things are who didn' t gi\'e a c tt-e ab h.' oun so many "snakish .. people people ' out not mg. ' I asked Ceo ·f h rge I t c change was no t mor h poorer people, unempl oyed or ho I . eAf t at now he was associating with · · . me ess ter all h · positi on m those days a. d I. : , e was m a very diffe rent . ' s a e tverv dnvet· . h fnend. 1 wtt an apartment and a girl It's true, no one gives a homeless u ' the b . you wouldn' t let a guy go ho I g } enefit of the doubt. But back then d) I . , me ess. ot unless he wa . u· I f . d . age · t dtdn t seem so much of . . bl s u Y ne [drug dam- wouldn' t get stuck. . . . a pr o em. There was work, you know, so you Desmond also complains of the difficul . street, given the mutual fear and h T ty of creating communi!:)' on the talks of street life as a )'Oung ,ostt tty[ among too many street people. He . . man s wor d requi · h ent mvmcibility of brutal youth: , nng t e energy a nd appar- Oh, 1 dunno. Sometimes I think I'm ·ust too and now, now I su '"can' t de I . I .hJ . old now. I never was real hard I a Wlt 1 t e kmd of bt II I . t . , mean, 1 sound like an old time " h' • s 1t gomg down out here I - r: l mgs ·tin' t ho tl · crest t 1e wave so I got sand . h ' w 1ey used to be." Can' t ' m l e mouth. Shit Later that night Desmond ran over a va .· . do successfully. "I don't ask f, • h . ' u ety of j o bs he thought he could h d . ot muc n ght now , h e .d I . . . ea agamst an alley wall 'J . . ' sat , eanmg hts fore- . ust gtve me a minim . appearance of basic respect and I'll b h . um-wage JOb and the e t at old-tuner. " I NTO THE DUSTBI N OF HISTORY:> Despite their differences Sam Cl· . . P · . • , at e nce and De· d h ast m whtch they earned d , smon s are a common f 11 . ecent money and we r .. u y. As a mustcian Desmot d . e gene t ally treated respect- S ' 1 was never m tl I'd fi . am and Clarence in the ir g d d 1e so I m anClal position of never doubted that a sol'd b ays, but he moved in similar circles and ' t JO would be his f or the ask· D mg. esmond 96 T ERESA GOWAN remarked that ''In the old days, you know, it felt like some thing to be American, even for us" [bl ack Americans] . "I used to know a coupl e of dudes from India . . . . We' d talk abo ut how you' d never get that kind of exu·eme shit over he re. Not since slavery. But now . . . . " Desmond pointed to a wheelchair-bound h omeless man trying unsuccessfully to relieve himself discreetly. "Now we've got that." Clarence, Sam, and Desmond may not have consider ed themselves for- tunate at the time , but in re trospect their old days are bathed in a golde n glow. They experience the nev,r order as a set of forces against them, which they cannot harness to their advantage. However, the reason the recyclers see deindustri aliza.tion, military downsizing, and the War on Drugs as antag- -oYfistic forces is not they are inhe rently external, but these p art of a social order in which they have no part. Flexible nineties a oes ...haQl.(;S Qr "-era of eynesianism and the Pax Ame ri cana was equally "big,"'l)ul"there they felt part of the bigness. Indeed, as soldi ers, unionized worke rs, and consumers of goods subsidized by American market control, they were part of it. Even Desmond made his living cate1ing to a prosperous black working- classallih ence, now either scattere d outside the historical black communi- ____._ .. __. - . ties or suffering in their decay. The swinging club strips fed by the postwar black prosperity have diminished o r disappeared. This new order int roduced by the Reagan administration, like its Keynesian predecessor, is no t only global but profo undly local. It presents itself to individuals in the form of both oven ¥helming constraints and novel opportunities. He re in San Francisco the winners and losers are painfully thrust together. The disproportionately black and Latino working class, the elderly, and the poor of the city a re progressively displaced into Oakland and smaller de pressed suburbs by all the young people from suburban backgrounds pouring in to take ad vantage of the fl exibility, good pay, inter- esting work, and pseudo-Bohemia n lifestyles offered by the computer indus- try in the Silicon Valley a nd San Fra ncisco's Mul timedia Gulch. San Fran- cisco has lost over half of its African American population since 1970. As for the homeless, the software takeoff has nothing to offer them beyond a glut of mine ral-water empties. Emaciated panha ndle rs with hunted eyes creep into t he less well lit restaurants and bars, trying to hustle a buck befo re expul sio n. The pros feel left behind-Sam explicitly calls himself a "relic." But in their homeless state, the pros are in their own way integral mani festations of resurgent conservatism in the United States. Mass homel essness is the most visible and, to many, th e most disturbing result of the end of the Keynesia n tax-and-spend model. The recycl ers are therefore not exactly typical but are emblematic in their fall from working-class respectability into indigen t marginality. HO MELESS MEN RECYCLE T HEIR PASTS 97 are also embl ema tic in tha . "welfare mOiFie · ".gh etto ch ell . 1 1 t the poor- most specifically I --- - - v ers, t 1e 10meless or d . d . t 1e most common targets of th . ' estttute a diets- are the last e compulsion adapt that is the Zeitgeist of Gingrich, coordinator of the Re bl' . " Amenca," said that "we siinpl)' b pu Jean 1 996. Cont ract with must a andon the If: . an opportuni ty socie ty "25 M D we a1 estate and move to · ost emocra ts co1 · · · gm·ernment support from th d' d 1C.Lll , mto nmg tha t removing I . e 1sa van taged 1s the t . 1 . c 10ice, the only wa)' to save thein f' . l . I u y compassiOnate rom ISO auon and de d · ond presidential debate of th e I 6 . gra auon. In the sec- 99 campaign, Bill Clinton claimed: I stan ed working on welfare reform b . . trapped in a system that was inaeasin use ' ·was stck of seeing people their kids more vulnerable to . p }stcally tsolaung them a nd ma king gettmg 111 trouble. 2G Both parties would have us believe that th . is good honest work }'e t the d' . solutwn to endemic pover ty ' con ltlons of av·· 1 bl · b c ers a re unlikely to pull a pe I I aJ a e JO s w r unskilled work- < rson, e t a o ne a fam·l f workers are not covei·ed b c d l l y, out o pover ty. Wor kfar e y •e era wage legis! ti I d terms of the Pe rsonal Respo 'b' l· A a on. n eed, under the . ns• t ny ct they d h· . thmg over their basic welfare be nefit I l Tl o not ave to be pmd any- 1 of woi·kfare workers and worker . e.ve. 1e entry of both high numbe rs wages considerabl)' in low-wage l sbpl :V1ouksly on welfa re is likely to de press I a OJ mar ets whe · k 1 g e to pay for ho using medical t . ' I e wor e rs a ready strug- p . ' < Ieatme nt,and childcare 27 .ro.tectmg the wages a nd workin conditi . . . . . realistic approach in a glo b- l' d gl I of Cltlzens IS no lo nger a a Ize wor c eXJJlam R b R . left secretary of labor during c J· '' s o e n eich, the cente r- m to n s first term c ment should resign itself to the reali h . . . on temporary govern- set th e basic terms of the wo ·k . ty t at muluna uonal corporations can • environme nt Go trate on leading the popul at· . .h . . vernment sho uld concen- . Ion mto t e most favor· bl . h . natt onal economy. In thet·l. t . 1 A . a e mc es m the inter- lll n, t 1e men can bl' 1 ld o n skill acquisition so tha t a f I pu IC s 10u concentrate . s many o t1em as ' bl bohc analysts the only wot·k .. h possi e can become sym- , e1 s w o can expe t d c ecent pay and working Even before they became home less the r . . . aged, re latively uned ucated men like rh . e was chance of middle- growth. Too young for retiremen t, too mto aJ:eas of j ob of the recyclers have neither th d . a. •cal.ly new direcuons, most capacity for "emotion work" e e for high tech j obs nor the . . necessary tOr most · · · b 29 lite histories tend to prodt h sei V1ce JO s. · These kinds of . tee men w o a re both f, . . pen enced at using their " . l' " . uncom Ol table and mex- pei sona tty for direct e . . even minimum-wage employe l' k l . . conomJc gam. Besides, . rs are I e y to dismiss such . b l' potentially overly assertive and unlike! . JO app lcants as they might well be right. Afte r all l _learn new work practi ces. And - ' w 1at e I ecycl e rs took for granted abo ut 1 oo TERESA COW At\ her positi on in society. If Clarence h ad had a close, loving family to re turn to, technical or educational qualifications, or even just fri ends with civilian employme nt know-how, it is unlike ly that his discharge from the military would have left him so fundamentally alone. Drug and alcohol use and abuse, after all , are endemic to society, both in urban and rural areas. Yet most people with addictions continue to function in their work lives. Cocaine, in particular, is favored by workers in high-stress jobs-high-end restaurant workers and lawyers, as well as the overtime hounds of the working class. One of the other recyclers developed his habit while working as a house painter. "The money was no good, so they paid us a bonus in cocaine. I'd never clone it before. It used to be expensive. But on that painting crew there was a fair amount of peer pressure. You know, if you ' re not one of the boys, you won't get called next time. Some j obs it's beer, some jobs it's coke, or crack. You work better on coke, of course." The connection among drug use, hare\ labor, and impoverished men goes way back. Like the Bolivian miners chewing their coca leaves, the tramps and hoboes who built America usee\ alcohol heavily to numb their regrets and and reward their back-breaking labor. els Anderson tells how the "hoboes" senrec\ an intermediate role in developing the West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They arrived too late for the great land grabs, but served a vital "in-between" role as cheap, fl exible labor power for the extractive industries that fueled the American juggernaut. The hobo labor market centered on the railway hub of Chicago; half a mil- lion transients passed through that city every year. Too poor to marry, too proud to do se rvice jobs, the hard-drinking, rebelli ous hoboes became a class of their own, often ending up dependent on the urban missions when economi c slumps, old age, or industrial injury cut them c\own. 35 It was not their hard drinking that destroyed the hobo class. Just as the steel mills, auto plants, and other heavy industries of the postwar period closed their doors on the industrial worker of the 1970s and 8os, the indus- trial frontier gradually lost its use for the hobo. Mechanization, corporate consolidation, and family settlement of the West lowered the demand for large numbers of migrant workers to build railroads, work temporary min- ing camps, harvest ice, and move crops. In this later phase, in the 1920s and 30s, the underemployed hobo became a burden on the cities, as more and more former transients turned into "home guards" -low-paid petty work- ers, panhandlers, and con artists. Like the homeless in the t g8os, the "transients" of the 1920s became a much-discussed social problem. Charitable municipal communities were instituted, and the hobo became an early subject of the new discipline of psychopathology. Specialists generally presented the problem in individual terms. Even though it was the demand of the fronti e r for a tough, Hexiblc, bachelor workforce that hac\ created skid row, its culture, and characteristic HOMELESS RECYCLE THETR PASTS I OI institutions, the psychopathol . e2·oblem" pu,:eiY!n terms of th ogtsts and. social workers assessed the "hobo immature '·wanclerlust " " e defects of the homeless matl ht·s · , egocentnc ty '"' · ' all, his drinking. ' ' emouonal instability," a nd, aboYe Anderson, who was a former h obo and th . . tended to a more hol istic analysis: e child of a transient worker, All problems of the homeless man o back . condHtons of his wo 1 ·k Th ·. 1 . g 111 one " ·ay or another to tl 1 e . · e ureguanrvof l ·- . Irregularity of allj) lnses of I . . ., l ts employmentts reflected in the • < 11s cxtstence To d . 1 ,- h 1 . ual, soctctY must deal also' "tl I . ea ''It ltm even as an individ- . ' "' 1 t 1e economi . bchai10r, with the seasonal a nd I" · I fl c which hare formed his that the problem of the hom I eye tea_ uctuauons in industry. This means e ess man ts not local but nationaJ. 36 " For Anderson, the primary solution to th I decasualizati on of labor" t b . e lobo problem would be the · ' o e acht eved b · · · system with the "ob of y a well-funded oes, prm'ldmg publi c works co . . Jd regulatmg employment agen- 1 · 1 ' I peno s of bts. c1 · atmg unemployment insurance . ' I •_mess epresswn, and regu- An d indeed th · · 1 111 'u nerable mdustriesY . •s IS w l at came to be in th N . depressiOn pulled so many of the o ul . e _ew era. First, the great tural inte rpretation of vagra P at.Jon mto sk•d row that the struc- R ncy gamed un · c1 oosevelt administration set up th \ AT ks p pr ece en ted strength. The C .. 1. e ·vor rogres Ad . . . tVI •an ConserYation C k s mm•strat.Jon and the . orps wor progran d I enutlements rescued the elde I f k. l S, an t l e new Social Security b . r Y rom s 1d row In th , . · oom, the skid rows of Am . I . e v.a• ume and postwar . enca s 1ranktoaf· · f. radtcal tramps of the IW"' d. 1 1 ac uon o the1r old glory the n 1ec out, and th · .· . ' class found the means c 0 r . . e of the white working '' marnage and bT · commo nwealth. sta ' tty m the new tax-and-spend Now the shape of the society has chan eel a . so very different from the I . g gam, and the Iggos are not 1 920S. t IS an age of 1 , d · are new fortunes to be made b h 1) pe an and ther e . h ' ut at t e same time I . et s ave been displaced an I . . ai ge numbe rs of work- ' c at e roammg th . c the labor surplus is less about th I . . e country lOr work. This time, mechanization of farnling d e c osmg of the second frontier and the f . ' an more about gl b r · o heavy mdustry and union I b As o . a •zauon and the collapse ascendancy and imprisonment hithen, free-market. politics are in thousands of si ngle indigent ' d gh. And, once agam, hundreds of th . nen an women cro d h k" e maJor cities, panhandling, workin b th w . t e s ·•d row areas of and operating various minor sea . . e day, sellmg papers, selling sex, of them are black or they younger, and more Like Ande rson 's hoboes t d ' .h poorest of them are homeless. h c1 1 ' 0 ay s omeless me h ar -c rugging crew with d . . n are a ard-drink.ing . ' a •sproportwnat b . ' convicts, orphans, and other misfits 3R Ifth' ehnum er of free-thinkers, ex- . ey ave enough money they may 1 02 T£RESAG0\\'AN stay in one of the fe\V remaining single-occupancy hotels. The cage hotels and flophouses that enabled their forerunners to sleep inside for a minimal fee have disappeared. ow they can either sleep in shelters similar to the old missions or lie outside in the streets or under bridges, in doorways, or over steam vents. Like the mission stiffs of the twenties, a disproportionate number of the homeless and near-homeless are sick or disabled. Around 30 percent are said to show signs of serious mental illness. 39 A significant mod- ern development is that illness has become much more lucrative than it was in the past. O\V, a crippling hit-and-run injury or the diagnosis of a life- threatening illness is surprisingly often assessed as "worth it" by a man exhausted from years on the street. Now he will qualify for disability pay- ments and can fmally move inside, into his own place. Disability becomes a solution as well as a cause of homelessness for some individuals. Today, however, the problem of homelessness is even more international than it was in the Great Depression. ln all the richest countries of the world, large numbers of men of working age are sleeping rough. In J apan , [or example, homelessness has become a major issue since the recent economic crisis. In urban underpasses armies of men sleep in cardboard boxes, their shoes neatly positioned beside them. France, Russia, Britain, ltaly-all the European countries have their own manifestations of the problem. Like the psychopathologists of the twenties, most policy experts on the subj ect of homelessness and indeed poverty in general , agree that the growth of homelessness in the eighties and nineties has little to do with labor or housing markets but is generated by diseases of the mind, dysfunc- tional families, and demon drugs. Like the reformers of the past, some favor outreach and treatment, othe rs prohibition and imprisonment. The radical homelessness advocates see the homeless as canaries in the mine, the vulnerable or unlucky few who are the first to succumb to the dan- gerous gases around all of us. And many poor and working-class people agree that they are ''one paycheck away from homelessness." Lillian Rubin says that "Nothing [better] exemplifies the change in the twenty years since I last studied working-class families than the fear of being "on the street." 40 Yet at tl1e same time, policy experts, politicians, and other opinion lead- ers continue to medi calize homelessness, telling us that the canaries are suf- fering from a specific disease of their own. All we can do is h elp the best of them back into the mine, wh ere work shall set them free. With such lordly discourses we render natural and inevitable the grand social upheavals of our times: the sweeping destruction of blue-collar living standards, the mass .._ incarceration of black men, and the wholesale abandonment of the poor. NOTES In the academic field 1 received wonderful encouragement and guidance frotn Leslie Salzinger and Amy Schalet. Back home, my band-Andrew, j osh, Gina, and HOMELESS \<lEN RECYCI E TH.EI ' · - R PASTS James- and my chosen family- Tricia I o 3 to feet on the ground and m Kev, and Mark-all did their best my hfe. Yly biggest thank- •ou oes) t full of music dudng a difficult e riod t esearch, especially Sam, all the recyclers who helped me h. chapter to those who didn't k ,_an e_smond, a ll fictitious names I ded · t ts ma e It. Rest 111 peace b . h · Icate the , JOt ers t. Delails, Janmul ' 1997 , p. 53 _ · . 2. Both Details' fl exible man !me Yisio 1 D ·1 · and the street hustler d 1 . . rear t' / s, elat s because such levels of disaffir . mo e are pnmarily mascu- IS tc or most women, the hustler model I a lion are neither appealing no r dtfferently positioned vis-a-vis law, benebfi ecaus_c poor women with children have gt to money a nd shelter beca t and the state. The. have do;r"" n olooee, wh;le unemploy of <hen- .colo. " mo<hen; • nd ,.;,,jm, of an are oYerwh elmingly caught u . e n:en_ recetve little to no financial su ;xploce• <he dHhen,;,.;on •nd • ju,.ke 'Y''"". One • ::;e Unequal Homeless: Men on the Streets W. o the poor by gende r is J oanne Passaro's DC a.re likely to transform the m Place. The new time limi ts on women s tmprison 1 e re nuals Already sh 1 •• will be refl ected in that th e decline rates of 3 D · d A cnmmal activi ty. I women · a vi · Snow et al "The H on th e Streets " p 6 ., omeless as Bricoleurs: Ma terial s . · 1 S . ' · · ut \1Va trateg 1 es 4· Sabt·a Chartrand "U · World.'' ' n tons Try to Secure a Place m the Changing Work 5· Street , 997 , p. 6_ 6. See Mtke Davis Cit ' .rQ ...., 1 ' ) oJ uartz, chapter 4 ("F 7· La madge Wright Out .rp•- .oru-css LA") pp. 22 t-6 scap d . ' 0 J wu: Homeless Mob r . ' 4· es; an Ench Brosch "No PI L"k 1tzatwns, Subcities and Contested L d 8 I • ace t ·e Hom " H , an - . n April 1996 a judge marked tl1 e, April1998, pp. 58- uodoc <he new •rlm; n;, ,. . .,;on of • of<he • cnauons and wa rran ts, most of tll . by dtsmissing nead o Brown was elected theM t . . Issued for dnnkmg in public H y 4 ,ooo . a nx Citations ha . · owever, smce espectally for sleeping in parks Ac d. 've actually mcreased in some cate or· <he 4,69' :•'"" kep< by <he • mmtstrauon exceeded the 6 . . e rst four months of the B four month f 4,3 o c1tattons issued to h 1 rmvn Gt ·d: so_ '995· at the height of the offi . 1M . ome ess people in the first tar um Apnl t I 6) T cta atnx program (S F. that th ' . I' 99 · he primary differe . b an rancisco Bay the hoe Brown does not p1·omote the etween the administrations is me ess. I C tmage of himself as scourge of g. Kathleen Stewart "Nostal . 1 o s , . . ' gia as Polemic " ., . tewart sehustnostal . f ' p. -52· e_ven and n:tx underplays "impe . tuthentJc, the working-class, tl1e . d romantJozmg about the prim- ceali Ist nostalgia," which describes whit ' :n s? on. I prefer Renato Rosaldo's have ng eehngs of doubt and guilt by ronuersmen and imperialists con- as if such passing were of wh at they themselves I I g of Soczal Analysis, chapter 3· . Rosaldo, Culture and Truth: The · p. 253 . 12. The Downst ·· . r· zmg o America " 17 N. ". ' U' ew York Junes, Ma rch 3· '996. I 04 TERESA GOWAN t g. These are terms used , respectively, by Cas tells ( t989), Lash and Urry ( 1987), Harvey ( t 989) , and J ameson ( 1991 ). q. Dick Walker, "California Rages Against the Dying of the Light." California recei\'ed up to 23 percent of all United States defe nse contracts in the Reagan years. 1 5· Ibid., p. 45· 16. By subcontracting into the informal economy, enterprises can aYoid the ''indirect wage" of benefits and at the same time increase labor control by restoring arbitrary dismissal. Work becomes a j oint a tte mpt by worker and manager to aYoid legal detection, making it almost impossible for workers to use any outside le\'erage in their relationships with management. In the context of rising competitio n from the global economy, American informalization is increasingly ignored by state reg- ulatory agencies, as it provides much-needed jobs. For politicians committed to curb- ing the political power of labor, informalization helps to suppress the mobilization of workers through formal democratic channels or unions. 17· Kevin Heldman, "On the Town with the U.S. Military," p. 24. 18. Los Angeles TimPs, March 20, 1988. t 9. Roediger's study of the evolution of white working-class identity shows how white republican inde pendence was historically counterposed to the unfree slaves. In an early version of blaming the victim, African Americans were h eld to be inher- ently incapable of these same republican virtues and therefore the enemy of right- eous free labor. David R. Roediger, The Wages of VVhiteness: Race and the Making of thr American Working Class, chapter 3· 20. Troy Duster, "Pattern, Purpose, and Race in the Drug War: The Crisis of Credibility in Ct·iminalJustice," p. 266. 2 1. United States Bureau of Justi ce Statistics, excerpted by Prison Legal Nnus on the World Wide Web at http:/ j www.ai.mit.edu/ people/ ellens/ PLN/ -1 ·3/ FEDERAL_PRISO l.html. The prison system has taken up some of the slack from job losses in industry and the military by multiplying prison-related jobs by four since 1980. Most prisone rs an· also workers, though hardly employees, given that they are usually paid under ftfty cents an hour. Prison production from the federal Unicorp program alone is worth S 1. 35 billion per year, creating ulu-a-low-wage workers on the inside out of those who might refuse such work on the outside (San Francisco Bay Guardian, July t 7, 1996). It is unlikely, however, that the high costs of maintaining a prison population-now approaching $go billion a year, at least live times greater than in most industrialized nations-can be rendered cost-effective by such measures. 22. William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Innn City, thr Undrrclass. and Public PoliC)', pp. 40-41. Drug offenders accounted for mot-e than a third (36 percent) of the national increase in the state prison population from 1985 to 1 99-f and more tl1an two-thirds ( 71 percent) of the increase in the federal pdson popu- lation for this period (Marc Mauer, Intended and Unintendrd Consequrncrs: Sta!P Racial Disparities in Imprisonment) . 23. Mauer. 24. Katherine Beckett, Making CTime Pay: Law and Ordn in Contemporary American Politics, pp. 44-48. 25. l ewt Gingrich, To Rpnew Atnerica, p. 9· 26. The increased discussion of minority "isolation" in newspaper columns and H0.\1ELESS MEN RECYCLE TH . . EIR PASTS I poltt1cal speeches of tl . . o 5 son, . Tl . l e n1neues ,·eflects th b . . AlP !rrlu(\' Disadvantaged in policy t oad mfluence of William .Julius Wil- l · co ph Reed Jr "A Sl· . · 28 R . .'· ., ave to Fmance ,. - . obert B. Reich 7'' II' k ' p. 2; . . 1 ' rte or ofN ( R . . m lle low-wage, routine t·o . a Ions. etch nnplies that uni . . . as capital will onlv n . PI ductton and seni ce sectors is no I on. mob1hzauon r . . . . 10\ c e sewhere. In kee . . . onge r a \'table Strate ' a e met easmgly supt-a11at ional, Rei h prng 1\'lth hts argume nt that cor )O . g), support for United S c does not approve of - f . I rauons decent j obs tha n . businesses, as they a re pre erenttal government "9 F . . an} oreig11 corpot-ation. no more hkely to provide - · OJ dr scuss1on of "emoti' .. The C · on work see A I' H .ommnnalization of 11 v . ' r Ie ochschild Tl •·t 30 A . :1 uman r felmg. , 1e 1v. anagNI J-Jeart: . 11 acadenuc structural a nal . . , Blau lat-ge-scalc phenome 1a11 o n those of the homeless the I e pat olog1es of contnctJ'o na such as unemplo)·me nt I mse ves, mming from < n to mo 1 ·e s 'fi ' Hnr eremplo destruction of Am . p eci c structural changes such a - and welfare T en ca s sktd row hotels s 'em mflation and th 3 J. wo-parent families do not fi _' . . e froihrt the huge stresses that pove rty m statistics of the homeless A sue as AFDC s· fi 1 msecuntv put 011 1 . · part and often and family shelters attonships, institmions 3" Tl ' OI pooi-women to leave th . . 1 economically possible .. -· . le prototype for the hom 1,. . cu partners. , dttiOn of the Vl'cste rn . ' e ess VIetn am veteran as I Blood ( 1982)' is the g:n's movie). Rambo a.n·d starring. Sylvester Stallone t e movi e when they arre h . es mto confltcl with the hick ea- by Yates: starred in , · ee, or example Alice s B . mget 1 993), directed b 1 h ' 17te Truth about H. l , . aum and Donald W B y o n Woo. . omePssnPss p 125 . S h · urnes, A Nation in D · 1 to A mrrira s llomeless: Pt;bl;c PoliC)' e n Redburn and Terry F. Buss Res;mad: very, and Trevor R. Hadley "P . I rrnattves; and Dennis P. Culha 'J 7011 - Adult Shelter U . .. .' teva e nce of Treated B h . . ne, une M. 3 M set s. A LongHudinal Study " e avwral Disorde rs among 4· ost drug rehabilitation ro . . twelve-step movement 1 . h . p grams piggyback onto tl . the recovering addi ct ' w llC oilers strong peer support and fr 1e N · equent acttv1ttes for 35· e ls Andcr·so 11 7' ' , , b -. · 6 , rte no o· nze 'lor· I 3 · Ibid ., p. 12 1 . · · ' 10 ogy of the Homeless J\!lan. 37· Ibid., p. 268. g8. Both Nels Anderso . r · n, 111 t923 d S emark on the high numbers of o; .' an now, Ande rson, and Koe e l in 39· lnte n •iew with Peter R . plhans and foster children in their· .g , 1 t 994· ature See B . OSS1, a ongtime stude samp es. trence. chaptenedrct Giamo andjcii rey Bnt vast ho. me lessness liter- ' er 1 . , eymn v . . ssness: , •rames of R " · 40. LJ!IIa n B Rub· F. . . ".r . ll1 , mmltPs on the Fault Line, p. t14. 8 J OSEPH A. BLUt-.-1 !0 'd . . . to do the work every day, to be !at workers. I know what tt ts hke tracts with mv livelihood mome nts to vote on con ' off at inopportune ' _. k y personal safety d . de to what degree to tiS m " at stake, and to eo d'd ot "contaminate the · b My presence t n in order to keep my JO . th t I am attempting to analyze . Tl cia\ processes a As J , research stte. 1e so I t not as a researcher. a d b y presence, at eas , were not altere Y m . . , B A who got my master s d •fterrecel\1.ngm) · ., · · who entered tile tra e aJ' Ph D candidate tn soCI- I and ,vho became a . . degr ee twe nty years ater, . ki ·n the yards I have always -k 1 , bile sull wor ' ng 1 ' • d ology at UC Bet e C) w I tall the other workers, an appeared to be very differe nt froiml .a mboesen nicknamed "Rabbi" and I ta'nl)' am 1ave in some respects cer ' . b t first and foremost over , b !led a lot worse, u "Professor and een ca . h w I defmed myself at of the guys. That ts o the years 1 became one b h b my fellow workers and by h . h v I am seen ot . y . d - work, and t at IS O\ k s are either fnen s OJ frank-and-file wor e r . management. Dozens o 1 I h ghat times con te nuous, l d . pectfu a t ou acquaintances. I 1a a J es ' . M ager of my local. I have . . . I h previous Busmess an . M· relauonshtp wtt 1 t e . . ' tl the present Busmess an- . I uonshtp wt 1 a close and cooperauve re a d terms with the officers rked. I am on goo . ager, for whom I have wo f l have had ongoing d.alogue of many of the locals of othe r tsl. d' tl ose at the highest level. ent me u tng 1 with members of managem ' . d f · r I ah·eady had intimate . -e formulate a te My research quesuons wet rk and were refined as my th · 1 processes at wo _. knowledge of e socta . . c d by these firsthand expett- . d This essay ts 111J orme d research contmue . I 1 know what is real an . I know the work, 1 know the peop e, ences. what is not. l ve l am personally, emotion- . ld and 1 cannot ea . . I am of thts wor ·k _ d these industnes. ld d to these wot e• s an ally, and intellectually we e king the perspectives h f m them whe n see . Yet I partially detac ro r lives I have wntten . _ · ts to document ou · needed in my vanous pt OJeC . . the trades, and I am in the . f - predecessOI s m h about the htstory o out . . . . four labor process throug f onahzmg aspects o . . process today o mem B I m reluctant to assign tinahty to black and white For all the inexorability of social processes own ways of challengi ng those "global forces, s E as 1 write, I know that . . th m eludmg them. ven d them, negouaung e ' d f those dreaded shipyar s tomorrow I might return t o the regs o . It with my bosses. This ll - nd exchange an msu . to earn a needed do at a . d that remains exouc and . ld It is tl1e world of the aca emy 1 s my wor . difficult for me. THE SA:\' FRANCISCO SHIPYARDS 109 Almost every clay, but especially on Thursday, which is payday, shipyard workers hurr-ying to and from work at San Francisco Dryclock walk past Ke,;n Ha rr is (not his real name) a nd are reminded just how precari ous is their hold upon their jobs. Unti l the early t ggos, Ke,;n was employed in the shipyard as a journeyman welder, clri\i ng a late-model four-wheel drive vehi cle and, if not prospe rous, was certainly getting by with a reasonably high-paying, but no longer steady, unioni zed craft j ob. An accide nt on the job, or a dispute management (accounts from workers who knew hi m while he was still working differ), has made him unemployed, forced him into homelessness, dependent upon SSI and do nations from workers who knew him when, and who still have theirjobs. Seemingly unable to sever his connections with the workpl ace that has discarded him, Kevin apparently sleeps among the debris around tl1e shipyard's industrial area. Altl10ugh he is an extreme case, Kevin is hardly unique. His plight illustrates how, over tile last twemy-ft,·e years, conditions have deterio rated for men, like myself, who seek to earn tll eir livelihood in the San Francisco Bay Area metal trades, mostly in steel fabri cation and shipyard repair work. Though Kevin and his predi came nt are rarely discussed, he cannot be far from tl1e minds of local shipyard workers. The possibili ty of falling from skilled craftsman to "homeless bum" has become perhaps o ur greatest nighunare. We see the world we know, the one in which we play such a vital role and from which we draw o ur sustenance, identity, and security, disinte- grating before our eyes. Few of us will actually plunge into homelessness, but all a re confronting tl1e demise of o ur trades, the virtual elimination of our occupations, as a result of the reconftguration of glo bal economic and political forces far beyond our control. The process is not new, but the endgame is at hand. It has been going on for at least two decades in a steady and relentless fashion. Jn the last five years it has become clear to everyone tltat the decl ine is pem1anent. The condition of the last major unionized shipyard in the ar ea is a meta phor for a dying industry. The physical plant itself is obsolete and worn out, located in a decaying industrial area. Weeds push their way up around portions of tile gmunds, which ar e strewn with discarded metal and assorted indusu-ial debtis. The walls of both of the d ryclocks are patched witll hundreds oflarge and small "doubler plates" to maintain water tightness. All kinds of minor repairs and constant vigilance are required just to keep them functioning. From high atop tl1e wingwalls of til e d rydock one can see the rotting timbers of tl1e piers of an adjacent shipyard that closed down fifteen years ago; half a mile beyond li e tile now idle concrete piers of still an other yard that went bank- rupt in 1gg6. Four years earlier one of ili e biggest yards on ilie Bay closed down, sold its state-of-the-art fl oating d rydock to a Singapore firm, and per- manently laid off almost five hundred workers. Many of the cranes and SOme of ilie heavy equipment, in this, the last of the large yards, no longer