Social Class Voices: Student Stories from the University of Michigan Bicentennial

Feeling Down on My Way Up

I like to believe my story is a continuation of my parents’ story, so I’ll start there. They were both born in Mexico and arrived in Chicago, roughly around 18 years of age. They met soon after working at a factory, married, and had me, and my sister followed two years later. Growing up, my parents worked multiple jobs, often at once, that varied between working in a factory or working in janitorial services. When I was a baby, we would move from basement to basement and had horrible experiences with flooding and rat infestations. For most of my life, however, we lived in an apartment on the first floor in Brighton Park, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood with not too much gang activity at the time and where parts of houses were rented out as apartments.

I still remember how amazing it felt to live there in the beginning. We had never lived in the first floor of an apartment, much less in one in which the landlord didn’t live in! The first time we visited, it felt surreal. There were windows you could look through! There was a backyard with a tree and a deck to which we had direct access to! And we also rented the garage… we had a garage!! The walls were white and clean and the floors wooden and polished. This apartment was so incredible to us; we lived there from my second grade elementary school year until senior year of high school. It wasn’t until I left to college that my family bought a house on the south side of Chicago, where we live now. We bought it with damaged doors, stained carpets, creaky floorboards, and unstable flooring, but at least it was ours. Although the neighborhood wasn’t the safest, that house was a personal achievement for my family and me. We no longer paid monthly rent to anyone, we could paint the walls whatever color we wanted to, and we could add extra rooms, and choose whether or not to have carpet flooring! It was the first time I’ve ever had my own room and that initial excitement hasn’t worn off yet. You never finish fixing a house, but I can definitely say it looks much better and feels more personalized than when we first bought it.

When we were kids, my parents were not always in well-enough financial standing to afford a babysitter for my sister and me. When they could, we were handed to family members, neighbors, friends, and maybe acquaintances. When they were in a situation where they couldn’t find someone to take care of us, they would try to take us to work or leave us at home by ourselves. I still remember cold nights when my sister and I slept in the car outside my parents’ workplace while they worked through the night. Sometimes we would take our bikes and my mom would clean a whole factory by herself while my dad supervised us as we happily rode our bikes in the large, empty parking lot. When I was around eight years old, my parents trusted me to take care of my sister and we were often left alone. These were stressful times for my parents. Sometimes they would get calls from my sister and me fighting and crying, neither of us mature enough to back down after stating we were calling mom. But my poor parents could only feel frustration at the fact they were far and were in too much need of money to leave work and handle the situation properly. All they could do was beg me to understand and to stop fighting with my little sister.

One job in particular took over our lives for three years. Both my parents decided to dedicate themselves to delivering newspapers before the sun rose near suburbs of Chicago. For three years, with only days of vacation every year, my parents had horrible sleeping schedules. They would work at night up until morning under stressful and physically demanding circumstances, often with second and third jobs throughout the day. In the summer, my parents paid my sister and me to help roll the hundreds of papers into little colored bags and then help dad deliver them by running up and down the neighborhood and skillfully throw them near front doors and hope they didn’t end up behind a bush. It was such an odd job that my cousins would stay with us a couple of days to help us deliver newspaper for fun. I remember bringing my friends to show them what my parents did for a living. My sister and I often complained about having to help them, but I always felt a pang of guilt every day I didn’t go because I was given the luxury to choose and my parents didn’t have that. Even as a kid I wouldn’t ask for much because I experienced firsthand what my parents went through for every dollar they earned. They were working to provide my sister and me with food, clothing, toys, and trips to arcades. I knew how much my parents appreciated my help and how much earlier they finished with an extra person, so if I didn’t help, did I have a right to ask for a snack at the store?

Looking back, I can’t say I felt embarrassed about my parents having this job. I didn’t have friends from extremely well-off families. Everyone I knew struggled in one way or another; otherwise they wouldn’t live in our neighborhood and go to my school. Working-class families were all there was in my world. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I wasn’t in the ideal situation, but I didn’t realize just how poor I really was until later in life.

My mother always told us we had it better than most other people. Not only would she refer to starving kids in Africa, but she would also tell us how, as a kid, it was rare for her to get a new outfit in a household with six other siblings and that when she did, she wore it every Sunday to church until it was worn out. She would remind us at Christmas how my dad never got the fancy, expensive toy cars he wanted as a kid because his single mom couldn’t afford it. We were very fortunate to get what we did for Christmas. My mom loves to remind us how she used to drown us with toys from the dollar store and we would play with them happily for hours at a time. Yes, I was aware that we couldn’t afford to take luxurious vacations, that we didn’t own the latest technologies, that if our dog got sick we couldn’t afford visits to the vet, that my sister constantly caused a scene in the store when she was denied an expensive toy, and that I wasn’t in private school because it was expensive.

Ever since we were little girls, my parents stressed the importance of doing well in school. From experience, they knew that in this country you had to have a degree for most careers. My mom even went back to school to get her GED (General Education Development) test and learn English because she knew it would give her an advantage in the job market to be bilingual and have an educational background in the United States. It wasn’t easy at all, and like most working-class students, she took classes at night. No matter how difficult of a situation she was in, she proudly arrived home with 100% on her assignments. “You have no excuse,” she would tell us, “you don’t have to work, you don’t have kids, and you don’t even have to cook or clean. All you need to do is focus on school. If I can do it, imagine how far you can go.” Being in a Mexican American household often means speaking Spanglish, and my mom says she didn’t want her daughters speaking in another language in front of her without her understanding. In reality, however, this has given her a huge advantage in the workplace. She would later go on to become a manager at a clothing store and then at a cleaning company because she was able to read, write, and speak English. It made me realize the impact that even a GED could have in her social class standing. She also made me realize the amazing advantage I was given at being fluent in two languages.

My parents firmly believe we are in the land of opportunity and that it is possible for my sister and me to be upwardly mobile. “Echale ganas a la escuela, mija” (“Work hard in school, sweetie”) mom would tell me. “No quieres partirte la madre como nosotros, mejor ve al colegio y buscate una carrera” (“You don’t want to work as hard as we do, go to college and find yourself a career”) dad would say. It was crucial to my parents that my sister and I took advantage of every possible opportunity to exceed in school. Education was the key to success. It was important for my parents that we live a life where we didn’t live paycheck to paycheck and could afford luxuries they never could.

Although they stressed the importance of our education, they didn’t know how to help us. Because of where we lived, I went to our neighborhood elementary school from second grade through eighth grade. Overall, I was a bright student. I had the grades, the reputation, and the certificates. However, my mistake was getting an education in the wrong school. My parents had no way of knowing that not every school was equal, and even the neighborhood you can afford to live in determines the quality of education. My school had drama, not only among students, but also among teachers. The teachers used their phones, had us work in our textbooks, or watch a documentary instead of teaching, and they let the drama among themselves affect students’ grades. Reflecting on these experiences, I can see how the teachers might have given up, in a sense, to provide a good education when most students ended up dropping out of high school, if they attended at all. I could see how taking us to jail for our eighth grade field trip was a desperate attempt to scare us into avoiding gang-related activities. I can also see why we had oversized uniforms in our sport clubs; who has money left over when the past two principals were trying to steal it the whole time?

My algebra teacher was the only one who taught me anything meaningful. I didn’t know that at the time, but when I tried applying to selective high schools I failed the exams so miserably that my only choice was my neighborhood high school: Kelly High School. I was crushed at the realization that I wasn’t as smart as I thought, especially in comparison to the rest of the city. However, I was fortunate enough to hear about Noble Street Charter Schools and they completely changed the course of my life. They accepted students based on a lottery system (randomly pulling your name out of a bowl) and I was lucky enough to be accepted to UIC College Preparatory in Chicago. The school had a 100% student acceptance rate to four-year universities and high ACT (American College Testing) averages. I was getting a second opportunity at my future because they didn’t take my educational past into account; they were letting me start over. Of course, because of my elementary school background, I was at a disadvantage. Based on my entrance exams performance, I was placed in regular courses as opposed to honors in my first semester. However, I noticed the vast difference in the quality of education I was given at my high school and was given the proper tools to succeed and get into honors courses the very next semester and during the rest of my high school years.

At UIC we had to wear proper uniforms, be on time to everything, hand in excellent work, and maintain an amazing grade point average (GPA). Every teacher was required to have office hours, and we were taught to answer emails within two business days and how to dress formally, and so on. Most students identified as first-generation college students and/or minorities, so the school was prepared for all the questions and assistance we and our families needed. Being a first-generation student myself (someone first in the family to graduate from college), I appreciated having a college seminar class where I learned everything from which college to apply to, to how loans work. I know my parents appreciated parent meetings that had translators for those who spoke Spanish because it allowed them to understand and feel more comfortable asking questions.

Because of the strict rules on uniforms, it was hard to identify which student was part of what social class. We weren’t allowed to wear logos or too many accessories, so the only way people could show they were from a certain class was taking opportunities to go abroad that most of us couldn’t afford. One student in particular loved to brag about having a mansion on a hill and how his dad was a cop; you could just hear the class privilege in his voice and the respect he demanded because of his family’s economic background. Freshman year of high school, I was dating a guy for a couple of weeks, unaware of his social class status. It wasn’t until I was introduced to his mom that I saw he lived in a crowded basement with mismatching furniture, random decorations, and a run-down kitchen. I learned he worked with his mom at the local Dunkin Donuts to try to make ends meet. He was incredibly smart, but he never had the time to do his homework and his grades suffered. He eventually dropped out of school and moved back to Mexico. It was a real scenario that made me appreciate that I was privileged enough not to have to work to survive and I was able to focus on my education.

During my sophomore year, I joined a program called Minds Matter. It was a nonprofit organization that paid for students from low-income families to go to summer college programs. In Minds Matter, I had ACT (American College Testing) prep on the weekends and a mentor with a college degree who assisted me with the application process to summer college programs and then college. Thanks to this program, I was able to go to Skidmore College in Saratoga, New York, the summer of my sophomore year and the University of Maryland the summer of my junior year for five and three weeks consecutively to take college courses and get a feel for what college would be like. During these experiences, I encountered people from social classes vastly different from my own. One friend in particular was always carrying around an umbrella because she didn’t want to get tanned, a completely new concept to me. This was the first time I encountered a person who truly believed the whiter you were, the better. I made a point of explaining how tanning can be beautiful too, and after that conversation, she didn’t get anxious leaving the dorms without an umbrella. Thankfully, Minds Matter gave me a $150 stipend on top of paying for my flight and pre-college program, so I didn’t feel excluded from any events because I had saved so much money from the experience. I felt I could eat out with friends and do activities such as bowling as much as we planned because I had nothing else to spend money on.

My most memorable socioeconomic shocks came when I arrived at the University of Michigan (UM). I wasn’t aware of the amount of prestige that surrounded Michigan. Although I felt prepared academically, I was not prepared to see Canada Goose jackets everywhere, UGGs and Bearpaw boots, Timberlands, and Apple watches. To this day, I don’t think I’ve grasped the wealth of students’ parents at this university. I know how much these brands cost, but I think I avoid thinking about how much that excess money would have been helpful to people in need—it just makes me sad. I try to focus on the fact that I am sitting in the same classroom as others who attended private schools and most likely had tutors. In the end, we all ended up in the same university receiving a great education.

The summer before starting college, I was in MSTEM. I wasn’t invited into the Michigan Summer Bridge Program, which was highly recommended for some students of color and some first-generation students, so I decided to do MSTEM instead. They were both summer programs designed for accepted students to get a head start by getting to know the university before being an official student. Aside from college credit, I gained a diverse group of friends from this program. Spring break that freshman year, I decided to go skiing with these friends. It was my first time ever, but one of my friends, let’s call him Daniel, was an expert snowboarder because it was what he usually did for fun. Because it was a long drive up Michigan, my boyfriend and I decided to sleep over at Daniel’s house to get an early start. He had a car, so he would be able to drive us the rest of the way.

I remember how upset Daniel was that I got a full ride to UM and he was taking out thousands in loans. I told him I had great financial need, my family makes less than $25,000 a year, and if he didn’t get a lot of aid, he may have been able to afford it. But nothing I said would calm him down. He didn’t have the money either, he would tell me, and it wasn’t fair.

When we first pulled into Daniel’s garage, the first thing that struck me was the neighborhood: mowed lawns, houses back to back, no empty lots, no fences, beautiful large houses. And then there was his beautiful home. We went inside this amazing place. It was perfectly painted, spacious, and beautifully decorated, and he had a “man cave” in the basement. I’m talking about four new reclining leather sofas, a mini bar, UM decorations everywhere (and I know from visits to our M Den Store they do not come cheap), large TV, and animals on the walls from their father–son hunting trips. Also, they had a sick, blind, old dog. If my dog were to ever get sick that would be it because my parents wouldn’t be able to afford visits to the vet. Everything Daniel owned was new, nothing from garage sales or alleys in the suburbs. How, I thought, did he fight me on not being able to afford college when he was living this lifestyle? When he had his own car? When he had the luxury of caring for his sick dog?

I had another encounter with social class difference when I started dating Jon-David, my boyfriend during freshman year. I’m not sure why, but I had assumed he was from a lower social class like me. But when my friend told me he had nannies as a kid and his parents were rich, I was shocked. He didn’t appear “bougie” because I didn’t exactly see him wearing the latest brands. But all of the sudden I felt guilt and immediate self-awareness. Did I ever make it seem like I was dating him because of the money? After that, I fought him to pay half of every date and would go as far as taking his card away from him to let me pay. I didn’t want him to think I wanted to go out because I knew he would pay; I didn’t want money being a factor in our relationship, period.

For Easter, he invited me to have dinner with his family in Detroit. His family was Christians and took this holiday seriously, so Jon-David and his brother were getting new suits. I had borrowed a dress from a friend because I didn’t have anything formal to wear. When Jon-David’s mom found out, she offered to buy me a new dress. I was extremely reluctant to accept, but they insisted. As we looked around the store, I noticed they would offer a dress to me without even looking at the price. I was so used to checking the sale items first or at least checking the price to decide if it was worth trying on in the first place. Thankfully, we didn’t find a dress that fit. I didn’t want them to think I was eager to have them buy me something, or that I would visit them only for the presents. I was always told to reject anything that was offered to me as a child because we were supposed to enjoy people’s company, not what they could offer.

Today, I am still constantly aware of how I present myself. After constant encounters with different social classes, I’ve been made aware of all the luxuries I never had and can’t afford, but try to remember how fortunate I have been despite my social class background. When I go back home, I constantly analyze my behavior. Have I changed the way I talk? Do I dress differently? Am I acting in a way that makes my family believe I’m too good for them? I feel the need to constantly remind my parents that I do, in fact, remember where I come from and how I still appreciate all the sacrifices they continue making for my sister and me. I also have a bit of “survival guilt” when I reunite with old friends from my old neighborhood. Could I have done something to motivate them to go to college? Should I have helped them get into my high school? Do I sound stuck-up when I talk about my college experiences? One friend in particular, Veronica, loves to remind me how I used to slave at my school work and how I’ve earned every opportunity I now have. I’m glad she feels happy for me, but my heart aches at my inability to pull her on my journey to upward mobility along with me. It makes me wonder how I will be able to move out of my neighborhood while I leave everyone else behind.