Poverty at Work Office Employment and the Crack Alternative PHILIPPE BOURGOIS Summary The transition

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Poverty at Work: Office Employment and the Crack Alternative
PHILIPPE BOURGOIS
Summary The transition from a manufacturing economy to one based on office work is more culturally disruptive to poorly educated working class city dwellers than one might suspect. This is the conclusion drawn by Philippe Bourgois based on his three and one-half year ethnographic study of Puerto-Rican crack cocaine dealers in New Your City's Spanish Harlem.
When Puerto Ricans first moved to New York City, men with little education were able to find factory work that enabled them to support their families with dignity. As time went by, sons followed in their fathers' footsteps, quitting school in their middle teens to take manufacturing jobs that required little formal education but provided a decent living and a respected place in surrounding Puerto Rican working class society. Protected by unions, their macho urban street culture could be openly expressed on the production line without serious consequences.
All this changed, however, between 1963 and 1983 when over half the factories in New York City either closed or moved to less expensive areas. Toughness and male swagger that worked well on the factory production line now intimidated the better-educated largely Anglo people who worked above them. The poor workers were often unable to read even the simplest directions. Worse, they often found themselves supervised by women, a rare occurrence in Puerto Rican society. Even the way they walked and looked intimidated Anglo co-workers. Above all, they felt "dissed" (disrespected) by office Anglos, who would often comment openly about their lack of education and ability. Working at the minimum wage, most lasted on the job for only a few days. Unemployed once again, many turned to selling crack in a lucrative underground economy, which placed them on a self-destructive track of drug addiction, violence, and arrest. Even becoming bicultural, adopting Anglo office culture at work and street culture at home, did not work well. Friends and family members accused them of selling out their heritage.
In an epilogue, Bourgois notes that four things changed this bleak underground work environment in Spanish Harlem during the late 1990s: the economy grew at a high and sustained rate providing more jobs even for the poor; the size of the Mexican immigrant population increased significantly in Spanish Harlem; the war on drugs criminalized many of the poor; and marijuana, not crack, became the drug of choice. As a result, more men found work in the regular economy. But despite this turn of events, Bourgois concludes that there is little hope in the long run for New York's inner city poor.
In "Poverty at Work: Office Work and the Crack Alternative," Bourgois claims that only 15 percent of second generation Puerto Ricans living in New York's Spanish Harlem have ever held a job in the formal economy.

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