In what is destined to become one of the most important books published
this year, Lillian Rubin takes us inside the lives, hearts, and minds of
America's working-class families and lets us hear them speak. With an
eloquence rivaling that of her earlier classic, Worlds of Pain, Lillian
Rubin lays bare the dreams, disappointments, insecurities, loves, and
hates of those she calls "the invisible Americans." Based on nearly four
hundred interviews with working-class men, women, and children of
different races and ethnic groups, Dr. Rubin looks at the social,
cultural, and economic changes of the last two decades and explores
their impact on family life. With the sensitivity and compassion for
which her work is renowned, she shows us how much all working-class
families - white, black, Latino, or Asian - have in common and how
valiantly they cope with the many challenges in their lives. And in a
brilliant sociological and psychological analysis, she also explores how
the failing economy has helped to create seemingly unbridgeable
divisions among them. In this context, she explains how the social and
economic realities of working-class family life form the backdrop
against which racial and ethnic tensions have escalated to their present
precarious place on the fault line. She argues compellingly that the
recent rise of white ethnicity has both psychological and political
roots, and that the presence of an increasing number of new immigrants -
most of whom are people of color - coupled with the rising demands of
our minority populations have led native-born whites to try to establish
a public identity that would enable them to stand against the claims of
race. In this searing and powerfulbook, Lillian Rubin has painted an
intimate and indelible portrait of working-class family life in our
time, while also shedding new light on some of our most vexing social
and political problems: class, race, ethnicity, and the politics of
victimization.
