Frozen River: A Poor Community

Imagine coming home to a house that has no warmth or food. Constantly feeling like you are in a place you can’t get out of. This is how poverty may feel to others. The expeirences from the author Jo Goodwin Parker in the story “What Is Poverty” and the McBride family from the novel “The Color Of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute To His White Mother” show that there are various effects of living in poverty that include emotional problems, adolescent rebellion, and

Similarly, family can be related through blood but it can also be the group of people closest to someone. Family can be both blood related and can be chosen and be equally as meaningful. An example from ODACTTT of family being a group of people that are close but may not be related through blood, is when Janice and Barb are talking about Janice’s other family. Where Janice states that she loves, and considers them as her family by saying, “I love my parents”(Taylor 23). She considers her family as the people who care for her and support her. Although it is her adopted family and not related through blood relations she chose to consider them as family. The quote, “Blood is thicker than water”(Taylor 33) from ODACTTT explains how loyalty in relationships within a family are the strongest and most important ones. However it does not state family has to be blood, but it does say that the relationships between family are the strongest and most important relationships one can have. The final quote in ODACTTT is the most important one. Janice is showing her respect to Anne’s gravesite by saying her final goodbyes. Janice’s last words to her biological mother was, “Co-waabmen, mom, from your daughter, Grace”(Taylor 112). This was the most important part of the play because Janice finally accepted her biological family and accepted who she was but continued to allow herself to choose her family as well. Family can consist of

Being poor can mean something to one individual compared to another. Whether it is not having clean water to drink or not being able to afford a new laptop. Poverty is very broad, without a single definition.

There are many different family dynamics in today’s society. But what really makes a family? Every definition found has defined family, in simple terms, as “A father and a mother raising their children together.” However, not every family is like that. Most families are not like that at all. Different aspects come into play in families such as divorce, death, and abandonment that can redefine the family structure, either for the better or for the worse. A family does not have to consist of the traditional sense of the nuclear family, but rather a family can consist of friends, step-siblings, step-parents, half siblings, or family members outside the immediate circle of parents and brothers and sisters. Anyone who can come together is a family;

It is often said that “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” which means that friends who have been through hardships together often have stronger bonds than families (http://thoughtcatalog.com/nico-lang/2013/09/31-famous-quotatio

creates a family, even with no blood relation. In the novel, The Outsiders by Hinton, S.E,

To many the ideal family consists of a mother, father, siblings and relatives of various ages, but many people don’t have the opportunity to experience this structure. For others family may come in the form of friendship. Can’t a friend offer support? Instill values? Be uplifting? If the answer is “yes” the only thing that doesn’t make them family is the approved definition.

Additionally, the family of choice consists of people one feels as obligated to as if one was of blood relation. These self-constructed families are no less real or less meaningful than conventional families. In fact, they are known as one’s fictive kin. The bond of this type of family can be formed through several ways. Natalie writes, “for some people, voluntary kinship filled a void left by death or estrangement from biological family, while for others the relationships were supplemental or temporary.” It can be a friendship that turns into a family or a group that one relates to as a family. Either way, the fictive kin family is a blossoming family type. Increasingly, people refer to this as their second family. Some choose it to be their first family when they feel

“Research indicates that nearly 40 percent of American between the ages of 25 and 60 will experience at least one year below the poverty line during that period.” (Rank) The word poor is usually dealt with extremes, as in being homeless. Poor are simply people who do not have a lot of money. There are several key factors affecting the poor community this day in age. The majority of the poor cannot afford healthcare. A large group of poor people have extremely bad eating habits. The poor community lives in subpar living accommodations. A person who is poor, is a person who does not have a lot of money, and lives in subpar conditions.

The family is a complex topic that can change drastically on a case by case basis. In the first portion of this sociological analysis of families, I will be looking into Carol B. Stack’s book All Our Kin. This case study focuses on a neighborhood known as Jackson Harbor, a place where being blood related to someone does not necessarily make you family. In addition, I will be analyzing the family situation of my friend Lauren Lynch. Through participant observation and an interview, I was able to uncover some useful details about her family that allowed me to analyze them through a sociological lens.

Using the scientific explanation, everyone in this world was given birth by a man and a woman. The man and the woman are his/her father and mother. They are blood related to the person. They are the first people in touch with the person. They live together and they usually accompany the person until they die. They are the person’s family. Hassan, Liz and the Eric C. Wat define family as people who will always love each other and the sense of belonging as the feeling to be loved by their family in Lady C!” by Kwame Stephens, “A Sense of Loss” by Becky Birtha and “Blood, Thick, and Thin” by Eric C.

Well, family can have many different definitions for different people. For example, when Emika first received the bad news he wanted to meet with his friends, “Instead, he called his friends and asked if they wanted to meet up for beer and catfish at the popular Best Restaurant.” (Unigwe). In this situation, Emeka reaches out to friends to help cheer him up after the bad news, which is exactly what a family member would do if you were sad about something bad happening. For many people friends are considered family, or a part of their family because their friends would help them, give them courage, and be there for them when they need it, which are all characteristics of a good family. This also applies if you are are young. For instance, of the Syrian refugees coming to the US. "more than half of the arrivals are under 18." (Kennedy). Of these arrivals some may be coming alone, but that doesn't mean that they don't have friends back home who believe in them or friends who live in the country they are traveling to. If the refugees know that they have friends who believe in them, then, they are more confident, and will have more courage to try something new

Poverty has many faces, it can be the sad face of a little girl that sits next to your child in class who doesn’t have enough money to buy lunch again, the woman with a haunted stare, standing next to you on the elevator who has an overdrawn bank account and the bank is threatening to foreclose, and it could even be the family of five that lives next door that doesn’t have enough money to put supper on the table again tonight. There is the pleading veteran dressed in dirty rags on the street holding a sign stating “will work for food”, the newlywed husband, working for minimum wage and doesn’t have enough money left from his paycheck to buy formula and diapers after paying the rent, and the sullen single mom who has just received her notice of eviction due to non-payment of rent. Poverty can happen anywhere at any time and to any person.

My family has always been very close. We spend a great deal of time together and express our deep feelings and emotions with one another. If one of us has an issue, every member of the family is aware of it and shares the burden. When a person in the family does not share significant information about one’s life with the rest of the members, there is hurt feelings. Also, if a member cannot attend a family event, the family feels disappointed and misses the absent member. It is evident that connectedness is held as extremely valuable.

As someone who did not grow up with a typical family, I claim most of my close friends as “family” members. Every year we get together for birthdays, vacations and celebrate some holidays together. Some of my close friends are even closer than my actual family. One friend that I grew up with since the 7th grade is practically a brother to me, and even though I have and love my own mom, to this day I call his mother “mom” as well. I do believe that family is based on bonds and emotional ties, not just by blood and marriage. Our textbook defines “fictive kin as close relations with people we consider ‘like family’ but who are not related to us by blood or marriage (p.352)”. This sociological concept helps me realize that my own situation of who and what I consider family is more common than I may have thought before.