Guest Columnist

My Great Recession: When Working Three Jobs, Seven Days a Week Still Isn’t Enough

Ed Note: We put out a call for stories from young people of color about how people are surviving this recession. “My Great Recession” continues with this submission by Angel Garcia. Want to contribute? It will also go on the “Race & Recession” report page www.arc.org/recession. Send your 300-word first person accounts, visual art, or video blogs to submissions [at] colorlines [dot] com.

By Leticia Miranda

It’s really hard for me to say for sure whether or not it’s because of the economy that the last months have been so difficult. But the night when I considered ending a relationship because I was too stressed out, I blamed the recession.

I was carrying three jobs and just barely making ends meet. The plan was to hold these jobs down while applying for other ones that were more in my area of interest. If I didn’t find a job in three months, I’d have to go back home with my parents in the white conservative suburb where they live.

Motivated by the terrible picture of me: a dark brown Chicana carrying This Bridge Called My Back in my hand and talking about healing our communities – in a white suburb – with my parents (who I wasn’t out to), I did everything I could to stand my ground here in the Bay Area. I just worked. After some calculating, I realized I was working between 40 and 46 hours a week between three jobs, 7 days a week.

Some employees at the cafe where I worked had kids and were struggling to make ends meet working minimum wage with meager tips. The owner of the place couldn’t afford to give us raises and jobs were hard to come by elsewhere. She worked some employees between 38 and 50 hours a week because she couldn’t afford to hire more employees.

I wouldn’t eat out, go out for drinks or buy anything frivolous and yet I could barely keep an average balance of 200 to 300 dollars in my checking account.

Posted at 12:05 PM, May 18, 2009 in Race and Recession | Permalink | View Comments