Nancy Isenberg, "White Trash, The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America" [View all]

[betsuni]

Land ownership as horizontal mobility, not upward mobility. "Land is still extremely important. Class has a geography. If we think about the way most Americans live, and the other measure of class that I highlight, is home ownership. If you're poor, the same way they had different names for the poor, they have different names for what they live in: a shack ... or if we talk about 'trailer trash.' What we live in today, we live in class zone neighborhoods. We have taken into account the importance of racial segregation, and we know that history, but we also live in neighborhoods that are divided by class."