Not Working: Latina Immigrants, Low-Wage Jobs, and the Failure of Welfare Reform

by Alejandra Marchevsky, Jeanne Theoharis

Not Working chronicles the devastating effects of the 1996 welfare reform legislation that ended welfare as we know it. For those who now receive public assistance, “work” means pleading with supervisors for full-time hours, juggling ever-changing work schedules, and shuffling between dead-end jobs that leave one physically and psychically exhausted.
Through vivid story-telling and pointed analysis, Not Working profiles the day-to-day struggles of Mexican immigrant women in the Los Angeles area, showing the increased vulnerability they face in the welfare office and labor market. The new “work first” policies now enacted impose time limits and mandate work requirements for those receiving public assistance, yet fail to offer real job training or needed childcare options, ultimately causing many families to fall deeper below the poverty line.
Not Working shows that the new “welfare-to-work” regime has produced tremendous instability and insecurity for these women and their children. Moreover, the authors argue that the new politics of welfare enable greater infringements of rights and liberty for many of America's most vulnerable and constitute a crucial component of the broader assault on American citizenship. In short, the new welfare is not working.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Read For School

308 pages, Paperback

First published April 10, 2006

About the author

Alejandra Marchevsky was born in Argentina and raised in a bilingual, bicultural home on both coasts of the United States. She holds a B.A. in English from UC Berkeley, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in American Culture from the University of Michigan. Dr. Marchevsky has published widely on the subjects of Latina immigrants, poverty and social welfare, and globalization and immigrant labor in the Americas. Her book entitled, "Not Working: Latina Immigrants, Low-Wage Jobs, and the Failure of Welfare Reform" was published by New York University Press in 2006, and her writing appears in the Journal of American Studies, the Journal of Sociology and Social Work, and Contemporary Sociology. She is currently at work on two research projects: the first looks at the experiences of low-income single mothers in higher education; the second traces the history of the multi-racial welfare movement in Los Angeles during the 1960s and 1970s.

Dr Marchevsky has served on the Liberal Studies faculty since 1999, and also teaches courses in Women's and Gender Studies, Latin American Studies, and the Honors College. Her courses include: "The Myth of the Welfare Queen: Race, Gender and Poverty in the U.S." (offered as LBS 454); "Gender, Sexuality and Migration" (WOMN/LAS/CHS 485); "Race and Rights in Los Angeles" (LBS 490); "Immigrant Labor in California"(LBS 490); and a forthcoming course on "The Politics of Motherhood" (WOMN/LAS 454). Dr Marchevsky is a founding member of a national network of scholars and community organizers that seeks to expand educational opportunities for low-income mothers, and she also serves on the Faculty Advisory Board of the Dolores Huerta Labor Studies Center at the Los Angeles Community College District.

(from http://www.calstatela.edu/dept/libstu...)