MYTH OF THE WELFARE QUEEN: A Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist's Portrait of Women on the Line - Hardcover

Zucchino, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684819147 ISBN 13: 9780684819143

Publisher: Scribner, 1997

Synopsis

Drawing on the personal stories of several women, an award-winning journalist reveals the human side of welfare, capturing the daily lives, struggle, and courage of such women as grandmother Odessa Williams and welfare mother and activist Cheri Honkala. 25,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

About the Author

David Zucchino is the foreign editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Reviews

A glimpse into the actual lives of two members of that unfortunate subset of society that Americans love to stereotype and despise: the welfare mother. Zucchino, foreign editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, follows Odessa Williams on her ``trash-picking'' rounds and to the welfare office as she endeavors to support the grandchildren under her permanent care as well as additional family members who move in and out as crises dictate. Crises are not unusual in Odessa's world, so she gets plenty of opportunity to exercise her resourcefulness in responding to fires, problems at school, brushes with the law, drugs and drug pushers, uncertain employment for her grown son, and the challenges of physical survival posed by poverty. Meanwhile, Cheri Honkala relies on welfare and what she can earn at night as a topless dancer to support her son, while devoting her days to fighting homelessness. She helps create a tent city to protest welfare cuts, joins the occupation of an abandoned church and the takeover by protesters of empty houses owned by HUD. She tirelessly seeks publicity for her cause, battles with bureaucrats, and rallies and comforts fellow protesters. Far from lazy, these women are stretched to the limit. Zucchino does not obscure the ugliness- -including welfare recipients who embrace dependence--that surrounds them, but what stands out is the resilience of these women in the face of events that would be insurmountable tragedies for most middle- and upper-class Americans. It is unlikely this book will engender new and widespread respect for welfare mothers, for the ``welfare queen'' myth draws its strength from what people want to believe, not misperceptions of reality. But by setting aside presuppositions and moral judgments to simply describe what he finds, Zucchino offers a substantive image of life on welfare for those who want to see it. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Looking behind the "welfare queen" stereotype, Philadelphia Inquirer foreign editor Zucchino attempts to educate readers about the realities that this calumny masks. "From Independence Day 1995 to New Year's Day 1996, [Zucchino] followed the lives of several unmarried welfare mothers living in the ghetto of North Philadelphia." His book "is the story of survival by single mothers during the dying days of the American welfare state." Central to its narrative are Odessa Williams, 56, raising grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as neighbor kids left in the lurch by troubled parents; Cheri Honkalas, activist for the homeless at Philly's Tent City; and Ivory Jennings, a determined teenager with as little tolerance for many of her fellow welfare recipients as conservative Republican politicians. Vivid, powerful portraits of the women behind the stereotype. Mary Carroll

In North Philadelphia, Odessa Williams, a great-grandmother, picks through trash to furnish her home and clothe her grandchildren. She also goes fishing to provide extra food and charges people for rides to and from the welfare office and supermarket to supplement her meager income. Cheri Honkala and others set up tent cities, take over an abandoned church, and occupy vacant HUD buildings to seek shelter and protest the lack of affordable housing. Against the backdrop of the welfare reform act, which revoked the federal guarantee of welfare to low-income families with dependent children, Zucchino, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with the Philadelphia Inquirer, documents the lives of these women and others over a six-month period. The result, a harrowing description of daily subsistence living with very little chance of change, is a powerful expose of the welfare myth. Highly recommended for all libraries.
-?Kate Kelly, Massachusetts General Hosp., Boston
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684819147
• ISBN 13: 9780684819143
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368