#VelshiBannedBookClub: Writing Poverty with #NickelandDimed

“Nickel and Dimed” is the first of many books to highlight the very real experience of being working-poor in America. Sarah Smarsh’s “Heartland” and Stephanie Land’s “Maid” are groundbreaking first hand accounts of their lived experience. These books and their authors illuminate aspects of our nation that many would prefer remain shrouded in darkness: including systems of oppression and people - 37.2 million of them - living below the poverty line in America today. It also directly addresses the American can-do spirit, the “pick yourself up from your bootstraps” mentality and proves quite pointedly that it is a fallacy. Impossible and inconceivable for most.