When my white european acquaintances say they are broke or poor, I’m usually skeptical and try to process that with a smile. But you know when this gets serious and the smile is no longer appropriate? It’s when our experiences are being erased and our voices silenced.
Let me break this down for you.
I am a second-world immigrant young person of color and I’ve never managed to relate to white people complaining about how “broke” they are. Because, to start with, what “broke” is for them, is what normal is for us. This expression is a direct presumption that everyone is on the same socioeconomic level and that I should inevitably understand them because I should have the same opportunities as them and that our “temporary” struggle is common.
Among my younger peers, it’s the kind of expression that’s used with the idea of “coolness”, the assumption that it’s normal, commonplace, almost an act of blending in to say that you’re temporarily broke. It also implies that it’s kind of your fault because you’ve spent too much on your beer and parties so you need to slow down before the end of the month. The “coolness” actually comes from the idea of “young (student) life,” “partying,” “#YOLO,” “I’m having too much fun / I am too young to think about money,” but it is not limited to young people. Well, when it’s kind of true that younger people in general are more economically disadvantaged, this situation does not represent the experiences of immigrant PoC, young PoC, queer and trans PoC or all of them combined.
Our “broke-ness” is not cool, not temporary and definitely not our fault. Our broke-ness is systemic.
When we talk about our experiences with struggling economically, racially and legally, it’s no longer perceived as “cool” for those white kids. It’s no longer the idea of, “Guys, I was so wasted last week!” It makes it clear that we are struggling as a racialized group, and that their struggles are not on the same level as ours because of an obvious white, western privilege. They feel decentralized within such a narrative, and it seems as if we made this up about ourselves. They feel uncomfortable because we talk about race and race is not cool.
Parties are cool, nights out are cool, beers are cool but certainly not race, they don’t want to hear about that.
Here in France, I’ve witnessed many times how white people were willing to whitewash what I was trying to highlight about my experience and the experiences of my people. It generally consists of “explaining” to me that being poor is the same everywhere and for everyone. That everyone may find themselves in a difficult situation, from time to time. That poor is poor, there is no white poor, brown poor or black poor. That’s just how life is.
And guess what? That is just not true.
When a white kid says they are broke, it usually means that they can’t spend as much as before, so they need to make choices and think twice about spending money to be able to make it through, say, the month. When a young immigrant PoC says they are broke, it means that they are really broke. Like really reaaally broke. It means that they are not even sure if they are going to make it through the middle of the month. It doesn’t mean cutting down on unnecessary high cost spending like parties, restaurants, alcohol or cigarettes, it usually means cutting down on the basic needs, like food, housing and basic commodities. It doesn’t mean it’s temporary–that we just need to make it through the end of the month.
It means that it’s undetermined, constant and systematic.
I was born in Gyumri (Armenia), a few years after the devastating earthquake that left many cities without general amenities for many years even after my birth. The first years of my life were spent in extreme poverty, with no normal light, heat and food. We refer to these times as the “Dark and Cold Years.” My parents were struggling to feed me and my brother. I remember shaking because of the cold as my mom tried to warm us up by putting a heated iron wrapped into a towel under our legs. I remember her not eating because there was not enough food for everybody. I remember not seeing my father for a whole year because he was working in Russia as a construction worker under extreme conditions to be able to feed us. And we were not the only ones. The poverty was so commonplace even years after the disaster that I’ve seen people ready to do anything just to be able to survive. So, believe me, I’ve seen poverty and how devastating it is for people’s identities and lives, and the white folks I see here in France saying that they are “poor” or “broke” is not what poverty looks like.
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When an immigrant PoC talks about their experience, you should listen, validate and think about how you can help and not try to refocus the conversation on yourself. The one thing that should be made clear is that you have an advantage, and that is your western whiteness.
In 1st world countries, it usually means legal and social backup that is provided to its citizens and that immigrants have very limited access to or no access at all. Accessing these programs is even more complicated when it involves undocumented immigrants + [add a marginalized category here], and undocumented trans PoC are largely overrepresented in this category. In fact, as highlighted by Jennicet Gutiérrez, undocumented trans women of color are disproportionately detained in US prisons, in most cases, just for being poor and employing economies of survival. So, no. It is not cool to be “broke”.
For me, as for a lot of immigrants, the decision to migrate is directly connected to our survival, and seeing our struggles whitewashed denies and erases them. Our struggles should be recognized and specifically addressed, not silenced. At the end of the day, whether we try to escape hunger, war, hate, or whatever, we’re trying to survive and this should be a sufficient reason for you to hear us.