I.   

We walked into the gymnasium, fifty of us, eighth grade students. Corralled into rows of two, paired: boy, girl. Our heads held high—not for the future, but for that singular moment. And as we wound our way through a sea of expectant faces—a bubbling giddiness bursting on our tongues—relatives whooped from the packed bleachers and cameras flashed and friends who were not graduating that year waved as we passed.

All of us kids, living scattershot across a ten-mile radius, had arrived at school that evening looking like royalty—the boys in ties, with greased back hair and shined shoes; the girls (our parents allowing special concessions for the occasion) in high heels and muted lipstick, the powdery scent of Love’s Baby Soft perfume clinging to our wrists. I appeared in a strapless gown with a pastel pink bodice. Lace shoulder length gloves (that chafed ever so slightly at the delicate skin of my inner arm) completed my outfit. Mom and I had found the dress at the closest mall—an hour’s drive from our home—and even on sale, it had cost too much for our household budget. But Mom convinced the store to bend their rules and let her purchase it in installments on a layaway plan. She’d also taken me to the beauty salon in town that afternoon, so that my normally fine, limp hair could be swept up into a stylish French braid.  

And once our procession wound up to the gym’s stage, I curtsied like a princess onto a metal folding chair, tucking tiers of cascading lace underneath me. When each of our names were called, one by one, we stood to joyous cheering and received our eighth-grade diplomas, the room vibrating with energy. As a community of farmers and low-income families and the devoutly religious, nestled in the heartland of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, everyone there knew: Most of us would never be celebrated in that way again, recognized for having achieved something. 

Because once the night ended, my classmates and I would split like the half-life of carbon, our numbers dwindling at each turn. Months after the ceremony, while still children themselves, several of the girls would become homemakers and the boys would transform into breadwinners. For those of us whose path wasn’t predetermined by farming or religion, we would need to navigate unwanted teen pregnancies and drug abuse; a high school graduation would not be in the sights for many (even my own brother, seven years my senior, could not cross that finish line). And on our jubilant evening, we could not yet predict who among us would be part of the limited group to enter community college, or the even smaller few accepted at a four-year university—or, wholly unfathomable, who would remain in the rarest, most mysterious fraction: those able to hang on long enough for a college graduation.

Countless years later, I will show my husband a photo from that night: of thirteen-year-old me standing next to my dad—my eighth-grade grad one of the few childhood events he actually showed up at—with Dad dressed even finer than he would be a decade later on my wedding day. To which my husband (who attended suburban schools, where they learned algebra and how to use a computer for something more than playing games, and they had afterschool activities like newspaper and chess club), will say: “I never knew an eighth-grade graduation mattered that much to anyone.”

  II.        

The conveyor belt droned forward, loaded with ears of freshly shucked corn. My eyes scanned haphazard piles for ears that were six inches or longer to place onto the center tray. The others—the discolored and the deformed—got tossed into the mulch bin.

Corn never stopped coming. All of us there, mostly women, could never “finish” the corn. The goal was to finish the day. To somehow find a way to occupy one’s mind (the roar of the machinery rendering conversation impossible), while grabbing at sticky vegetables for eight hours. But we did get to choose where we stood on the line. My go-to spot was closest to the warehouse doors, where, if my head tilted at a certain angle, there might have been a glimpse of cloud or sky.   

As my thoughts wandered, I tried not to let a recent conversation with my father seep in. The one that had happened just a few days prior, where he asked how I liked working there, and I’d said: “It’s fine, for now.”

And his question had come back too quick, an edge to his tone: “What do you mean for now?”

“I mean, I’m glad I’ll be going back to school in a few weeks, that’s all.” Deflecting my response, knowing to be careful not to disparage the cannery, not to make it sound like the cannery was an inappropriate place to spend one’s life—since that was where Dad worked, full-time, year-round, driving a forklift. The cannery was honestly fine, for him. But hadn’t he understood, I started college in the hopes of doing something else?

But, maybe he hadn’t? When visiting home, I’d downplayed my experiences at school and the concepts I’d learned; how much excitement they’d generated for me. Because I was self-conscious about sounding haughty, about my family calling me stuck-up.

Instead, as the sweet stench of corn clogged my nostrils, I mentally returned to moments from my first year away at college, replaying whole conversations, as if on audio tape. Reminiscing about the friends I’d made and conjuring up my favorite memories: like when we’d taken late-night walks through the rhododendron garden, or how we’d snuck onto the roof of the volcanology building to watch the starless sky.  

In particular, one of my new best friends was a political activist with a deep passion for workers’ rights and labor unions and feminism. Though, my limited knowledge of such subjects caused me to worry that, as she learned more about me, she’d find me uninformed and apathetic. So, while sorting through the cobs—rocking gently from my heels to toes, trying to relieve the pressure that built up in my feet from standing in one place for such a long period—that was another way I passed the time: daydreaming about how, when we returned to classes in the fall, I’d come up with something smart and insightful to say that impressed her.

During those summer months, my friend’s trust fund allowed her to study abroad in England and we stayed in touch by writing old-fashioned letters. Although, spending my days at the cannery didn’t provide me with much news to share. A couple weeks prior, I’d swallowed my pride and told her I was working there and that: it feels good, for the time being at least, to be a worker, in contrast to just reading stuff all the time, like we do in school.  

While considering her return letter, I couldn’t help but notice that moist kernels had bounced off the belt and hardened onto my T-shirt. Taking a pause from handling corn—just for a moment—to pick off the debris, her words echoed in my head: That’s how we’re different. You wrote that it felt good to be a worker. But I would have said: it felt good to observe what workers do. I never would have thought of myself as one of them.

III.        

Inside the most historic building on campus, our Writing 121 Instructor stood at the front of an old-fashioned classroom, facing the two dozen of us, first-year students. An actual chalkboard still covered one wall, but, due to its cleanliness, it was unclear if anyone still used it. A faint sliver of chilled, winter air drafted in around the windowsill and the rigid wood of my desk chair dug into the small of my back.

We called her: “Instructor,” not: “Professor,” because she was a graduate teaching fellow. A student herself, working towards her PhD. Because Writing 121 was just a required class after all—mandated to university freshman to ensure we could compose a coherent thought using the five-paragraph essay frame, a course that was meant to prepare us for the courses to come.

“Your next essay assignment will need to focus on a topic surrounding gender, race or class issues,” the instructor said. And we all sat there in our indifference, scribbling careless circles onto note paper or staring blankly in her general direction. Then she added, “Class doesn’t get talked about that much. Do you all know what I mean by class?”

A couple students nodded, or half-raised their hands. But I, like many of my peers, just sat there, immobile. The word “class” made me think of school, like History or Math, like that Writing 121 class. Surely that’s not what she wanted us to write a paper on?

Though, in the four years that were to follow: where I would come to find that my high school had not properly prepared me for advanced study—that, despite the fact we were already into the late 1990s and the burgeoning digital age, no one had ever taught me how to type or turn on a computer or access the internet or use a floppy disk (or that those disks even existed or what their purpose was), where I would be called “unprofessional” for my lack of skills and would have to whisper to select classmates, imploring them to give me basic tutorials on things they had all seemingly learned ages ago;

where I would start to dread my mom’s weekly phone calls, because the conversation inevitably turned to money, or the lack thereof, and how the cost of my education was swallowing us whole, despite all the hours I spent performing work study and receiving financial aid and the partial scholarship I won and my parent’s third mortgage on their house and the second job my dad took at night—delivering newspapers;

where I’d eventually acquiesce to smothering my personal values in order to enlist with ROTC for the financial benefit (though once I broke my foot, the deal was null and void);

where I’d cower in the back corner of the bookstore for hours—fearful of being kicked out for loitering or suspected shoplifting—reading my textbooks and taking copious notes on site, because I couldn’t afford the books;

where I’d lie to my friends about how great my holiday break was, while in reality, at our morning-after-Thanksgiving-breakfast, when Mom and Dad and I had treated ourselves to McDonald’s, the police had shown up and strode directly over to our little plastic booth and demanded that we drive the four miles back to our house so they could search it for my brother;

where, back in the dorms, I’d check my mailbox each night before entering the dining hall, and then make certain to hide any letters I’d received from said brother—because they’d been sent from inside the county jail and people with the luxury of not having experienced their loved ones getting caught up in the judicial system don’t seem to understand that you don’t just get arrested for doing “bad” things, but rather it’s a web that sticks to you and, without resources, it’s nearly impossible to break free;

where I’d sit seething in silence, while the other kids in my labor studies class (those with the well-to-do upbringings) talked about the migrant workers from my hometown as if they actually knew what it meant to be from a working-class, farming community, when it was clear they’d spent only part of a day or so there, before formulating opinions about all of us;

where less and less of who I was would feel acceptable;

I’d come to realize that I’d understood the concept of class my entire life.

I just hadn’t known there was a word for it. 

    IV.

The official stationery, complete with logo, stuck to my clammy fingertips. My eyes misted up, causing the letters to blur ever so slightly over the word: Congratulations! Welcomed into the Master’s degree program at the state university.

For most of my life, the idea of graduate school had been beyond my comprehension. Getting “just” my Bachelor’s degree seventeen years prior had already felt like transcending through a portal—existing on opposite sides of the universe from the rest of my family. But, after establishing myself as a white-collar professional, I discovered a graduate degree would be required to further my career. So, there I was, letter in hand, preparing to go even further beyond—like an explorer headed off the bounds of a map. 

As I got ready to call my mom and considered all the various ways to share the unprecedented news, my pulse quickened. Although we were not a sentimental family—rarely expressing gratitude or mentioning the impact we’ve made on one another’s lives—I imagined the significance of that day’s event may have altered us, just for a moment, and then, how I might’ve said: I learned how to work hard by watching you, Mom; how you held down multiple jobs and took care of our family.

And how she might’ve responded:  I’m so impressed with what you’ve been able to accomplish, in spite of everything.

But when the phone rang and my mom picked up, all that celebratory optimism dissipated in a flash. Her panicked voice intercepted my greeting, sucking me backwards into that never-ending vortex of struggle. “I need your help,” she said, “your brother’s been arrested again.”

      V.

Back in the day, as the car had managed to sputter to a start (normally on the second or third try), and we bobbled out of the dusty driveway of my childhood home—the stench of burnt oil lingering in the air—Dad would say, a slight chirp to his voice: Off and bumbling. His tone seemingly oblivious to the fact that the car still might crap out on the way into town (which often happened), that it may or may not start up again for our return trip (also highly probable) or that if we did make it successfully to and from our destination, if anyone I knew saw me riding in that hunk-of-junk, I could, foreseeably, die of embarrassment (which hadn’t come to pass yet, but as a self-conscious eleven-year old, I swore was due to occur at any time). To say we were “off” as in “on our way” seemed a generous overstatement. But the bumbling part always felt spot on.

The car in question would’ve been whatever was running—or could most quickly be resuscitated back to running—on a given day. Perhaps it might’ve been Dad’s pick-up truck with the driver’s seat busted into a position of permanent recline and the rearview mirror dangling by a thread. Or maybe one of his myriad Volkswagen Bugs: the black one with the torn upholstery or the rusted-out red one or the sort of yellowish one with a baby blue fender. After my parents had filed for bankruptcy and their best functioning car repossessed, Dad had developed an inexplicable interest in Volkswagen Bugs. He’d probably met someone who restored and then sold them at a profit—and Dad saw dollar signs. The problem being, after he’d purchased the cheap, decrepit Volkswagens, he’d lost interest in the more important steps of refurbishing and re-selling them.

But after getting older and making my own way, I would come to appreciate that although a bumble is not a leap or a gallop, the verb still implies a sense of being upright, of stilted momentum, of continuing to try. In fact, those words set a realistic expectation for what life would hold in store—for the fits and starts, for the fickle stuttering of hope and the splintered dreams—for the tenacity that would be required to not let those setbacks break me down. To keep moving forward, despite the odds.