The precarious lightness of being

By Diana J. Torres

I think it took me quite a few years to distinguish the important boundary between precariousness and poverty.

That there was nothing more than a yogurt at home each week, that my clothes were always second or third hand (and even fourth hand!), that my school supplies and tennis shoes were always half-assed, that we never went to the hairdresser, that sometimes there was no electricity or water at home because it was cut off for lack of payment, and other little details always gave me the impression that we were poor at home.

Why? Very simple: because poor is the word used as an insult to those who have less than you. This is how I understood from a very young age that being poor was wrong, that it was a punishment for something I could not yet understand. That insult, being poor, made me feel that no matter how good I was at many other things that had nothing to do with money (top of the class, best in sports, etc.), I was never going to be at the same level as the girls with their brand new nikes or the boys with their pilotV5 pens...