Oregon Humanities

(Not) Talking about Class

Edwin Battistella, Ashland

I grew up in the 1960s in a middle-class household near the Jersey shore and Fort Monmouth. My mother was a night-shift nurse from western Pennsylvania and my neighbors’ parents were business owners, Bell Labs physicists, lawyers, small-town police, machinists, and retirees with nice lawns. One friend’s mother was a Superior Court judge. Another was an Italian bride who married a GI.

My friends and I never talked about class, but it was always evident in the dialects, accents, and grammar of our parents and other adults. We never talked about class, but we noticed its symbols—language, culture, travel, and toys. We never talked about class, but in the meritocracy of the New Frontier and the Great Society we did talk about education. We felt a limitless future was ours to shape—that we would study, that we could learn, that we would go to college, and that whatever we did would open new opportunities and never close them off. We never talked about class because we felt that education and the American Dream provided endless possibilities.

Today I’m older and still middle class, only more so. My neighbors are dentists, entrepreneurs, managers, and retirees. I still don’t talk much about class, though its symbols are evident in my speech, in my home, in my valuables, and in my values.

Why don’t I talk about class? I think it’s because I still see life as having a limitless frontier and that every new thing I learn explores and expands that frontier. There were occasions in my life, though, when class seemed to matter a lot. Reflecting back, those were times when I felt my choices were limited and that none led to opportunities for growth and new understanding. When Americans don’t worry about class, perhaps it is because they see their lives as journeys they can direct; when they do worry about class—theirs or someone else’s—perhaps it is because they sense those possibilities dwindling.

From Summer 2008 Class