Sunset Trailer Park: With Florence Bérubé
Sunset Trailer Park: With Florence Bérubé
This essay presents an expanded version of a talk Berube presented in 1997 at an academic conference called “The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness.” Here, Berube continued his autobiographical exploration of class and race as categories that shape our daily experience. In dialogue with his stepmother, he recalls his family's years living in a New Jersey trailer park, including the gradations of status within that community. The essay also provides insight into the origins of Berube's aspirations for class mobility, which included his parents' hopes for their children and the chance opportunities that entered his life. Here and elsewhere in his personal writing, Berube locates himself in a borderland between classes. He continues to try to balance his nostalgia for the past with the recognition of the painful realities of working-class life.
Keywords: academic conference, autobiographical exploration, trailer park, gradations of status, class mobility
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