Cross-Cultural Engagement in the Library

Situational, multigenerational, elder, and child poverty are all addressed through conversations with those who know economic hardship firsthand, while immigration issues and homelessness are also examined in depth.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn explore the causes and costs of addiction, poverty and incarceration plaguing America, from the inner city to small towns like Yamhill, Oregon. While pockets of empathy and aid exist, are they enough to rescue the thousands of Americans in despair, for whom the American Dream of self-reliance is impossibly out of reach?

Cities, from trendy coastal areas to the nation's heartland, are seeing levels of growth beyond the wildest visions of only a few decades ago. But areas in the same cities house thousands of people living in poverty who see little or no opportunity. Even as cities revive, they are becoming more unequal and more segregated.

In one of the richest countries on Earth it has effectively become a crime to be poor. For example, in Ferguson, Missouri, the U.S. Department of Justice didn't just expose racially biased policing; it also exposed exorbitant fines and fees for minor crimes that mainly hit the city's poor, African American population, resulting in jail by the thousands.

What is it about the geography, demography, and history of rural communities that keeps them poor? In a comprehensive analysis that extends from the Civil War to the present, Rural Poverty in the United States looks at access to human and social capital; food security; healthcare and the environment; homelessness; gender roles and relations; racial inequalities; and immigration trends to isolate the underlying causes of persistent rural poverty.

Your health is largely determined by your zip code - the strain of living in a poor neighborhood, with sub-par schools, lack of parks, fear and violence, few to no healthy food options, and the stress of unpaid bills is literally taking years off people's lives.