On this edition of Your Call, journalist Alisa Quart discusses her new book, Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream.
The promise that you can “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is central to the story of the American Dream. It’s the belief that if you work hard and rely on your own resources, you will eventually succeed. Quart explains how we can free ourselves from these self-defeating narratives.
Guest:
Alissa Quart, executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and author of five books, including Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America and Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream
Web Resources:
KQED Podcast Garage Panel tonight at 6pm: Producing Audio Stories with Care
The New York Times: Can We Put an End to America’s Most Dangerous Myth?
Capital & Main: Held Down by Our Bootstraps
The Nation: Is the American Dream a Long Con?
The Guardian: A national bullying of the poor: the trouble with America’s bootstrapping myth
Rolling Stone: How the Horatio Alger Lie Helped Shape the Myth of American Upward Mobility
