The geographic span between Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and New York's
Columbia University is relatively modest, but for award-winning
journalist Alfred Lubrano, the psychic distance he needed to travel as
the first member of his family to attend college was far greater.
Lubrano discusses the unique conflicts and challenges faced by
"Straddlers" like himself -- people brought up in the working class,
transformed through their educations, now leading middle-class lives.
We touch on numerous topics in this episode, including:
Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams (Wiley, 2003)
F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway
Columbia University
GQ Magazine
New York Daily News
Caroline Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory
Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb, The Hidden Injuries of Class
Michael Hout, UC Berkeley
Pierre Bourdieu
Dana Gioia, The National Endowment for the Arts
Stanford University
Harvard University
Phillips Exeter Academy
Fulbright scholarship
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
W.E.B. DuBois
Amazon.com
Slate.com and Dear Prudence
Tom Wolfe
Come listen to a very different kind of story about choosing to step away from bricks and mortar.
