Poverty in U.S.

"...the poor need not always be with us. But it will take political movements much more imaginative and militant than those in existence in 1980 to bring that progress about. Until that happens, the poor will be with us.” -- Michael Harrington in his book, “The other America: Poverty in the U.S.”



By Kwanwoo Jun

< Video & slideshow for an NYU social justice class >
              I. Video by Kwanwoo Jun
                 

Can Collector "Mama Chula"

             MANHATTAN, New York -- Acquaintances call her “Mama Chula,” an aged Spanish-speaking female can collector near NYU’s Elmer Holmes Bobst library. Few know her name, age or how she got the nickname “Old Lady Pretty” in English.

Her almost daily presence at 70 Washington Square South, in the alley just east of the library, has become a fixture of the early morning scenery at the library for years.

In business at 7 a.m. on a recent Tuesday, the woman was rummaging through garbage to collect cans and bottles for money. Wearing a black cap, a gray sweater and, more importantly, transparent plastic cooking gloves, she moved busily from a garbage bag to another to fill her box and bag with the recyclable.

Her wrinkled but deft hands restlessly poked about to pick cans and bottles from the garbage. She was in a hurry, probably because she knew a garbage truck would arrive at the temporary dumping site shortly for a pick-up.

She hysterically rejected repeated requests for an interview. She seemed to hate my presence. Her hostility was clear when at one point she pulled out a half-filled coke bottle from her collection box and sprayed the beverage toward me. Several droplets landed on my hand and my camera. Her act was intentional. My camera, however, continued to roll.

Several attempts for me to communicate with her failed. She shook her head wildly and made a “go-away” gesture with her hands whenever I tried to approach her.

The woman, who refused to identify herself, has been working as can and bottle collector near the library for years to support herself and her sick husband, said some of NYU’s maintenance workers who have acquainted themselves with her. “Her husband has got a cancer,” Kevin Lennon, an NYU library cleaner, said. “She usually earns $40 to $100 a day by collecting the cans and bottles there,” another NYU cleaner, Michael Lois, said. “She works hard.”

After a week of hanging around the woman, I could finally hear one single word from her. “Thanks,” she said after seeing me set a hot cup of coffee for her on a flowerbed nearby. Then she went back to work. She said nothing more.

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II. Slideshow by Kwanwoo Jun

(MANHATTAN, New York)