Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation

Karen Russell’s contribution to this anthology is part personal essay and part investigative journalism. She writes of her time living above a homeless shelter in Portland and her subsequent quest to purchase a house. She outlines the problems that have caused a surge in the city’s homeless population, negative responses to the homeless, and the civic government’s attempts to address the housing crisis.

In 2014, Russell and her boyfriend settled in Portland in an affordable rental. She soon discovered why it was inexpensive: There was a homeless shelter located below, and at night the air was thick with noise. During the day, homeless men and women filled the neighborhood. She laments the inhumanity of stepping over various sleeping men as she exits her apartment building each day and the desensitization she experiences. Russell writes, “I’d gotten used to the train horns at night; the human screaming still woke me. How often did I get up and go to the window, to see if there was something I could do? After the first few nights, not very often at all” (212).

Russell discusses why homelessness is such a massive problem in Portland. The current housing crisis has been endemic for some, especially people of color. According to Russell, “Upsettingly and unsurprisingly, the greater the incomes of those impacted, the more attention we pay to escalating rents and no-cause evictions” (214). Though Portland’s mayor declared a state of emergency to provide more shelter accommodations, many residents protested, arguing that they felt threatened by the city’s large population of unhoused people. Others claimed the mayor’s plans would attract more homeless individuals to the city.

While Portland coped with this crisis, Russell and her partner searched for a home to purchase. Wealthy former Bay Area residents consistently outbid them by thousands of dollars. She recounts the debates they had over how much to offer and what part of the city to choose, noting that it was a privilege to feel “torn” over these issues:

People with options feel torn. People with options feel pulled, tugged—people who can move in multiple directions. Whereas those without homes are often immobilized by illness and poverty and addictions. They lack stable shelter, a bed in which to dream (225).

The two eventually bought a house and moved away from the apartment above the homeless shelter. Russell returned to the area to volunteer at a soup kitchen out of concern that she would lose touch with her former neighbors and become insulated in her new neighborhood, away from the homeless population.

Homelessness is a natural disaster and must be treated as such. For example, approximately 4,000 people are homeless in Portland and 46,000 in Los Angeles. Wages have remained stagnant since the early 2000s while rent has increased, so that “the poorest third of Americans now spend about fifty percent more on all their housing costs than they did in 1996” (237). Readers must not be so overwhelmed by this data that we become numb to the problem. While systemic change is necessary, helping one another on an individual level also matters.

This poem authored by Rickey Laurentiis addresses the invisibility of the true New Orleans and its residents. The city stands between two poles in popular culture. It is, however, more than the tragic outcomes associated with the 2005 natural disaster Hurricane Katrina and Mardi Gras revelry. When one thinks of New Orleans, “Sin stands out” (240). However, New Orleans is much more than that: “The city, not just the given/Notion of the city, that screen we call myth, call the dark, /But the brick and spit of it, iron, horseshit, the river” (241). The true city, the real New Orleans, which too often lies invisible to most Americans, is discernible. 

Joy Williams’s short story is a post-modernist critique of materialism, consumerism, greed, and excessive wealth. The protagonist, Arthur Barrow, tells his story in stream of consciousness. When Arthur visits a friend at an asylum, he meets a man who thinks he was once the state’s governor. “The Governor” rambles on about his bad administration and the world’s problems, as he sees them. For example, he criticizes environmentalists and rails against globalization and the world’s diversity. He says, “Whole goddamned state breaks my heart. It should be put on a ventilator. I made mistakes before, I admit. Built too many roads. Liked clever argument, was fond of peculiar grammars, but I was no one’s creature” (245).

After the Governor’s murder, Arthur assumes his estate and quickly blows through it: “He [Arthur] had no idea what he’d been. He’d certainly accumulated a great deal of money. Which was gone” (248). Arthur ultimately feels trapped in the cabin he has inherited since he runs out of the worldly luxuries he enjoyed and consumed quickly. He descends into alcoholism:

The rye was gone, the bottle empty. He had deceived himself in believing there was another, for holding his breath, closing his eyes, he had reached into the depths of that trunk several days ago […] This had been that. Nothing more to take there was (250).

The wealth he once thought would bring him joy has only left him empty.

Nami Mun’s short story about a Korean couple who immigrate to the United States is a commentary on the death of the American Dream. Set in their one-room apartment, the story unfolds through Hanju Lee’s thoughts. He reflects on the tragic life that he has led and his multiple failures. He recalls his flight from financial hardships. Lee and his wife first toiled for 12 hours a day in a laundromat; later the pair were convinced to invest in running a failing motel. Hanju believes he has failed his beautiful wife, who always wanted more than what he could provide. Mun writes:

Every Sunday she sat in the front pews, her face smiling with piety, and every Sunday afternoon she tried to shake hands with the right people, hoping that someone would introduce her to a smart investment, a quick moneymaker, anything that could catapult her into one of those immigrant success stories she’d read in Korea Daily (258).

As their troubles mounted, the two unknowingly became involved in human trafficking. Once a 12-year-old trafficking victim is murdered and he becomes aware that these young girls are more than restaurant hosts, Hanju tries to get out of the arrangement. Unfortunately, he is entangled with the Russian mob, who torture him by cutting a piece of skin from the top of his head. Hanju hopes that the police will believe the pair if they confess that they did not know the truth. His wife retorts, “No one will believe us. We’re immigrants. We’re nobodies” (259). Trapped in these intolerable circumstances, Hanju and his wife resort to self-immolation, dousing themselves in gasoline on the bed of their studio apartment.