Homeless Interview

For this paper I decided to interview my father. The first thing I asked him was where he was born and he said he was born in California, but he and his family moved many times. After this I asked him what the social class of his community was and he said lower class because they lived in mobile houses and at one point they lived in a tent which in my opinion was really shocking because his parents had to lie to other people saying that they were camping so that the authorities didn’t take away him and his sisters from his parents. When I asked him how his household supported itself he said it was his father doing plumbing work and my dad doing work and giving the money he earned to his parents and when his family was homeless his father had to do multiple jobs

After I asked him what his criteria for success was that he had to work hard and to not “half-ass” anything he wants to do and he said that even the rest of his family was like that and even now in mine it is like that which gets kind of annoying, but I see the benefits of thinking that way. When I asked him if he saw himself in terms of social class and he said that at the time him and his sisters did not even see themselves as homeless and really thought they were camping but now he says sometimes he thinks “oh my god, I was homeless.” I asked his is his social class position changed over the years and he said that it definitely has because now he isn’t lower class but now middle class and the reason for his social mobility was his friends, family, and his hard work which I am grateful for since I wouldn’t have and would not be who I am today without all that has happened to him