你小時候是如何發(fā)現自己很窮的？

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Kya Pauley, AI Engineer
I was 11 when I first realized we were poor. I broke my thumb playing softball and my mother was very adamant that we could not go to the ER, but the bus driver was equally adamant that I couldn’t go to school with an eggplant for a hand, either.
That day I got an earful about how much my insurance copay meant that my mother wouldn’t be able to pay some bill or another. I didn’t give a crap, I was just glad she was taking me to the damn doctor for once.
Over the next few years of middle school I learned that most of my friends went to the doctor when they got sick, received clothes that weren’t from Goodwill more than once a year, had birthday parties and Christmas presents and so on. They did not have to work at a concession stand on weekends to earn their lunch money for the week, went to restaurants and had fast food sometimes, and they could invite their friends over without being lectured about how much it costs to feed another person. If they missed the bus, their mothers actually drove them to school and there was no discussion about gas money.

Kya Pauley, AI工程師
我11歲時第一次意識到我們家很窮。我打壘球的時候拇指骨折了，我媽媽堅持說我們不能去急診室，但是公交車司機也堅持說我不能帶著腫成茄子的手去學校。
那天我聽到一大堆關于我的保險意味著我的母親將無法支付一些帳單或別的多少的私語。我不在乎，我只是很高興她能帶我去看一次醫(yī)生。

在接下來的幾年中，我了解到我的大多數朋友生病時都去看醫(yī)生，每年的生日派對和圣誕等會不止一次收到來自非平民商店的衣服。
他們不必在周末在小賣部工作來賺取一周的午餐錢，有時還會去餐館、吃快餐。他們可以邀請他們的朋友來家里，而不用聽他們講養(yǎng)活一個人要花多少錢。如果他們錯過了公共汽車，他們的母親就會開車送他們去學校，而不用討論油錢的問題。
這一切聽起來都太棒了。

當時，其實我們還沒那么窮。
我母親有一份每小時賺12美元的工作，我們有一間小房子和一輛車，我一般都設法不挨餓，也不赤身裸體。但有幾個月，我們不得不在我教母家洗澡，因為家里的水被切斷了，或者我們只能住在教母家，因為家里沒有電等等。但事情并沒有那么糟糕，在我看來一切都很正常。
后來在我14歲的時候房子被收回了，事情從“對我來說似乎很正?！弊兂闪恕芭叮撍?，我們很窮”。那時候我還沒有意識到，但那個時候我媽媽屈服于她的鴉片癮，也不愿意……你知道的，照顧她的孩子。

每隔幾個月，我們就會從一個公寓搬到另一個公寓，因為我媽媽會開空頭支票來付押金，然后我們就會因為沒有付款而被趕出去。
一年之后，我們都成了無家可歸的人，有時睡在車里，有時住在圖森（美亞利桑那州）南邊I-19公路旁的汽車旅館房間里。在那段時間里，我感染了許多葡萄球菌，至今仍有傷疤——那是一個有趣的夏天。

后來，即使我們在政府補貼的社區(qū)里有了一套穩(wěn)定的公寓，生活還是相當艱難。我們的電力不斷被切斷(由于綜合設施良好，我們仍然有水)，我認為我目前的近視與一直在黑暗中做作業(yè)有關。我們沒有日用品，我靠學校的免費早餐/午餐計劃生活。我非常幸運，有一位老師注意到了我，并對我表示同情。每當我餓的時候，他就會把花生醬三明治的配料放在教室里。



Brynn Gonzales
One hint was when I was ten and I was talking with my mom. I was like, “remember that really boring road trip we went on when I was six?” She was confused at first, so i kept describing it. She finally realized what i was talking about and said, “No, we were homeless and living in the car.”
Another hint was when I went to my friend Zo?''s house. She had just moved here from Germany. I thought her house was a mansion, but she told me that it was very small. She said her house in Germany was about twice the size. I lived in a one room apartment at the time.
Another time, I read a poem in English class. It was about American suburban culture. We had to discuss, it, and everyone was talking about how they don''t like the culture. They talked about moms in minivans driving their kids to soccer practice, and trips to Cosco in which you bring some cartloads of food, and having such an excess of food that you have to have two fridges. They talked so negatively about that kind of culture, but I would give anything to have enough food to fill up even one fridge.
The thing that really brought everything together was when my parents began to fight. They argued about money, and how they couldn''t pay taxes, and how they were going to have to take on more jobs in order to feed us. I was eleven, at the time, and I realized then that we were actually really poor, poor enough to be below the poverty line.

一個暗示是，在我十歲的時候，我和我媽媽聊天。我說:“還記得我六歲時我們那次很無聊的自駕游嗎?一開始她很困惑，所以我一直在描述。她終于明白了我的意思，說:“不，我們無家可歸，住在車里。”
另一個暗示是，我去了我朋友Zoe家。她剛從德國搬到這里。我以為她的房子是豪宅，但她告訴我它很小。她說她在德國的房子大約有這個的兩倍大。那時我住在一個只有一個房間的公寓里。

還有一次，我在英語課上讀了一首詩。它是關于美國郊區(qū)文化的，我們必須參與討論，每個人都在談論他們如何不喜歡這種文化。他們談到媽媽們開著小貨車帶著孩子去參加足球訓練，或者去Cosco的旅行，你帶了一車的食物，食物太多了，你不得不買兩個冰箱。他們對這種文化的評價很負面，但我愿意付出一切來獲得足夠的食物，哪怕只是填滿一個冰箱。

真正把一切聯系在一起的是我父母開始吵架的時候。他們?yōu)殄X而爭吵，為他們如何付不起稅而爭吵，為我們如何不得不接受更多的工作而爭吵。那年我十一歲，那時我意識到我們真的很窮，窮到低于貧困線的地步。