American Realities

New Orleans, also called the Big Easy, is considered one of the most distinctive cities in the United States, with its colorful French colonial architecture, its musical heritage and festivals, its creole food and historical mix of African-American, Native American and European cultures. However, this southern city of color and revelry is also a place where income and opportunities are divided along racial lines, part of the legacy of segregation. Poverty and violence are concentrated in poor black neighborhoods, such as the Ninth Ward, which were also the hardest-hit during Hurricane Katrina, the costliest disaster in US history.

Often called the breadbasket of the country, more than half of the nation’s fruits and vegetables comes from the Central Valley of California, where Fresno is located. Peaches, plums, grapes, cotton, almonds, tomatoes, cattle and milk are among the region’s products. Agriculture is big business, generating $5.6 billion in farm revenue. But the wealth hasn’t trickled down evenly in this abundant and fertile place; Fresno has one of the highest poverty rates in the country. According to a 2011 report from the US Census Bureau, 26 percent of the population lives below the poverty line; that’s a meager $22,811 for a family of four.

A walk through the South Bronx reveals the nation’s most ethnically diverse neighborhood. Latin music and hip hop blast from car radios, streets are lined with Hispanic bakeries and bodegas, buildings are sprayed with colorful graffiti and Spanish is spoken on every corner. Gritty and lively, the South Bronx is also the poorest congressional district with more than a quarter million people and one in two children living below the poverty line. Half of the families here are run by a woman with no husband present. Since the economic recession hit in 2007, unemployment has more than doubled to 14 percent.

To the casual visitor, Athens, Georgia seems like a charming southern town with classic and Antebellum architecture, a restored downtown full of shops and restaurants, a vibrant independent music scene, and the University of Georgia, the oldest and largest college in the state. But life for many of its residents isn’t so charming. Athens-Clark County has a poverty rate of 40 percent, the highest in counties with a population of more than 100,000 across the United States, according to the 2011 American Community Survey. Homelessness is on the rise with local shelters at full capacity.

The socioeconomic problems on the Native American reservations date back to when the reservations were created and are directly tied to land ownership. Few Native Americans own land as much of it is held in US trust. Federal policies of the 19th century, specifically the Dawes Act, allotted parcels of land to individual Native Americans and sold other reservation land to non-Indians in exchange for land given to the Tribes.