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Professor Horowitz explores the life and thought of the young Bettye Goldstein as an undergraduate at Smith, and then as a labor journalist in the early and mid 1940's, and reveals her origins as a committed social critic and advocate with labor-left origins.
Professor Horowitz treats his subject gently and with respect. Betty Friedan disagrees with Horowitz's analysis, and this tension adds to the fun.
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Nick is convinced his classmate is his own dad as a child. He is determined to crack this case. (spoiler)
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After reading this I went on to read Faith Popcorn's books, and found them to be rather flat predictions that demographics could easily fortell. Boom Bust & Echo is a useful toolkit for business people with lots of examples to draw from. My wife and I had our own company at the time, and I had to make her read the book so we could re-assess our strategy in light of this under-used tool, and it allowed us to reposition our company without straying from our original mission.
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Groody is not a sentimentalist and he tries to be even-handed. Although he registers appalling behavior on the part of the Border Patrol, he includes interviews with Border Patrol members in his research, and he acknowledges that there is a much larger picture: the relationship between the US and Mexico.
Groody focuses on the way individuals experience immigration. As I noted in my own book, Making the Big Move, identity change creates the greatest stress in any relocation. Here Groody talks about the way immigrants from Mexico also experience spiritual hunger as they seek to be united with a new community.
Perhaps the most vivid and memorable part of the book comes in the description of the four-day retreats, a program implemented by the clergy but designed by former participants who literally speak the language of the immigrants.
It is especially moving to read of the reaction of the "candidates," the new immigrants, as they are greeted enthusiastically by the staff and are served meals by the staff. Staff members apply for coveted positions -- and they actually pay $75 a week to work in the program.
Living eighty miles from the Mexican border, here in New Mexico, I've crossed checkpoints on the highways, often several hundred miles north of the border. Usually the guards just wave "Anglos" through and we rarely even stop. This book was a real eye-opener. At the end, I found myself wondering why we spend millions of dollars to keep out these people, instead of using the money to develop proactive programs here and in Mexico. Something is not working.
Although some of today's generation-- whether feminists or not--may scratch heads and wonder why an intellegent articulate woman would intentionally disguise so much of her being while urging other women not to do the same, Friedan had no choice. In a nation somewhat tempered by fresh reccollection of the horrors of McCarthyism, red-baiting and subsequent discreditation of those tarred with the label still ran rampant.
Understanding that her grim findings would never receive the light of day in a culture still gushy-eyed over the assumption that every housewife was automatically happy or that option was the only choice for women, she had to employ crafty PR strategies to make the book appealing for original publication and promotion. Her "new idenity" made her a far more appealing media source than a "radical labor activist" since it allowed her to avoid being blamed for her own stigmatization as one of those supposedly unnatural career women whose unhappiness must be self-inflicted.
As a member of third-wave feminism, I profess to having little initial interest in Friedan or her methodology. Because I lived in a world where with comparatively many more choices/rights, was aware of her own internal predjuduces towards intra-feminist movement diversity and antagonism towards Gloria Steinem, I usually wrote off Friedan as an anachronism who although important, was somebody I could not relate to directly. Since I was not married and was childless, I could not see myself in the pages.
After this book, I not only can see why she repackaged herself, but realized that I would do exactly the same thing in her position. I still disagree with Friedan on her minimialization of other feminist leaders, but have a new appreciation of her work and relevance.