The Missing Class by Katherine Newman

Author:Katherine Newman [Newman, Katherine S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8070-4141-3
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2007-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE GUERRA FAMILY

Wendy Agustín, a Dominican mother of five who has lived in New York most of her life, never opens the windows of her cramped, two-bedroom apartment in a drafty six-story building opposite the 126th Street Bus Depot. That is because fumes from the nearly 200 buses that circulate daily through this tiny block, between First and Second Avenues, are making her children sick.

—New York Times, November 5, 2006

When her oldest son, Omar, was born, Tamar was twenty years old, a fresh-off-the-plane immigrant cowering in the presence of her abusive boyfriend, Enrique. Six months after the boy was born, the boyfriend was out of Tamar’s life for good. Enrique had been a terror, and she was glad to see him go. Her son, however, continued to bear traces of the earlier, unhappy union that had conceived him. His health was erratic and nerve-racking for his young mother. Born with a small stomach, Omar retained little food and vomited constantly.

Tamar took Omar to Columbia University Medical Center, to an outside pediatrician, to anyone with a stethoscope and a willing ear. They all assured Tamar that there was nothing to worry about.

Tamar’s mother, Olivia, was, as usual, suspicious. The elderly island-born woman—wary of doctors and city bureaucrats—posed the theory that Omar’s physicians weren’t paying attention to him because he didn’t have health insurance. She urged Tamar to apply for Medicaid.

Before she had Omar, Tamar had worked a succession of off-the-books jobs with low pay and long hours at the Tri-State Region’s drabbest factories and clothing stores. She had tried to apply for public assistance but had always been rejected. The authorities didn’t believe that she didn’t work (true enough) or that she didn’t have a husband (her machista scoundrel of a boyfriend at the time refused to marry her). After those initial attempts, Tamar gave up. Health insurance was not simply worth the ordeal of wrestling with the city’s dreary bureaucracy every week.

But now, with a vomit-reeking baby slung over her shoulder, Tamar changed her mind. She and her mother decided to go to the welfare office and apply for Medicaid the next day. The problem was, what to do with Omar? She couldn’t bring him there. He’d throw up and frighten all the caseworkers; plus, there was that awful odor that followed him everywhere.

But there was no time to find a sitter. Tamar brought Omar to the office, and sure enough, he started vomiting—twenty-five times in thirty minutes. The caseworkers were flabbergasted. What kind of mother would bring her sick child into a place of business? A half hour later, the paramedics arrived and drove Tamar, Olivia, and the puking tot to Columbia University Medical Center.

The same doctor who had told Tamar with a straight face that Omar was completely fine was now telling her that her son had to undergo a major operation on his stomach. Tamar berated him angrily. Why didn’t he examine Omar properly the first time? Was it because she didn’t have insurance?

The operation was successful. Omar’s vomiting was cured.

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