NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY

Terms for those with a Latin American heritage are contested at present. There are good reasons to choose Latino/a, Latina/o, Latinx, or Latine. Following common usage among those with that background in the United States, I settled on Latino/a.²⁰ I chose to follow thoughtful journalists in using “Black” and “white” to refer to those socially constructed racial categories.²¹ When I speak of “women” and “men,” I do not assume that gender identities are binary or fixed.

I struggled with the best adjective to describe the people and characteristics of the United States. The problem with “American” is that the United States is only one country in the Americas. For ease of exposition, I usually resort to the shorter, more common term “American,” with occasional switches to “US American” as a reminder.

For the same reasons—ease of exposition and because they are the locally preferred terms—I use “work” and “working” to refer to waged work. Meanings of “work” are central to this project and were contested by some of my participants, so I write more about alternative definitions of “working” and “unemployed” at the end of chapter 1.