ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research would not have been possible without the generosity of sixty-four unemployed southern Californians and of a dozen pilot interviewees in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me or to my research assistant Claudia Castañeda. I am sorry it took so long, but here, at last, is the book we promised you would appear in. Even though your life has probably changed a great deal, I hope you feel this is a faithful account of the thoughts and experiences you shared when we spoke.

In the summer of 2012, Claudia Castañeda recruited and interviewed eleven unemployed or underemployed immigrants from Latin America who varied in education and income. Her sensitive interviews enriched this research considerably.

I am fortunate to have worked with many smart and helpful undergraduate student research assistants from the Claremont Colleges: Mathew Barber, Elena Breda, Kiana Contreras, Karen Eisenhauer, Grace Fan, Rylie Fong, Ciauna Kui-Chavez, Liliana Mora, and Javid Riahi. I look forward to seeing the work you do someday.

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number 1230534 and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, as well as several Faculty Research Award grants from Pitzer College. Those grants made it possible to pay my wonderful assistants, provide small stipends to my participants, hire transcriptionists, and cover other research expenses.

Although only my name appears as the author, this book is the product of many minds. I benefited from the insightful evaluations of Cornell University Press’s well-chosen reviewers, Carrie Lane and Christine Walley, as well as from the comments of my colleagues Susan Seymour and the late Lee Munroe. I can never give sufficient thanks to my SIS (Sisters in Scribbling): Alma Gottlieb, Beverly Haviland, and Susan Scheckel. Your comments forced me to explain myself better and to question what I had taken for granted. Above all, your edits made my writing easier to read and more interesting. Our regular deadlines, your critiques, and the example of your own work transformed this book from its awkward adolescence into a more polished grownup. Everybody should have a writing group this good. I also learned from audience feedback at talks at the Claremont Colleges Library’s Claremont Discourse series, MIT, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Northern Illinois University, Queen Mary University of London, Sun Yat-sen University, and too many academic conferences to name.

I am grateful to Fran Benson, who suggested I submit this manuscript to Cornell University Press. Although she retired as the editorial director of ILR Press before I was ready to submit it, Jim Lance, Clare Jones, and the team at Westchester Publishing Services capably saw it through to completion.

My husband, James Van Cleve, has an impeccable ear for the best way to phrase a thought. Thank you, Jim, for being my 24/7 editorial consultant. I am fortunate that my life partner, like me, is happy to devote a good part of every vacation and weekend to reading, thinking, and writing. According to the definitions I give in this book, that means we live to work. However, like many of my participants, we enjoy it. One of my interviewees said it well: “If you ever do make a living from your passion, you’re truly blessed.”