Surviving HIV/AIDS in the Inner City: How Resourceful Latinas Beat the Odds

8. Learning from Resourceful Women

164 8 Learning from Resourceful Women I began my work with Newark’s resourceful women by asking four key questions. Given their limited resources, how did they manage an illness as serious as HIV/AIDS? Did they seek out alternatives to conventional medicine and, if so, what kind? Could they act as effective agents despite the structural violence that constrained them? And what could Newark’s resourceful women teach us about our health care system and the way we can expect to use it? How Did they Manage HIV/AIDS? The key differences between more successful and less successful women can best be understood through Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural capital, habitus, and social capital. Remember, cultural capital refers to the classspecific knowledge, values, preferences, and skills that dominate the social environment, or habitus, in which individuals are raised. Social capital refers to the body of potential resources that can emerge from relationships of trust. Though all of the women I worked with were raised in a marginal- or working-class Puerto Rican habitus, some had also been exposed to other ways of seeing and knowing the world, through education, institutionalization, and recovery programs. These women absorbed some of the cultural capital of groups other than their own. A few could even draw on the embodied cultural capital (body language and speech patterns) of those other groups. No matter where they were or who they were with, these women were able to appear relaxed, gracious, and culturally competent. They made their acquaintances feel at home, so they built LEARNING FROM RESOURCEFUL WOMEN 165 alliances with ease (see figure 8.1). People of all backgrounds wanted to help them, so they got better advice, better support, and better care than other, less flexible women who actually needed it more. In Bourdieu’s terms, these women’s diverse cultural capital enabled them to build greater social capital, which in turn enhanced their well-being and perhaps, in some cases, lengthened their lives. Women with average cultural capital were like most of the rest of us: comfortable and relaxed in our own habitus, but tense and confused outside of it. In their own neighborhoods and local organizations, these women understood the unwritten rules guiding interpersonal behavior and could interact with other people easily. Outside of familiar settings, they didn’t know what to expect or how to operate, so they struggled, sometimes even alienating those who could help them. This kept them from building the social capital that could have vastly improved their lives. In terms of illness management, women with broad cultural capital approached HIV/AIDS with the same strategies they used to manage their other problems. They canvassed local agencies, government bodies, safety-net hospitals, and federally funded clinics in order to understand what was locally available and who controlled access to each resource. They built dense networks of allies, turning to these allies whenever they needed help. Because they could cross from their own habitus into those of others with relative ease, their networks were socially and ethnically diverse. Many of their allies were middle-class professionals with direct access to the resources they needed, like expert medical FIGURE 8.1 Ability to Form Strong Alliances Average capital In the middle Broad capital 1 1 1 1 1 2 6 6 6 Strong clinician alliances Strong social service alliances Strong support group alliances care or admission into agency support programs. And though the help of these middle-class professionals was important, it wasn’t the only kind of help they needed. For finding under-the-table work, for example, they turned to allies who knew how to scramble for unofficial jobs. Because women with broad capital cultivated all their connections carefully, they could count on the help of just the right person whenever a need arose. The social capital they accumulated through these relationships gave them access to the best clinicians, facilities, mentors, and social services available in their area. It also connected them to a range of street-smart friends. Women with average capital worked harder to meet their basic health needs. They, too, tried to build alliances with people who could help them. Sometimes they succeeded, but more often, they failed. Watching them, I noticed how uncomfortable they were in environments dominated by middle-class professionals and those different from themselves. These women struggled to cross out of their own habitus. In general, they depended...