downward mobility

pondering an essay I wrote at 18

I came across an essay that I wrote in 2021, surely while I was knee-deep in the university application cycle. According to its title in my Google Drive, this was a placement essay for Jefferson University, and I’ve gone on about this in past ramblings but my time there—short and sweet, thankfully—sucked.

But that isn’t what I’m here to talk about today.

This essay is good. As syntactically good as it could be for an 18-year-old out of her creative element, but good enough to make me question if I wrote it or if it was part of some example prompt. One quick look at the document history and holy shit, I did write this. Now, I’m not saying that this is my magnum opus by any means, but as I read through it I couldn’t believe how painfully aware of the world I was. I used to hear what every young, critical, introspective girl hears: You’re so mature for your age. But even then, I wrote it off as people trying to lay on the responsibility thick or get in my pants. This document made me think twice.

It’s called “Downward Mobility”—killer title for the times, and definitely came off the heels of my internship with the Center for Economic and Social Justice just a few months before the essay—and it details the struggles that millennials and Gen Z are facing as a result of the ever expanding wealth gap in this nation. It’s as pressing an issue as ever, so you can imagine my surprise when I realized that little me wrote it. As well as my grief as I reflected, realizing that nothing has changed; in fact, it’s worse. It’s a garbage fire.

I want you all to read it before we get much further. Put yourself in millennial/Gen Z shoes if you aren’t already in ‘em, and listen closely to the thrum of your heart as you place this in the context of today, post-election.

Here it is:

Downward Mobility
by Aleikza Diaz

For many millennials and members of Generation Z, there is an ever-ticking clock that looms over and calculates each and every move they make. The constant impending fear of time running out, and that clock stopping is the ultimate motivation, but it is not necessarily an envied one. To be kept in a constant state of fear, anxiety, and overthinking is certainly enough to keep one going, but is it enough to keep one fulfilled? The answer lies in the new wave of downward mobility taking place across the nation. Millennials and Gen Z are just not doing as well as their parents did, but is this their fault? With constant innovation and change, the arms on that little clock in their brains move faster with each minute that passes. 

Commonplace practices are now riddled with fear of not moving quickly enough. The question of taking a gap year before college is now followed up with the idea that taking one will allow for working and saving money, but it will also allow for prolonging the process of reaching one’s career goals. After all, what are you without a degree? This phrase is constantly passed around by older generations today. The notion that a diploma is no longer enough has been in place for some time, but now an Associate’s degree is not enough, now a Bachelor’s degree does not pay enough, debt is the only solution. Where buying a house and building a family used to be, debt has taken place. Fearing debt has caused one of the largest dilemmas in the lives of the younger generations. They are left with two options: fear it or live ‘successfully’ in it. 

So why are younger Americans not as successful as their parents and grandparents? 

The answer is simple: crippling anxiety about a system that is barely understood by the layperson. The economy in the United States and the system of capitalism is built to keep everyone in their place, like a caste system. The poor stay poor, the middle class claw at their chances to be as successful as their predecessors, and the rich get impossibly wealthy. All that the layperson understands is that money makes life move, so while the rich get to wallow in all of their gold and bills, poor and middle class individuals need to grasp every chance they get to move forward in life, ultimately just landing right back where they started.

In conclusion, these younger generations are not any less hardworking or dedicated to their futures, in fact, the opposite can be argued. This system is fear mongering at its finest and no member of these generations can be blamed for where they stand; they should be empathized with. That clock is an endless reminder of life flying by them. So no, pulling themselves ‘up by the bootstraps’ is not the answer. Reforming and constructing a fair economic system is the only way to trigger any progress in society. Being ruthless to systems, and kind to individuals is the only answer.

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It’s gone in almost a blink of an eye, but difficult to ignore. The reminders are constant of how unequal we are when one percent of the country holds half the money that could house the unhoused and feed our children. Even the phantom golden child certain politicians hold so highly.

As time goes on, I have less and less to say about the state of the world because there is nothing that you cannot know; the disparities live inside us and surface when they’re triggered by an ethnocentric virus that only skips white men. And even then, only the ones willing to participate in the system. Those without partners of color, disabled family members, sisters, and queer friends.

The future seems bleak, I’ll be honest. I’d love to say that it’s up to us, but in many ways it isn’t. Doing your part, voting, peacefully saying no, it isn’t working.

We’ll have to take a page out of 18-year-old Lex’s book:

Being ruthless to systems, and kind to individuals is the only answer.

In a time where I’ve felt like I’m running out of opinions, I’m glad I found this essay. With a head not jumbled with bills, due dates, new job prospects, the ever looming eye of the government on her body, and the pressure to perform self-care efficiently, this younger version of me says what I mean. I’m proud and likewise jealous that I can’t always write real anymore. I’ve been reliant on fiction and poetry to yank me from the world. All those abstractions and illusions of a better life are cushiony, allowing me to look at the edges of the problem, rather than the mouth of it.

But it leaks in anyway. I’m writing a novel right now about a queer Black man—Marvin Royce—in late 80s America. He sort of sees the world through rose-colored glasses because he’s slightly more privileged than other men in his position. He’s from a good area that integrated quickly after the Civil Rights Movement; they’ve had a bit more time to catch up, but it isn’t perfect. Still, he doesn’t always feel different for being Black, but he nearly always does for being gay. He withstands AIDS crisis protestors, misinformed God-fearers, and repressed men betraying him with their hypocrisy. His queer identity is amplified for most of the book, and when it is suppressed—snuffed out by an abusive character—he leans on another part of his identity for comfort: his Blackness.

I have yet to write this part of the book, but I know that he will recognize how hard it is to be non-white in America. How neighborhoods were sabotaged by our own government for being on the wrong side of town, and crack made its way into Black and brown hands without any fault of their own, and tough on crime meant tough on young men just like him. How his mother and father make less money than their colleagues despite their work ethic. How he himself has been oppressed in more than one way, even in good old Walton, Illinois, where the grass was green and nobody was killed by nobody.

He’s been short-sighted in this way, and I wanted to highlight how vicious the attacks can be on one’s identity. So much so that they fragment it for the sake of digesting each lump of hatred. He must deal with these two integral parts of himself separately, and it’s lonely. It’s raw.

I know this started out about economics, but it all meshes and molds into the same monster. There’s a constant, vitriolic attack on people like Marvin. We cannot stand to deal with it alone. Fragment it, take the pill all at once, delegate tasks, anything.

But don’t do it in silence.

No matter your age, status, or disadvantages. This essay was written with young words and submitted to a panel of people who thought it worthy, and still it stands. Don’t just let yourself be sweet and heard. Let yourself be ruthless. Nice and kind are not synonymous, and this system does not deserve your niceties.

Copyright © 2024 by Aleikza M. Diaz

All rights reserved. This story or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

Cover Photo: Julio Cortez/Associated Press (2020)

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Ignore this, lol.

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