Böcker av Jennifer Hamer

Absent fathers, the breakdown of the nuclear family, and single-mother households are often blamed for the poor quality of life experienced by many African American children. Jennifer F. Hamer challenges both the imposition of an inappropriate value system and the resulting ineffectual social policies. Most of what we know about fathers who do not live with their children is based on interviews with the mothers; this book is based on interviews with the fathers themselves. How do these fathers perceive their roles and responsibilities? This myth-shattering book challenges stereotypes of negotiating parenthood within the context of poverty, live-away status, and black American manhood. Hamer has collected the voices of eighty-eight men who participated in this study by first examining the macro or cultural elements that encompass men's daily lives. As part 1 explores these larger forces that define the social world of fathers, part 2 looks at what significant others expect of men as fathers and how they behave under these circumstances. Part 3 analyzes the particular parenting roles and functions of fathers, using narratives of individual men to tell their own stories. In this book, contemporary black live-away fathers talk about their goals, walk us through their workplaces, allow us to meet their families and children, and enable us to view the world of parenthood through their eyes.

Urban poverty, along with all of its poignant manifestations, is moving from city centers to working-class and industrial suburbs in contemporary America. Nowhere is this more evident than in East St. Louis, Illinois. Once a thriving manufacturing and transportation center, East St. Louis is now known for its unemployment, crime, and collapsing infrastructure. Abandoned in the Heartland takes us into the lives of East St. Louis's predominantly African American residents to find out what has happened since industry abandoned the city, and jobs, quality schools, and city services disappeared, leaving people isolated and imperiled. Jennifer Hamer introduces men who search for meaning and opportunity in dead-end jobs, women who often take on caretaking responsibilities until well into old age, and parents who have the impossible task of protecting their children in this dangerous, and literally toxic, environment. Illustrated with historical and contemporary photographs showing how the city has changed over time, this book, full of stories of courage and fortitude, offers a powerful vision of the transformed circumstances of life in one American suburb.