Doris Friedensohn

December, 2007

During the last quarter of a century in the US, as wealth has grown, the poor have suffered increasing hardships. Deindustrialization, drugs, ghetto gangs, failing schools, more single parent families, and harsh criminal sentences (especially related to drug use) have all taken their toll on the least advantaged Americans. Among the slogans of recent years Is “job training,” for the unemployed (or under-employed) poor who would become low-wage workers. This paper examines the operation of a job training program in the field of food services. It looks closely at the experience of four different students, two African-Americans and two Latinos, who attempt to change their lives by learning to cook.