A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country in the World

A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country in the World

Top of Mind with Julie Rose

Heartland, Affirmative Action

Episode: Heartland, Affirmative Action

  • Oct 5, 2018 2:55 pm
  • 51:24 mins

Guest: Sarah Smarsh, Author, “Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country in the World” Growing up on a farm in Kansas in the 1980s and 90s, journalist Sarah Smarsh didn’t realize she and her family were part of the “working poor.” What she did know was that her parents and grandparents spent long days in fields and factories and on construction sites and still barely had enough to get by. All the while believing fervently in the American Dream that if you just work hard enough, you’ll get ahead. Only when Smarsh became the first in her family to get to college, did she realize she’d been sold a lie.