Summary
Rick Bragg (Bragg) is a male who grew up in a poor and unstable household. His family included himself, his two brothers, and their mother and father, Margaret and Charles. Bragg witnessed his father's alcoholism and his parent's domestic violence along with his other siblings from the age of three. Bragg's father, Charles, was a veteran of the Korean war and was notorious for drinking and being violent with Bragg’s mother. When Bragg’s father died, his mother took care of him and his siblings and did what she could to keep them fed. For example, his mother would starve herself to make sure he and his siblings ate, and she relied on the government welfare to help care for her family.
Risk Factors and Protective factors
Parents
Bragg's mother, Margaret, is described as growing up poor and fell into a toxic marriage with Bragg's father, Charles. Charles, in the tale, is personalized a neglectful father who was a veteran and had a mental disability of alcoholism and domestic violence.
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Environment
Throughout Bragg's life course, poverty had been a significant part of life and relying on family members ( Carretero, 2018) . Bragg and his siblings witnessed domestic violence between their parents and substance abuse from their father before he died. While Bragg was
Siblings
Rick Bragg and his older sibling Sam were close when their father was alive and would team up to help stop their father from beating on their mother. During adulthood, his brother Sam was okay with a wife and family. On the other hand, Mark became an alcoholic. While Bragg visited, Sam gave Bragg a gift to support him during the riots. Bragg then describes his mother being worried about his brother Mark and Mark being oblivious to the fact.
Adolescence
During Braggs teenage life, he was inspired to write and joined a journalism class. Later, Bragg explains that he didn’t realize he was poor until the girls he dated in high school would break up with him once they saw his home. It was then Bragg viewed his life differently.
Adulthood Life
Bragg explains that he writes to tell his mother's story. Bragg was 31 and divorced was married to a woman named Lisa. Bragg went through people questioning his southern past life as a gimmick. Despite the stereotypes of being brought up in south Alabama and in poverty, Bragg manages to remain humble and optimistic about his growing career.
Job
In 1980 Bragg begins working as a reporter with the Anniston Star, and from 1986 to 1989, he wrote for the Birmingham News. Bragg's career began to take off where he experienced writing for the St. Petersburg Times, which took him to Haiti and then to Miami. After moving to Harvard in 1992, Bragg earned a Niemen Fellowship that allowed him to continue his studies, which he missed after leaving college early. In 1996, he won the Pulitzer award for his interesting human-related stories and profiles, including figures like defying robbers, the bold bodega, and the 87-year-old Mississippi washerwoman ( Lowe, 2020) . She sacrificed all her life savings to help a university. Through hard work and persistence, he managed to garner wealth despite his humble beginnings.
Positive Outcomes
At the end of the book, During Rick Bragg's adulthood, he becomes a successful journalist and continues to give back to his mother, who struggled to raise him and his siblings. Bragg was able to buy his mother a house and felt a sense of accomplishment. For a very long time, Bragg wanted to do something for his mother to make her forget all the hardships she endured to make him succeed. He had been saving to buy her a house, and when he finally did, he felt proud of himself ( Smith, 2020) . As a child, they had to move around often because they could not afford to pay rent. When they were kicked out, his mother had to look for another shelter for him and his brothers. Bragg wanted a permanent place for his mother where she did not have to move, a place where she could sit still unbothered with practical necessities. A house for his mother meant something that would insulate her from random difficulties that arise from in everyday life. It is this goal and life or death determination that gives his stories power and majesty. Bragg's life is expressed throughout the book is his past experiences of trauma and environmental risk during his childhood. Despite the odds, Bragg managed to show resilience.
I believe that resilience explains Bragg’s functioning. Through hard work, perseverance, and determination, he was able to overcome his childhood challenges. He worked very hard to buy a house for his mother and repay her for everything she did to make him successful. Through resilience, he endured classism in school. He also started by doing odd jobs at a local paper where he worked as a sports reporter serving small towns in Alabama. Resilience is vital for any individual. It helps people to develop mechanisms to protect them against overwhelming experiences, just as Rick Bragg did.
References
Carretero, C. P. (2018). Trashing the Myth of the “Old South”: White Trash Identity-Seeking in Dorothy Allison’s A Bastard Out of Carolina. VERBENA. Revista de Estudios Filológicos. Journal of English and Spanish Studies , (3), 103-117.
Award. The Literature of the US South: Modernism and Beyond. A Companion to American Literature , 3 , 33-48.
Smith, K. L. (2020). Book Review-Coming of Age in a Hardscrabble World: A Memoir Anthology. Georgia Library Quarterly , 57 (2), 14 .
