New Jersey dreaming : capital, culture, and the class of '58

Famed anthropologist Ortner tracks down representative classmates from her mostly Jewish Newark, NJ high school class of ‘58 in order to examine class culture and ethnicity in America today. In New Jersey Dreaming the renowned anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner turns her attention to how social class is lived in the United States and, specifically, within her own peer group. Ortner returns to her Newark roots to present an in-depth look at Weequahic High School's Class of 1958, of which she was a member. Having tracked down nearly all 304 of her classmates, interviewing about 100 in person and speaking with most of the rest by phone, she provides an ethnographic chronicle of their journeys from the 1950s into the 1990s, following the movement of a striking number of them from modest working-and middle-class backgrounds into the affluent upper middle and professional/managerial classes. Ortner demonstrates how social class affected people's lives in many hidden and unexamined ways, and how the extreme upward mobility of the Class of '58 relates to the major identity movements of the twentieth century-the campaign against anti-semitism, the civil rights movement, and feminism. "Pioneering anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner is renowned for her work on the Sherpas of Nepal. Now she turns her attention home-ward to examine how social class is lived in the United States and, specifically, within her own peer group. In New Jersey Dreaming, Ortner returns to her Newark roots to present an in-depth look at Weequahic High School's Class of 1958, of which she was a member. She explores her classmates' recollected experiences of the neighborhood and the high school, also written about in the novels of Philip Roth, Weequahic High School's most famous alum. Ortner provides a chronicle of the journey of her classmates from the 1950s into the 1990s, following the movement of a striking number of them from modest working- and middle-class backgrounds into the wealthy upper-middle or professional/managerial class."--Jacket On June 18, 1958, 304 classmates, including this ethnographer, marched down the aisle of the auditorium of Weequahic High School in Newark, New Jersey, to receive their high school diplomas. An anthropology study of the author's high school class of 1958. She graduated from Weequahic High School in Newark, New Jersey.