A 26 year old Russian girl has just come back from outer space. It was quite a feat, going around more times than all the American men put together. But what’s that got to do with 95th street?! Is life any easier on Earth because she’s flown around it?
Well let’s look at 95th street – at the neighborhood. Crowded, dilapidated buildings that the landlord lets run down. Bad plumbing. Too hot in the summer, not enough heat in the winter. What can people living around 95th street look forward to 5 or 10 years from now? The SAME SLUMS, only 5 or 10 times more dilapidated! Maybe the City will tear some buildings down, but the way they do it, the people displaced will have to find a worse slum to move to and will end up paying higher rents! So, this is what young people can look forward to – Slum Life!
Unless they get to make a lot of money…but what chance for the people living around 95th Street, earning wages no where near minimum – sweating in the shops, the restaurants, stores; garment workers, hospital workers, porters, clerks, dishwashers – watching prices go up, taxes go up, rents go up, and only one’s health goes down.
What can the young people look forward to? The same rat race! They’ll be barely able to make ends meet, and will probably be working harder and faster with less to show for it–and that’s if they’re lucky! If they have a job, that is… For jobs are becoming harder and harder to find, especially for young people. They have no chance to learn a trade, develop a skill. The government just looks at them and says “it’s hopeless!” For the young people the future looks pretty desperate.
Is there anybody around 95th street thinking of becoming an astronaut? So what’s the Russian woman astronaut got to do with 95th street?!
Well, here’s a little story about her. It seems that she started working in an automobile tire factory when she was 17. A year later she transferred to a cotton mill where her mother worked (her father had been a tractor driver, but was killed in the Second World War). Valentina worked in this cotton mill for seven years. During this time she went to evening school (many factories in the Soviet Union have special schools attached to them and workers are given paid time off from work [usually one day a week] to study). She got more education and also learned a skill.
Meanwhile, she became interested in parachute jumping and helped formed a parachute jumping club at her factory (there are many sports clubs attached to factories; and the equipment and facilities are all given without charge to workers).
Now we end her story. After the first Russian space flight, Valentina wrote to the authorities and volunteered to become an astronaut. She was accepted (in the Soviet Union, they don’t discriminate against women) and she was sent to Astronaut school in 1961. Two years later she was sailing through space.
Sure, her case was spectacular, but the fact that she was given a chance to get ahead in life was not unusual, for all over the Soviet Union, millions of workers are studying trades, learning to become technicians, engineers, and even plant managers– and it is all without charge.
So here’s what the woman astronaut has to do with 95th street. Here in this “land of opportunity,” in this “land of freedom” the working people just don’t seem to have much of a chance. We don’t even mention the special discrimination that workers face as Negroes, or Puerto Ricans, as women, as young people. All doors to decent life seem to be closed. But over in that country we are taught to hate and fear, not even the sky is the limit.
