Sara Smith-Silverman

“Working So Hard and It Never Feels Like Enough” is a project focusing on the stories of poor and working-class queer and transgender students in California’s community colleges. It consists of 25-30 oral history interviews and approximately 400 survey responses that will illuminate the ways in which class intersects with queerness, as well as race, ability, and immigration status, to shape students’ experiences inside and outside of the classroom. This project considers class experiences holistically— students’ work lives, housing, healthcare, culture, and psychology—to provide us with an understanding of their needs. The goal is to make clear the need for a queer-inclusive curriculum at community colleges, where students largely do not see their experiences reflected in their courses.