Reading for the People and Getting There First

Abstract

It is 5 a.m. and the airport van scoops me up from my Berkeley doorstep. Listless, I prepare for yet one more transcontinental trip, papers in order, flash drive tucked in, tomatoes from my garden for those porteño friends long stuck in the gloom of winter. I am exhausted by the prospect of travel even as I leave my house. Nonetheless, the sociology of criticism kicks in, a motor without a mind, while the van meanders through the local streets toward the freeway and then the airport. I see one, two, eight homeless men pushing shopping carts in these predawn hours. Beating the municipal garbage collectors by an easy stretch, they forage for that scrap of glass or cardboard that will claim some redemptive value. I have scarcely paid them heed over time, but today they claim my attention. After all, I’m en route to Buenos Aires to see the cartoneros [garbage pickers]. Slumped on the bus, I can’t help asking about the irony of my tourist-like gesture. Clearly, I have my own cartoneros, my homeless neighbors at home. What allows me to think that the Argentine condition will solicit something different? I also remind myself that if I’m in a quandary, my middle-class Argentine colleagues haven’t managed this problem much better.