“How much do you make per month?”

“How much do you pay for rent?” 

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been asked this in our part of the city. 

In the suburbs where I grew up, where people’s struggles were mostly kept hush-hush, it was culturally inappropriate to ask someone this stuff.  It’s the financial equivalent of asking a woman, “How much do you weigh?”  You just don’t ask!

After living among the urban poor in Los Angeles for over a decade, I’ve learned it is culturally okay to ask people how much they earn and pay for rent.  And with the economy the way it is, I imagine it’s even more okay! 

Well, I can’t speak for everyone here of course, but let me put it this way.  A whole LOTTA people are perfectly fine with asking each other this stuff! 

I’ve learned not to be offended or judge.  99% of the time people aren’t being rude or nosy.  They are helping each other survive.  The idea is that if a neighbor asks you how much you get paid per hour, then he can tell you whether or not you’d make more money working for his boss.  Or if you ask your neighbor how much she pays for rent, then you can know whether or not you’re getting a good deal at your place, and if you should ask if there are vacancies in her apartment building.   

It seems like privacy gets defined differently when a community is feeling desperate to make ends meet and actually cares about helping each other.  I don’t always like having to answer the questions, but I like the intentions behind them.  I give praise to my community for this openness that is second-nature to them and foreign to me.  Some kinds of privacy are over-rated. 

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