Reading Response 1: Waiting, by Maria Rivera

Rivera's essay "Waiting" is the first in Without A Net: the female experience of growing up working class, edited by Michelle Tea. "Waiting" is a healthcare essayspiel (part essay, part story, part explanation, part exasperation). Why did I read exasperation in it? Probably because I would be beyond exasperated if I had to go through anything like what she describes - the hellish hours of waiting, waiting and waiting to see doctors who don't give a shit, sometimes cruelly.

If I had to go through something like that, I would tell everybody I knew about it for weeks on end. I would "incidentize" it in my head - it would be That Time I Waited Forever For Bad Health Care, and I would milk it for everything it was worth. I believe every person on earth is entitled to good health care. But what's that belief if I don't back it up with action? I don't believe Rivera, or anyone, deserves to be treated cruelly by doctors, or to be forced into such a system with no way out.

Also, I liked the way she wrote. It would be really easy for her to take a "pity me" kind of tone with her writing, but she didn't. There's glimpses of humor and horror intertwined with a kind of matter-of-factness that didn't leave me wallowing in despair, as a reader.

Also, the justification aspect of it. The spiel is essentially Rivera telling stories to justify her need for medication. If I even so much as wanted the antidepressants she's vying for, it would take me less than a week to get that prescription. And my parents would probably pay for it, and it would be ready and waiting at my small-town pharmacy when I got there. This need to make poor people prove their needs is ridiculous when juxtaposed with how easily the rich get in. It reminds me of the stories of Ellis Island, when the new immigrants came in and the rich got to tantz in with whatever diseases they might have, while the poor ones got scrutinized, abused and herded around until they caught something that might be used to detain them.