THE GREASE
TRAP
goes out and hasn’t been on a
date in a long time. He held up his
iPhone. “This is my only form of
entertainment,” he said, explaining that his grandmother bought
it for him using funds she saved as
the owner of a roadside restaurant
in Ecuador.
“It’s embarrassing to say she
takes care of me,” he said, his
voice rising. “It should be the other way around. It makes me feel
like I’m not a man.”
‘JUST TO BE AHEAD’
Barrera grew up poor, but for a
brief time in his childhood, his
family seemed to have a shot at
joining the middle class. In the late
‘90s, his father, one of 12 children,
managed to rise to a managerial
position at a Brooklyn supermarket. He saved enough money to
put down a mortgage on a home.
A few years later, Barrera tested
into Brooklyn Tech, one of the best
public schools in New York.
Barrera loved computers, cars
By the government’s
definition, a married
person with two kids
who lives on $23,283
a year or less is poor.
HUFFINGTON
05.12.13
and sophisticated machines of all
kinds. He hoped to become a hightech mechanic or an engineer. But
then his father fell behind on his
mortgage payments and bought a
laundromat in a gamble to keep
the family afloat. The busi