Liza Gerra Barnhart Character Analysis

Sierra Barnhart
1A. Liza was my character, she was 35 years old at the start of the game. She had 5 children ages; 12, 10, 5, 4, and 2 which she was raising on her own being a single mother. She had only completed 8th grade and past source of Income was welfare for 2 years. She does not have the support of her family to help with child care or other needs. Liza is in multigenerational poverty, meaning that her parents and grandparents both lived in poverty. I would say that she was in the marginal poor group, she is not disabled in any way. She only has an 8th grade education level at the start of the game. Again she is in a poverty cycle started by her grandparents so she is not a first generation family in poverty. She did not experience
She has a family history of poverty, her grandparents and her parents both lived in poverty. So this knowledge in additions to there not being any other support systems outside of the poverty lifestyle would put her in multigenerational poverty. This also because her parents were second generation Russian immigrants who lived in poverty would mean that there is a cycle of poverty in this family. Though she could also be a part of Child Poverty, being that she grew up in a poor community. This also contributed to the multigenerational poverty that she grew up in. There was an obvious lack of education in her past, being that at the age of 35 she still only had an 8th grade education. There is a clear evidence that Liza did not grow up in the best situation which may have also lead to her being in a poor
Liberals believe that the environment is a key factor in the success or failure of a person’s situation. As for Liza, it was not easy for her to get out of the poverty lifestyle. The environment she was in was always a negative connotation of what life should look like. The environment was full of people who were willing to steal and hustle to better their lives. There was always a chance of her getting robbed or even her house burning down. This made the decisions Liza made harder and more of trying process then someone who may not have been in this kind of environment. She is in an environment that really has no desire to be better, they are used to poverty so they will likely stay in poverty. They do not have a hope for the future. This being said, it is probably very difficult for Liza to hope for the future. The environment that her and her children are in make it so their situation is what they stay in. This is also why the Liberals belief of the environment affected a person’s success or failure in their situation is so true. It is very hard to be the one person to stand out in a crowd, it often disrupts the functioning of the system. This may actually cause more harm in the long