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Land had escaped an abusive relationship and lacked the support of his family. At one point, she received seven different forms of government assistance. A single mother without childcare from 2008 to 2016, cleaning was the only job available to her.
She spoke with CNN about her work to shed light on the daily experiences of millions of people living in poverty, including cycles of abuse and trauma, the inhumanity of social demands and the dignity of all work.
This interview has been edited slightly for length and clarity.
CNN: What was it like seeing a version of yourself acted out on screen?
Earth: It was really validation in a lot of ways as the things that I have been through and how I felt about them over the past few years have been called into question a bit. “Is this really abuse that you have suffered?” It was so gratifying to see the emotional abuse on screen, and how realistic it was. And then I watched her with my family – when they were watching the scenes where she was cleaning, each of them turned to me at some point and said, “Was it really like that?”
Yes it was. I continue to use the word “relief”. Relief to see such an authentic portrayal of my experience.
CNN: How do you expect other people in the same situation to react?
Earth: I hope they also feel validated. It is so rare that people living in poverty have an accurate portrayal of their lives on screen or even in the media. Of course, Alex (the Land-based character) is a white female who has a job that is mostly done by people of color, so my experience isn’t necessarily representative of most of the people doing that job. But in another sense, it’s the way she is treated, and just her absolute desperation to work a job that makes her physically vomit. It’s just because of the desperation to have a place to stay for her daughter. It is a very precise, authentic and realistic way of what life in poverty really is. I hope other people can feel validated, heard and seen.
CNN: What are some of the myths about living in poverty that you hope this show could address?
Earth: The biggest stigma or misconception that people in poverty face is that they have taken it out on themselves, because it is so easy to get a better job. It’s not.
We are telling people to get out of it, to get a better job, to find better housing. Leave it. Do not come back. The show, really, really, really, shows how difficult and impossible it is. I mean, of course, he was wrapped in a bow, because he was following my story of moving to Missoula. But it’s so hard to find the resources and the emotional capacity to do something like that.
CNN: What would you have liked to have done differently?
Earth: I started to be vulnerable around people and to ask people for help. And just be really honest. I would have liked to do that more. I wish I had been more vulnerable around people and really talked to people about the difficulty of never being able to walk away. I wish I could have been more honest with people about this and how difficult things were. The struggle should not be shameful. We are all struggling. We need to be a little more compassionate.
CNN: Some of the most illustrative scenes show Alex trying to apply for government help, and there are so many different hoops to go through to qualify for a particular program. Are they designed to help the poor?
Earth: I do not think so. I don’t think it’s the agency’s fault because the workers are very tired and they are doing their best to help people. The system itself is designed to prevent people from signing up, and they do that by making it incredibly difficult.
They can say, look, the numbers are going down, fewer people are registering unemployed, we are getting better. But it’s not always the case. It could mean that someone’s paperwork got lost and they were kicked out, or it just became too difficult to complete all the reassessment paperwork, or they didn’t have a stub. payroll or sheet of paper they needed.
There are a lot of reasons people give up on government assistance, and it’s usually not because they now suddenly have the resources when they’ve simply decided to jump off the welfare cliff. I think it is because they are tired of being in the system.
CNN: The show captures your character Alex’s love for his daughter, Maddy, which is based on your relationship with your own child. How did this love allow you to pursue your dream?
Earth: Oh, that was it, literally my reason for waking up, breathing and getting through the day. Every time I got down on my knees to clean the toilet, it was for my child. (Land had a second child in 2014.) It was so that we could eventually get out of this situation. They spoke of this time of my life as a constant, overwhelming sense of hopelessness, and I didn’t want (my children) to experience that someday. I did all I could to make sure they didn’t have to do this.
CNN: Why do you think it is important to emphasize the dignity of working in a service job?
Earth: There are two reasons why I think there should be an equal amount of dignity in all work. A doctor is just as important as a janitor. But I also think we wrap a lot of our personal dignity in the type of job we have for the number of hours we’ve been able to work. With food stamps, you have to work a certain number of hours per week to get an allowance. As a human being, getting food to eat depends on how many hours you can work at a job. It is so degrading. It’s so humiliating. It still affects me five years later.
This is because we do not attribute equal amounts of dignity to human beings. In Isabel Wilkerson’s book “Caste”, she points out that there is a caste system in America. And it’s very evident right now in the way we treat people, we expect them to go through a pandemic, and how we even treat doctors and nurses right now. I always try to see everyone as my equal. Everyone deserves the same respect and the same dignity.
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