Overachievement in the underground economy: The life story of a Puerto Rican stick-up artist in East Harlem

Abstract

The life story of an employment counselor in East Harlem debunks the immigrant American dream of upward mobility, individual achievement and material opportunity. Based on several years of participant- observation conversations, this article traces in street language the life style of a charismatic workaholic individual through graffiti writing, gang banging, school (non) attendance, adolescent violence. Parental discipline, substance abuse, armed robbery, gratuitous murder, drug dealing incarceration, and legal employment. It reveals the contradictions of individual agency and achievement in the context of structural marginalization underground economy and street culture. The opportunity structure available to second generation inner-city youth in the United States often channels overachievers into destructive behavior.