Veronica Terriquez '97 didn't know what to say when a friend asked whether her parents were coming out to visit her this past Junior Parents Weekend.

"Usually I say it's a long flight, but the reality is they can't afford it," says the junior, who lives in the Los Angeles area.

When a friend's parents, both lawyers, asked Terriquez what her parents do for a living, coming up with an answer was equally difficult.

Her father, who went to school only through sixth grade, is on disability and began working full-time at 13 doing mostly manual labor. Her mother, who earned a General Equivalency Diploma, processes personal income-tax forms.

Terriquez and others say class background become readily--sometimes painfully--apparent at parents' weekends and alumni reunions.

And the issue of socioeconomic differences, a subject rarely broached outside the classroom at Harvard, is not limited to events like these. Class background can affect and even dictate a Harvard student's social life, extracurricular activities, academic pursuits and personal values.

Class Interaction--Merely Superficial?

Sixty years ago, working-class day students commuted daily by subway from Charlestown, Boston and surrounding areas, unable to afford suites in Harvard's recently built undergraduate Houses. Labeled "meatballs" or "untouchables," they lived separate existences from wealthier students.

Today, nearly all students live on campus in randomized, uniform housing. This, and an increasingly diverse socioeconomic population, forces students from different classes to interact socially and academically, at least on a superficial level.

But has there been much change over the last few decades? The touch-stones of college life--dorm life and professors, Saturday nights and spring break with friends--still have a decidedly elitist twist at Harvard.

The College's social atmosphere, replete with black-tie affairs and private social clubs, can intimidate or alienate poorer students.

"You see a lot of people who come to Harvard who are immediately scared off by rich people. Other people live in a cocoon of rich culture," says Jeremy W. Linzee '97.

Class differences are frequently evident in students' leisure options and preferences, and as a result, Harvard's social scenes are frequently demarcated along class lines.

While wealthier students casually cite dinner, movies and plays, clubbing or barhopping as weekend activities, poorer students say that these

"When you're making between $65 and $80 per week, spending $6 on a play and $5 for a concert does become a chore," says Joshua D. Bloodworth '97, a New Yorker who describes himself as halfway between working and middle class. ("I identify with the black underclass, my parents identify with the working class," he explains.)

Quiet Tensions