Iris Goldenberg

Iris Goldenberg, a sixty-two-year-old Amazon CamperForce worker, introduces Quartzsite as a place where affordable desert living and temporary work coincide, and where people with sharply different means share public land. Her account gives that openness a concrete scale: a ten-and-a-half-foot trailer, a collection of animal companions, and jobs measured by the hour.

Identity and Life in the Trailer

When the narrator met Iris in Fernley, Nevada, she lived in a ten-and-a-half-foot Carson Kalispell sport trailer with Madison, a Shih-Tzu; Pancho, a lovebird; and Kaspar, a talkative African Grey parrot named for a sixteenth-century theologian. The narrator and Iris were crammed into the small trailer together while talking about Quartzsite. A photograph from this section shows Iris holding Kaspar, making the bird part of the scene’s intimate portrait of her home rather than a detail separate from it.

Quartzsite and Its Appeal

Iris described Quartzsite as a place where class lines blurred: people with different resources could use the same open desert, which she understood as a shared yard. That impression stood in contrast to the growing separation of wealthy and poor households into income-segregated neighborhoods. The appeal was practical as well as social. She said the dry climate made her feel healthy, and inexpensive camping allowed her to live affordably.

Seasonal Work

Quartzsite also offered a way to find short-term employment during a season when workamping opportunities were scarce in much of the country. Iris’s experience illustrates how a temporary population creates demand for temporary labor. At Sweet Darlene’s Restaurant & Bakery, she washed dishes for eight dollars an hour. On Fridays, early diners began lining up at four in the afternoon for the fish fry, while dirty plates in the kitchen piled nearly to the ceiling. She had also worked at Rockin’ Wok, a Chinese takeout trailer. When the narrator visited, Iris ran out carrying a handful of fortune cookies.

Narrative Role

Iris’s account connects the broad idea of Quartzsite’s class openness to the ordinary arrangements that make her own life there possible: a compact home shared with animals, low-cost camping, and seasonal jobs. Her experiences do not erase the constraints of hourly work or small living quarters; instead, they show how affordability, access to public land, and temporary employment combine to make this form of life workable for her.