The aspirations of the HH and the
Brothers are very different.

The HH tend to have very low aspirations
or none at all. (Except for Slick, who wants
to be a lawyer, and Stoney, who wants to
own a pizza shop.) They see it as foolish
to have high hopes when those hopes
are destined to be shot down. When
asked about what job they will have when
they grow up, they say "whatever we can
get." Some mentioned doing
construction, working for the city... a few
even thought they'd wind up in prison or
be dead. They saw no hope for their
futures.

The Brothers had higher aspirations. One
boy wanted to work as a computer
programmer. Juan had this to say: "I'll
have a regular house, y'know, with a yard
and everything. I'll have a steady job, a
good job. I'll be living the good life, the
easy life." (page 74)

McLeod explains these differences by the
experiences of the boys' parents and their
own experiences. The Hallway Hangers
had been in the job market for some time
already and had seen how hard it was to
get and keep a good job. These
experiences cut down their hopes and
"leveled" their aspirations. They saw that
anything they may have wanted to be was
far out of their grasp.

The Brothers hadn't had the job-seeking
experiences yet. They had mostly worked
summer jobs in a youth program where
all you had to do was fill out an
application. They saw that as being easy.
Also, their parents encouraged them to
reach high and told them that they could
attain their goals.