Working for one's bread is no easy task in this day and age. The office buildings and pension jobs are no longer an option. What's left of the promise of the American Dream has been turned into temp slavery and no-options "career tracks." As the gap between good jobs and bad jobs widens, many young people find themselves in the position of having political ideals or lifestyles that are too confrontational for the bosses. So what can these young people do? A growing number are supporting themselves as independent craftspeople, skilled at making or creating works of art from ear spools to tattoos, from stained glass jewelry to fake ID cards. While many of them operate off the books, their goal isn't some quick end run on the American Dream. Most are simply looking for some safe haven between the plastic facade of guaranteed prosperity and the soggy cardboard box of homelessness. Reyaz Sacharoff is on the staff of YO! (Youth Outlook), a newspaper by and about Bay Area youth produced by Pacific News Service.

In these days of temp labor, slave wages and wholesale layoffs, more and more young people I meet don't see a job as a means of security. Instead they use every skill, trick and scam at their disposal to work for the one boss they know will look after them--themselves.

Amidst the haze of smoke and the smell of modeling glue -- the evening's drug of choice -- Dr. Lackra bends over the orange-brown back of his current project. At 23, Dr. Lackra has already been a professional tattoo artist for five years. Down the hall, Russo, his long hair shaven in striped patches, works on another customer who sits on a chair clutching a bottle of Miller pilsner. Norteņo music pipes through the tape-player as a Latina goddess in feathers and bandoleers, a couple of weeping Jesuses and a gang of classical Pachuco iconography take shape in spidery blue-black lines and brown tinted color.

What is going on here is more than just art. It is a scene, grounded in select traditions, shielded from mainstream society, condemned by the Bible, hidden from the law.

For Lackra, a native of Mexico City, running his own tattoo business is also a way to sidestep immigration laws (which never seem to affect my European friends, despite their thick foreign accents). Russo, also from Mexico City, is still learning to speak English and uses his friends to translate the desires of his English-speaking clients. A third artist, Diego, came to the U.S. to do tattoo work, but was robbed of his entire savings of $1200 and all his tattooing equipment by jackers who prey on the undocumented.

It's not hard to find a job washing dishes, according to Lackra. "Most of the people, like they just want to see the fake paper, and that's it." But those jobs are just about making a little bit of money to survive, not about building a future or even learning a rewarding skill. The son of a practicing visual artist, Lackra wants to make a name for himself in the craft. When I ask if his father supports him in his artistic endeavors, Lackra responds, "He totally hates my work. He don't even look at it. It's too modern for him. Too bright colors and ... too cartoony."

Several blocks from Lackra's "studio," on the well-traveled corners of Mission Street, Jose, Reno or Carlos will sell you brand-new photo ID cards for $10 and up, depending on who you are and whether you already have a passport-sized photo with you. Experts at their trade, these sidesteppers of the immigration law will retreat to their hotel "office," sit down with an X-acto knife and a sheet of mylar, and have your photo laminated and your card ready in twenty minutes.

Mike Normal, a self-described "craft-punk," sells stained glass jewelry, rings and small sculptures on the busy outdoor mall that is Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. His target market, he says, is "mostly wiccans, neo-hippies and Goths, but I'm starting to sell more to the average Berkeley resident." Expanding his clientele to the impulse shopper is depressing, he admits, but he is glad to be making a living from his work.

Mike got his start at punk shows, where he would barter his art for food, other rings, band T-shirts and whatever else seemed to be a good trade. He still takes trades although they aren't as common in the market economy of Telegraph Ave. Although he says he has a "very minimal place" in the economy, Mike manages to cover his $100 a month rent (for a small, unheated shack in a back yard in Oakland) without having to resort to welfare or food stamps.

"I have a deal with the government," says Mike. "I use it as little as possible and I (pay into it) as little as possible." Still, he pays $125 every six months to the city of Berkeley as a street vendor--one of some 450 vendors working in the area. "So many people who wouldn't normally do anything (for money) have found a niche doing piercing, tattooing, creative s...t," he says.

When asked if he feels shut out of the security "straight" jobs offer, Mike confesses, "Actually, yeah, especially when I travel around and sell, some days I really do wish I had some security." But even though he has an economics degree to fall back on, he hasn't been tempted to use it.

Karen, a native of San Francisco, knows that her disassociation from the straight world of her parents, as well as her own crust-core look, make it hard to find serious job prospects. Instead, she's apprenticing in the manufacture of ear spools, a fashion trend unearthed from centuries-old Mayan tombs. She must not only make the wooden jewelry but become adept at slowly stretching the pierced ear lobes with a cone-shaped wedge.

So are these economically independent youth paving a path to the late, great American Dream? Most of them would say it's not a high priority. Much more important is finding a way to balance personal freedom with work that isn't an exercise in humiliation or ethnically decrepit corporate servitude.