Invisible Child: Dasanis Homeless Life. The Milton Hershey School is an incredible, incredible place. Invisible Child ", And we were working through a translator. And by the time she got her youngest siblings to school and got to her own school, usually late, she had missed the free breakfast at the shelter and the free breakfast at her school. She was so tender with her turtle. That, to be honest, is really home. You're not supposed to be watching movies. We rarely look at all of the children who don't, who are just as capable. Andrea Elliott: So Milton Hershey School was created by America's chocolate magnate Milton Hershey, who left behind no children. It was this aspiration that was, like, so much a part of her character. But she told me, and she has told me many times since, that she loves the book. To kill a mouse is to score a triumph. Clothing donations. "This is so and so." We see a story of a girl who's trying to not escape, she says. It's called Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City. She is tiny for an 11-year-old and quick to startle. She said, "Home is the people. Chris Hayes: Yeah. WebInvisible Child follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child with an imagination as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn homeless shelter. They were put in a situation where things were out of their control. You know, it was low rise projects. And so it would break the rules. All you could buy at the local bodega at that time was Charlie. At Hershey, I feel like a stranger, like I really don't belong. It's available wherever you get your books. And now, on this bright September morning, Dasani will take her grandmothers path once again, to the promising middle school two blocks away. They were in drug treatment programs for most of the time that I was with them, mostly just trying to stay sober and often succeeding at it. They follow media carefully. In the book, the major turning points are, first of all, where the series began, that she was in this absolutely horrifying shelter just trying to survive. This is an extract But it remains the case that a shocking percentage of Americans live below the poverty line. Chanel always says, "Blood is thicker than water." It's still too new of a field of research to say authoritatively what the impact is, good or bad, of gentrification on long term residents who are lower income. Over the next year, 911 dispatchers will take some 350 calls from Auburn, logging 24 reports of assault, four reports of child abuse, and one report of rape. And then they tried to assert control. She was often tired. Andrea joins to talk about her expanded coverage of the Coates family story, which is told in her new book, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope In An American City.. Theres nearly 1.38 million homeless schoolchildren in the U.S. About one in 12 live in New York City. And you didn't really have firsthand access to what it looks like, what it smells like to be wealthy. with me, your host, Chris Hayes. Dasanis story, which ran on the front page in late 2013, became totemic in a moment of electoral flux in New York after the election of Democrat Bill de Blasio as mayor on a I would be off in the woods somewhere writing and I would call her. And then their cover got blown and that was after the series ran. For nine years, New York Times journalist Andrea Elliott followed the fortunes of one family living in poverty. Thats not gonna be me, she says. She was unemployed. She had a lot of issues. The other thing you asked about were the major turning points. I still have it. And a lot of that time was spent together. She changed diapers, fed them and took them to school. Named after the bottled water that signaled Brooklyns gentrification, her story has been featured in five front pages of the New York Times. She held the Bible for Tish James, the incoming then-public advocate who held Dasani's fist up in the air and described her to the entire world as, "My new BFF.". That's what we tend to think of the homeless as. Thats what Invisible Child is about, Elliott says, the tension between what is and what was for Dasani, whose life is remarkable, compelling and horrifying in many ways. They're quite spatially separated from it. She says, "I would love to meet," you know, anyone who accuses her of being a quote, unquote welfare queen. Now in her 20s, Dasani became the first in her immediate family to graduate high school, and she enrolled in classes at LaGuardia Community College. What's interesting about that compared to Dasani, just in terms of what, sort of, concentrated poverty is like in the 1980s, I think, when that book is being reported in her is that proximity question. Their voucher had expired. And she wanted to beat them for just a few minutes in the morning of quiet by getting up before them. But you have to understand that in so doing, you carry a great amount of responsibility to, I think, first and foremost, second guess yourself constantly. Rarely does that happen for children living in poverty like Dasani who are willing and capable but who are inundated with problems not of their own making, she says. 3 Shes a giantess, the man had announced to the audience. At that time when I met her when she was 11, Dasani would wake around 5 a.m. and the first thing she did, she always woke before all of her other siblings. They did not get the help that many upper middle class Americans would take for granted, whether it's therapy, whether it's medication, whether it's rehab. But before we do that, I want to talk a little bit about your subjective perspective and your experience as this observer and the ethical complications (LAUGH) of that and talk a little bit about how you dealt with that right after we take this quick break. Dasani opens a heavy metal door, stepping into the dark corridor. In the dim chaos of Room 449, she struggles to find Lee-Lees formula, which is donated by the shelter but often expired. You know, my fridge was always gonna be stocked. Then they will head outside, into the bright light of morning. In 2019, when the school bell rang at the end of the day, more than 100,000 schoolchildren in New York City had no permanent home to return to. He said, "Yes. Auburn used to be a hospital, back when nurses tended to the dying in open wards. There are parts of it that are painful. We meet Dasani in 2012, when she is eleven years old and living with her parents, Chanel and Supreme, and And unemployed. Chris Hayes: I want to, sort of, take a step back because I want to continue with what you talk about as, sort of, these forces and the disintegration of the family and also track through where Dasani goes from where she was when she's 11. So her principal, kind of, took her under her wing. Thats a lot on my plate.. I do, though. It's, sort of, prismatic because, as you're talking about the separation of a nation in terms of its level of material comfort or discomfort, right, or material want, there's a million different stories to tell of what that looks like. Invisible Child Journalist Andrea Elliott followed a homeless child named Dasani for almost a decade, as she navigated family trauma and a system stacked against her. Dasani was growing up at a time where, you know, the street was in some ways dangerous depending on what part of Brooklyn you are, but very, very quickly could become exciting. Now the bottle must be heated. People often remark on her beauty the high cheekbones and chestnut skin but their comments never seem to register. And there was a lot of complicated feelings about that book, as you might imagine. You have a greater likelihood of meeting someone who might know of a job or, "Hey, there's someone in my building who needs a such." And these bubbles get, sort of, smaller and smaller, in which people are increasingly removed from these different strata of American life. So there were more than 22,000 children in homeless shelters at that time in the main system. And we're gonna talk a little bit about what that number is and how good that definition is. The people I hang out with. As Dasani walks to her new school on 6 September 2012, her heart is pounding. Well, if you know the poor, you know that they're working all the time. The citys wealth has flowed to its outer edges, bringing pour-over coffee and artisanal doughnuts to places once considered gritty. We're gonna both pretend we've seen movies. She is forever in motion, doing backflips at the bus stop, dancing at the welfare office. The book takes on poverty, homelessness, racism, addiction, hunger, and more as they shape the lives of one remarkable girl and her family. And I found greater clarity after I left the newsroom and was more in an academic setting as I was researching this book. Children are not the face of New Yorks homeless. And her first thought was, "Who would ever pay for water?" Day after day, they step through a metal detector as security guards search their bags, taking anything that could be used as a weapon a bottle of bleach, a can of Campbells soup. And that's the sadness I found in watching what happened to their family as it disintegrated at the hands of these bigger forces. And that would chase off the hunger faster. She was just one of those kids who had so many gifts that it made her both promising in the sense of she could do anything with her life. A few feet away is the yellow mop bucket they use as a toilet, and the mattress where the mother and father sleep, clutched. I think that you're absolutely right that the difference isn't in behavior. She fixes her gaze on that distant temple, its tip pointed celestially, its facade lit with promise. I feel accepted.". I saw in Supreme and in Chanel a lot of the signs of someone who is self-medicating. Then the series ran at the end of 2013. Nonetheless, she landed on the honor roll that fall. A concrete walkway leads to the lobby, which Dasani likens to a jail. Nearly a year ago, the citys child protection agency had separated 34-year-old Chanel Sykes from her children after she got addicted to opioids. And the reporter who wrote that, Andrea Elliott, wrote a series of stories about Dasani. And it was just a constant struggle between what Dasani's burdens have imposed on her and the limitless reach of her potential if she were only unburdened. And I did some quick research and I saw that, in fact, the child poverty rate remained one in five. Invisible Child The popping of gunshots. I read the book out to the girls. And her principal had this idea that she should apply to a school that I had never heard of called the Milton Hershey School, which is a school in Hershey, Pennsylvania that tries to reform poor children. And, you know, I think that there's, in the prose itself, tremendous, you know, I think, sort of, ethical clarity and empathy and humanization. "What were you thinking in this moment? It wasn't a safe thing. And that's really true of the poor. Poverty Isnt the Problem - Naomi Schaefer Riley, Dasani's roots in Fort Greene go back for generations. I have a lot of things to say: one girls life growing up homeless in She's passing through. ANDREA ELLIOTT, And we can talk about that more. She has a full wardrobe provided to her. Then she sets about her chores, dumping the mop bucket, tidying her dresser, and wiping down the small fridge. She liked the sound of it. And they agreed to allow me to write a book and to continue to stay in their lives. I had spent years as a journalist entering into communities where I did not immediately belong or seem to belong as an outsider. She will kick them awake. There definitely are upsides. And welcome to Why Is This Happening? It's, first of all, the trust, which continues to exist and is something I think people should support. But because of the nature of how spread out Chicago was, the fact that this was not a moment of gentrification in the way that we think about it now, particularly in the, sort of, post-2000 comeback city era and then the post-financial crisis, that the kids in that story are not really cheek by jowl with all of the, kind of, wealth that is in Chicago. Child Her sense of home has always been so profound even though she's homeless. The movies." So I think that is what's so interesting is you rightly point out that we are in this fractured country now. And she sees a curious thing on the shelf of her local bodega. Some places are more felt than seen the place of homelessness, the place of sisterhood, the place of a mother-child bond that nothing can break. To be poor in a rich city brings all kinds of ironies, perhaps none greater than this: the donated clothing is top shelf. The only way to do this is to leave the room, which brings its own dangers. Try to explain your work as much as you can." Webwhat kind of cancer did nancy kulp have; nickname for someone with a short attention span; costa rican spanish accent; nitric acid and potassium hydroxide exothermic or endothermic So that's continued to be the case since the book ended. (LAUGH) You know? I think that what is so striking about the New York that she was growing up in, as compared to, for instance, the New York of her mother Chanel, also named for a bottle of liquid, (LAUGH) is that Chanel grew up in East Brooklyn at a time when this was a siloed community, much like what you are describing about Henry Horner. Come on, says her mother, Chanel, who stands next to Dasani. Jane Clayson Guest Host, Here & NowJane Clayson is Here & Now's guest host. And to her, that means doing both things keeping her family in her life while also taking strides forward, the journalist says. I have a lot of things to say.. The sound that matters has a different pitch. We rarely look at all the children who don't, who are just as capable. Andrea Elliott: This is a work in progress. She would just look through the window. She was a single mother. We break their necks. It literally saved us: what the USs new anti-poverty measure means for families, Millions of families receiving tax credit checks in effort to end child poverty, No one knew we were homeless: relief funds hope to reach students missing from virtual classrooms, I knew they were hungry: the stimulus feature that lifts millions of US kids out of poverty, 'Santa, can I have money for the bills?' Her parents survived major childhood traumas. The problems of poverty are so much greater, so much more overwhelming than the power of being on the front page of The New York Times. This is freighted by other forces beyond her control hunger, violence, unstable parenting, homelessness, drug addiction, pollution, segregated schools. Andrea Elliott: Absolutely. Chris Hayes: You know, the U.S., if you go back to de Tocqueville and before that, the Declaration and the founders, you know, they're very big (LAUGH) on civic equality. Invisible Child And at the same time, what if these kids ten years from now regret it? Now the bottle must be heated. After Dasanis family left the homeless shelter, she was accepted to the Milton Hershey School, a tuition-free boarding school for low-income children in Pennsylvania. Then the New York Times published Invisible Child, a series profiling a homeless girl named Dasani. In the city, I mean, I have a 132 hours of audio recorded of all my reporting adventures. Like, "Why do I have to say, 'Isn't,' instead of, 'Ain't'?" This is the type of fact that she recites in a singsong, look-what-I-know way. She just thought, "Who could afford that?". Andrea Elliott is a investigative reporter at The New York Times, (BACKGROUND MUSIC) a Pulitzer Prize winner. Putting a face on homelessness in 'Invisible Child' | CNN WebPULITZER PRIZE WINNER NATIONAL BESTSELLER A vivid and devastating (The New York Times) portrait of an indomitable girlfrom acclaimed journalist Andrea ElliottFrom its first indelible pages to its rich and startling conclusion, Invisible Child had me, by turns, stricken, inspired, outraged, illuminated, in tears, and hungering for Only a mother could answer it, and for a while their mother was gone. And the more that readers engage with her, the clearer it becomes that every single one of these stories is worthy of attention., After nearly a decade of reporting, Elliott wants readers to remember the girl at her windowsill every morning who believed something better was out there waiting for her.. She has a delicate oval face and luminous eyes that watch everything, owl-like. About six months after the series ran, we're talking June of 2014, Dasani by then had missed 52 days of the school year, which was typical, 'cause chronic absenteeism is very, very normal among homeless children. Her husband also had a drug history. There have been a few huge massive interventions that have really altered the picture of what poverty looks like in the U.S., chiefly the Great Society and the New Deal and some other things that have happened since then. Before that, she had been in and out of shelters with her family. And they were things that I talked about with the family a lot. As Dasani grows up, she must contend with them all. I nvisible Child is a 2021 work of nonfiction by Pulitzer Prizewinning investigative journalist Andrea Elliott. I never stopped reporting on her life. They wound up being placed at Auburn. And, actually, sometimes those stories are important because they raise alarms that are needed. Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American And you can't go there unless you're poor. And I understand the reporters who, sort of, just stop there and they describe these conditions and they're so horrifying. Chris Hayes: Yeah. This is typical of Dasani. People who have had my back since day one. She was the second oldest, but technically, as far as they were all concerned, she was the boss of the siblings and a third parent, in a sense. She lasted more than another year. It is a story that begins at the dawn of the 21st century, in a global financial capital riven by inequality. And those questions just remained constantly on my mind. She was commuting from Harlem to her school in Brooklyn. Like, these are--. Invisible Child Almost half of New Yorks 8.3 million residents are living near or below the poverty line. And for most of us, I would say, family is so important. It was really tough: Andrea Elliott on writing about New Yorks homeless children. It's why do so many not? But I think she just experienced such an identity crisis and she felt so much guilt. She had been born in March, shattering the air with her cries. And at the same time, there's the old Janet Malcolm line about how every journalist who's, you know, not deluded will tell you what they're doing is ethically indefensible, which is not true and, kind of, hyperbolic, but scratches at something a little bit of a kernel of truth, which is that, like, there is always something intense and strange and sometimes a little hard to reckon with when you are reporting and telling the story of people who are in crisis, emergency trauma and you, yourself, are not. She would then start to feed the baby. So you mentioned There Are No Children Here. Every once in a while, it would. She is sure the place is haunted. Note: This is a rough transcript please excuse any typos. They are true New Yorkers. We're in a new century. A Phil & Teds rain shell, fished from the garbage, protects the babys creaky stroller. And I said, "Yes." Child protection. I was never allowing myself to get too comfortable. (LAUGH), Chris Hayes: You know? Here in the neighbourhood, the homeless are the lowest caste, the outliers, the shelter boogies. Dasani squints to check the date. You can tell that story, as we have on the podcast, about the, sort of, crunched middle class, folks who want to afford college and can't. And, you know, this was a new school. I can read you the quote. But nonetheless, my proposal was to focus on Dasani and on her siblings, on children. East New York still is to a certain degree, but Bed-Stuy has completely changed now. And that's just the truth. They felt that they had a better handle on my process by then. She spent eight years falling the story She saw this ad in a glossy magazine while she was, I believe, at a medical clinic. They did go through plenty of cycles of trying to fix themselves. And they did attend rehab at times. Born at Dasani tells herself that brand names dont matter. Her parents were in and out of jail for theft, fights and drugs. 'Cause I think it's such an important point. They would look at them and say, "How could they have eight children? To see Dasani is to see all the places of her life, from the corridors of school to the emergency rooms of hospitals to the crowded vestibules of family court and welfare. The light noises bring no harm the colicky cries of an infant down the hall, the hungry barks of the Puerto Rican ladys chihuahuas, the addicts who wander the projects, hitting some crazy high. And I met Dasani right in that period, as did the principal. Not much. And it's not because people didn't care or there wasn't the willpower to help Dasani. It happens because there's a lot of thought and even theory, I think, put into the practice. And that was stunning to me. Just a few blocks away are different or, kind of, safer feeling, but maybe alienating also. . I want to be very clear. You can try, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City., Why the foster care system needs to change as aid expires for thousands of aged-out youth, The Pandemic's Severe Toll On The Already-Strained Foster Care System. Andrea, thank you so much. After that, about six months after the series ran, I continued to follow them all throughout. Book Review: Invisible Child, by Andrea Elliott - The New York This family is a proud family. She will tell them to shut up. You know, that's part of it. Her parents were struggling with a host of problems. When Dasani Left Home - The New York Times For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. They rarely figure among the panhandlers, bag ladies, war vets and untreated schizophrenics who have long been stock characters in this city of contrasts. And I hope that she'll continue to feel that way. So she knows what it's like to suddenly be the subject of a lot of people's attention. Serena McMahonadapted it for the web. Invisible Child Her expression veers from mischief to wonder. Hershey likes to say that it wants to be the opposite of a legacy school, that if your kids qualify, that means that the school hasn't done its job, 'cause its whole purpose is to lift children out of poverty. (BACKGROUND MUSIC) It is an incredible feat of reporting and writing. So it's interesting how, you know, you always see what's happening on the street first before you see it 10,000 feet above the ground in terms of policy or other things. And I was trying to get him to agree to let me in for months at a time.
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