She trots into the cafeteria, where more than a hundred families will soon stand in line to heat their prepackaged breakfast. I didn't have a giant stack of in-depth, immersive stories to show him. Dasani was in many ways a parent to her seven younger brothers and sisters. (LAUGH) I don't know what got lost in translation there. Elliott says those are the types of stories society tends to glorify because it allows us to say, if you work hard enough, if you are gifted enough, then you can beat this.. They would look at them and say, "How could they have eight children? And, really, the difference is, like, the kind of safety nets, the kind of resources, the kind of access people have--. But especially to someone like her, who she was struggling. It happens because there's a lot of thought and even theory, I think, put into the practice. We see a story of a girl who's trying to not escape, she says. 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. Dasani Coates photographed in September last year. I got a fork and a spoon. She's transient." We meet Dasani in 2012, when she is eleven years old and living with her parents, Chanel and Supreme, and I would be off in the woods somewhere writing and I would call her. Invisible Child And it's a great pleasure to welcome Andrea to the show now. So civic equality is often honored in the breach, but there is the fact that early on, there is a degree of material equality in the U.S. that is quite different from what you find in Europe. And this ultimately wound up in the children being removed in October of 2015, about ten months into Dasani's time at Hershey. All rights reserved. 'Invisible Child' tells the story of childhood homelessness Andrea Elliott: This is a work in progress. They will drop to the floor in silence. Sleek braids fall to one side of Dasanis face, clipped by yellow bows. Every inch of the room is claimed. (LAUGH), Chris Hayes: You know? I still have it. She then moved from there to a shelter in Harlem and then to a shelter in the Bronx before finally, once again, landing another section eight voucher and being able to move back into a home with her family. Her parents survived major childhood traumas. No. How an "immersionist" held up the story And it's the richest private school in America. And I had avoided it. Right? Among them is Dasanis birthplace, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where renovated townhouses come with landscaped gardens and heated marble floors. And to each of those, sort of, judgments, Dasani's mother has an answer. 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. We're in a new century. Serena McMahonadapted it for the web. Just a few blocks from townhouses that were worth millions of dollars. This is an extract from Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in New York City by Andrea Elliott (Hutchinson Heinemann, 16.99). And to her, that means doing both things keeping her family in her life while also taking strides forward, the journalist says. Invisible Child 3 Shes a giantess, the man had announced to the audience. Chris Hayes: We don't have to go through all of the crises and challenges and brutal things that this family has to face and overcome and struggled through. But she was not at all that way with the mice. And those questions just remained constantly on my mind. Multiply her story by thousands of children in cities across the U.S. living through the same experiences and the country confronts a crisis. I feel accepted.". Author Andrea Elliott followed Dasani and her family for nearly 10 years, Almost half of New Yorks 8.3 million residents are living near or below the poverty line. And welcome to Why Is This Happening? If you use the word homeless, usually the image that comes to mind is of a panhandler or someone sleeping on subway grates. But the family liked the series enough to let me continue following them. There's so much upheaval. It was really so sweet. So you mentioned There Are No Children Here. 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. Their voucher had expired. The people I hang out with. But I know that I tried very, very hard at every step to make sure it felt as authentic as possible to her, because there's a lot of descriptions of how she's thinking about things. Invisible Child Her expression veers from mischief to wonder. Public assistance. And she also struggled with having to act differently. Bed bugs. Ethical issues. Chris Hayes: Once again, great thanks to Andrea Elliott. Dasani slips down three flights of stairs, passing a fire escape where drugs and weapons are smuggled in. 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. Invisible Child: the Life of a Homeless Family in NYC Before that, she had been in and out of shelters with her family. Like, I would love to meet a woman who's willing to go through childbirth for just a few extra dollars on your food stamp benefits (LAUGH) that's not even gonna last the end of the month." Dasani's roots in Fort Greene go back for generations. 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. For a time, she thrived there. "What's Chanel perfume? So there were more than 22,000 children in homeless shelters at that time in the main system. Now The material reality of Dasani's life her homelessness, her family's lack of money is merely the point of departure for understanding her human condition, she says. Email withpod@gmail.com. So at the time, you know, I was at The New York Times and we wrestled with this a lot. 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. It's in resources. But she saw an ad for Chanel perfume. Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American There's a huge separation that happens in terms of the culture that people consume, the podcasts they listen to or don't listen to, the shows they watch. But there's something ethically complex, at least emotionally complex. Shes tomorrows success, Im telling you right now.. Andrea Elliott on Twitter And she said that best in her own words. She was unemployed. They did go through plenty of cycles of trying to fix themselves. She's studying business administration, which has long been her dream. 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. It was this aspiration that was, like, so much a part of her character. 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 I have a lot of possibility. So I think that is what's so interesting is you rightly point out that we are in this fractured country now. And talk a little bit about just her routine, her school life. But basically, Dasani came to see that money as something for the future, not an escape from poverty. Dasani can get lost looking out her window, until the sounds of Auburn interrupt. In the city, I mean, I have a 132 hours of audio recorded of all my reporting adventures. Mice were running everywhere. The invisible child of the title is Dasani Coates. Legal Aid set up a trust for the family. This is the type of fact that nobody can know. In the blur of the citys streets, Dasani is just another face. Dasani is not an anomaly. And there's a bunch of ways to look at that picture. A little sink drips and drips, sprouting mould from a rusted pipe. At that time when Chanel was born in '78, her mother was living in a place where it was rare to encounter a white person. On a good day, Dasani walks like she is tall, her chin held high. In Fort Greene alone, in that first decade, we saw the portion of white residents jump up by 80%. I mean, that is one of many issues. But I don't think it's enough to put all these kids through college. And this is a current that runs through this family, very much so, as you can see by the names. It starts as a investigation into what basically the lives of New York City's homeless school children look like, which is a shockingly large population, which we will talk about, and then migrates into a kind of ground level view of what being a poor kid in New York City looks like. 16K views, 545 likes, 471 loves, 3K comments, 251 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from EWTN: Starting at 8 a.m. And she sees a curious thing on the shelf of her local bodega. Editor's note: This segment was rebroadcast on May 16, 2022. "What were you thinking in this moment? And that really cracked me up because any true New Yorker likes to brag about the quality of our tap water. And by the way, at that time this was one of the richest cities in the world. And as prosperity rose for one group of people, poverty deepened for another, leaving Dasani to grow up true to her name in a novel kind of place. Chris Hayes: --real tropes (LAUGH) of this genre. Invisible Child And then their cover got blown and that was after the series ran. I mean, these were people with tremendous potential and incredible ideas about what their lives could be that were such a contrast to what they were living out. Laundry piled up. They spend their days in school, their nights in the shelter. They wound up being placed at Auburn. By the time I got to Dasani's family, I had that stack and I gave it to them. It comes loud and fast, with a staccato rhythm. She was often tired. This is so important." The smaller children lie tangled under coats and wool blankets, their chests rising and falling in the dark. Well, every once in a while, a roach here and there in New York. I have a lot of things to say.. The Milton Hershey School is an incredible, incredible place. It's painful. It signalled the presence of a new people, at the turn of a new century, whose discovery of Brooklyn had just begun. I had been there for a while. This is You're not supposed to be watching movies. So that's continued to be the case since the book ended. And so I did what I often do as a journalist is I thought, "You know, let me find a universal point of connection. And, of course, children aren't the face of the homeless. I can read you the quote. Mice scurry across the floor. But at that time, just like it was at the time that There Are No Children Here came out, it's the highest child poverty rate of almost any wealthy nation. CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And now, we move to New York. Elliott picks up the story in Invisible Child , a book that goes well beyond her original reporting in both journalistic excellence and depth of insight. By the time most schoolchildren in New York City are waking up to go to school, Dasani had been working for probably two hours. Sept. 28, 2021. Then Jim Ester and the photographer (LAUGH) who was working with me said, "We just want to shadow you.". Chris Hayes: --to dealing with those. Section eight, of course, is the federal rental voucher system for low income people to be able to afford housing. People who have had my back since day one. I think that you're absolutely right that the difference isn't in behavior. She is a child of New York City. Chris Hayes: Hello. And they agreed to allow me to write a book and to continue to stay in their lives. She will focus in class and mind her manners in the schoolyard. It's told in her newest book Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City. She became the first child in her family to graduate high school and she has now entered LaGuardia Community College. And she didn't want the streets to become her kids' family. What Hershey calls code switching, which is you switch between the norms, the linguistic codes, and behaviors of one place to another so that you can move within both worlds or many worlds. It's available wherever you get your books. And she wants to be able to thrive there. (modern). She was an amazing ethnographer and she and I had many conversations about what she called the asymmetry of power, that is this natural asymmetry that's built into any academic subject, reporter subject relationship. And that's really true of the poor. She changed diapers, fed them and took them to school. Dasani 11:12 - You know, that's part of it. So I'm really hoping that that changes. It's unpredictable. And these bubbles get, sort of, smaller and smaller, in which people are increasingly removed from these different strata of American life. I mean, I called her every day almost for years. The 10-year-olds next: Avianna, who snores the loudest, and Nana, who is going blind. And so she wanted a strong army of siblings. Parental neglect, failure to provide necessities for ones children like shelter or clothing, is one form of child maltreatment that differs from child abuse, she says. Like, these are--. To support the Guardian and the Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. She's at a community college. I was comfortable with that as a general notion of what I should be doing with my work, because I think that is our job as journalists. Any one of these afflictions could derail a promising child. Paired with photographs by colleague Ruth Fremson , it sparked direct action from incoming Mayor Bill DeBlasio, who had Dasani on the stage at his administrations inauguration in January 2014. Note: This is a rough transcript please excuse any typos. St. Patty's Day, green and white. The mouse-infested shelter didnt deter Dasani from peeking out her windowsill every morning to catch a glimpse of the Empire State Building. She had seven siblings. And I just wonder, like, how you thought about it as you went through this project. And what really got me interested, I think, in shifting gears was in the end of 2011, Occupy Wall Street happened. She's a hilarious (LAUGH) person. Invisible 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 And that carries a huge ethical quandary because you don't know, "Will they come to regret this later on?" It's part of the reason I stayed on it for eight years is it just kept surprising me and I kept finding myself (LAUGH) drawn back in. Like, she was wearing Uggs at one point and a Patagonia fleece at another point. She's pregnant with Dasani, 2001. But the other part is agency. I do, though. Book review: Andrea Elliott's 'Invisible Child' spotlights 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. WebA work of luminous and riveting prose, Elliott's Invisible Child reads like a page-turning novel. She made leaps ahead in math. And yet, in cities, the fracturing happens within really close range. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. This was and continues to be their entire way of being, their whole reason. 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. Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope She sees out to a world that rarely sees her. The sound of that name. (LAUGH) She said to me at one point, "I mean, I want to say to them, especially if it's a man who's saying this, 'Have you ever been through childbirth?'. Family wasn't an accident. And it is something that I think about a lot, obviously, because I'm a practitioner as well. Her mother, Chanel Sykes, went as a child, leaving Brooklyn on a bus for Pittsburgh to escape the influence of a crack-addicted parent. She's been through this a little bit before, right, with the series. She would change her diaper. 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, actually, sometimes those stories are important because they raise alarms that are needed. Eleven-year-old Dasani Joanie-Lashawn Coates is a primary caregiver for her seven siblings. Andrea Elliott: So at the end of the five days that it took for me to read the book to Dasani, when we got to the last line, she said, "That's the last line?" "Invisible Child" follows the story of Dasani, a young homeless girl in New York City. And I understand the reporters who, sort of, just stop there and they describe these conditions and they're so horrifying. 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." Uncovering 'The Invisible Child' with Andrea Elliott: Chris Hayes: Yeah. It's why do so many not? Nearly a quarter of Dasanis childhood has unfolded at Auburn, where she shares a 520-square-foot room with her parents and And a lot of things then happen after that. So she lived in that shelter for over three years. And she'd go to her window, and she talked about this a lot. There are parts of it that are painful. 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. And I had read it in high school. And they act as their surrogate parents. And that gets us to 2014. Offering a rare look into how homelessness directs the course of a life, New York Times writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Andrea Elliott was allowed to follow Dasani's family for almost 10 years. To know Dasani Joanie-Lashawn Coates to follow this childs life, from her first breaths in a Brooklyn hospital to the bloom of adulthood is to reckon with the story of New York City and, beyond its borders, with America itself. She has hit a major milestone, though. The west side of Chicago is predominantly Black and Latino and very poor. And there's so much to say about it. Why Is This Happening? Child Protection Services showed up on 12 occasions. They are true New Yorkers. Now the bottle must be heated. And I think that that's also what she would say. 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. Chanel thought of Dasani. And it really was for that clientele, I believe. I was around a lot of folks like Lee Ann Fujii, who passed away. Theres nothing to be scared about.. You can see more of our work, including links to things we mentioned here, by going to nbcnews.com/whyisthishappening. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. And, you know, this was a new school. Dasani described the familys living quarters as so cramped, it was like 10 people trying to breathe in the same room and they only give you five windows, Elliott recalls. 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. They were-- they were eating the family's food and biting. And the Big Apple gets a new mayor, did get a new mayor this weekend. For nine years, New York Times journalist Andrea Elliott followed the fortunes of one family living in poverty. And, of course, not. The people I grew up with. What did you think then?" Whether they are riding the bus, switching trains, climbing steps or jumping puddles, they always move as one. This is a story." And I think that that's what Dasani's story forces us to do is to understand why versus how. WebBrowse, borrow, and enjoy titles from the PALS Plus NJ OverDrive Library digital collection. Random House, 2021. The children are ultimately placed in foster care, and Dasani blames herself for it. And that was a new thing for me. It's called Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City. And so it would break the rules. She will tell them to shut up. And which she fixed. Chapter 42 Now a sophomore, Dasani believes that her family is desperately fractured. What's your relationship with her now and what's her reaction to the book? The rap of a security guards knuckles on the door. The bottled water had come to Brooklyns bodegas just before she was born, catching the fancy of her mother, who could not afford such indulgences. Find that audio here. And one thing I found really interesting about your introduction, which so summarizes the reason I feel that this story matters, is this fracturing of America. Serena McMahon Twitter Digital ProducerSerena McMahon was a digital producer for Here & Now. Slipping out from her covers, Dasani goes to the window. Invisible Child Chanel was raised on the streets and relied on family bonds, the reporter learned. She is currently a student at LaGuardia Community College in New York. The smaller children lie tangled under coats and wool blankets, their chests rising and falling in the dark. In 2013, the story of a young girl named Dasani Coates took up five front pages in The New York Times. Radiating out from them in all directions are the eight children they share: two boys and five girls whose beds zigzag around the baby, her crib warmed by a hairdryer perched on a milk crate. The turtle they had snuck into the shelter. She is among 432 homeless children and parents living at Auburn. Dasani ticks through their faces, the girls from the projects who know where she lives. 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 It's something that I talked about a lot with Supreme and Chanel. And you got power out of fighting back on some level. It's a really, really great piece of work. Her sense of home has always been so profound even though she's homeless. 'Invisible Child' chronicles how homelessness shaped A few feet away is the yellow mop bucket they use as a toilet, and the mattress where the mother and father sleep, clutched. Here in the neighbourhood, the homeless are the lowest caste, the outliers, the shelter boogies. I think it's so natural for an outsider to be shocked by the kind of conditions that Dasani was living in. Thats not gonna be me, she says. (LAUGH) And the market produces massively too little affordable housing, which is in some ways part of the story of Dasani and her family, which is the city doesn't have enough affordable housing. "This is so and so." How did you feel, you know, about the pipe that's leaking?" The ground beneath her feet once belonged to them. This family is a proud family. The only way to do this is to leave the room, which brings its own dangers. She lives in a house run by a married couple. Andrea Elliott is a investigative reporter at The New York Times, (BACKGROUND MUSIC) a Pulitzer Prize winner. Family was everything for them. And I said, "Yes." Her polo shirt and khakis have been pressed with a hair straightener, because irons are forbidden at the Auburn shelter. Nine years ago, my colleague Andrea Elliott set out to report a series of stories about what it was like to be a homeless child in New York City. Dasanis room was where they put the crazies, she says, citing as proof the broken intercom on the wall. What is crossing the line? 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.. Despite the circumstances, Dasani radiated with potential. But, of course, there's also the story of poverty, which has been a durable feature of American life for a very long time. The thumb-suckers first: six-year-old Hada and seven-year-old Maya, who share a small mattress. So by the time I got to Dasani's family, this was a very different situation. Elliott And you didn't really have firsthand access to what it looks like, what it smells like to be wealthy. We'd love to hear from you. Its stately neo-Georgian exterior dates back nearly a century, to when the building opened as a public hospital serving the poor. You're gonna get out of your own lane and go into other worlds. She's like, "And I smashed their eyes out and I'd do this.". So I work very closely with audio and video tools. But I would say that at the time, the parents saw that trust as an obstacle to any kind of real improvement because they couldn't access it because donors didn't want money going into the hands of parents with a drug history and also because they did continue to receive public assistance. And she would stare at the Empire State Building at the tower lights because the Empire State Building, as any New Yorker knows, lights up depending on the occasion to reflect the colors of that occasion.
Raglan Shaping Formula,
Articles W