Andrea Elliott: Okay. 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. And in my local bodega, they suddenly recently added, I just noticed this last night, organic milk. We often focus on the stories of children who make it out of tumultuous environments. You have been subscribed to WBUR Today. 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 then their cover got blown and that was after the series ran. This is a pivotal, pivotal decade for Brooklyn. Like, these are--. There are a lot of different gradations of what that poverty looks like. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. Lee-Lees cry was something else. She attacked the mice. East New York still is to a certain degree, but Bed-Stuy has completely changed now. He said, "Yes. Not much. She actually did a whole newscast for me, which I videotaped, about Barack Obama becoming the first Black president. Chanel always says, "Blood is thicker than water." And I pulled off from my shelf this old copy of Alex Kotlowitz's There Are No Children Here, which is a classic incredible book about two brothers in the Chicago housing projects in the 1980s. She just thought, "Who could afford that?". Andrea, thank you so much. The children are ultimately placed in foster care, and Dasani blames herself for it. And at that time, I just had my second child and I was on leave at home in Washington, D.C. where I had grown up. And talk a little bit about just her routine, her school life. (LAUGH) Like those kinds of, like, cheap colognes. But she was not at all that way with the mice. And she just loved that. Yeah. In New York, I feel proud. I think that that was a major compass for me was this idea that, "Don't ever get too comfortable that you know your position here or your place. This family is a proud family. At one point, one, I think it was a rat, actually bit baby Lele, the youngest of the children, and left pellets all over the bed. And I did some quick research and I saw that, in fact, the child poverty rate remained one in five. And I said, "Yes." Roaches crawl to the ceiling. I have a lot of possibility. Elliott hopes Invisible Child readers see people beyond the limiting labels of homeless and poor and address the deep historical context that are part of these complicated problems, she says. Andrea Elliott: So Milton Hershey School was created by America's chocolate magnate Milton Hershey, who left behind no children. 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. And, really, the difference is, like, the kind of safety nets, the kind of resources, the kind of access people have--. You are seeing the other. It signalled the presence of a new people, at the turn of a new century, whose discovery of Brooklyn had just begun. ", I think if we look at Dasani's trajectory, we see a different kind of story. The journalist will never forget the first time she saw the family unit traveling in a single file line, with mother Chanel Sykes leading the way as she pushed a stroller. They were-- they were eating the family's food and biting. 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 I would be off in the woods somewhere writing and I would call her. I want people to read the book, which is gonna do a better job of this all because it's so, sort of, like, finely crafted. 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. Her mother, Chanel Sykes, went as a child, leaving Brooklyn on a bus for Pittsburgh to escape the influence of a crack-addicted parent. And that's the sadness I found in watching what happened to their family as it disintegrated at the hands of these bigger forces. 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. 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 in the very beginning, I was like, "Oh, I don't think I can hear this." This week, an expansion of her reporting comes out within the pages of Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City.. She makes do with what she has and covers what she lacks. Nonetheless, she landed on the honor roll that fall. But the other part is agency. Chris Hayes: That is such a profound point about the structure of American life and the aspirations for it. Whether they are riding the bus, switching trains, climbing steps or jumping puddles, they always move as one. We burn them! Dasani says with none of the tenderness reserved for her turtle. 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. Their sister is always first. It's why do so many not? I can read you the quote. She's just a visitor. 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 so putting that aside, what really changed? Andrea Elliott: Can I delve into that for a second? She was such a remarkable and charismatic figure, and also because her story was so compelling. 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 shelter. So she lived in that shelter for over three years. 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. You know, it was low rise projects. Mice were running everywhere. 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.". I nvisible Child is a 2021 work of nonfiction by Pulitzer Prizewinning investigative journalist Andrea Elliott. 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 The popping of gunshots. 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.. (LAUGH) I don't know what got lost in translation there. 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. Every morning, Dasani leaves her grandmothers birthplace to wander the same streets where Joanie grew up, playing double Dutch in the same parks, seeking shade in the same library. Then Jim Ester and the photographer (LAUGH) who was working with me said, "We just want to shadow you.". All rights reserved. It's in resources. Chapter 1. Andrea Elliott: This is a work in progress. This is according to her sister, because Joanie has since passed. And then I was like, "I need to hear this. This is She's at a community college. And at one level, it's like, "It's our ethical duty to tell stories honestly and forcefully and truthfully." They will drop to the floor in silence. New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Andrea Elliott spent nearly a decade following Dasani and her family. There are several things that are important to know about this neighborhood and what it represents. They loved this pen and they would grab it from me (LAUGH) and they would use it as a microphone and pretend, you know, she was on the news. And I had read it in high school. We meet Dasani in 2012, when she is eleven years old and living with her parents, Chanel and Supreme, and seven siblings in one of New York City's And you got power out of fighting back on some level. The street was a dangerous place. And by the way, at that time this was one of the richest cities in the world. The turtle they had snuck into the shelter. And one thing this book's gotten me to see is how the word homeless really is a misnomer, because these people have such a sense of belonging, especially in New York City. And it's a great pleasure to welcome Andrea to the show now. And that gets us to 2014. Columbias Bill Grueskin tries to explain why the Pulitzer board dismissed The New York Times s Invisible Child series And about 2,000 kids go there. We just had all these meetings in the newsroom about what to do because the story was unfolding and it was gripping. The pounding of fists. 'Cause I think it's such an important point. Others will be distracted by the noise of this first day the start of the sixth grade, the crisp uniforms, the fresh nails. The oldest of eight kids, Dasani and her family lived in one room in a dilapidated, city-run homeless shelter in Brooklyn. Chris Hayes: Yeah. Elliotts book follows eight years in the life of She was 11 years old. And he didn't really understand what my purpose was. When she left New York City, her loved ones lost a crucial member of the family, and in her absence, things fell apart. Chris Hayes: So she's back in the city. It's important to not live in a silo. (modern). 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. The sound of that name. You have to be from a low income family. But at the end of the day, they are stronger than anything you throw at them. Only a mother could answer it, and for a while their mother was gone. And I could never see what the next turn would be. 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. Child Protection Services showed up on 12 occasions. Hidden in a box is Dasanis pet turtle, kept alive with bits of baloney and the occasional Dorito. And we're gonna talk a little bit about what that number is and how good that definition is. She felt that the streets became her family because she had such a rocky childhood. There definitely are upsides. 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. Dasani slips down three flights of stairs, passing a fire escape where drugs and weapons are smuggled in. She changed diapers, fed them and took them to school. And I found greater clarity after I left the newsroom and was more in an academic setting as I was researching this book. This focus on language, this focus on speaking a certain way and dressing a certain way made her feel like her own family culture home was being rejected. 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. Then she sets about her chores, dumping the mop bucket, tidying her dresser, and wiping down the small fridge. I had not ever written a book. I don't want to really say what Dasani's reaction is for her. She is a child of New York City. She will tell them to shut up. They have yet to stir. The book takes on poverty, homelessness, racism, addiction, hunger, and more as they shape the lives of one remarkable girl and her family. Nope.. And that's really true of the poor. (LAUGH) Because they ate so much candy, often because they didn't have proper food. ", And we were working through a translator. 3 Shes a giantess, the man had announced to the audience. Section eight, of course, is the federal rental voucher system for low income people to be able to afford housing. And how far can I go? 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 mean, I have a lot of deep familiarity with the struggle of substance abuse in my own family. As Dasani walks to her new school on 6 September 2012, her heart is pounding. She's studying business administration, which has long been her dream. And There Are No Children Here, which takes place in what's called Henry Horner Homes, which is in the west side of Chicago right by what is now called the United Center, which is where the Bulls play. One of the first things Dasani will say is that she was running before she walked. And they have 12 kids per home. They are true New Yorkers. And that really cracked me up because any true New Yorker likes to brag about the quality of our tap water. WebBrowse, borrow, and enjoy titles from the PALS Plus NJ OverDrive Library digital collection. Andrea Elliott: I met Dasani while I was standing outside of Auburn Family Residence, which is a city run, decrepit shelter, one of two city run shelters that were notorious for the conditions that children were forced to live in with their families. She wants to stay in her neighborhood and with her family. They wound up being placed at Auburn. How you get out isn't the point. And then you have to think about how to address it. This is the place where people go to be free. Dasani can get lost looking out her window, until the sounds of Auburn interrupt. I was never allowing myself to get too comfortable. Her siblings are her greatest solace; their separation her greatest fear. She liked the sound of it. You're gonna get out of your own lane and go into other worlds. This is a story." This is the type of fact that nobody can know. But I don't think it's enough to put all these kids through college. And so she named her daughter Chanel. A concrete walkway leads to the lobby, which Dasani likens to a jail. You know, my fridge was always gonna be stocked. She's had major ups and major downs. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Entire neighbourhoods would be remade, their families displaced, their businesses shuttered, their histories erased by a gentrification so vast and meteoric that no brand of bottled water could have signalled it. 4 Dasani blinks, looking out at The mice used to terrorise Dasani, leaving pellets and bite marks. I want to be very clear. She loves being first the first to be born, the first to go to school, the first to win a fight, the first to make the honour roll. And, of course, the obvious thing that many people at the time noted was that, you know, there were over a million people in bondage at the same time they were saying this. She fixes her gaze on that distant temple, its tip pointed celestially, its facade lit with promise. The Milton Hershey School is an incredible, incredible place. Dasani races back upstairs, handing her mother the bottle. Andrea Elliott: Thank you so much for having me, Chris. And a lot of that time was spent together. She spent eight years falling the story And when she left, the family began to struggle, and for a variety of reasons, came under the scrutiny of the city's child protection agency. She had a drug (INAUDIBLE). Children are not the face of New Yorks homeless. 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. I think that when you get deeper inside and when you start to really try your best to understand on a more intimate level what those conditions mean for the person that you're writing about, so you stop imposing your outsider lens, although it's always gonna be there and you must be aware of it, and you try to allow for a different perspective. And to each of those, sort of, judgments, Dasani's mother has an answer. Thats a lot on my plate.. Their fleeting triumphs and deepest sorrows are, in Dasanis words, my heart. Her stepfather's name is Supreme. You get birthday presents. Shes I still have it. 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. And one of the things that I've learned, of course, and this is an obvious point, is that those are very widely distributed through society. This is an extract 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.. Mothers shower quickly, posting their children as lookouts for the buildings predators. A stunning debut, the book covers eight formative years in the life of an intelligent and imaginative young girl in a Brooklyn homeless shelter as she balances poverty, family, and opportunity. And I understand the reporters who, sort of, just stop there and they describe these conditions and they're so horrifying. 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. Her city is paved over theirs. Her mother had grown up in a very different time. 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. But I think she just experienced such an identity crisis and she felt so much guilt. So Bed-Stuy, East New York. Chris Hayes speaks with Pulitizer Prize-winning journalist and author Andrea Elliott about her book, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope In An American City., Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope In An American City. 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.

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