where is dasani from invisible child now

Even Dasanis name speaks of a certain reach. And I had focused for years on the story of Islam in a post-9/11 America. And as I started to, kind of, go back through it, I remember thinking, "How much has really changed?" Before that, she had been in and out of shelters with her family. Taped to the wall is the childrens proudest art: a bright sun etched in marker, a field of flowers, a winding path. And I think that that's also what she would say. Dasani tells herself that brand names dont matter. And obviously, you know, one of the things I think is interesting and comes through here is, and I don't know the data on this, but I have found in my life as a reporter and as a human being along various parts of the Titanic ship that is the United States of America that there's a lot of substance abuse at every level. It's massively oversubscribed. Strangers do not see the opioid addiction that chases her mother, or the prisons that swallowed her uncles, or the cousins who have died from gang shootings and Aids. In 2012, there were 22,000 homeless children in New York City. It never works. Her hope for herself is to keep, as she's put it to me, her family and her culture close to her while also being able to excel.. I have a lot of possibility. 4 Dasani blinks, looking out at Chris Hayes: Yeah. Andrea Elliott: Absolutely. She had been born in March, shattering the air with her cries. And that's just the truth. And yet, in cities, the fracturing happens within really close range. And I did some quick research and I saw that, in fact, the child poverty rate remained one in five. They just don't have a steady roof over their head. And so I did what I often do as a journalist is I thought, "You know, let me find a universal point of connection. Well, every once in a while, a roach here and there in New York. The familys room at the Brooklyn shelter, with Dasani, right, sitting on the bed. Laundry piled up. And then I wanted to find a target in New York, a good focal point in New York. The ground beneath her feet once belonged to them. And she was actually living in the very building where her own grandmother had been born back when it was Cumberland Hospital, which was a public hospital. And, really, the difference is, like, the kind of safety nets, the kind of resources, the kind of access people have--. Dasani's 20. The Child Protection Agency began monitoring Dasanis parents on suspicion of parental neglect, Elliott says. So she would talk about this. She could change diapers, pat for burps, check for fevers. The sound that matters has a different pitch. Its the point Elliott says she wants to get across in Invisible Child: We need to focus less on escaping problems of poverty and pivot attention to finding the causes and solutions to those problems. And one of the striking elements of the story you tell is that that's not the case in the case of the title character of Dasani. More often she is running to the monkey bars, to the library, to the A train that her grandmother cleaned for a living. She said, "Home is the people. If she cries, others answer. 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. First of all, I don't rely on my own memory. She will be sure to take a circuitous route home, traipsing two extra blocks to keep her address hidden. We get the robber barons and the Industrial Revolution. We rarely look at all the children who don't, who are just as capable. The children are ultimately placed in foster care, and Dasani blames herself for it. Part of the government. Come on, says her mother, Chanel, who stands next to Dasani. Tweet us with the hashtag #WITHpod, email WITHpod@gmail.com. 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. But it remains the case that a shocking percentage of Americans live below the poverty line. Coca Cola had put it out a year earlier. Of all the distressing moments in Invisible Child, Andrea Elliotts book about Dasani Coates, the oldest of eight children growing up in a homeless shelter in New And I was trying to get him to agree to let me in for months at a time. Tweet us at the hashtag #WITHPod. They are all here, six slumbering children breathing the same stale air. But to Dasani, the shelter is far more than a random assignment. 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. Best to try to blend in while not caring when you dont. Each home at the school, they hire couples who are married who already have children to come be the house parents. 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. Her parents survived major childhood traumas. We burn them! Dasani says with none of the tenderness reserved for her turtle. 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. Like, these two things that I think we tend to associate with poverty and, particularly, homelessness, which is mental illness and substance abuse, which I think get--, Chris Hayes: --very much, particularly in the way that in an urban environment, get codified in your head of, like, people who were out and, you know, they're dealing with those two issues and this is concentrated. No one on the block can outpace Dasani. Delivery charges may apply, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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 we're gonna talk a little bit about what that number is and how good that definition is. Theres nothing to be scared about.. There was no sign announcing the shelter, which rises over the neighbouring projects like an accidental fortress. She just thought, "Who could afford that?". She liked the sound of it. 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. But under court supervision, he had remained with the children, staying clean while his wife entered a drug treatment programme. You know, we're very much in one another's lives. The mice used to terrorise Dasani, leaving pellets and bite marks. She is currently a student at LaGuardia Community College in New York. 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 so she named her daughter Chanel. I think it's so natural for an outsider to be shocked by the kind of conditions that Dasani was living in. 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. It was a high poverty neighborhood to a school where every need is taken care of. And unemployed. Some donations came in. Children are not the face of New Yorks homeless. Today, Dasani lives surrounded by wealth, whether she is peering into the boho chic shops near her shelter or surfing the internet on Auburns shared computer. Chris Hayes: --real tropes (LAUGH) of this genre. 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." An interview with Andrea Elliott, author of Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City. Talk a little bit about where Dasani is now, her age, what she had to, sort of, come through, and also maybe a little bit about the fact that she was written about in The New York Times, like, might have affected that trajectory. 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. It was a constant struggle. WebBrowse, borrow, and enjoy titles from the Pioneer Library System digital collection. Andrea Elliott: Yeah. I mean, I called her every day almost for years. "What's Chanel perfume? is presented by MSNBC and NBC News, produced by the All In team and features music by Eddie Cooper. 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. 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.. INVISIBLE CHILD POVERTY, SURVIVAL & HOPE IN AN AMERICAN CITY. He said, "Yes. The sound of that name. She had a lot of issues. By the time, I would say, a lot of school kids were waking up, just waking up in New York City to go to school, Dasani had been working for two hours. And they did attend rehab at times. Criminal justice. ANDREA ELLIOTT, 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 And there was this, sort of, sudden public awakening around inequality. It's, first of all, the trust, which continues to exist and is something I think people should support. She is a child of New York City. Then they will head outside, into the bright light of morning. Dasani was in many ways a parent to her seven younger brothers and sisters. Either give up your public assistance and you can have this money or not. Just a few blocks from townhouses that were worth millions of dollars. This is freighted by other forces beyond her control hunger, violence, unstable parenting, homelessness, drug addiction, pollution, segregated schools. Chapter 1. And I had avoided it. The book takes on poverty, homelessness, racism, addiction, hunger, and more as they shape the lives of one remarkable girl and her family. Children are not often the face of homelessness, but their stories are heartbreaking and sobering: childhoods denied spent in and out of shelters, growing up with absent parents and often raising themselves and their siblings. And so putting that aside, what really changed? They would look at them and say, "How could they have eight children? A changing table for babies hangs off its hinge. Note: This is a rough transcript please excuse any typos. You are seeing the other. She will kick them awake. Now the bottle must be heated. And in the very beginning, I was like, "Oh, I don't think I can hear this." I never stopped reporting on her life. Like, she was wearing Uggs at one point and a Patagonia fleece at another point. She trots into the cafeteria, where more than a hundred families will soon stand in line to heat their prepackaged breakfast. Don't their future adult selves have a right to privacy (LAUGH) in a sense? And my process involved them. I nvisible Child is a 2021 work of nonfiction by Pulitzer Prizewinning investigative journalist Andrea Elliott. But despite the extraordinary opportunity, she talked often about just wanting to go home as troublesome as that home life was. I wanted to, kind of, follow up (LAUGH) the book that I loved so much in the '80s by looking once again at the story of poor urban America through one child. Invisible Child: Dasanis Homeless Life. Invisible Child: Girl in the Shadows reportedly was the longest ever published in the newspaper up to that time. Have Democrats learned them? I mean, whether you're poor--, Andrea Elliott: --or you're wealthy, (LAUGH) like, you know. 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. And there's a bunch of ways to look at that picture. Author Andrea Elliott followed Dasani and her family for nearly 10 years, The west side of Chicago is predominantly Black and Latino and very poor. You're not supposed to be watching movies. And I'm also, by the way, donating a portion of the proceeds of this book to the family, to benefit Dasani and her siblings and parents. She knew she had to help get her siblings fed and dressed. And she tried to stay the path. I feel good. No, I know. And, yeah, maybe talk a little bit about what that experience is like for her. Nope.. All she has to do is climb the school steps. Shes So she lived in that shelter for over three years. They were-- they were eating the family's food and biting. So she's taking some strides forward. It's told in her newest book Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City. I still have it. Chris Hayes: Dasani is 11 years old. I had been there for a while. Andrea Elliott: I didn't really have a beat. After that, about six months after the series ran, I continued to follow them all throughout. But she was not at all that way with the mice. Andrea Elliott: This is a work in progress. (modern). The people I hang out with. Had been the subject of tremendous amounts of redlining and disinvestment and panic peddling that had essentially chased white homeowners out. 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. And there's a amazing, amazing book called Random Family by Adrian LeBlanc which takes place in the Bronx, which is in a somewhat similar genre. There are several things that are important to know about this neighborhood and what it represents. Why Is This Happening? is presented by MSNBC and NBC News, produced by Doni Holloway and features music by Eddie Cooper. Dasani Coates photographed in September last year. The only way to do this is to leave the room, which brings its own dangers. And it also made her indispensable to her parents, which this was a real tension from the very beginning. What she knows is that she has been blessed with perfect teeth. 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. And the reporter who wrote that, Andrea Elliott, wrote a series of stories about Dasani. 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. Elliotts book follows eight years in the life of I do, though. Child Protection Services showed up on 12 occasions. 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. She knows such yearnings will go unanswered. Anyway, and I said, "Imagine I'm making a movie about your life. 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. I had an early experience of this with Muslim immigrant communities in the United States that I reported on for years. She attacked the mice. It's just not in the formal labor market. She was invited to be a part of Bill de Blasio's inaugural ceremony. And for most of us, I would say, family is so important. But nothing like this. What did you think then?" She would then start to feed the baby. They are true New Yorkers. We take the sticks and smash they eyes out! She loved to sit on her windowsill. On mornings like this, she can see all the way past Brooklyn, over the rooftops and the projects and the shimmering East River. Dasani gazes out of the window from the one room her family of 10 shared in the Brooklyn homeless shelter where they lived for almost four years. She looks around the room, seeing only silhouettes the faint trace of a chin or brow, lit from the street below. So to what extent did Dasani show agency within this horrible setting? And I was so struck by many things about her experience of growing up poor. And he immediately got it. 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. The other thing you asked about were the major turning points. This family is a family that prides itself on so many things about its system as a family, including its orderliness. Used purple Uggs and Patagonia fleeces cover thinning socks and fraying jeans. Nearly a quarter of Dasanis childhood has unfolded at Auburn, where she shares a 520-square-foot room with her parents and And that's impossible to do without the person being involved and opening up and transparent. 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. 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. We just had all these meetings in the newsroom about what to do because the story was unfolding and it was gripping. Her parents were struggling with a host of problems. 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. 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?" And, of course, children aren't the face of the homeless. Toothbrushes, love letters, a dictionary, bicycles, an Xbox, birth certificates, Skippy peanut butter, underwear. Dasani landed at 39 Auburn Place more than two years ago. It has more than a $17 billion endowment. 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. 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. How did you feel, you know, about the pipe that's leaking?" Invisible Child emerged from a series on poverty Elliott wrote for the New York Times in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Now Chanel is back, her custodial rights restored. And so I have seen my siblings struggle for decades with it and have periods of sobriety and then relapse. 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.

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