Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City

In 1977, Joanie is pregnant with Chanel, her third child with Sonny Boy, a married man twice her age. She picks Chanel’s name out of a magazine. Joanie had her first child when she was 17 and dropped out of high school. Sonny Boy has no children with his wife, Sherry. During this time, a lot of African Americans migrated to northern suburbs, empowered by civil rights legislation. However, because New York is facing potential bankruptcy, cuts are made that affect these communities directly.

Sonny Boy is fond of his children with Joanie, but he refuses to leave Sherry, who is churchgoing and runs a daycare out of her home. Because Sherry and Sonny Boy live in a good neighborhood, Joanie gives them Chanel to raise, hoping Chanel will have a stable childhood. Chanel remains with Sherry after Sonny Boy’s death in a work accident in 1980, and Sherry dotes on her. Sherry also supports Joanie and her two boys.

When the crack epidemic hits New York in the 1980s, Joanie develops an addiction. This era sees the beginning of the “war on drugs,” encapsulated in the public imagination by Nancy Reagan’s mantra, “Just say no.” Crack-related offenses carry severe penalties, far greater than those attached to cocaine—the same drug in a different, more expensive form. The disproportionate sentences for crimes involving crack contribute to the growing problem of mass incarceration. Soon, the US has the “highest incarceration rate in the world” (129). By 1990, more than half the people in state and federal prisons are Black.

Chanel is sexually abused by a male cousin in his twenties. Sherry realizes that Joanie has an addiction and sends Chanel to live in Pennsylvania with her sister. When Chanel starts to act out, the sister sends Chanel back to Sherry. Joanie becomes competitive with Sherry once again, and eventually Chanel leaves Sherry to live with Joanie in 1990. They are evicted from their apartment because of overdue rent.

“Homeless” became a common term in the 1980s, and Elliott traces the modern phenomenon to Reagan-era cuts. Joanie and Chanel, now 12, eventually go to stay with Joanie’s sister Margo, who lives in a drug house where people come to use crack. Chanel learns to stay out of the way and gets close to her cousin “Roach.” She tries to move back in with Sherry, who says no. Chanel and Roach start skipping school and stealing candy.

After Joanie and Margo start fighting, Joanie and Chanel leave. They contract tuberculosis at a shelter for the unhoused. Chanel has some teeth pulled by a dentist to earn some extra money. In 1994, Roach’s sister Sherelle dies from AIDS. She is pregnant at the time of her death, and doctors keep her alive on a respirator long enough for the baby to be born. Roach also contracts AIDS and dies of related complications. Chanel attempts to spurn sexual relationships.

When Joanie abruptly stops using crack, Chanel believes the AIDS epidemic was her wakeup call. The crack epidemic of the 1980s also led to a social panic around “crack babies,” and “pregnant drug users became the target of law enforcement” (140). With more mothers being incarcerated, there was a spike in the number of foster children. The various organizations designed to address child abuse seemed to openly discriminate against people of color.

In 1995, a child was killed by her mother after signs of abuse were ignored. New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani subsequently created the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). Joanie stopped using drugs to take care of Roach’s children after Roach passed. As a requirement for government aid, she entered a job training program and became a subway janitor, which she described as the happiest day of her life (142).

Chanel sells pot and works at McDonalds. She drops off food for members of the Bloods, a violent New York gang famous for wearing red and for their rivalry with the blue-wearing Crips. Chanel is attracted to the sense of Black solidarity. Because she has a “boyish effect” (144), she is spared from their more physically and sexually violent traditions. Chanel helps find people that owe the gang money, eventually becoming a “trap house manager” (145), or a manager of sex workers, earning the nickname “Lady Red.” Though she does enact violence, Chanel never kills anyone. Joanie and Sherry, now reconciled, know Chanel is in trouble; they once pay a man $200 because he says he will kill Chanel if they don’t.

Chanel falls in love with Ramel, who is also a Blood and 12 years older than Chanel. He meets Chanel while out on parole, having committed several robberies to support his crack addiction. Chanel becomes addicted to crack through her relationship with Ramel. The two manage the trap house together to support their substance abuse disorder. Joanie’s mother tries to confront Chanel, who blames Joanie for not being around.

Dasani is born in 2001. Chanel does not see a doctor while pregnant. She chooses the name from a bottle of water she spots at a local store. Chanel takes the baby to Joanie and disappears a few days later. Joanie dotes on Dasani and becomes surprisingly maternal.

As Joanie cares for Dasani, whom she has nicknamed “Muka,” Chanel and Ramel are “nonstop running the streets” (149). They enter the shelter system and take Dasani with them to try to stabilize their lives when the attacks of September 11, 2001 occur. Ramel leaves and Chanel goes back to Joanie, a pattern they fall into. Ramel and Chanel’s second child, Avianna, is born in April 2002, and once more they try to stop using drugs, but they end up leaving both children with Joanie.

Joanie now has chronic pain, and neither she nor Margo use drugs anymore. Joanie and Chanel get into a fight that involves the police, and Joanie tells Chanel she needs to leave with the girls. They enter the shelter system again as Michael Bloomberg, one of the world’s wealthiest people, becomes mayor of New York City, promising to address the crisis of unhoused people.

Bloomberg tries a few unpopular experiments to address the number of people who are unhoused, always with the idea that shelters should be temporary. This results in a grueling intake process in which the shelter contacts the applicant’s relatives to attempt to find other housing first. For Chanel, this process takes three days before the family ends up in Harlem.