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

The family begins to expand while moving between shelters. Maya is born in 2005 and Hada is born in 2006. Dasani helps her mother while learning about the Five-Percent Nation’s code from Supreme. The Five-Percent Nation believes that true knowledge of the universe depends on mastery of Supreme Mathematics and the Supreme Alphabet—interpretive systems based on assigning special meanings to letters and numbers (163-64). They go to Joanie’s on the weekends.

Chanel and Supreme fall into a pattern of separating and getting back together. They get into fights, sometimes physical, ending with Supreme leaving with Khaliq and Nana. They typically make up a few days later. Because of a Bloomberg administration program that helps with rent, they move into “their first real apartment” in 2006 (165). They continue to struggle with drug addiction and holding down jobs. In 2007, Papa is born, and traces of marijuana are found in his system at the hospital. ACS becomes involved in their lives, monitoring the children for signs of abuse and neglect. Dasani learns what to say and how to act around ACS representatives.

It is winter of 2007 and Joanie’s health is deteriorating. She stops going to work and looks visibly slower to her daughter. Chanel is also struggling: Her rental assistance has expired, and she is behind on rent. Chanel needs new school uniforms for her children. Joanie buys the uniforms for her, then dies the next day.

Sherry, Chanel’s stepmother, pays for a funeral. During the service, Dasani attempts to climb into the casket. Joanie—who feared dark places ever since she became trapped in an elevator years ago—is cremated rather than buried. Chanel tends to bring the urn with her on family outings. In 2008, the family is able to claim Joanie’s pension. This money, combined with a new rent subsidy program, allows them to move to Staten Island, heavily Republican and “New York City’s most segregated borough” (172).

The family is doing well in Staten Island in a duplex with a backyard and a balcony. Supreme gets a job as a barber, and Chanel purchases a car. Things begin to unwind when Chanel develops tuberculosis. She is prescribed Percocet and then OxyContin, justifying its use as medicine. She becomes addicted to OxyContin, and this dependency lead both her and Supreme to become addicted to heroin.

In 2010, the rent assistance program expires, and they have to leave the house and re-enter the shelter system. Chanel comes across two turtles and sneaks them into her pocket. The family lands in the Auburn Shelter, which had once been the Cumberland Hospital where Dasani’s grandmother Joanie was born. At Auburn, they are surrounded by people who are chronically unhoused, and the conditions are often dehumanizing. Families are given “independent living” plans. An employee touches Chanel’s breast in view of other staff members, but is not reprimanded.

Dasani is an outcast in elementary school because she is recognized as a “shelter boogie.” A classmate named Star, who is also poor but lives in an apartment and has a more stable life, antagonizes her. At Auburn, one of the pet turtles dies. They name the other Turtle and hide it from inspectors. The family begins to get close to Sherry, who has diabetes. The children call her “Gramma” and notice that she tends to lecture (181).

Chanel enrolls in another treatment program at the request of ACS. She takes methadone, which blocks the effects of opioids. She and Supreme fight, and one night he hits her in the face. A few months, later they separate again. One day they miss the curfew at Auburn while they are at Sherry’s, which means they must travel to the Bronx to get back inside the building. When they get back the next night, they discover all their belongings are gone, including Joanie’s ashes. A staff member thought they’d left. Chanel tries to recover her mother’s ashes from the heap of garbage in the back, but she cannot find them.

Chanel files a complaint about the lost belongings and includes a description of the groping incident, not expecting anything to come of it. She hits the streets to get cash and unwittingly directs a police informant where to buy drugs. She is arrested, though she claims she did not have any drugs on her at the time. At a hearing about the case, the judge allows the children to stay with Supreme, but restricts Chanel to supervised visitation until she satisfies court requirements. Chanel informs the children of the verdict and tells the children, especially Dasani, to support one another. Supreme is known to “rule by fear” (186). Chanel is pregnant. Chanel participates in the methadone program and gives birth to Lee-Lee, who suffers from methadone withdrawal symptoms. Supreme takes the child to live at Auburn. During supervised visits with their mother, she braids the children’s hair.

Sherry describes Dasani as a fighter. She recently punched Star in the face after her rival pulled her hair. Sherry feels that Dasani has a lot of potential and can avoid falling into the traps of “early pregnancy and addiction” (188). She points to an example of Sheena, Dasani’s cousin, who is close to finishing an advanced degree. She tries to inspire Dasani by leaving a brochure for school in Dasani’s dresser. Dasani is flunking the fifth grade and must enroll in summer school. She is excited by the challenge and will be able to enroll in a middle school if she passes. At the same time, her mother Chanel has shown enough progress, according to her ACS caseworker, so she is allowed to return to Auburn after 10 months away.

The narrative skips to a few months ahead. Dasani is 12 and has just returned to school after being suspended. Dasani works hard to be on her best behavior, but most, including her, doubt that it will last. She enjoys fighting and thinks being nice allows others to take advantage of her. Dasani is still seeing her counselor Roxanne, who gives her strategies to deescalate potential fights. Star and Dasani nearly get into a fight one Sunday. Egged on by peers, Dasani insists she will not fight her because she doesn’t want to get suspended again. Star slaps her in the face, Avianna steps in between them, and the sisters leave. Supreme and Chanel get in a fight in the morning, and Supreme pushes Chanel. He threatens to leave again, but eventually changes his mind.

Out on a walk with her mom, Dasani points out a sign for a free wine tasting at an expensive wine store, knowing that a drink is likely to put her mother in a better mood. They go in, and Chanel tastes various wines, exchanging opinions with the sommelier about the tastes of the wines. Dasani notices the word “liqueur” and claims “liquor” is spelt incorrectly. Khaliq sees a vase that looks like Joanie’s urn and asks if it is for “putting people in” (195). Chanel scoffs when she learns that it is for spitting rejected wine.

Dasani sometimes goes into the wealthier part of Fort Greene. She believes that the white people there are wealthier because they don’t waste their money. Gentrification in the neighborhood can be traced to Black artists in the 1960s whose work became newly acclaimed in the 1980s and 1990s, making the neighborhood attractive to more affluent newcomers. In 2003, Bloomberg’s generous subsidies for high-end residential development in Brooklyn led to an influx of “educated professionals,” mostly white (197).

The family prepares to attend a baby shower for one of Chanel’s cousins. Dasani and her sisters rehearse a dance while Supreme makes his famous chicken wings. Khaliq sweeps upstairs. He rarely speaks and plays a lot of video games. He wants to be a cop, and his father urges him to become a Navy SEAL. He sometimes dreams about his mother and has behavioral issues stemming from the trauma he experienced when she died. His brother Papa is very active and hard to control. “Maya is the family diva […] Hada the bookworm, and Baby Lee-Lee the clown” (202).

They arrive at the party with a splash, and Chanel’s Aunt Margo greets them. The shower is for her granddaughter Justina, who lost her mother Roach to AIDS. Supreme leaves his chicken wings and then heads home. Dasani performs her dance without her sisters and receives a standing ovation: “Chanel can’t recall the last time they were so happy” (206).

At school, Miss Hester tells the class about her childhood in Bed-Stuy and how she worked to improve her life. Dasani is surprised to learn that she is a local, because most teachers are from somewhere else. Miss Hester’s mother Mary was from North Carolina, like Dasani’s grandparents and great-grandparents. She dropped out of school and headed north to Brooklyn, where she worked as a seamstress and raised six children. Miss Hester worked hard in school and earned a scholarship. Her mother did not think girls should go to college, so she had to work to pay her own way. When she returned, she was sometimes accused of “trying to ‘be white,’” an accusation that she tries to ignore to this day; “It takes a lot of courage to be different,” she tells the class (208).

Dasani tends to think of her future in terms of what she won’t become—an addict or a victim of violent crime, for example. Miss Hester worries that Dasani will end up getting pregnant early: To Dasani, caring for one child of her own might look like a way to free herself from the burden of caring for all her siblings. Star starts a fight with Dasani, and Star’s brother breaks it up. Chanel tries to confront Star’s mother at the courtyard, but she doesn’t come out. The assistant principal tells Star that if Dasani had been seriously hurt, she would be in big trouble.

It is almost summer. Dasani wants to go to a summer camp in Upstate New York, but she misses the application deadline. Roxanne, Dasani’s counselor, leaves McKinney, and Sahai, the school’s star dancer, goes to a high school for performing arts. Dasani serves as a host for career day and impresses everyone with how well she dresses.

Chanel’s tax refund money is nearly gone, so she starts shoplifting again. The siblings’ birthdays are clustered together in spring. Because Avianna’s birthday is at the end of the month, she doesn’t really get all that much. Dasani has no expectations for her birthday, hoping her mother will pay for a trip to Washington instead. At Sherry’s, Dasani’s cousin Sheena, the one with the graduate degree, gives Dasani some new clothes from Old Navy. Chanel has a birthday cake without any writing on it. There are a lot of men in the basement with young women “wearing too much makeup and too little clothing” (218). One woman, who seems interested in Dasani’s Uncle Josh, gives her $20. Dasani considers it a good birthday.

To try to get some more money, Chanel takes the children to psychotherapy, through which she can get $10 for each child. Chanel seems angry at Dasani, frustrated at having to rely so heavily on her eldest daughter. Dasani asks about money for the trip to Washington, and Chanel snaps at her, making her cry. The therapy sessions are superficial. Chanel collects the money and, on the way back, complains about Supreme not providing and threatens to leave the kids with him, referencing the time her visits were restricted.

The family misses the curfew at Auburn and returns to spend the night at Sherry’s. The next day they travel to get back into Auburn. By law, the children must skip school.

Elliott discusses the colonial roots of the welfare system, which sorts people into two categories: “worthy” and “unworthy” (227). In the 19th century, unhoused children wandered the streets of New York and were seen as dangerous. A minister created a system in which orphaned children were sent to live with families in the Midwest, where they often had to work for their keep in an arrangement that resembled indentured servitude.

In 1909, President Roosevelt hosted a conference “on the Care of Dependent Children” (229). The concept of childhood as a distinct developmental phase, deserving of protection, was gaining ground. By the 1970s, Black families had fought to be included in the welfare system. At the same time, Ronald Reagan’s first presidential campaign gave rise to the myth of the “Welfare Queen”—the notion that poor women (implicitly or explicitly framed as Black) exploited the welfare system for personal profit. This myth shifted the discussion of welfare from children to their mothers.

With President Bill Clinton’s policies, welfare shifted to a temporary assistance model in which the goal was to get parents into the workforce. In New York, Mayor Giuliani renamed welfare offices “Job Centers” (232). Compared to many other US states, New York is generous with welfare benefits. Nonetheless, Chanel is constantly running out of money. At Auburn, an inspector demands she surrender her microwave, which is against policy. She hides it in a friend’s room. In class, Miss Hester urges the students to take responsibility for their actions. Dasani talks about her rivalry with Star and how her mother urges her to fight her. At home, Chanel criticizes Supreme for not going to work.