JUDY WOODRUFF: For the last
decade, Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist Andrea Elliott has been
following Dasani, a child who
grew up in homeless shelters and
foster care in Brooklyn, New York.
And Andrea Elliott's new book,
"Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival
& Hope in an American City,"
expands on her 2013 New
York Times profile of Dasani
and asks readers to question their views
about poverty and opportunity in America.
Tonight, she offers us her Brief But
Spectacular take on seeing the unseen.
ANDREA ELLIOTT, Author, "Invisible
Child": We tend to love this
romantic story about poverty, which
is that it's something you escape,
that, if you work hard enough,
that if you are talented enough,
and maybe with a little bit
of luck, you can make it.
For every kid who makes it out,
there are so many more who are
just as capable, just as talented,
just as willing, but who face
barriers that are much greater
than their own talent and
willpower. And we don't ask ourselves why
so many of those kids don't make it out.
We just tend to celebrate the one
who did, because it lets us off
the hook, in a sense. And yet it
is the path that I believe most
represents what poor kids have
to struggle with in this country.
I will never forget the first
moment I saw Dasani and her
family. They were walking out
of the shelter in a single file line with
Chanel, her mother, at the front of the
line. They just exuded this togetherness
as a family, this strength, this unity.
And over the next near-decade
that I continued to follow her, I
watched that family get broken
apart. I watched her survive things
I never imagined on that first day
meeting her that I would witness.
One of the first things she said
to me was: "My name is Dasani,
like the water." Her mother
named her for the bottled water because
she wanted Dasani to have a better life.
And that bottle symbolized this
other America, the people who
could afford to pay for water.
Her grandmother Joanie named
Dasani's mother Chanel after
the fancy perfume, which she
spotted in a magazine, at a time
when that was the closest you
could get to this other life.
To watch the Dasani grow up was
heartbreaking and wildly inspiring. It is
an incredibly high-wire act to survive
deep poverty. It requires all kinds of
small miracles of genius to just get
through the day. It's really important
to reach past the labels that
are given to a kid like Dasani,
homeless, foster kid, poor.
Those labels are an invitation
to delve deep into history. Her
great-grandfather fought in World War
II when the military was segregated,
returned with three Bronze Service
Stars into redlined Brooklyn,
unable to get a mortgage,
unable to work in his chosen
profession, and wound up earning
about $200,000 less than
he should have earned
over the course of his lifetime,
unable to buy a home, which is
so critical to family wealth.
That road was cut off for Dasani's family.
For many years, I would describe my work
as an attempt to understand. It's
almost a trope that journalists reach
for. That's how we explain our work.
The root of the word understand
is understandan, which means
to stand in the midst of.
I think, if I did anything in this
decade with Dasani, it was to stand
in the midst of her life. And that
was the greatest privilege of mine.
My name is Andrea Elliott, and
this is my Brief But Spectacular
take on seeing the unseen.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Very powerful.
And you can watch all our
Brief But Spectacular episodes
at PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.