WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:04.880 JUDY WOODRUFF: For the last decade, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Andrea Elliott has been 00:04.880 --> 00:09.880 following Dasani, a child who grew up in homeless shelters and foster care in Brooklyn, New York. 00:10.960 --> 00:15.960 And Andrea Elliott's new book, "Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City," 00:17.520 --> 00:22.000 expands on her 2013 New York Times profile of Dasani 00:22.000 --> 00:27.000 and asks readers to question their views about poverty and opportunity in America. 00:27.440 --> 00:32.440 Tonight, she offers us her Brief But Spectacular take on seeing the unseen. 00:32.560 --> 00:37.560 ANDREA ELLIOTT, Author, "Invisible Child": We tend to love this romantic story about poverty, which 00:38.400 --> 00:43.400 is that it's something you escape, that, if you work hard enough, that if you are talented enough, 00:45.120 --> 00:47.760 and maybe with a little bit of luck, you can make it. 00:48.640 --> 00:53.640 For every kid who makes it out, there are so many more who are just as capable, just as talented, 00:54.880 --> 00:59.880 just as willing, but who face barriers that are much greater than their own talent and 01:02.080 --> 01:07.080 willpower. And we don't ask ourselves why so many of those kids don't make it out. 01:09.120 --> 01:14.120 We just tend to celebrate the one who did, because it lets us off the hook, in a sense. And yet it 01:14.400 --> 01:19.400 is the path that I believe most represents what poor kids have to struggle with in this country. 01:25.920 --> 01:30.720 I will never forget the first moment I saw Dasani and her family. They were walking out 01:30.720 --> 01:35.520 of the shelter in a single file line with Chanel, her mother, at the front of the 01:35.520 --> 01:40.520 line. They just exuded this togetherness as a family, this strength, this unity. 01:41.440 --> 01:46.240 And over the next near-decade that I continued to follow her, I 01:46.240 --> 01:51.040 watched that family get broken apart. I watched her survive things 01:51.040 --> 01:55.520 I never imagined on that first day meeting her that I would witness. 01:55.520 --> 02:00.520 One of the first things she said to me was: "My name is Dasani, like the water." Her mother 02:00.720 --> 02:05.720 named her for the bottled water because she wanted Dasani to have a better life. 02:06.240 --> 02:11.240 And that bottle symbolized this other America, the people who could afford to pay for water. 02:13.200 --> 02:18.200 Her grandmother Joanie named Dasani's mother Chanel after the fancy perfume, which she 02:18.800 --> 02:23.800 spotted in a magazine, at a time when that was the closest you could get to this other life. 02:24.880 --> 02:29.880 To watch the Dasani grow up was heartbreaking and wildly inspiring. It is 02:32.240 --> 02:37.240 an incredibly high-wire act to survive deep poverty. It requires all kinds of 02:40.160 --> 02:45.160 small miracles of genius to just get through the day. It's really important 02:45.280 --> 02:50.280 to reach past the labels that are given to a kid like Dasani, homeless, foster kid, poor. 02:52.000 --> 02:57.000 Those labels are an invitation to delve deep into history. Her great-grandfather fought in World War 02:59.920 --> 03:04.920 II when the military was segregated, returned with three Bronze Service Stars into redlined Brooklyn, 03:06.080 --> 03:11.080 unable to get a mortgage, unable to work in his chosen profession, and wound up earning 03:12.240 --> 03:15.280 about $200,000 less than he should have earned 03:15.280 --> 03:20.280 over the course of his lifetime, unable to buy a home, which is so critical to family wealth. 03:21.920 --> 03:26.920 That road was cut off for Dasani's family. For many years, I would describe my work 03:29.680 --> 03:32.560 as an attempt to understand. It's 03:33.360 --> 03:38.000 almost a trope that journalists reach for. That's how we explain our work. 03:38.000 --> 03:43.000 The root of the word understand is understandan, which means to stand in the midst of. 03:44.640 --> 03:49.600 I think, if I did anything in this decade with Dasani, it was to stand 03:49.600 --> 03:54.600 in the midst of her life. And that was the greatest privilege of mine. 03:56.960 --> 04:01.960 My name is Andrea Elliott, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on seeing the unseen. 04:03.360 --> 04:06.240 JUDY WOODRUFF: Very powerful. 04:06.240 --> 04:11.240 And you can watch all our Brief But Spectacular episodes at PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.