Andrea Elliott is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at the New York Times. Through December 2013 she published a five-part series in the paper exploring the homelessness epidemic in New York City. It told the story of Dasani Coates, an 11-year-old girl living with her family in a run-down homeless shelter in Brooklyn. Elliott continued to follow the family over the course of almost a decade, recording their experiences in her first book, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in New York City, published last year. Elliott’s maternal family fled Chile during the Pinochet era. She lives in New York with her two children.
How did you choose Dasani?
What mattered most to me was finding a child who wanted to be heard and who could narrate her experience of growing up poor to me. I think it’s incredibly important, it’s essential, to give a voice to the person whose story I’m telling. It’s important to have a communicator, because I think the best writing and reporting rests on the power of intimacy. She was a kid it was almost impossible to keep quiet. She had so much to say and I wanted to hear every word of it.
Was it difficult to maintain emotional distance from the family?
As I continued to write the book, for nine years – October 2012 to August 2021 – I did grow close to the family. They called me Drea, just like I used to be called at high school. Drea was complicated because she was there to observe and translate into words things that were very upsetting, but also moments of joy – there’s a lot of joy and a lot of humour in this book, and people don’t expect that. But Drea was also there because she couldn’t not be there – they drew me in and I cared about them. That was a really hard thing to reconcile – my desire to help them at every turn and my duty to my work, which was as much as possible not to be part of the story.
Has Dasani read the book? What did she think?
I read the book to Dasani and her sister Avianna over the course of five days, line by line. It was really tough. We had many moments of deep sadness during it, but also much laughter. They would stop me every once in a while and say: “I’m not sure that’s exactly how I’d put it, Drea, maybe it was more like this… ” I see this book as an act of witness more than anything else. That is what I did – I witnessed and recorded the reality that faces families like this.
I wonder how much you feel that telling the story has changed its outcome. You chose Dasani, and that must have altered the way she responded to you and to the world.
I asked Dasani about this, and she will eventually speak publicly about it all. At the moment she’s kind of shy about it. She’s not shy about anything else, but she’s shy about this and she prefers me to be her voice. Her response to that question is sort of my response, which is that the truly good things that happened to Dasani were the things that she made happen. Let me give some examples: being discovered by a fitness guru. This kid was an extraordinary athlete, and I wouldn’t for a second want to take away her agency in achieving that. Another example is getting into the Hershey school [a non-fee-paying boarding school for gifted children from low-income families]. I believe she got in on her own merits – her sister did not get in. It’s possible that the school allowed me as much access as I got because they saw that they had something potentially to gain. I also think they saw that the risk was high, that something could go terribly wrong, which it did – she got kicked out.
What I’m most astonished by was that the family was split up [by the authorities] despite the fact that I was there. I feel, as reporters, the quieter we are in places and systems that are oppressive, the more likely we are to see their reality.
Was there ever a time when you despaired?
I struggle very much to talk about my own pain in the context of their pain because their pain is so much greater than I could imagine, but I also think it’s important to convey that I witnessed things that changed me permanently, that have haunted me to this day, chief among them the moment that child protection came for those kids. I knew the parents, I knew the bond that was between them and their kids and that this was a family that was driven by love. Nobody was being abused – these children were being removed [from their parents] because of the crime of being poor. That’s what neglect charges generally are.
Are you still in touch with the family?
I don’t think my relationship with the family will end, ever. They know my kids, my kids know them. I’m a single mom – I share custody with their father. There’s a lot during those years that brought Chanel [Dasani’s mother] and me together, where she’s showing me the way to address things, to be a stronger person in my shoes. I talk in the book about my sibling who was an addict. He passed away a few weeks ago. This is one of my first interviews since then. This stuff is really close to me. Chanel got to know him and gave me some of the best advice when it came to dealing with my brother’s alcoholism. Certain things cut across class and race, and addiction is one of them.
Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in New York City by Andrea Elliott is published by Hutchinson Heinemann on 27 January (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
