On March 6, the Institute for Social Concerns hosted the 2025 Poverty Studies Distinguished Lecture with Andrea Elliott, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of the book “Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City.”
Connie Snyder Mick, a senior associate director and director of academic affairs at the Institute for Social Concerns, said the design of the lecture was to give insight into how to “respond to complex demands of justice through justice, education and research for the common good.”
Jason Kelly, Gallivan Program director and “Notre Dame Magazine” editor, first gave a brief introduction of the book.
“Elliott’s work demonstrates what a microscopic focus on an individual story can reveal about the historical, political and social context that affects so many others living in similar circumstances,” Kelly said. He added that Elliott “spent that time with Dasani Coates and her family, enlightening readers with the insights gleaned from that relentless presence, making an invisible child visible, while at the same time shining a light on so much else that we tend to look away from.”
Elliott then began her presentation about the importance of focusing on children to understand the history of poverty.
“The adults are seen to be blamed again and again for their condition, for their poverty, for their housing insecurity, for their inability to meet the promise of America and its dream,” Elliott said.
The shift of focus to children allows for the blame to stop because “you can’t really argue that millions of American children are responsible for their own wealth, for their futures ... because they’re kids,” Elliott said.
To approach this story, Elliott needed a child to interview and learn about their circumstances. Elliott recounted the moment she met Coates and began following her story.
“On a crisp fall day in 2012, I was standing outside her home shelter and I saw her, her mother and all of her siblings walking out single-filed in this very orderly way, because that's how they walked in public to protect themselves as one unit, indivisible. She immediately grabbed my attention. She just had this spark about her,” Elliott said.
She then discussed the history of the names of people she wrote about. Chanel is Coates' mother and was the first name Elliott pointed out.
“She got her name because her mom, Joanie, had been leafing through a magazine at the time when she spotted this fancy perfume. You couldn’t find it at the local pharmacy, which sold far cheaper scents. Chanel, just the name, hinted at something better at this other life, something exclusive, something far away that you literally have to get on several trains to travel to go and sample,” Elliott said.
She then pointed out how Coates got her name and the association of it with luxury.
“Chanel was standing in a … deli when she spots a new product on the shelf just released by The Coca Cola Company, Dasani bottled water. She remembers asking herself, ‘Who would pay for water?’ It seemed like the ultimate luxury,” Elliott said.
Both names, Elliott explained, were part of the gentrification process occurring in New York. With Chanel’s name, it was a time of segregation and separation of wealth, while when Coates was born, the wealth emerged into their culture, making it harder to afford a living.
Elliott later talked about the lineage of Dasani and her family. Elliott said that poverty was the only way to understand Dasani’s human condition and that it was important to know how it came to be.
“It was impossible to separate Dasani from her parents, and to know Dasani is to know her parents … It’s so important to understand that not only is the family essential to the trajectory of a child but within that family are all these hidden childhoods. Within those adult bodies are these unseen histories,” Elliott said.
