We're launching a new component of One Book, One Chicago: a series of original essays titled Chicago Heroes: Real & Imagined! Each month through spring 2015, meet a local hero as introduced by a local author. Chicago authors will reflect on heroes from the past, present or even imagined in these new short essays. Our first essay is from Blue Balliett.
Originally from New York, Blue Balliett now lives and writes in Chicago. She has written numerous books and many of her works are especially appealing to young readers. Chasing Vermeer, a mystery published in 2003, was a runaway bestseller and forever established Blue as a major talent within the literary community. In 2006, she was awarded the 21st Century Award by the Chicago Public Library and Chicago Public Library Foundation, honoring significant recent achievement in writing by a Chicago-area writer. Her most recent book is Hold Fast. Blue has a new book scheduled for publication in March titled Pieces and Players and set in Chicago. To learn more, consult her biography in Contemporary Authors.
Visions and Voices from the Heart
By Blue Balliett
September 2014
I think a lot about the kids who will inherit our world, and about the tools they will need. One of those tools is vision, and another is voice.
Developing those skills without help or family support is close to impossible.
For me, a hero is someone who enables another person to have a voice, a voice that otherwise might not be heard. And if that voice carries a story that others can relate to, this is a moment to remember. Here is the start of power. And if that person who speaks is a child—well, the world may be altered by that voice.
I know of two people in their late 20s who are enablers of this kind. In the interests of confidentiality, I will call one Ann and the other John. Both would be embarrassed at the suggestion that their work is heroic, but I’d like to share what they do.
Ann has been working on child advocacy in the immigration system in Chicago. A native English speaker, she is fluent in Spanish and speaks passable Portuguese and French. She began working in the juvenile detention centers—where unaccompanied immigrant children are detained—a few years ago, and now continues this work even though she is no longer paid to do it. Currently a full-time staff member at a nonprofit Chicago organization that provides housing opportunities and life-changing support services for low-income clients, she now volunteers once a week with an organization that offers child advocacy to protect best interests across the legal and human service systems. In other words, she focuses on continuing to help the kids in the Chicago detention centers to become connected to the outside world. Part of that work is recording their life stories and clarifying whatever their rights and options might be. She is also one who tells them, “Yes! Dream! I hear you, and will do my best to help!”
These minors yearn for family, home and a path to stability and success in the United States. Ann notes the incredible resiliency, resourcefulness and bravery amongst these children, most of whom have experienced unthinkable hardship in their home countries. They speak of persecution, sexual predation, gang violence and extreme trauma of many kinds. Most are slow to trust.
One teenager from Honduras, hoping to reach the United States, traveled alone through Mexico only to become a victim of human trafficking close to the border. He is a motivated, hungry learner and begs for any books in Spanish on the sciences. He is curious about Einstein’s life and work, and looks forward to a time when he can access more material. Ann also describes a group of kids from Somalia who envision becoming doctors, lawyers and engineers in this country, and are determined to get an education. Although the majority of kids in the Chicago detention centers are from Central America, there are others from China, India, Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. All are displaced. All dream of belonging and of making a difference.
These kids are not free to come and go. Since only a parent or appropriate relative can remove a child from a detention center before age 18, many wait. They take classes, but most don’t learn much English in this setting.
Ann wears a bracelet woven by one of the young men in these centers, a gift made as a thank you for her presence in his life.
John is a teacher at the new Gary Comer Middle School in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood on the South Side. Last spring he invited me to visit. He and his group of sixth-graders had read and worked on a book of mine, Hold Fast. This novel follows the descent of a young family into the shelter system in Chicago, and is told largely through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got to the school, but was deeply moved by what I saw and heard. John had skillfully built curriculum that connected the novel to the real world. These kids were not only hungry word-gatherers, but had jumped into the story. Like some of the characters, they shared tales of loss of home, of their feelings during that free-fall nightmare, and of their hopes for themselves and others. They described in detail what a dream home might be, and they mentioned, over and over, wanting to reach back and help others in need.
John had created a safe place for the kids in his class to speak. Wisely, he had set up a "Home Dreams" assignment—one in which they were asked to describe what an ideal home might be—so that fact and fiction could blend, and no one would ask how much of their personal writing was based on their own experiences. He is certain that many of these kids have experienced the tragedy and loss of security that they describe in these pieces, secondhand if not firsthand.
Descriptions of family trauma abound, as kids link homelessness to many causes. There is the shooting death of a close family member, substance abuse, loss of jobs, the inability to pay the mortgage or rent, lack of education and even the perception of being an unwanted child. Many of these kids mention growing up with a grandparent. One young girl whose dad left before they were "kicked out" of their home, writes longingly of what she’d like to see come true:
A yard … birthday parties and barbecue … carpet and curtains as soft as the sky … An upstairs so me and my mom and sister can bond together … I want a dog and a hamster to play with and fill in the hole that my dad left in my heart. I want my own room so I can have privacy and think straight. I want family pictures on the wall so anything happen to them I have photos to remember them by.
She goes on to say she’ll help support the family by taking photos of anybody for two dollars:
I would put a smile on everybody face. If I did that that might make their day a little bit brighter. Maybe if I do that that will make my mom stop crying everyday … And I hope that would make my sister Lizzie believe in hope again. If I do this, this might make my family and community happy. And, make me become a stronger person with a high belief in miracles. That my dream of a home.
Many of these kids want a dream house to be made of stone or brick—safe from guns or fire—and to have everything they need inside it, like a basketball court or a playground. Here is a second voice, from a child whose dad and brother died:
I want my sisters to feel safe and secure … Our floor always have fathers banging and breaking down doors … I would help the homeless. They could stop by if they want food or need help. Also, kids would come by and get help with homework. In my new house, everything would change.
Another voice explains that you need a kitchen for cooking and beds to be comfortable in and a window that goes up "so some air can blow in." This child finished with the simple statement, "I just want to get people off the streets."
Another wants to “inspire people” with “my testimony.” Others wish for a place to play, to dance, to sing, to draw, to read, to grow vegetables and to feed others. There are longings for heat in the winter, a washer and dryer, a tub for bubble baths and enough covers at night. There are hopes for a neighborhood watch and no more drinking, drugs, prison or beatings.
Sharing is big: I would want to have lots and lots of food in my house because love is life… I would want to do this for the people in the community to enjoy their life at a young or late age.
Yet another kid gets excited about his dream:
If I got the home I wanted I would go crazy. I would make sure that young people like me won’t have to go through what I went through. I would help my community and they would help me. I want to change the world. I want to stop the violence and stop all the silence.
The hopes and generosity these boys and girls extend toward others is extraordinary.
I believe that for all of us, that moment when one’s voice is heard is essential. Hearts wither without a voice and without the reassuring experience of a response. Ann and John, in their work with these kids, both shine a light on worlds most of us might never otherwise see. Through them, we hear voices we would never have heard.
And most important of all for these kids, the experience of having one’s words valued offers concrete hope: Here is a shared story, a foundation for both dreams and reality. Here is a way to believe in a better life.
In speaking, in sharing their truths, these kids are also heroes. Their voices inspire, and inspiration is a force.
Stopping the silence. Enabling a vision by encouraging another’s voice. Chicago heroes like Ann, John and the kids they work with are life-changers for us all.
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