Investigations into Facing Adversity

In this video, photojournalist Ben DeSoto discusses "Understanding Poverty," an exhibit featuring images of people and communities affected by poverty and homelessness.

In this excerpt from his memoir, Rodriguez provides a stirring recollection from his adolescence: the first time he experienced racism as a result of being an immigrant in America. As he says, the experience "stays with [him] like a foul odor."

In this excerpt, the reader meets two characters from The Misfits: Addie, a girl who is exceptionally tall and smart for a middle schooler and Joe, who is creative and feminine in a way that makes his peers nervous.

In this poem, a black woman carefully analyzes her interaction with a white waitress, whose actions, although civil, are smoldering with superiority.

In this personal narrative, Clare explores multiple facets of the self and questions why gender is still discussed as a binary. He acknowledges the tortured lives that many have lived as a result of their gender ambiguity and declares that all those who "gawk," "gape," and "stare" at those who are different never get it right.

In this spoken word piece, Elizabeth Acevedo speaks of her Afro-Latina heritage, recounting how she first rejected her roots and then learned to embrace them.

In 1916, one family battled against the unjust laws aimed at immigrants of Japanese ancestry. In doing so, they lent their own voices to the growing chorus of Asian Americans insisting: "We belong here."