Category: Youth

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington

Photo credit: Aberdeen Proving Ground via Flickr Creative Commons Originally published on The Huffington Post. In our Fort Wayne neighborhood, Halloween is a serious candy free-for-all. We bought 12 […]

What Living in a High-Poverty Neighborhood Taught Me About Protests

Photo credits to Dorret. Originally published in TalkPoverty. About 13 years ago, I lived in Charleston, South Carolina, where I was trying to make ends meet as a freelance writer. […]

Home Alone: A Single Mother Tries to Navigate Missoula’s Child Care Crisis

Photo Credits to Brian Hart. Originally published by the Missoula Independent. My life as a single mother has often meant looking up, helpless, waving goodbye like Wile E. Coyote, after […]

My Multiracial Son Embraces His Black Identity

Originally published by the Indianapolis Star. The wispy-haired 4-month-old Mark is held timeless in a frame in front of me. The 12-year-old, shaggy-haired Mark is fast asleep in the room […]

Announcing, my forthcoming memoir: MAID: A Single Mother’s Journey from Cleaning House to Finding Home

On June 16th, I celebrated my youngest daughter Coraline’s second birthday. While she opened presents, I relished the memory of her entering my life. She was born a month after […]

Lack of Black Children’s Books Are Still a Problem

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington

Photo credits to Pettifoggist. Originally published on The Undefeated. My mother and my father remember chatting with friends at a nondescript table at the 1989 American Library Association (ALA) annual […]

Let’s Guarantee Every High School Student a Summer Job

Photo credits to Flazingo Photos. Originally posted on the Huffington Post. In New York City, where the summer job program for high school students is run on a neighborhood lotto […]

Free-Range Parenting Is A Privilege For The White And Affluent

Photo credits to Ryan Dickey. Originally published in The Establishment. At first glance, my 9-year-old daughter doesn’t look “poor.” She meticulously chooses her outfits for school, often sleeping in them—even […]

Yes, Food Can Be Entertainment for Low-Income People

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington

Photo source: FreeImages.com Originally published on Talk Poverty. I woke up yesterday hungry. Since my last shopping trip four days before, I’d not eaten much, saving most of the food […]

The Answer is Muhammad Ali: Who else?

Originally published in the Huffington Post. For most of my life, I haven’t idolized sports heroes. I may be the exception to the great American male rule-of-thumb. There have been […]

Sheryl Sandberg Thinks She Finally Gets Single Moms, But She Doesn’t Get Me

Originally posted in SheKnows. I read Sheryl Sandberg’s recent Facebook post from the trenches of a horrible Mother’s Day weekend. The youngest had thrown up on Friday night, and we […]

Saying Your House is Messy Because You Play With Your Kids is a Privilege

Originally published in the Washington Post. I grew up in what some would call an immaculately clean home. I hated my mom a little for it. I wasn’t allowed to […]

Out of Homelessness, A Mom Turns Advocate

Originally published on Rooflines, a Shelterforce blog. Jenean F. and her husband worked hard to achieve the increasingly elusive American Dream. She was a stay at home mom and he […]

Here’s How Many People it Takes to Replace a Single Mom

Originally published on SheKnows. In the weeks building up to a business trip, I created a schedule for the five people who’d replace me, a single mom with two kids, […]

Prince Was The Only Person Who Defined Himself

Originally published on the Huffington Post. Last night, my 12-year-old son was in his room reading and listening to music. His musical tastes run from modern pop and hip-hop to […]

Just Because I’m Poor Doesn’t Mean My Kid Shouldn’t Have Nice Things

Originally published on She Knows. My daughter and I were living in a conservative area when I started to notice an outcry to test people receiving public assistance for drug […]

Missouri Athletes Bust Through Intolerance

Originally published by The Progressive. With the walk-out that led to the resignation of a university president and chancellor, the University of Missouri’s black football players showed their power to […]

It Is Easier to Have a ‘Spirited’ Child When You Are a White Parent

Originally published on The Guardian. I have what’s known as a “spirited” child. Mia has run me ragged since she knew how to walk. She’d run across soccer fields as […]

Why Poverty Isn’t a Halloween Costume

Originally published on Talk Poverty and The Nation. When a website documenting the attire of Walmart customers surfaced several years ago, its popularity grew quickly. As Walmart is known for […]

I Lived On $6 A Day With A 6-year-old And A Baby On The Way. It Was Extreme Poverty.

Originally published on The Guardian. It didn’t take me long to go from financial stability to fearing homelessness. In January 2014 I was 35-years-old, raising a six-year-old nearly full-time and […]

The Fight for Quality, Accessible Child Care is a Fight for Women’s Equality

Wendi C. Thomas

This piece was originally posted in the Montgomery Advertiser. Women’s History Month is about more than celebrating phenomenal women in history; it’s also about honoring the women who have dedicated […]

Remembering Mike Brown

Loryn Wilson

On Saturday, an unarmed 18-year-old African-American teenager named Mike Brown was shot and killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri. He had planned to start college yesterday—and because of an unjustified […]

What’s the Matter with Food Stamp Recipients?

Amanda Sands

If you’re reading this article, you’re probably already aware that the House of Representatives voted to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by $39 billion. The bill didn’t decrease […]

Sen. Reed to Recirculate a Bill That is ACTUALLY Good for Students

Jennifer Wang

Months ago, Sen. Jack Reed, a longstanding champion for students, introduced the Responsible Student Loan Solutions Act, a bill that would have prevented interest rates on all new federal Stafford […]

Building the Economic Strength of Women

March 8th is International Women’s Day, and although it’s 2013, American women still lag behind men in paycheck fairness. Women still make a mere 64 cents for every dollar their […]

A Bus Tour, Full of Stories and Strength

Emily Gelbaum

Last week, the National Keeping Families Together Bus Tour launched from Chicago, IL carrying families and individuals directly impacted by the current immigration system. The bus riders are calling on […]

The Immigrant Community Comes Together

Jingru Huang

Leaders of the Asian Pacific American community are supporting the Keeping Families Together mission. Comprehensive immigration reform is essential because families should never be separated. When mentioning the “undocumented immigrants”, […]

Immigrants to Yale, “We aren’t Guinea pigs!”

Yale recently suspended plans to create a center in conjunction with the Department of Defense that would train U.S. soldiers in the art of interrogation by using immigrants as their […]

Alone on Valentine’s Day Because Of Deportation

In December the Fair Immigration Reform Movement launched the Keeping Families Together campaign, the campaign collects the countless stories of families split because of our broken immigration system. Yesterday was […]

Making Minimum Wage a Living Wage

Overall, 77% of those who watched The State of the Union Address were pleased with what the President had to say. It was a passionate plea and directive to the […]

Immigration and LGBT Advocates

When two Portland women renewed their vows in Oregon, living as a mixed-status couple, the moment was impactful for more than one reason. The couple renewed their vows to illustrate […]

The OFA Takes a Page from Keeping Families Together

With President Obama’s second term in full swing his former campaign organization has decided to take on immigration reform. Taking a page from the Keeping Families Together Campaign, The Obama […]

The Poverty Predicament

The word ‘poor’ is treated like a four-letter word by politicians. But with the downturn of our economy and slow job market, the issue of poverty has become more serious […]

Sharing the Stories of Immigrant Families

The Fair Immigration Reform Movement recently launched the Keeping Families Together Campaign. The campaign was created to advocate for immigration reform that keeps families together and to collect the stories […]

A Holiday Without Your Parents

Many US children will spend this holiday season without a parent. Why? Because they have a parent who isn’t a US citizen and has been deported. From 2010-2012 about 23% […]

The Youth Unemployment Problem

The Center for Community Change recently released a report highlighting the issue of youth unemployment and under-employment entitled, “Establishing a Foothold in the Labor Market for Young Workers Through Subsidized […]

Keeping Families Together in our Fight for Immigration Reform

This year has been a huge one for DREAMers who earlier this year were granted deferred action status. But the fight for DREAMers is not over. Although they now have […]

The High Cost of Low Wages

As Congress debates the fiscal cliff, hopefully avoiding balancing the budget on the backs of workers, they should look at retail industry workers. The retail industry has bounced back from […]

The Heart and Soul of Getting Out the Vote

Emily Gelbaum

During a site visit to Chicago to work with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) as part of my electoral work with the Campaign for Community Change, […]

Hungry American Children

There have been a lot of speeches at both the Democratic and Republican Conventions, but only Jeff Bridges has spoken at both. Unfortunately, Bridges speech will not garner the much […]

FIRM Statement: DREAMers Can Finally Achieve Their Dreams!

Donna DeLaCruz

Deferred Action Application Process Begins Today! Today, tens of thousands of young DREAM students began applying for the “Deferred Action” policy so they can work and live in the […]

Women of Color Finding Their Voice