Invisibility RPT
By: Sydney Farrell
Intro
To properly answer the essential question provided (What does it mean to be invisible? How can you raise awareness about invisible populations?) I used the following three sources; The Circuit by Francisco Jimenez, Homeless Children by Newsela Staff & a video called Have the Homeless Become Invisible? by the New York City Rescue Mission.
The Circuit
“When it arrived I climbed in. Everyone was busy either talking or yelling. I sat in an empty seat in the back.” This piece of text evidence from page 70 shows us that Panchito was physically ignored by the other students on the school bus. He is being ignored by other people on his bus and is perceived to be invisible to them.
Another segment of evidence from the article (page 71) is: “The rest of the month I spent my lunch hours working on English with Mr. Lema, my best friend at school.” Using this example from the text, I can infer that Panchito has no other friends at school and is treated as he is not there. I can infer this because the story has never mentioned any other students talking or interacting with Panchito and he has never tried to interact with his fellow students.
Homeless Children
In the beginning of the "Child Homelessness at Record high, Report Says, "Call to Action" for States" article, the text states “One in 30 children is homeless - a total of 2.5 million around the country.” Later in the article it says that only 138,149 children are actually homeless (or without a fixed address) out of 1.1 million. This is due to HUD’s new definition of homeless. The HUD’s (Department of Housing and Urban Development) new definition of child homelessness eliminates about 961,851 homeless children, therefore making them invisible to the public and the HUD. This means that the homeless children are being veiled from the public causing the 961,851 children to be homeless and left on the streets to fend for themselves.
Have The Homeless Become Invisible?
In this video, normal people’s family members were put on the street and posed as homeless people as their relative walked by them. All of their relatives did not recognize them at the time, until they watched the footage afterward of them ignoring the "homeless people". The people who were involved in this experiment (the New York City Rescue Mission) have proved to the public that the homeless are invisible by taking some peoples close family members, make them look homeless and leave them on the street, to prove that the homeless are an invisible population to the American citizens.
Have the Homeless Become Invisible?
Citations
Jimenez, Francisco. "The Circuit." The Circuit (n.d.): 66-71. Web. 26 May 15.
"Child Homelessness at Record High, Report Says, "call to Action" for States." Newsela. Stateline.org, 13 Jan. 15. Web. 26 May 2015.
"Have the Homeless Become Invisible?" YouTube. YouTube, 22 Apr. 2014. Web. 26 May 2015.