Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

A distinctive
feature of social and
cultural life at CMC

 

Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty

Thu, March 21, 2024
Dinner Program
Nikhil Goyal

Nikhil Goyal, a sociologist and former senior policy advisor on education and children to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), will discuss his near-decade reporting on and studying Ryan, Giancarlos, and Emmanuel, three children struggling to survive as they come of age in the poorest neighborhood of the poorest large city in America: Kensington, Philadelphia. One mistake drives Ryan out of middle school and into the juvenile justice pipeline. For Emmanuel, his queerness means his mother’s rejection and sleeping in shelters. School closures and budget cuts inspire Giancarlos to lead walkouts, which get him kicked out of the system. Although all three are high school dropouts, they are on a quest to defy their fate and their neighborhood and get high school diplomas.

With a background in both journalism and policymaking, Goyal will connect his work to broader policy issues in America.
 

Nikhil Goyal is a sociologist and author of Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty (Metropolitan/Macmillan), which The New Yorker named A Best Book of 2023 and the Washington Post raved about: "the stories of these children will change the way you think about poverty." He is also a policymaker who served as senior policy advisor on education and children for Chairman Senator Bernie Sanders on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and Committee on the Budget. He developed education, child care, and child tax credit federal legislation as well as a tuition-free college program for incarcerated people and correctional workers in Vermont. He has appeared on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, and written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, The Nation, and other publications. Goyal earned his B.A. at Goddard College and M.Phil and Ph.D at the University of Cambridge. He lives in Vermont.
 

Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

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