Additional information
by Nikhil Goyal (Author)
An indelible portrait of three children struggling to survive in the poorest neighborhood of the poorest large city in America
Kensington, Philadelphia, is distinguished only by its poverty. It is home to Ryan, Giancarlos, and Emmanuel, three Puerto Rican children who live among the most marginalized families in the United States. This is the story of their coming-of-age, which is beset by violence--the violence of homelessness, hunger, incarceration, stray bullets, sexual and physical assault, the hypermasculine logic of the streets, and the drug trade. In Kensington, eighteenth birthdays are not rites of passage but statistical miracles.
Author Biography
Nikhil Goyal is a sociologist and 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 Washington, D.C.
