Through my work promoting equity in education, I have concluded that 1) personal journey work will be essential to healing American community and culture weighed down by a history of systemic oppression and 2) more of these personal journeys need to be shared.

This book is my response to these conclusions. It is the why of what I do daily. I use my life story to contextualize and ground analysis of American society at large, tackling issues such as the class divide, mental health, racism, and feminism on multiple dimensions.  I want homeless teenagers who struggled as I did to know that they can make it.  I want parents to have insights into what their children might be going through. I want the story of the white urban poor to be told.  I want to challenge the common wisdom of feminism.