Born Bright: A Young Girl's Journey from Nothing to Something in America

by C. Nicole Mason Narrated by Robin Eller

Overview

Born Bright, C. Nicole Mason's powerful memoir, is a story of reconciliation, constrained choices, and life on the other side of the tracks. Born in the 1970s in Los Angeles, California, Mason was raised by a beautiful but volatile sixteen-year-old single mother. Early on, she learned to navigate between an unpredictable home life and school, where she excelled.



By high school, Mason was seamlessly straddling two worlds. The first, a cocoon of familiarity where street smarts, toughness, and the ability to survive won the day. The other, foreign and unfamiliar with its own set of rules, not designed for her success. In her Advanced Placement classes and outside of her neighborhood, she felt unwelcomed and judged because of the way she talked, dressed, and wore her hair.



After moving to Las Vegas to live with her paternal grandmother, she worked nights at a food court in one of the mega casinos while finishing school. Mason would eventually board a plane for Howard University, alone and with $200 in her pocket.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

06/13/2016
Mason, executive director of the Center for Research and Policy in the Public Interest, a Manhattan-based women’s foundation, approaches the topic of poverty in America from an insider’s perspective. In this raw and intimate memoir, Mason takes readers from her childhood in California to her acceptance at Howard University, chronicling her struggle to break through the boundaries and limitations of growing up poor. Born in 1976 to an unmarried teenage mother, Mason loved learning, and school became her anchor in a volatile, violent, and ever-changing world. The family often moved from place to place, her young mother’s marriage to a drug dealer bringing even more danger and disruption into their lives. As the author entered her teens and felt the dire need to escape her mother’s abusive partner, she was welcomed by her grandmother in Las Vegas. Her circuitous course reveals the ongoing challenges involved in confronting the barriers of poverty and the pervasive risks of drugs, teen pregnancy, abuse, gangs, and racism. Along the way, Mason discusses the malfunctions of the criminal, legal, social services, and education systems, offering the alternative solution of a new, tiered system of family support. Mason vividly illustrates the grit, determination, and “herculean effort” necessary to reframe a young life steeped in unyielding poverty. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

"Like Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes or Jeanette Walls’ The Glass Castle, [Born Bright] makes painfully vivid what often happens under the radar: a child weathering the dysfunction of the adult world in the most courageous and innovative of ways...Beautifully written." —Courtney E. Martin, On Being with Krista Tippett

"Mason reveals the reasons poverty is nearly impossible to escape and rejects the notion that the poor don't help themselves enough." —Telegram

"[Mason] tells the story of her childhood and she uses it to illustrate the many reasons that it’s so difficult to escape a life of poverty." —KCRW's Press Play

"Striking...[Mason] shows us not only what poverty looks like but what it feels like." —Patrik Bass, NY1

"[Mason's] intimate memories and scholarly expertise illuminate and empower this vivid memoir....this heartfelt memoir will have broad appeal." —Shelf Awareness

"Dr. Mason’s provocative and powerful memoir shines a bright light on the complex conditions facing families struggling to break the cycle of poverty. Her candid and personal writing animates the often overlooked resilience of families. Mason invites the reader to move beyond the mindset of celebrating the one who beats the odds to how we, as a society, must change the rules of the game — so that all of our children can reach their full potential." —Anne Mosle, Vice President, the Aspen Institute

"Compelling...[an] urgent memoir, showing not only what poverty looks like but what it feels like as well. No matter your financial status, you will be far better off after having read Born Bright, not just because it's a powerful story, but also because it's one so seldom heard." —Essence

"Intimate and insightful." —Bustle

"Readers will find Mason’s absorbing memoir—which would make an excellent book-club selection—to be an interesting take on the issue of entrenched poverty in the U.S." —Booklist

“This firsthand account of a passage out of poverty will inspire readers interested in the strength of the human spirit in overcoming formidable obstacles.” —Library Journal

"A thoughtful, well-crafted rejoinder to Claude Brown's half-century-old Manchild in the Promised Land, speaking to the power of hope and the institutional changes needed to make hope possible." —Kirkus Reviews

"[A] raw and intimate memoir...Mason vividly illustrates the grit, determination, and “herculean effort” necessary to reframe a young life steeped in unyielding poverty." —Publisher's Weekly

"The story of a smart and determined girl fighting her way out of poverty in Los Angeles during the late eighties and early nineties." —New York Observer

"Heartfelt, evocative and deeply moving. Mason’s writing recalls the work of James Baldwin, Bell Hooks and Maya Angelou, masterfully weaving poetic portraits from a difficult childhood into a call for action to see a more just society. This is a conversation that could not be more relevant for our time. Read this book and see America differently." —Liz Murray, author of the bestseller Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival and My Journey From Homeless to Harvard

"Born Bright compels us to look into the face of poverty and to do all we can as a nation to change it. Filled with the grit of real life, it is a gripping and eloquent account of Dr. Mason's personal journey. It will redefine everything you thought you knew about what it means to be poor in America." —Wes Moore, Founder and CEO of BridgeEdU

“An illuminating memoir...Born Bright reveals the brutal weight of concentrated, persistent, and racialized poverty on Black girls, Black families, and their communities. .” —Angela Glover Blackwell, President and CEO, PolicyLink

“A powerful anecdote to dominant societal narratives that say the poor would succeed if only they were more ambitious or hardworking. As much as any author I've ever read, Dr. Mason shows us that there are millions of poor children who are "born bright." However, without opportunity or support, many of them will continue to fall through the cracks. Anyone who is working to build a more equitable society should keep Dr. Mason's message in mind, every day." —Yasmina Vinci, Executive Director, National Head Start Association

"C. Nicole Mason has given us a gift in this memoir that explains so much about how systems and rules work against the lives of actual Black girls and their families. An inspiring, instructive addition to anti-racist and feminist literature." —Rinku Sen, Executive Director, Race Forward

From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY

"This firsthand account of a passage out of poverty will inspire readers interested in the strength of the human spirit in overcoming formidable obstacles." —Library Journal

Library Journal

06/15/2016
Mason (Me First: A Deliciously Selfish Take on Life) provides a sobering account of the struggle of growing up in poverty in 1970s Southern California. Born to a teenage mother and mostly absent father, Mason here details the ongoing trials her family endured in finding basic necessities such as housing and food. Raised in neighborhoods with mostly African American families like her own, the author shares the sense of isolation she felt from the more affluent parts of society. Included in Mason's candid anecdotes are the challenges she faced in completing the college application process, and how this nearly blocked her entry into postsecondary education. From inequalities in public school funding to a dysfunctional criminal justice system, she offers her take on cultural barriers to economic parity. Mason, now a respected voice on socioeconomics, also delivers her views on how to improve life for marginalized Americans. Works such as Sasha Abramsky's The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives offer studies of economic disparity but without the compelling personal perspective. VERDICT This firsthand account of a passage out of poverty will inspire readers interested in the strength of the human spirit in overcoming formidable obstacles.—Mary Jennings, Camano Island Lib., WA

Kirkus Reviews

2016-06-22
The aspirational story of a young African-American woman's rise from poverty."I considered myself fortunate, but in no way exceptional." So, toward the end of her memoir, writes Center for Research and Policy in the Public Interest executive director Mason of finding herself safely in academia and away from the fraught streets of the inner city. Getting there, she remarks, was a "herculean" matter of working past a host of obstacles—including, she suggests, the whole welfare establishment—that have been set up as if to make sure that children like her do not leave the ghetto for better lives. She levels the charge with such reasonableness that it seems unobjectionable, but of course, her memoir reveals her to be exceptional indeed. Even so, being exceptional, it seems, is not enough: in our Horatio Alger-like conception of wealth and poverty, we imagine that hard work, ambition, and perseverance will see us through and that poor people are that way by choice. Mason puts the lie to such notions, though she also provides ammunition for those who condemn generational welfare with her portrait of her mother, adept at working the system while making money on the side in the drug trade. (At the same time, her mother emerges as a good citizen of a kind, taking care of those even less fortunate.) A key for escape from poverty, by Mason's account, is education. More than that, there is the kind of social encouragement that her white peers seem to enjoy, with their "different way of being in the world, entitled and less fearful." Though without that cloying sense of entitlement, Mason's memoir also proves the power of assertive networking, for once she figured out that others were in positions to help her, she wasn't shy of asking. A thoughtful, well-crafted rejoinder to Claude Brown's half-century-old Manchild in the Promised Land, speaking to the power of hope and the institutional changes needed to make hope possible.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170821792
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	08/16/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

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