Through Jen and Luke’s friendship, Among the Hidden explores how privilege and wealth dictate how a person sees the world. Though both kids are shadow children (third children who, thanks to the government’s Population Law dictating that parents can only have two children, are illegal and live in hiding), they live vastly different lives due to their families’ economic statuses. Luke has grown up in near poverty, as Dad is a farmer. Luke is used to hearing his parents worry about money, and it’s normal for his family members to wear worn and patched hand-me-down clothes. And though Luke is shocked to hear the news, his brothers and Dad aren’t at all surprised when Mother takes a job at a local factory and begins working 12-hour shifts every day. In Luke’s world, the only thing that matters is trying to scrounge enough money to survive and keep food on the table. Anything beyond that, like becoming educated or thinking critically about the world, is simply not a concern.
When Luke meets Jen, it’s a shock to realize that not all families live like his does. Jen’s family are Barons, or wealthy Government officials. They live in a fancy house filled with technology like televisions and computers, have access to junk food (which is technically illegal), and most surprisingly for Luke, Jen doesn’t live in fear of losing her life like Luke does. This is because being a Baron affords Jen’s family privileges that Luke’s family could only dream of. For instance, Jen is able to do things like go out and shop with her mom because Jen’s dad, who works for the Population Police, bribed someone to get Jen a shopping pass. His money and his high status in the government mean that he can barter with or bribe people to better secure Jen’s safety. But Jen’s family’s privilege also means that Jen has grown up knowing way more about the government and how it works. Since her dad works in the government, Jen knows that the government is nowhere near as competent as its propaganda would have people believe—and this knowledge motivates her to organize a protest, as she’s certain she knows how the government works and believes it won’t hurt a bunch of protesting kids.
Ultimately, however, Among the Hidden shows that privilege can also blind people. While Luke grows up not knowing anything about how his government really functions or what’s possible when a person is wealthy, Jen is overconfident that her privilege, wealth, and status as a government official’s daughter is enough to guarantee that the Population Police won’t murder her—and she’s wrong. Only once he learns of her death does Luke understand the importance of perspective. Wealth and privilege, he realizes, can improve a person’s quality of life, but a more nuanced perspective and understanding how the world actually works (and not just knowing how the wealthy or the poor live) is perhaps a more effective path to change.
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Privilege, Wealth, and Perspective Quotes in Among the Hidden
“Why?” he asked at the supper table that night. It wasn’t a common question in the Garner house. There were plenty of “how’s” […] Even “what’s” […] But “why” wasn’t considered much worth asking. Luke asked again. “Why’d you have to sell the woods?”
Luke’s dad harrumphed, and paused in the midst of shoveling forkfuls of boiled potatoes into his mouth.
“Told you before. We didn’t have a choice. Government wanted it. You can’t tell the Government no.”
She jerked. “—but I cleaned that chicken al—oh. Sorry, Luke. You need tucking in, don’t you?”
She fluffed his pillow, smoothed his sheet.
Luke sat up. “That’s okay, Mother. I’m getting too old for this any”—he swallowed a lump in his throat—“anyway. I bet you weren’t still tucking Matthew or Mark in when they were twelve.”
“No,” she said quietly.
“Then I don’t need it, either.”
“Okay,” she said.
She kissed his forehead, anyhow, then turned out the light. Luke turned his face to the wall until she left.
“Am I just supposed to sit in this room the rest of my life?”
Mother was stroking his hair now. It made him feel itchy and irritable.
“Oh, Lukie,” she said. “You can do so much. Read and play and sleep whenever you want… Believe me, I’d like to live a day of your life right about now.”
“No you wouldn’t,” Luke muttered, but he said it so softly, he was sure Mother couldn’t hear. He knew she wouldn’t understand.
If there was a third child in the Sports Family, would he understand? Did he feel the way Luke did?
She ran to a phone, Luke following breathlessly. She dialed. Luke watched in amazement. He’d never talked on a phone. His parents had told him the Government could trace calls, could tell if a voice on a phone was from a person who was allowed to exist or not.
“Dad—” She made a face. “I know, I know. Call the security company and get them to cancel the alarm, okay?” Pause. “And might I remind you that the penalty for harboring a shadow child is five million dollars or execution, depending on the mood of the judge?”
She rolled her eyes at Luke while she listened to what seemed to be a long answer.
“But you’re a third child, too,” Luke protested. “A shadow child. Right?”
He suddenly felt like it might be easy to cry, if he let himself. All his life, he’d been told he couldn’t do everything Matthew and Mark did because he was the third child. But if Jen could go about freely, it didn’t make sense. Had his parents lied?
“Don’t you have to hide?” he asked.
“Sure,” Jen said. “Mostly. But my parents are very good at bribery. And so am I.”
“Don’t tell me your family believes that Government propaganda stuff,” she said. “They’ve spent so much money trying to convince people they can monitor all the TVs and computers, you know they couldn’t have afforded to actually do it. I’ve been using our computer since I was three—and watching TV, too—and they’ve never caught me.”
“Haven’t you learned? Government leaders are the worst ones for breaking laws. How do you think we got this house? How do you think I got Internet access? How do you think we live?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said, fully honest. “I don’t think I know much of anything.”
In the evenings, spooning in his stew or cutting up his meat, Luke felt pangs of guilt now. Perhaps someone was starving someplace because of him. But the food wasn’t there—wherever the starving people were—it was here, on his plate. He ate it all.
“Luke, you’re so quiet lately. Is everything all right?” Mother asked one night when he waved away second helpings of cabbage.
“I’m fine,” he said, and went back to eating silently.
But he was worrying. Worrying that maybe the Government was right and that he shouldn’t exist.
Luke looked at the stack of thick books on the Talbots’ kitchen counter. They looked so official, so important—who was he to say they weren’t true?
“No, of course I wouldn’t rather hide,” Jen said irritably. “But getting one of those I.D.’s—that’s just a different way of hiding. I want to be me and go about like anybody else. There’s no compromise. Which is why I’ve got to convince these idiots that the rally’s their only chance.”
“When I was little, Mom used to take me to a play group that was all third children,” Jen said. She giggled. “The thing was, it was all Government officials’ kids. I think some of the parents didn’t even like kids—they just thought it was a status symbol to break the Population Law and get away with it.”
“I still can’t go. I’m sorry. It’s something about having parents who are farmers, not lawyers. And not being a Baron. It’s people like you who change history. People like me—we just let things happen to us.”
“They shot her,” Jen’s father said. “They shot all of them. All forty kids at the rally, gunned down right in front of the president’s house. The blood flowed into his rosebushes. But they had the sidewalks scrubbed before the tourists came, so nobody would know.”
Maybe he could succeed where Jen had failed precisely because he wasn’t a Baron—because he didn’t have her sense that the world owed him everything. He could be more patient, more cautious, more practical.
But he’d never be able to do anything staying in hiding.
[…]
I want a fake I.D. Please.
