When 12-year-old Luke meets Jen, a fellow shadow child (an illegal third child who lives in hiding), his life changes. One of the most significant changes is that for the first time, Luke is introduced to the idea that it’s not just possible, but morally imperative, to protest and resist the Population Laws that mean he, Jen, and thousands of other shadow children live in fear and in hiding. Jen believes that resistance should take a very specific form: public protest in the form of a rally, where thousands of shadow children will assemble in front of the president’s house and demand the same rights as others in the country. As the organizer of the rally, Jen believes fully in her mission and encourages Luke to see that making a public spectacle is the only way to change things. The alternative, she insists, is to essentially sit back and do nothing. In her mind, there is no other option than to protest publicly.
However, when Luke sneaks over to Jen’s house a week after the rally, meets Jen’s dad, and learns that Jen and the other protesters were murdered at the rally, the novel suggests that Jen wasn’t entirely correct. There are many other ways to protest, and it’s possible that those other methods might do more good in the world. For instance, Luke learns that Jen’s dad works for the Population Police, but he uses his position and his prestige to protect shadow children and procure fake IDs for shadow children when possible. And Luke realizes that by refusing to accompany Jen to the rally (which means he didn’t die with her), he may have opportunities to resist and change things in other ways, such as by becoming a scientist and finding more ways to grow enough food for people, or by getting involved in politics and working to abolish the Population Law. But while Among the Hidden suggests that these less showy forms of resistance might be more effective than Jen’s rally, it shows that Jen’s sacrifice has an effect too. Jen’s sacrifice is what inspires Luke to accept a fake ID from Jen’s dad so he can assume a legal identity, receive an education, and go on to change things in the future. Put another way, Jen’s rally might not have changed any laws about shadow children, but it does inspire Luke to find his own way to resist.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Protest and Resistance ThemeTracker
Protest and Resistance Quotes in Among the Hidden
“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.”
“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.”
“Jen, can’t you understand? I do want it to work. I hope—”
“Hope doesn’t mean anything,” Jen snapped. “Action’s the only thing that counts.”
“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.”
“Did she really think the rally would work?” he said.
“Yes,” Luke assured him. Then, unbidden, the last words she’d spoken to him came back to him: We can hope—after she’d told him hope was worthless. Maybe she knew the rally would fail. Maybe she even knew she would probably die. He remembered the first day he’d met her, when she’d cut her hand to cover the drops of blood on the carpet. There was something strange in Jen he couldn’t quite understand, that made her willing to sacrifice herself to help others. Or try to.
“I only work at Population Police headquarters. I don’t agree with what they do. I try to sabotage them as much as I can. Jen never understood, either—sometimes you have to work from inside enemy lines.”
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.
