7.2008 - Peg - Escape Artist

8/14/2019 7.2008 - Peg - Escape Artist

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Sitting in ront o a classroom o UCF

LEAD Scholars, 27-year-old Lalita Booth looks

like any other junior sporting unassum-

ing khaki-colored cargo pants, worn leather

sandals, an oversized sweatshirt and a long

ponytail o wavy, auburn locks still drying

rom her morning shower. The brown-eyed,

reckle-aced student blends in with her

peers in every way.That is, until she opens her mouth.

Youre looking at the ace o a child

abuse survivor, a perpetual runaway, a

high school dropout, she says as idle

chitchat turns to complete silence.

I was a teenage mother, a homeless

parent and a ormer welare recipient.

As jaws drop, she paints a vivid pic-

ture o her tumultuous past. Her parents

divorced when she was young, by 12 she

was a runaway pro asking or permis-

sion to go somewhere and then simply notreturning or a ew days or weeks and

when discontent and anger intensied she

took a month-long trip through several

states by hitching rides with truckers.

Ater her spontaneous, vagabond-style

trip, she never returned to high school

and rarely showed her ace at home either.

Instead, she became procient in couch

surng at riends homes. When there was

no couch to crash on, the teen would take

nightly reuge behind the closest dumpster

and rest in the park during the day. When

you are 15 and alone, you dont want the

police or anyone else to notice you, she

says intensely.

In hindsight, she justies her uncon-

ventional ways. It wasnt some sort o well

thought-out decision to be a wild child, she

says. It was the only way I knew to be. So I

never really questioned it.

Searchingor Stability

To understand how it got to this point,

where a 15-year-old was struggling tosurvive on the streets, you have to rewind

to Booths early childhood. The whirlwind

o instability rushed in when her par-

ents Asheville, NC, home was oreclosed

on, orcing her amily to live a nomadic

liestyle, hopping rom town to town as

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Escape Artist


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evictions were slapped on the door or jobs were

lost. Ive lived in 80 dierent homes in my 27

years, she says. I bounced around like a ping-

pong ball.For Booth, it was a time lled with physical

torment, emotional distress and utter loneliness.

Occasionally, she says, I just couldnt be inside

my house. Struggling to clearly explain the

eeling, she mentions it likely stems rom events

o abuse in her past, so traumatic that she cant

recall them today. Its been a pervasive thing

throughout my lie, she says. Sitting at home or

her was akin to cabin ever. And running away

was a desperate attempt to keep her emotions

at bay.Her ramshackle plan: stay in constant

motion and develop a social amily o peers who

were just as broke as she was nancially and emo-

tionally. She elt sae and happy with the ragtag

team that would meet oten at Vincents Ear, a

little coee shop in downtown Asheville.

It was wonderul, she recalls. You could

get a cup o coee or 75 cents, sit or our hours,

and they wouldnt kick you out.Other times the

group would play chess or backgammon on con-

crete picnic tables at a nearby rundown courtyard

or theyd hike the Blue Ridge Parkway and go

berry picking or shing. I you exercise ingenu-

ity, she says, its pretty easy to nd things that

dont cost much that are entertaining.

On Her OwnWhile the majority o her early years were

haphazard, one notion always remained constant

Booth was rushing to become an adult. Maybe

it was lessons rom her older sister, who shared

the same rebellious streak. Or maybe it was herdeant attitude. Nonetheless, at 16 she made a

very grown-up decision.

As yelling matches with her parents wors-

ened, her bond with peers grew stronger; so she

played the ultimate teenage trump card eman-

cipation, or legal separation rom her parents.

I was already living on my own, she explains,

but I couldnt sign a lease, couldnt start build-

ing credit. So I hired an attorney, and my parents

were served with a subpoena.Booth was ree rom parental connes, but

beore things could get better or the incorrigible

teen, they got much worse. What should have

been her wonder years were instead her welare

years.

Furthering her quest to be a grownup, at

17 she married her long-time buddy and ellow

high-school-dropout, Quinn. He made me eel

very sae, she says. Ater having elt so alone,

it meant a lot to me to have someone who would

stand by me.Three months later, she ound out she was

pregnant with her son, Kieren. What normally

would be a joyul time was instead a stress-

ul one while the new couple struggled in a

prison o deep poverty. Living in a tiny relic

o an apartment in Asheville, Quinn brought

home $800 a month while Booth stayed home to

care or their gregarious, rambunctious, hungry

inant. Rent gobbled up more than hal their

income and let little cash to eed and clothe the

young amily.

Poverty is like a bubble that closes the realm

o possibility around you, she explains. And

there is simply no way out.

Fortunately, the young couple qualied or a

supplemental nutrition program which provided

a stockpile o ood each month. This meant our

gallons o milk, three pounds o black beans and

rice, several giant blocks o cheese, 10 pounds o

potatoes yet it all had to last 30 days. Three

meals a day was not something we could aord,

she explains. We usually only had breakast on

Saturdays and Sundays, not on weekdays. The miserable situation began to take its toll,

and ater just two and a hal years o marriage,

Quinn was ready to call it quits. However, they

certainly couldnt aord to le or divorce. Quinn

instead enlisted in the military, let the country

and withdrew nancial support.



Flood Gates OpenBooths trickle o problems was now a ull-fedged food. Conronted with the realization

that she was a stay-at-home mom with no proes-

sional skills, she knew that keeping her head

above water would be a struggle. And while she

attempted to nd work, another major problem

had crept into the picture she was homeless.

Things were undamentally not working

where I was, she says. The only thing you really

can do i you dont know what other variables to

change is just to change everything. Try to elimi-

nate every variable that could possibly be posing

a problem.The escape artist in her prevailed again. With

her new boyriend, Carl, and her most precious

cargo, Kieren, in tow, Booth fed to Boulder, CO,

one o the ew places rom her childhood with

its mix o dreadlocked college olk, eclectic coee

shops, a greenbelt o trails and open spaces and

the ever present Rocky Mountain backdrop

that brought back happy memories.

But it was a city that didnt come cheap.

Bad credit made it nearly impossible to rent an

apartment, and Booth, without a car, couldnt

nd a job nearby. To make matters worse, child

care was our times more expensive in Boulder

than in Asheville.

And so, she made a decision no parent should

have to make: She gave up her son. Kieren lived

with his paternal grandparents or seven months

while Lalita and Carl attempted to get back on

their eet. I slept with his T-shirt every night,

she said. I just couldnt give up on being some-

body who would make him proud.

Time away rom her 2-year-old was devas-

tating. However, being in Colorado proved to be

ruitul or the 21-year-old, starting with an in-

teresting job opportunity as an enrolled agent, anexpert in U.S. taxation who can represent taxpay-

ers beore the Internal Revenue Service. She could

acquire the license without urther schooling.

Better yet, it would boost her income to $32,000.

She buckled down and read all 4,000 pages o the

study guide and, thanks to her near photographic

memory, she aced the test. Another key to climb-

ing out o poverty: She set up a complimentary

session with a nancial planner, mapping out

exactly how to make ends meet. A

Besides belting out tunes a caella, creating still

life oil paintings and reading Harry Potter books

together, Lalita and her son, Kieren, also enjoy an

intense game of chess. I like complicated stuff,

says the soft-spoken 8-year-old.



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Finally, her lie was stable; she was eeling all the early signs

o contentment. But, once again, she was in the wrong place at

the wrong time. Carls brother in Orlando was very ill, and he

needed to move to Florida. It was a very dicult choice, she

says. But I wanted to keep our amily together. I cried all the

way out o the state o Colorado. In giving that up, I thought, I

better make something exceptional o the lie I create.

The Turning PointThe young amily settled into an apartment in Sanord,

and Booth began the job search, hoping to be an enrolled agent

again, but reluctantly taking a minimum-wage job at Winn-

Dixie when that didnt pan out. Then came the ugly realization

that i Carl let her, she would be right back where she started

when Quinn retreated. I would be sleeping in my car and sur-

ing rom couch to couch again, she says.

The only way to ensure her independence was to do some-

thing that rightened her to the very core go back to school.

At 23, Booth had taken a hiatus rom academia or seven years.

The gaping holes in her education she missed th grade

altogether and dropped out o high school at 16 were not

something she could escape.

But Kieren, then 4 years old, served as her constant inspi-

ration. The old adage that your child will do as you do, not as

you say, is very true, she says. I this were him in this situa-

tion, what would I want him to do?She knew the answer. And soon ater, she enrolled at

Seminole Community College. Finally, she was in the right place

at the right time. It was opportunity, she says. It was the

chance to be something dierent. She giggles when she says

most people probably thought she was incredibly bizarre;

she was so thrilled to be reuniting with academia, she

would sit in the library and smell the books.

College was her new haven, cozy and controlled. And

she thrived. Where high school classes never met her crav-

ing or intellectual stimuli, college embraced her like an old

acquaintance.Although she and Carl decided to part ways, things con-

tinued to look up. In May 2005, Booth was selected to attend

the Salzburg Global Seminar, where she brainstormed ways to

solve global problems with a group o international students.

That trip to Austria proved to be a lie-changing one. We

were coming rom Munich, taking the train, she remembers

wistully. It was surreal. For so many years it was, How am I

going to scrounge up enough or Ramen noodles? It was such

a ar cry rom that desperate poverty.

THe edge oFCaTaSTropHe

UCF sociologists James Wrightand Jana Jasinski recently conducteda comprehensive survey and published

their results in a report titled Povertyin Central Florida: Wages and Well-being Among the Regions Low andModerate Income Families. Here aresome of the startling statistics:

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The thought-provoking trip led her to her mis-

sion: help others escape the chokehold o poverty.

Although she didnt know how or when, Booth knew

she would dedicate her lie to this quest. That drive

to make a dierence, she says, has been what Ive

eaten, slept and breathed or the past three years.

Back in the states, Booths world became even

more dream-like when she won the Jack Kent Cooke

Foundation Scholarship, one o the largest and most

competitive scholarships available to undergraduates

in America, which whisked away $30,000 worth o

bills, books and tuition each year. Now, she could ocus

purely on studies, devoting her time to the Phi Theta

Kappa international scholastic honors society, Brain

Bowl, the debate team and literary writing.

Things were looking up. In the meantime, ideaswere percolating or her lie mission.

Daring to DreamThese days, Booths growing academic momentum

sees no bounds. With 135 credit hours to her name and

a 4.0 GPA to boot, she couldnt be more pleased. As a

junior at UCF double majoring in nance and ac-

counting shes continuing to make up or lost time.

So ar so good. In March, she became the only UCF

student ever to capture the elusive Harry S. Truman

Scholarship, one o the nations most prestigious public

policy awards, which provide recipients $30,000 toward

graduate studies. Not surprisingly, she also is a member

o the UCF Order o Pegasus, the highest honor that the

university bestows upon students.

To top it o, she ounded Lighthouse or Dreams,

a nancial literacy program aimed at educating andempowering high school students. I have lived the

Kieren clearly gets his ambition from his mother who, he says, makes him proud.



j

indicating a new act she wants to

commit to memory. A How to Get into

Harvard book sits on the toilet tank,

and GRE study guides line the top o

the sh aquarium. Im never more

than 20 eet away rom a book, she

says. I try to keep reading material

everywhere.

Booth strongly believes, and or

good reason, things that are worth

achieving are absolutely unreason-

able, she says. Set unreasonable

goals and chase them unreasonably.

A Rich LieAlthough shes rebounded

rom poverty, she says shes stillprone to buying 10-pound bags o

potatoes, hand-stitching her own

brightly-colored pillows or shuck-

ing pomegranates to make her own

wine. The main dierence in her

lie now: Every choice she makes

is a calculated one. She spends

20-plus hours a week studying or

While Lalita inches closer to her Harvard dreams, Kieren intends to follow in her Ivy League footste

the Law School Admission Test

(LSAT), so she can score at least 17

out o 180. Soon ater, shell tackl

the GRE in hopes o also being

accepted into the John F. Kennedy

School o Government at Harvard

University. Equally as important,

she passes her intellect on to her

shaggy haired 8-year-old, who is

the lead singer in a neighborhood

band and anxious to attend SCC,

UCF and Harvard to study electri-

cal engineering. And she is happi

married to Ben Brown, who is at-

tending the University o

South Florida.

As she fips through a photo

album, packed with snapshots o

her young pregnancy, her low-key Asheville apartment and her

lielong riends, Booth says she

wouldnt change anything in her

past. It could potentially alter wh

I am today, she says emphatically

And at this point, there is

nothing let to escape. She is exact

where she wants to be.

reality that Im trying to change or

so many people, she says. BecauseIve been in those situations, I

have a window o insight into what

causes the problem and how to go

about xing it.

Beyond her high school outreach

program, Booth has internedwith

state and U.S. lawmakers to improve

Floridas nancial literacy laws and

reorm welares work restrictions

two major policy concerns she knows

about rsthand. She teaches nan-

cial literacy to Junior Achievement

students, and her thesis is being

reviewed by President Bushs

Literacy Task Force and will likely be

published in the near uture.

I youre looking or someone

who will change the world or the

better, says Jim Gilkeson, UCF asso-

ciate proessor o nance, I believe

that you have ound her.

Meanwhile, it seems as i her

childhood pipe dream o attendingHarvard Law School may come true.

By the looks o her apartment, it

is quite apparent shes doing more

than crossing her ngers. The white

walls in her amily room, the ceiling

light above the kitchen counter and

the closet are all punctuated with

dozens o yellow Post-it Notes, each

Things that areworth achievingare absolutely

unreasonable. Setunreasonable goalsand chase themunreasonably. Lalita Booth

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7.2008 - Peg - Escape Artist