Student Pen-Pals Anthologize Their Lives in a Divided Chicago

Once you’ve settled into a city, it can be pretty comfortable (and easy) to stick within certain nooks and corners. A neighborhood café, playground, or bookstore can become personalized constants—and sometimes, you can live your whole life in a city without stepping beyond familiar landmarks. It’s a pattern of living, and, less whimsically, a common symptom of segregation—one that runs through the city of Chicago. For an intimate perspective, you may want to chat with some of the city’s kids.

P.S. You Sound Like Someone I Can Trust is a new book that renders the lived experiences of 8th-grade and 10th-grade students who live in different parts of the city. A collaboration between 826CHI, a youth tutoring nonprofit, and two Chicago public schools, the book is an anthology of correspondence between 62 teenage students—one stack of letters sent from Amundsen High, up north, and the other from the Emiliano Zapata Academy in Little Village.