Kemah Johnson October 22, 2014 Dr. L. Winston English 002 “The Epidemic of Lost Girls” “Sometimes I just want to forget everything and runaway…” (Anita Banks). In Vanessa Veselka, “Highway of Lost Girls”, Veselka tells the story of the outbreak of runaway girls and their victimization of abuse through her own experiences as a runaway teen. Runaways are simple people who want to stir away their problems at home, with their family, or because of the struggles they encounter as a teen. According to NRS Statistics of runaways, between 1.6 and 2.8 million youth runaway in a year. Of that million, 47% indicated conflict between them and their parent or guardian. Runways between the ages of 12-17 are at higher risk for homelessness than adults. Nine …show more content…
Veselka describes her emotions as a planet around which she spun like a moon, in other words she was lost and every road she took to recovery only set her back. Because of her wanting to escape her mother’s emotional violence she was considered lost, forgotten and invisible. What Veselka and those other girls lacked were credibility according to Rhoades, they were easy to dismiss and no one would believe them. For example, when Veselka was analyzing Shana’s story and thought about what she had said, “But I thought about what she’d said “It would just be my word against his,” which was clearly followed by the unvoiced thought, And who is going to believe me? I could easily imagine my own teenage voice whispering those same words” (49). It wasn’t because she feared having her story told it was because she feared no one would believe her. Veselka was stripped of her voice by what Rhoades had did to her and felt as if she could no longer voice her …show more content…
It seemed as if everywhere she looked she got turned away, no one cared or even bothered to investigate the life of these girls. For example, when Veselka had traveled to Appalachia visiting old truck stops interviewing truck drivers and waitresses she was told “…nothing “like that” ever happened, which was remarkable given the number of bodies the FBI had tracked over the past thirty years. The newspaper were equally silent. It seems our profound fascination with serial killers is matched by an equality profound lack of interest in their victims. One library archivist explained that I was looking for the kind of new nobody wanted to read” (52). This example shows how no one seemed to show interest in what Veselka was looking for. Everyone wanted to continue their daily lives without even mentioning the life of these girls; this is what Veselka wants to cast out in today’s society. She wants more people to be aware of the problems teens face so this is one of the reasons why she writes this essay. It’s sad knowing that your own people don’t even care about what happened in their