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Key points In her new book “Acceptance,” author Emi Nietfeld tells her story growing up in the foster care system. She pushes back on the American “rags to riches” myth, reflecting on how her journey isn’t possible for most. At times experiencing suicidal thoughts, she turned to writing to light the way out and advocate for herself. In her book Acceptance , author Emi Nietfeld recounts her life growing up in foster care , sometimes experiencing homelessness and suicidal ideation. She wrote college admissions essays while living in her car. Against impossible odds, she was accepted to Harvard and later worked as an engineer at Google. Her story critiques the “rags to riches” American myth and current ideas about resilience and acceptance. At her moment of greatest peril, the act of writing itself powers her into a new life. This Q&A with author Emi Nietfeld was edited for length and clarity. Ryan Prior: What’s the meaning of the title Acceptance ? Emi Nietfeld: James Baldwin, in Notes from a Native Son , writes we have to hold these two truths at once: both to accept the world as it is without rancor, including all of these bad things happening in the world. And then the other truth that we must hold simultaneously is that we must never accept these injustices as commonplace. While I was struggling to accept what happened in high school, I thought that I should just be able to look back on my life and on these systems that failed me and feel acceptance. And I felt something. But that feeling was a lot closer to resignation. The second part of the quote is about how we should never accept that this is the way that things are. We should never accept that the world will always be racist and sexist and classes and ableist. I was like, “Oh, that’s the problem.” I felt like accepting my past meant accepting that it was OK… when really it was not. RP: What cultural myths about resilience would you push back on? EN: When I was a senior […]
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Reading Time: 1 Min. Fantasy and science fiction readers are naturally open to the unexpected, and they like new takes
Reading Time: 1 Min. The first thing that strikes you about Mia Farrow in Jen Silverman’s “The Roommate,” now at
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