Puberty in Hiding
When normal things happen under extraordinary circumstances
Of all the news you can punch a wall and/or cry about lately, this one really got me.
On NPR, the story of a pre-teen girl who gets her period for the first time. Menarche is a poetic way to say that, but this is not that pretty. For, this Hispanic girl lives in Minneapolis and she is the daughter of a single dad who is undocumented, and she’s been in hiding for weeks in the house, waiting alone when he sneaks out to work—alone and scared when this strange yet normal event happens which has her bleeding profusely in a way she doesn’t recognize, with no supplies, information, support, or access to get any. Because: ICE.
From All Things Considered, please give a listen for five minutes on:
How an errand for a 12-year-old immigrant in Minneapolis became an underground operation
On the morning of January 17 in southern Minneapolis, something very ordinary happened: a 12-year-old girl got her period for the first time.
Everything that happened after that was out of the ordinary.
For the last two weeks, federal immigration agents have been on the streets of Minneapolis, conducting one of the largest crackdowns in the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. The Department of Homeland Security says it is getting criminals off the street; many immigrants and people of color who spoke to NPR say they are terrified of going outside.
That’s how the simple act of obtaining a menstrual pad for a pre-teen’s first period turned into an underground operation involving a faith leader, multiple neighbors and a clandestine network of Minneapolis volunteers.
A girl we’ll call “E.” because minorities have been made to be afraid to use their real names now in Minneapolis, let alone do anything else, wakes up to the shock of getting her first period. She is scared, and isolated. Her dad, a single father, is at work, which is only possible these days because he gets a ride from a white neighbor who volunteers to drive him so he might be safer as an immigrant traveling in the city under siege. E. hasn’t gone to school for weeks and has been trapped inside nonstop. She has no menstruation supplies—she wasn’t expecting this, or even aware of what “this” is—and didn’t know what to do. She calls her dad for help, who calls his pastor since he can’t leave work, who calls volunteers, who call neighbors. Because it would be reckless for the girl to go out, two of them travel together to get products and sneak into the back door of the house undetected, far more clandestine than such an operation should ever have to be. The coordinator of the delivery is a nurse at a clinic where E. is able to go for advice the next day. The girl is clueless about what is happening to her and needs answers.
E. asked Lizete, “Am I sick?”
Lizete shook her head. “This isn’t a disease,” she told her. “You aren’t sick. It will happen once a month. It’s totally normal.”
Lizete reminded her that even though it’s hard to talk to her dad about this stuff, E. has an army of women behind her.
“We are made of a strong material,” Lizete said. “Even if we are drowning, we will find a way to stay afloat and get to the shore.”
This saga reminds me—too much—of Anne Frank’s story, and how she too came of age in hiding. Can you even believe we can make these connections between the United States, 2026 and WWII Europe in the 1940s, but here we are. I think almost any girl coming of age in any era who reads Anne’s published diary will never forget this teen and her candor, her hope and vitality in the face of such atrocity outside her hiding spot in the “Secret Annex” she and seven others stay in undetected for just over two years in Amsterdam above her dad’s office space. I couldn’t stop thinking about my own vivid memories of this book after hearing the NPR snippet so I had to go read it again for the first time since my youth. Luckily my daughter had a copy on her bookshelf, which she of course has permanently imprinted in her brain now too. I spent this week’s snow day pouring through the journal entries, shocked by how contemporary Anne often sounds, how worldly and erudite, even through her typical anxieties and girlishness.
Anne describes intimately in her journal entries getting her first period, and even experiencing her first kiss with the boy upstairs. Whereas for E. in Minneapolis there’s confusion, fear, and lack of sex education, for Anne there’s no shame or ignorance, only a surprising amount anticipation and excitement, which is amazing considering the time period and their circumstances.
Anne Frank, her older sister Margot, her parents, and another family, are in hiding from July, 1942 to August, 1944. Her published journal starts at age 13 and abruptly ends at 15, getting us right into the head and heart of a boy-crazy (and maybe even possibly girl-crazy if given the chance) girl who reads voraciously and has crushes and dreams and annoyances with her mother. But now she also has to navigate how to bathe in private and flush the toilet when no one might detect the sound below and worry about such things for the sake of their survival as a network of friends deliver goods they need. They can’t go outside, at all, and must exist behind black out curtains. Still, she’s read enough to have a healthy sense of sexuality and her changing body, and hope for love in her future, a career as a writer ahead of her someday. She is actually excited for the changes to come. After reading about someone’s menstruation, she writes, “Oh I long to get my period—then I’ll really be grown up.”
And a month later,
PS. I forgot to mention the important news that I’m probably going to get my period soon. I can tell because I keep finding a whitish smear in my panties, and Mother predicted it would start soon. I can hardly wait. It’s such a momentous event. Too bad I can’t use sanitary napkins, but you can’t get them anymore, and Mama’s tampons can be used only by women who’ve had a baby.
(She does add a note a year and a half later when editing her entries that she’s embarrassed by her “indelicate” descriptions here and surprised at her “childish innocence…): “Deep down I know I could never be that innocent again, however much I’d like to be.”
Among the house rules: quiet by day, no laughter, can’t open curtains, only use electricity sparingly. No German news, or books, or language allowed for their own well-being. Schedules for when you can use the plumbing and home schooling. Of course never leave, no daylight, no sunshine, no fresh air, no playing outside. Still Anne feels guilty having a warm bed to sleep in.
I get frightened myself when I think of close friends who are now at the mercy of the cruelest monsters ever to stalk the earth. And all because they’re Jews.
Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night or day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone. The Christians in Holland are also living in fear because their sons are being sent to Germany. Everyone is scared. Every night hundreds of planes pass over Holland on their way to German cities, to sow their bombs on German soil. Every hour hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of people are being killed in Russia and Africa. No one can keep out of the conflict, the entire world is at war, and even though the Allies are doing better, the end is nowhere in sight. As for us, we’re quite fortunate. Luckier than millions of people. It’s quiet and safe here, and we’re using our money to buy food. We’re so selfish that we talk about “after the war” and look forward to new clothes and shoes, when actually we should be saving every penny to help others when the war is over, to salvage whatever we can.
Believe me, if you’ve been shut up for a year and a half, it can get to be too much for you sometimes. But feelings can’t be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem. I long to ride a bike, dance, whistle, look at the world, feel young and know that I’m free, and yet I can’t let it show. Just imagine what would happen if all eight of us were to feel sorry for ourselves or walk around with the discontent clearly visible on our faces. Where would that get us? I sometimes wonder if anyone will ever understand what I mean, if anyone will ever overlook my ingratitude and not worry about whether or not I’m Jewish and merely see me as a teenager badly in need of some good plain fun. I don’t know, and I wouldn’t be able to talk about it with anyone, since I’m sure I'd start to cry.
She skips past her menarche moment somehow despite all her eagerness, but we do get it in medias res and with such incredible positivity:
I think that what’s happening to me is so wonderful, and I don’t just mean the changes taking place on the outside of my body, but also those on the inside. I never discuss myself or any of these things with others, which is why I have to talk about them to myself. Whenever I get my period (and that’s only been three times), I have the feeling that in spite of all the pain, discomfort and mess, I’m carrying around a sweet secret. So even though it’s a nuisance, in a certain way I'm always looking forward to the time when I’ll feel that secret inside me once again.
Anne expresses an attraction to girls and a desire to touch herself, but when she reads an article about “blushing” she goes to the only available kindred spirit nearby, Peter, by default. What’s staggering is the feeling of isolation you can experience, even when in what must have been a claustrophobic group, surrounded by a sister, family, friends. So many things inside the restless young mind you can’t fully express on a rare day she experiences when Peter opens an upstairs window:
The sun is shining, the sky is deep blue, there’s a magnificent breeze, and I’m longing—really longing—for everything: conversation, freedom, friends, being alone. I long…to cry! I feel as if I were about to explode. I know crying would help, but I can’t cry. I’m restless. I walk from one room to another, breathe through the crack in the window frame, feel my heart beating as if to say, “Fulfill my longing at last…” I think spring is inside me. I feel spring awakening, I feel it in my entire body and soul. I have to force myself to act normally. I’m in a state of utter confusion, don’t know what to read, what to write, what to do. I only know that I’m longing for something.
She’s been experimenting with kissing Peter now for a few months, and they are talking—only talking—about sex, how the parts work. There’s much less food for them to eat at this stage, and some of it is rotten, and as I approach the end of the pages, there’s such a sickening feeling as only we know she is nearing her demise. Still Anne’s unrelenting cheeriness, even while starving:
I hadn’t had my period for more than two months, but it finally started last Sunday. Despite the mess and bother, I’m glad it hasn’t deserted me.
In the final pages,
I’m young and have many hidden qualities; I’m young and strong and living through a big adventure; I’m right in the middle of it and can’t spend all day complaining because it’s impossible to have any fun! I’m blessed with many things: happiness, a cheerful disposition and strength. Every day I feel myself maturing, I feel liberation drawing near, I feel the beauty of nature and the goodness of the people around me. Every day I think what a fascinating and amusing adventure this is! With all that, why should I despair?
And then it just stops—all that potential and desire—and you have to read the epilogue to hear the awful truth we already know, that after all that effort of hiding and hard work of staying safe, the eight were ultimately captured. That they were separated in different concentration camps. That Anne and her sister, together at least, died of typhus only about a month before they might have been freed. That it was her father, the sole survivor, who retrieved all these personal, intimate writings of his pubescent daughter and decided they were important enough to bravely share with the world.
I could sob or get angry about these lives cut short, about the absurd tragedy of it, and about this poor girl experiencing similar isolation and attacks on what should be her magical girlhood in Minneapolis—which I do—but I can also view it all imbued with some of Anne’s wonder and infectious spirit. Look at the community that rises up to help E. in this moment, the network, the care. Look at this amazing city holding itself together when it could just as easily fragment into singular despairing individuals. Look at how they resist, and love, and reveal their stories so much bigger than they can ever imagine, or would ever choose.
Look how strong our material.
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Great peace -- thank you for this I needed it. Heartbreaking and yet hopeful, there must be something about struggle that brings a large souled individuals. I can't help thinking about what literary masterworks Anne Frank might have written in the after war. Given the chance. What's been lost we'll never know. What a voice - that's so young and so articulate and forthcoming and clear eyed and honest and cheerful to the last. When I think of her I tell myself I will never complain again. We're all heading to a demise of one sort or another but why not do it with a little bit of this kind of seeing the glory of the spring inside us. Very touched by this piece thanks.
Heartbreaking, gut-wrenching ... no words really, except that you're right -- Minneapolis is showing us the right path.