Mark Oshiro’s YA Novel Into the Light Brings Many Relevant Social Issues Into the Light, Too

by Jeneane Vanderhoof

This was my first time reading Mark Oshiro and I must admit, I was amazed at the way in which the writer could weave a tale, as he did in, Into the Light, drawing readers into a puzzle that grew and grew and, until the very end, when finally, the story is revealed, all that you have been waiting for; the scenes in the book, past and present working their way up to an unexpected climax of what really happened, all knowledge revealed, right at the end. It was like an explosion which takes an extreme talent to create, in the manner in which, Into the Light does, a YA novel that is a work of art in words, a book that you can’t miss out on when it is released this March.

Perfect for PRIDE month, Into the Light deals with a LGBTQ teen, Manny and his involvement with a religious cult called Christ’s Dominion. When his sister Elena returns one day to the foster home they share and advises Manny that they have been adopted he is befuddled. In all his life, Manny and his older sister have been in and out of group homes, foster homes, but in all that time, they had never found one home that would keep them. The only family they have had is each other. All Manny has is Elena.

When Elena reveals a couple that has never met Manny, not even an introduction made, no words before from Elena about them, has adopted them, is ready for him to pack up and become their child, Manny does not know what to think or do. All he knows is that Elena is all he has and Manny does not want to lose her. The fact that Elena has been spending time with them, having met them on the Internet, through a church that does YouTube videos, makes Manny, if anything, only angry and a little jealous of his sister; that she did all this without him, had all this on her own. And Manny fears that just because Elena fits in, wanting to be a part of this family, doesn’t mean Manny will. However, if Elena is going, regardless of what he thinks, did Manny really have a choice? After all, he can’t lose Elena.

The new family unites, Manny now, Manny Sullivan, and stays at their home. However, almost immediately, they travel to a place Elena has been to with the Sullivans before called Reconciliation. There Manny is introduced to Deacon who is the leader of the Christ’s Dominion. And though Reconciliation is a wonderful place to look at, from the beginning Manny understands nothing, nothing of the people and what they want of him. And, as things get stranger and stranger, Manny, confused even more, finds no help from Elena who keeps telling Manny over and over that this will work for him if he makes it work, if he wants it to work. But, what it is that he is supposed to do, what is supposed to happen, I don’t think anyone, Manny, all the Dominion members, Elena, even Deacon himself knows. I was just as befuddled as Manny, as a reader will find themself.

Of course, this made sense in the fact that Christ’s Dominion is a cult. And, while a cult may have surface beliefs that can be understood, things that may initially bring members in, when you dig to the heart of those beliefs, ask questions about them, ask for explanations, that is when things begin to fall apart and all is revealed. And, when a cult reveals everything, essentially, they are revealing nothing. That is what happens here, with Manny. Because a cult is built on deception and when unweaved, there is only the selfish motivations of one or a few who are intent on manipulating others for their own psychopathy. While I wanted to write here that cult members may, themselves, be spiritually misguided that is never the truth. Underneath there is never any mistaken belief they have, only the grim satisfaction they get from controlling others, and having their every word followed, and worshiped.

Also, every parent that belongs to Christ’s Dominion and comes to Reconciliation are white skinned, all the children adopted, whether black or brown skinned, Asian, everyone from an American minority group. The children are continually told, over and over, that they have been born into a position in which they did not deserve, meaning, the country that they come from is inferior to America and, because of this, society has previously been treating them terribly. When speaking about a girl that was adopted from China they call the country, “a godless, sinful place.” It seems, all the places where the minority children are defined that way, no matter what minority group they are from.

And, while children who come from minorities may grow up with less, have a harder life, it is not to say that all, or even most of them, because they are raised with less, are from a bad place. In fact, I once met a man who grew up in El Salvador. When telling me about his life story (he was a little over sixty years old), he spoke about how life had been hard for him, growing up, the distances he was made to walk for so little food and such, to survive, and for his family’s survival. That, in his youth, meeting his and his family’s needs had been hard because they were poor, from a poor country.

However, when I asked him if now, now that in America, where it became easier to meet his needs, if he missed the simplicity of that life, his family and the traditions, memories, all that was shared there, if he would change any of what he had lived through, slowly a smile began to spread on his face.

“Yes,” he said, “Yes, I do miss the childhood life I had.” And, he then explained to me how he would have never given up his childhood for any other one, filled with more things. Not for any other life. While his needs may have been easier to fill, if he had been born to people with more, he wouldn’t have had the beautiful childhood he did, with his family, in his country, the simplicity of it all. Nothing was worth losing that.

And I knew this would be his answer. That even with a hard life lived, that does not necessarily mean it was a bad life lived. While there was just more to overcome, for him to be able to survive, to help those around him to survive, he still enjoyed his life. He would have wanted nothing to have been different. Just because something is hard does not make it bad. So, to imply that just because someone comes from a poor environment, or country (as the Christ Dominion people do), to imply it is a bad environment, full of bad memories, even to go so far as to say it’s godless, not worthy to raise children there; while it may not be convenient or easy, the fact that it is hard living, again, does not make it bad.

My favorite place to go in Cleveland is the Old Stone Church in the heart of downtown. It is not the church that draws me there but the statue out front that sits at the top of the steps by the front entrance. I remember the first time I saw the statue. My husband and I were together and, since he couldn’t see well, as we walked up described it to him. The man who sat, carved out of stone, cloaked, a beggar’s bowl, also carved, sat in front of him. His head is bowed slightly and his arms out, as if to say, help if you can. Drawn to the statue, as I got closer I noticed that his hand, on his palm, there had been a chuck of stone taken out of the one palm. Instantly I shunned all those who I had thought ruined the nice work of art as they do other things around the city. But, as my eyes traveled the rest of the statue, hoping there was no other damage, I noticed the same gouge on the sandled feet that showed and also, the other palm was gouged, just the same. All identical. It was then that everything clicked. They were the wounds of the cross and this carved beggar, Jesus! How many of us forget that Jesus was a beggar when we see one on the streets? Just because a person is poor or a country is poor, that does not make them bad people (contained within).

However, it is true that no child deserve’s to be born into a family that cannot love them or meet their needs on a constant basis; one where the parents don’t care to meet the child’s needs, their oblivion of meeting the child’s needs, an abusive state, child abuse. And, while most of the children at Christ’s Dominion, who are taken to Reconciliation by their new, adoptive parents are like Manny, some are not. Some of them were taken from homes where they were loved and taken care of but then, tragedy strikes. And, that can happen to a family. Whether parents died, someone had a drug problem and needs help, anything can happen in life that can necessitate a child being taken into Social Services. And there are sad times when Social Services may jump the gun too quickly, at times, in my opinion, bringing a child into a situation much worse then they were in to begin with.

In 2018, there was a same sex white female couple who married, The Hurts, who were able to adopt six children, two groups of three, each group related to one another. All the children they adopted were black skinned. From the outside and social media, all looked well, that the children were cared for. But, when they were taken out of school and, after moving several times, after the new neighbor had hidden, over time, ten boxes of food that the children had requested from them with a list, they finally called Social Services, too worried anymore about what was happening in the house beside them, why these children who had parents and a nice home, needed food from them and all the secrecy surrounding the children being fed.

Sadly, one of the groups of children had been taken from their mother and father because of a drug problem they had. An Aunt of the family had been able to take them in, she had a good job and the kids were doing well with her. However, one night when she was called into work, she called the biological mother over to babysit and a surprise inspection by Children and Family Services found her with the children. They were taken away, quickly adopted and became the possessions of the Hurt women.

Despite the $400 a month they got for each child for adopting them and, also, two Social Security payments that they were given for two of the boys, the children all had one room together to sleep in (and, at times, living in a house with more than two bedrooms) and absolutely no personal belongings in the house for all the time they had been there (which was years). No books, no toys, only a few board games were found in the house and they looked like they were for adults too. Because of the Social worker who had stopped at the house, the next door neighbor having called, the two women drove out of state with the children, and, after a few days of driving toward the coast and looking up suicidal things on their phones (like, does it hurt to die by drowning), drove the car off a cliff killing them all.

While every video I saw referred to these women and the children they had as a family, I was disgusted to hear those words in reference to all that had occurred. These women were never the family of these children! All they had been able to do, the Hurt women, in conjunction with the Social Service agency that approved them for adoption, was to help them legally keep these children captive. So many other things went on during the time that the women had custody of these children. And, each time when things were getting bad, Social Services getting curious, the Hurt woman moved away from the area in which Social Services was concerned. It seems that is all you have to do to evade them (if you can afford to do it).

When one of the girls was found with a penny by one of the Hurt women she was basically tortured by them, it sounds, and one of the mothers was even convicted and put on probation for what she had done. Why they had been able to keep the children after this, baffling to me. Because all the biological Aunt had done to loose the children was go to work and leave them with their biological mother. There was no physical abuse included with the biological parents that was known or shared, making what happened to the children with the Hurt women all that harder to bear. That three of the children had a biological family they could have been with; that this could have been prevented……

When all the children’s bodies were finally found (all but one they think washed out to sea) all but one was malnourished. That means the women never fed the children and why they were asking the neighbors for food boxes behind the women’s backs. And it seems there were statements made by the children that the women were racist. Well, the Hurt women had taken these children just for money, it seems. But, that no one caught on, none of the Social Service workers, on any of the visits, noticed that the children had no personal belongings in the home, that none of the money for these children were spent on them? This is the system that is supposed to protect our children, when they “claim” that biological family members are unsuited to care for them.

But, how, in any way, were these women? That there were social media videos of the children living some “peace and love” caravan lifestyle for weeks at a time, the children always with them, not in one place, not going to school or planning for the future; a life like that is child abuse! Does no one see that but me? There is no way two women can educate six children properly on the road like that. And all children need a future, especially adopted, minority children with less privileges than other children. What was anyone thinking when they saw this behavior, all these online videos? That it was cute? That it was okay? The children, not in school, spending their days shaving LOVE into their fade (hair)? It simply IS NOT! All of this, all these women did was an indicator there was a problem. And no one did a single thing.

Obviously Manny is one of these children who had parents who treated him poorly. There is a scene that hit me hard, one in which Manny goes to visit the social worker who, in all the time he was with these new parents that adopted him, the Sullivan’s, she was supposed to be looking in on him and had never done this. She had been Manny’s social worker, it sounds, for all the time he had been in the system, that he can remember and share with readers, at least. In fact, for the whole year after he was kicked out of his adopted parents home she had done nothing to find him. She had been told he had run away and she had done nothing, implying, when the two have a conversation, a year later, that if he didn’t want social services help, he wouldn’t get it (because he had run away). And she didn’t give it to him.

The true facts of the story and Manny’s case remain that she never heard a word from Manny about what happened to him. She never sought him out to find out if he was okay, if what she had been told was the truth. For all she knew, Manny could have been murdered by the family, for the social worker never heard Manny’s story of anything, never caring to ask once if the Sullivans knew where he was or where he had gone. The fact that they were religious, that they were from Christ’s Dominion, seemed to get them adopted children and red tape cut faster than should have been possible. And, it seems, that this may be a problem in the system, that these agencies pick and choose some people too quickly, never ensuring if the children are alright and that there are follow up visits to ensure the children are safe.

I have never thought social workers, on the whole, were a good fit, the whole system that takes care of children, actually, those that have no one constant adult in their life. The fact that, to find out information about a child, whomever is looking after them has to look at a file, scares me. A child’s life should always be able to be known, without having to be looked up. How can that be our best solution? There has to be something better than underpaid, barely educated individuals who treat children, well, the reality is, a child is a file to them. That is where the knowledge of a child remains for most of them. As a file, a file and a job.

The fact is made no better when social workers get burnt out easily, none seem to stay long, and, a child’s file when lost, essentially means the child is then lost; too many laws about child care have been made because of the bad care children receive at the hands of social workers. Laws have been made because a social worker makes a mistake, and out of this mistake, a child is severely hurt or killed. That there is never real recourse from the things that happen because of these “mistakes” social workers make, where children are lost forever (whether they have been hurt or killed), because the system stays the same.

Despite the fact that being a social worker is a job, that there is no real legal recourse, like prison terms, for mistakes they make, almost every time, enrages me. Do we only go to get harshly punished when we make mistakes in our free time? If you commit an error at work and a person dies, well, it’s all part of the job? It all goes into a file, like the child did and shuffles around until forgotten? Are these “social workers” somehow angels because they get paid to do this job? It’s not like they are volunteers or anything. That they do this job for free. While many of them may do their job well, the fact remains that, in our past, many have made mistakes so bad children now lie in graves.

You would think that, when a person is paid to do something and they do it poorly, resulting in the death of a child, there would be harsh legal recourse. In America, we don’t see a legal system like that. One who has punishment for people who perform a job poorly. So poorly, in fact, a child dies. This only asserts the fact that our legal system is set up to punish the poor, who usually wouldn’t have a job like this. Essentially, as long as you do something, whether you perform it well or not does not seem to matter. Money, as long as you have that, that is all that matters, even if performing a job substandard to get it. You would hope society would want these people, who lack the desire to perform a job well, would want them to do nothing, stay at home; that they just go to work for the salary, not having the desire to do a good job, puts society directly into danger. Especially when working with children and, essentially, overseeing that they have a proper guardian (that will not kill them).

Long after Manny has had to leave Reconciliation, kicked out, abandoned by this new family and Elena, he has barely been able to survive; the people he meets are always looking to take advantage of him. And, the only times that he is given any help, it would soon end. One day, when he sees that a body has appeared that had come from the Christ’s Dominion church, out of the area they call Reconciliation, Manny fears that it is Elena. Suddenly, he has to find out if the body is Elena and, if not (as he hopes), he needs to go back to Reconciliation, to find her and make her leave with him.

Recently meeting the Varela family, Monica and Ricardo are nicer than any people he has ever met and, for the first time, he feels that they are people that do not want anything from him. All they seem to want is for him to be a happy young boy and maybe, in time, share his story with them. But, Manny has never met adults like that, definetely not in this last year, and never in his life before. Because of this past, he has mixed feelings but, for the most part, is scared and unsure of what to do. While the Varela’s son Carlos, at first, seems indifferent to Manny being there, maybe a little annoyed by the boy (Manny feels), as they continue their travels, he learns that Carlos has his own issues and may be the key to the secret the family has, all of their own.

The perfect Varela family, hurt like Manny, are not so “perfect”, he discovers. They are on a trip of their own, while not to Reconciliation, like Manny, the Varela’s are, however, reconciling certain things in their life that they were unable to prevent, that caused hurt to others. Things that they, as leaders of their own church, were supposed to be on the lookout for. And, while Many feels that he is haunted by the time he spent in Reconciliation, the time Monica and Ricardo spend reconciling, they are the times they need to make themselves whole again. Ironically, while they become whole by their own reconciliation, Manny only seemed to be split by his time in his own “Reconciliation”.

As Manny and Carlos become closer, share their thoughts and feelings, even defeat them together, Manny, for the first time, feels safe and secure in another person’s arms. The only thing he worries about is that the three will become tired of him and want him, one day, gone like all the others in his life. To prevent this Manny thinks about leaving first, if only to save himself. However, for the first time he has people in his life who care about his welfare and how to help him reconcile what happened in Reconciliation. And, as he stays and they begin to do this, the tale gets stranger and stranger as readers learn that many things that went on in the place were very unlike what you thought they would be.

While Mark Oshiro in Into the Light writes for YA readers, adults like me will find the book well worth the read too. Because this is no ordinary tale of a cult, or ordinary “conversion” cult. While they may not be happy about the boy Manny is, the book’s issues are deeper still, in what Christ Dominion wants of a person, seemingly, their whole self, not just to take parts of them away. They want the whole of a person reborn. And, if you are looking for a read, at this time, that is outside the box, that twists into a story you never thought to be contained within, you will find it here. With the ending, Oshiro essentially birthed a different story into being from what readers might expect and this is a surprise that could never have been predicted (at least by me and I’m pretty good at that). In my humble opinion, even “The Great Sherlock Holmes” couldn’t have solved the mystery of what happened to Manny in Reconciliation, and had Manny not figured out what had happened to him, as he didnt even know it all, remember it all, and, essentially, didn’t even get to experience, in the end, the whole event by himself, Oshiro can bend and twist the world or word for readers like no author has never been able to before.

Happy Reading!