Jennifer Senior Contemplates ‘The Ones We Sent Away’

“It is remarkable,” writes the Atlantic’s Jennifer Senior, “how many Americans have relations who were, at some point during the past century, sequestered from public view… warehoused, disappeared, roughly shorn from the family tree.” Senior’s aunt Adele was institutionalized as a toddler in the 1950s, and it wasn’t until 40 years later that Senior’s mother — Adele’s sister — saw her again. We talk to Jennifer Senior about her new essay “The Ones We Sent Away.”