Biography Elsie Pleasant

            I was born with neurosyphillis a disease which has left me with very harsh disabilities, I have a very hard time learning, I cannot hear and cannot speak and from time to time I have epileptic seizures. I am the oldest daughter of Henrietta and David lacks. I was sent to the crownsville hospital for the negro insane, with the diagnosis of "Idiocy". My mother was diagnosed with cancer and was sent into the hospital, they took samples from her tumor, and for some reason they say her cells are special, because they infinitely multiply, this also made her tumor horrible. The last time she saw me she was very sad, but happy to see me I guess. In my opinion my siblings should have gotten some payment or compensation for our mother, because she is special, but we are all poor and most of us are in deep poverty, which we were born into.

Tweets Elsie Pleasant

1. Born with neurosyphillis, a disease which will harm me for life.
2. Moved to crownsville hospital for the negro insane, no longer have my mom with me😢
3. Well, my mother now visits me every week, so I'm super happy about that
4. I feel like my mother is not doing well, she seems to be in a bad place...
5. My mother came to visit me today, she is looking horrible, hope she will live.
6. I have seizures as well, but that of my mother was as described by emmet "she was possessed by the devil of pain itself" (137)
7. My mother was really happy to see me today, much more than normal.
8. "What she didn't know was that no one would ever meet Elsie again" (135), this makes me sad.
9. I feel lonely, no one has come to see me in weeks.
10. Heard news that my mother has passed away, cancer is really serious. RIP
11. Heard that my mothers cells are used everywhere in the world for research, hopefully no one has to suffer from cancer again from this.

12. Wish we (Henrietta's children) had got some compensation for the use of all her cells.
13. Wish she could just come back, I miss her so much. She had such a giving heart, but no one gave back to her. - in response to Rebecca skloot's tweet "isn't it disappointing to see how Henrietta's family has been torn apart?"
14. Her "immoral" cells may save many lives in the world, and the research will make the immortal cells one of the most important discoveries. In reply to Rebecca skloot -"Henrietta's immortal cells should be called immoral cells"
15. Hungry is an understatement. We were starving and when She had to send me to the hospital, she could not keep us all anymore. In response to Henrietta lacks tweet -“Henrietta’s children grew up hungry” (Skloot, 283) It's hard to hear about what happened to my family after all this
16. My mother will never be forgotten. people.com/human-interest…


The tweets I made in the character of Lucille Elsie Pleasant, the daughter of Henrietta lacks, at first had little character. One of the challenges with this character and giving them a personality was that she had severe disabilities, such as problems learning, deafness, not being able to speak, and epilepsy. One problem I had when making tweets was that I had to speak in the tone of the character, but there was no tone as she does not say anything in the story since she cannot talk, this also made it very difficult to find quotes in the book so for the quoted tweets I found statements from other characters and responded to them in the tweet. Another problem was that my character was not very involved in the story and did not have explicitly stated opinions on her mother and what they are using her immortal cells for. When I responded to others, I had to try put myself in Elsie's shoes and come to my own conclusions on their opinion on Henrietta's cells, so when I replied to skloot I would have a ground to hold in my responses.

Response to David Korn by Elsie lacks

“I think people are morally obligated to allow their bits and pieces to be used to advance knowledge to help others. Since everybody benefits, everybody can accept the small risks of having their tissue scraps used in research.” -David Korn

        In my opinion this is not fair. A person is still a person and they have the right to keep their body in tact and not have its "bits and pieces" used. People should not be "morally obliged" to give their body parts away to science, even if it is for the better of a larger population. I think it's okay to allow researchers to use your parts to research on, however this has to be done with the consent of whomever they are taking it from. In certain cases like that of my mother, there is not reason why anyone should have taken her cells and tissue from her, since she did not know they were going to take any, nor were they're compensations made to anyone in the family, her excluded. Therefore I believe this statement to be false.