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Voice of Youth
02/2006
3 Stories
 This story was written a month after the murder of 16-year-old Rogelio Bautista by four 14 year old kids who grew up with him in Southwest Santa Rosa California. David Velediaz, Julio Hernandez, Maria Marquez, and Luis Vargas painstakingly pieced together their memories of him to create the story of his life and death. In this piece they chronicle his life through his voice, from his experiences as an immigrant to his initiation into a gang, and finally his death. The piece also documents the community as they grapple with Rogelio's death and the questions that it raises.
 This piece addresses the recent phenomenon of “cutting” from the inside perspective of a teenager, Amanda Wells, who believes that no one is really getting at the heart of the problem or explaining what it feels like to cut your own body. In this sound collage, she focuses on the fundamental urge to self-mutilate and what it would take for someone to stop, while hinting at some secrets from her own life.
 In this piece Laquoia Simmons, a self described “at risk teenager,” meets and briefly interviews renowned academic and public intellectual Cornel West. In this insightful piece, Laquoia reflects on her trip to Sonoma State University, and discusses what it was like to be an 'at-risk' young woman meeting a writer who writes so much about the so-called 'at-risk' population. In this personal and intellectual piece, she talks about family, betrayal, humiliation, and inspiration.
Transom Short
By Voice of Youth Director Tatiana Harrison
There are three objects in my office that sum up Voice of Youth, a program out of NPR affiliate KRCB radio in Sonoma County California.
First: our mission, posted on the wall, in "grant-esque" terms: "to create a team of teen correspondents who can write and produce radio of undeniable clarity and unflinching authenticity…and to chronicle and document teen culture in Sonoma County at the dawn of the 21st century."
But I would be a hypocrite to leave you with that kind of rhetoric, because if there's one thing I am always telling kids, it's "don't tell me what you believe or who you are in abstract terms. Don't tell me what you or someone else is 'like,' instead catalog the objects in your room, describe to me the kind of shoes they wear and are they scuffed and do they wear them all the time."
Since I get a sick feeling when I have to talk about what this program is "like", I'll continue telling you about these objects in my office. The second object is a tear gas canister I was hit by in Peru. I was a stringer for public radio for four years – not a very good one, but I loved it so much. And the prime way I get the kids' attention is when I play the clip of me getting hit by the canister. (My DAT was running at the time!)
So my perspective and, therefore, the program's, is informed by the "correspondent" model – I see the kids moving in their cliques as potential correspondents of different countries, with access to "locals" and an insider understanding of the issues.
I train them sometimes in groups, sometimes individually, in the same way I trained to be a correspondent - a crash course that gets you in the field ASAP. I feel these kids don't need more "classes," they need the thrill of being boots on the ground, and the feeling of being valued as indispensable eyes and ears. Some get a great hold on Pro Tools; some don't. Some voice their own stuff, some don't. Some record alone in the field, some get help with that. But every time they see me, I lecture them all about what I see as the basic values of journalism: 1. Your perspective is indispensable 2. You must extrapolate the essence of your world to the outside universe 3. Every side of the story has a point of view just a real as the others 4. You have to make people care about your story.
And the last object in my office? It might seem silly, but, well… it's the picture of the guy I've been in love with since college. I don't know how it happened, but I just lost it over this guy and I've done the most supremely illogical, self-destructive things because of this blind worship. With all the best education, therapy and whatever, I still can't get past this. I tell the kids about it so they know that I'm a multi-dimensional person too, that while I might be in charge of their stories and be acting like I have so much to say about their identity, there's a part of my identity that's dark and incomprehensible to me. I can't say enough how I feel this is absolutely essential to having a genuine, un-exploitative relationship with them, even though I know people will probably disagree.
I've never been in a gang, or self-mutilated, or done a lot of the things that these kids talk about in their stories. But I base my right to address these issues with them on the fact that despite all our differences, I do know what it's like to love something and not have it love me back. And despite the overwhelming quantitative differences in scope and scale, there is something qualitatively similar. I think that the pain and the question "why don't you love me?" and the groping madness that ensues from that feeling is universal and translatable. I believe this madness is absolutely human, absolutely adolescent, and is at the heart of most of our stories.
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