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Youth Radio LA
Audio Postales Series
AudioPostales is a cross-border radio project that allows bilingual youth in
Tijuana, Baja California to collaborate with bilingual youth in Los Angeles,
CA. Youth Radio L.A. producer Sara Harris has been working with students on
both sides of the border to produce individual stories about “borders”
in English and a one-hour special about “the border” in Spanish.
The special will air on Estereo Frontera, 102.5FM in Tijuana and San Diego on Saturday, May 8th, at 1:00pm.
La Linea/The Border
In this installation of our cross-border radio project, bi-lingual youth Los Angeles, California and Tijuana, Baja California send audio postcards across the bustling international divide, trying to bridge the physical and psychological borders between people and places in a two regions that used to be part of the same country.
Ser Aceptado/Being
Accepted
This is the first transmission in an on-going cross-border radio project that connects youth in Mexico with Spanish-speaking youth in the United States.
In this installment, students from Belmont High School and REACH L.A. in Los Angeles share audio postcards with students from Preparatoria Federal Lázaro Cárdenas around the theme of acceptance; seeking acceptance, feeling un-accepted, fearing acceptance, and finding it. (June 4 & 6, 2003 on XHUAN)
An Audiopostales Excerpt
Viry and Elena are collaborating
on a story about life as a teen on the border. Here’s an excerpt from a conversation
they had while working on their story:
ELENA: What do I feel crossing the border?
When I am here and I cross to the U.S., well some say the grass is greener on
the other side. It is sad, but it is true. You can see better houses, and literally
the grass is greener… We have a funny thing here at the border. People complain
about having to wait hours in line and it’s exhausting. But when you come back,
there is no wait at all. You don’t need a passport to get from the U.S. to Mexico.
But when you cross from here to there, they are so suspicious. They ask me,
“Is that really you? Where did you get this passport?” Even though I am a U.S.
citizen, I need a passport to cross. I have my California ID and they say, “Oh
this is very good. Where did you have it made?”
VIRY: That is a question that
has always been on my mind. Why do we need a passport to go to the U.S. and
give them all the explanations - Where are we going? Why do they care? When
you go from the U.S. to Tijuana, nobody checks. Nothing. You are not supposed
to bring guns into Mexico, but they never check. When you cross from the U.S.
to Mexico, one of ten cars gets the security light. They have a little stoplight
that goes “brinnnng!” and you have to stop. They should ask for passports so
that the Americans can feel what we feel!
ELENA: How do I feel about having
been born in the U.S.? Well, first of all, people say, “Oh you are an American.”
If I had been born in Chile, I would still be an American. America is a whole
continent. From Chile to Cuba to Mexico, we are all Americans. I consider myself
to be a Mexican and an American - from the continent. I was born in the United
States of America, but I am a Mexican. When people ask me where I am born, I
want to say Jalisco instead of the U.S.
A note from Sara Harris
Perhaps because they don’t straddle the border contiguously, most people don’t
think of Tijuana and Los Angeles as sister cities, but they have a lot more
in common than Tijuana and San Diego do in many respects. That’s the driving
idea behind this project. L.A. and TJ are the two largest cities on the northern
and southern extreme of one enormous developed region that spans both sides
of “la frontera,” the international border.
“Audiopostales” are “audio postcards” sent across the border between Mexico
and the U.S. on the Hertzian waves by young people who are bilingual, bi-cultural,
and curious about what it means to live in a border region where the vast percentage
of the inhabitants are from somewhere else. Two things all of the “Audiopostaleros”
have in common are their Mexican heritage and lives in the urban border region.
Most of the students in this program can cross the border between Mexico and
the United States with relative ease, but all of them are aware that for many
Mexicans in Los Angeles and probably more in Tijuana, crossing with ease is
not an option.
All of the Tijuana students attend Preparatoria Federal Lázaro Cárdenas, the
biggest high school in the city. It was converted from a casino in the1930’s.
All of the Los Angeles students come to Youth Radio from REACH L.A., an HIV/AIDS
education and prevention media arts center.
Luis Sierra
I’m 21 years old and I live in “El Este de Los Angeles, Califas.” I was born
in Guanajuato (Anahato) Mexico, to an amazing and beautiful woman and courageous
man. I love the city of Los Angeles, because it’s rich in cultural diversity,
and you can drive to the mountains and the beach breezes in less than an hour.
Another thing you should know about me is that I believe in equality for all
humanity, especially for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer
(LGBTQ) Community everywhere in the world. My audiopostal is about a young woman
named Sandra. She is an immigrant from Lima, Peru, and also identifies as a
lesbian. I was really interested in creating open dialogues on expanding the
concept of borders - the borders between countries, and the borders inside ourselves,
and within our communities through the personal stories of openly LGBTQ youth.
Eriberto Sanchez
I’m 19 years old. I was born in Mexico City, and I was raised in South Central
Los Angeles. Living in the city is noise, but once you live here you get used
to it. I like to listen to rap - Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, and most of all Eminem, and
my mom listens to that radio station “Recuerdo” and watches old Mexican movies
on T.V. My hobby is drawing. I joined the Audiopostales team because I was bored
and wanted to do something instead of just killing time on the sofa at home.
Now I like it, and this is the first time I’ve done a report that’s going to
be aired on the radio, which is pretty neat. I never realized there was so much
work involved! My audiopostal is about what it’s like to be a first generation
child from Mexico in the U.S. and worry about losing your identity while watching
second and third generations cutting off their culture at the roots. With my
friends, I speak “Spanglish” because sometimes I forget a word in English or
in Spanish, and the word will pop up in the other language.
 Damaris Orozco
I’m 18, and I live in East Los Angeles where I make videos and attend Roosevelt High School. My audiopostal is about the psychological border between young men and women that physical differences tend to accentuate.
Trinidad Cisneros
I’m a young person from B.H. No, I don’t mean Beverly Hills. I’m a Boyle Heights
Xicano working on Skid Row supporting homeless people with housing and other
social support services. I joined the crew of Youth Radio because Media Literacy
and community-based media are very important issues for me. Working on the Audiopostales
project and meeting young people from Tijuana has exposed me to a world that
Fox and CBS don’t show. Crossing the border to meet my peers I couldn’t help
but be assaulted by the stark contrast between the city I live in, and Tijuana.
The hills that rolled across the border, with their cardboard box houses, made
skid row, my territory, look like valley suburbs. Regardless of the lack of
material things, they make the most of what they have there. I saw kids playing
soccer in an abandoned lot, and some of the stereotypes of Tijuana that I’d
carried with me disappeared.
Viridiana Martino Ruiz
My name is Viridiana Martino Ruiz, but I like to be called ‘Viry.’
I was born in Tijuana, Mexico, and I’ve lived here all my life. I’m
17 years old now. I consider myself a very active person. I like to do all kinds
of things, well…not all kinds. I don’t like to ride roller coasters
for example. They’re to fast for me - hehe… but this is not exactly
part of what I have to tell you about me. I live in the city that has the busiest
border crossing in the world, and I have a permanent resident card from the
United States (the “green card.”) I am very used to the crossing
of this border. I go to the U.S. very often. As my audiopostal says, I only
view the U.S.A. as an opportunity where I can have not a better job, but better
earnings, so that I can have a better life (in Tijuana, of course…) I
consider this city the best place to live. It has people from all over the country,
and that gives it a rich mixture of cultures, and, as my mom says, it’s
a young city in the process of growing better every day.
 Elena
Alvarez Huerta
I was born in Los Angeles, California, but I live in Tijuana with my family.
I’m 17 years old, and I thank God I’m almost done with high school.
I like to think that I’m a very cheerful person, because I try to see
the bright side of things. I try to learn from every situation that life throws
at me. I play the violin (although I’m not good at it), and I used to
practice Tae Kwon Do.
Miguel Angel Peña Huerta
I’m 18 years old, I was born in Tijuana
and I still live in TJ, I like to play sports: basketball, soccer, ping-pong,
baseball and the like. I like to have conversations with people about their
daily lives and to hear what they have to say. I like to listen. To me, the
border here in Tijuana is really not so strange anymore. I’ve been crossing
it since I was an infant, and I have gotten accustomed to it. I can understand
why the border is as it is. My audiopostal is about the borders that material
possessions create between people - the borders that exist in between neighbors,
friends, brothers etc. Sometimes people fight over who has the most money and
the most things. This is about the border between the people that have and the
people that want, and the middle-class in between.
Francisco Lepe Ley
I’m 17, and I live in Playas de Tijuana, right up against the border on
the beach. I made a musical composition using my guitar and the border fence
as my instruments.
Sergio “Checho” Urista
I’m 17 years old and I live in Colonia Presidentes, Tijuana. For my audiopostal I interviewed a Salvadorean immigrant living in Tijuana about why he moved to the border and what he found when he got there.
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