Youth Radio - Top News

Growing Up in the Sickest Part of America

wilmer — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:36:03 -0500

As heard on NPR's Morning Edition.

By Brittany Hunsaker

My nineteenth birthday was a bittersweet occasion. That day, I officially aged out of Kentucky’s insurance program for low income youth.

As luck would have it, I developed a health problem almost immediately. Pain in my teeth spread to my head and neck. Headaches made it impossible to concentrate in my college classes. I couldn’t see well enough to drive. Going to the doctor or dentist costs more than my weekly paycheck from a fast food restaurant. I had to choose between oral surgery and textbooks that semester. Textbooks lost, but luckily I made it through that class.

When it comes to healthcare, I do have options. Just not good ones. In the rural county where I grew up, it’s not just young people who don’t have insurance. Adults, unemployed or underemployed in minimum wage jobs are also without coverage. You can get healthcare there if you’re in a dire situation…like if you’re pregnant or recovering from drug addiction. I know a few girls who got pregnant just to afford a doctor’s visit, or had another baby just to keep their health insurance.

I am not financially or emotionally ready to bring a child into this world. But I feel like I am being penalized for getting an education while others are rewarded for their reproductive capabilities.

My friend Willa Johnson is also in college and uninsured. Going to the doctor to check a cough is a luxury she can’t afford. Last spring, she started feeling sick. By the time she went to the emergency room, she had full-blown pneumonia. A week later, Willa found herself in the emergency room again. She’d torn the muscles around her rib cage from coughing. Seven months later, Willa is not completely healed. Her cough is painful to hear. Still, she worries more about the bill collectors calling for those ER visits than her health.

My friend Brian Hobbs just graduated from college and he’s about to lose his insurance. He won’t be able to afford the prescription for his glasses. What happens if he gets sick? Brian is scared he won’t find a job that pays enough to cover rent and food, let alone annual insurance.

Looking at my own future, I’m worried that my health will keep getting worse…that my teeth will keep bothering me, that I’ll keep ignoring aches and pains, that I’ll continue to just google symptoms to see if things are serious enough to warrant a bill.

I grew up in one of the sickest communities in America, with the lowest life expectancy of any area in the United States. Lower than China or Mexico. Cancer, diabetes, addiction, obesity, depression all look like epidemics there, and that adds to my worry.

I don’t think any position I’m going to get out of college will come with health insurance. I don’t know a single friend from college who has a job like that. A sick workforce only intensifies an already sick economy. It’s hard to work when you can’t afford eyeglasses for your astigmatism, dental work for your rotting teeth, or medicine for pneumonia. We’re constantly being told we are the future of the country, but we’re starting out a step behind.

22 year old Brittany Hunsaker is part of the Appalachian Media Institute.

Young Soldiers and Veterans On Afghanistan Surge

denise — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:49:04 -0600

When President Obama speaks to a TV-watching public tonight about his plan to increase troops in Afghanistan, he will also be speaking live to an audience of teenage and twenty-something cadets at the United States Military Academy in Upstate New York. The administration has said that setting the speech at West Point is a tribute to the “extremely heavy burden” the Army has carried in fighting the war. But the setting also speaks to the fact that it will be young people, in particular, who will carry the burden of the President’s new commitment to the war.

According to the Web site iCasualties.org, the average age of the 76 U.S. troops who died in Afghanistan in the last two months is 26.

News reports and other media have shown that there is no consensus among young active-duty soldiers about whether Obama’s planned surge is a good idea. An Associated Press reporter spoke to soldiers outside Fort Drum in New York. These soldiers may be among the 34,000 troops President Obama is planning on deploying.

Young veterans are also split. This Al Jazeera story follows veterans who show up at congress member’s offices to share their battle field experiences in Afghanistan in hopes of changing their minds.

Previously:

Anthony and the Golden Grill

cfoster — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:23:53 -0600

It’s said that the ancient Greek inventor Archimedes figured out how to calculate a metal’s density when the king of Syracuse asked him if the royal crown was made of solid gold. It was his eureka moment. More recently, Oakland teenager Mark Anthony Waters of Youth Radio faced a similar quandary. In this case, the jewelry in question is not a royal crown, but a dental one – a fitted gold tooth covering known in hip hop parlance as a grill.

The first time I wore my grill, I was giving a presentation under a projector light. Everyone in the audience was like, “ahh, ahh!” And I was like what’s wrong with you people? And they said, “Your grill, it’s blinding us.”

The grill blinded my mom, too.

"Oh my goodness," she said. "That is ugly, that’s tacky. What purpose does it serve other than the shock value or something?"

To me, the grill was like an ultimate symbol of masculinity. It secretly substituted for what I felt was my lack thereof. But then my mom said…

"Is that really real?"

My mom busted my bubble with that question. What if this thing is fake? I got even more worried about my grill when I talked to my co-worker, Orlando, about his. He was told his grill was 14 carat gold.

"I knew there was something off because my top grill and my bottom grill were slightly different colored yellow gold," Orlando said. "So I knew that there was something a little fishy going on.'

Now, I had a complex about this thing in my mouth. So seeking the VIP treatment, Orlando and I bypassed the pawn shop and headed up the hill to UC Berkeley. We showed our grills to geologist Kent Ross.

I asked him if it was his first time seeing a grill?

"Yes," he said.

"So I’ll never come to UC Berkeley and find Kent Ross with a grill in his mouth?"

"No, I don’t think so. I stay at home and read books a lot."

He also spends lots of time in the lab, with his electron microscope. It looks like a small microwave. Ross sticks our grills inside, triggers the electron gun…

("Electron beams make solid materials give off x-rays that tell you what elements are in the material," Ross told me.)

..and a series of peaks start to appear along a graph on a nearby computer screen.

"Bigger peaks are the more abundant elements," Ross said.

And the biggest peaks we see are the gold ones, so that’s a good sign. But the electron microscope only measures the grill’s surface. To find out whether it’s solid gold, we need to do a density test, weighing the grill in water, then in air.

"I’m gonna go in my office to check my book," Ross said, "to find out what the density of gold and copper and silver are."

The results? While the density of my grill reveals it’s 14 carat through and through, Orlando’s is just a little too light.

Ross: "It looks like there has to be some low-density, cheaper core inside of it, and the gold is coated on the outside."

Poor Orlando.

"I’m crushed," Orlando said, sarcastically. "No man, I didn’t believe those people at all these gold teeth shops were selling solid-gold grills. It is what it is. Fake it till you make it. Or just make it.'

I must admit, I was trying to fake it to make it with my grill. And now that I think about it, it would have been funny if my grill were fake, like my alter-ego dreams of transforming myself into a thug, just because I have a grill. I still don’t want my intelligence insulted by phony merchandise. But I’m no longer trying to prove myself based on the things I buy—or the sparkle off my smile.

Legally Enforced Corruption

austin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:05:26 -0500

On Thursday the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania overturned the sentences of thousands of juvenile offenders due to a recently discovered corruption scandal.

Judge Mark A. Ciavarella, who passed sentence on the overturned cases, was discovered to have accepted $2.6 million from the owner of two privately run youth detention centers. In return, the judge would send more teens to these facilities.

Judge Ciavarella and his accomplice, Michael T. Conahan, would routinely hold hearings that lasted only minutes. And they would fail to inform the juvenile defendants before them of the consequences of pleading guilty. Judge Conahan helped to attain contracts for the private jails, granting them state-funded payment for the number of inmates they housed.

The New York Times has been covering the details of the courrption case:

“The judge’s whim is all that mattered in that courtroom,” said Marsha Levick, the legal director of the Juvenile Law Center, a child advocacy organization in Philadelphia, which began raising concerns about the court to state authorities in 1999. “The law was basically irrelevant.”

Banking Translated

skhan — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:07:05 -0500

Aired on American Public Media's Marketplace on October 10, 2009.

LOS ANGELES-- Youth Radio's Mayra Jimenez vividly remembers her first trip to the bank. She was in eighth grade. Thing is, she wasn't there to open her own bank account. She was there to help her immigrant parents from Mexico navigate the banking system by translating for them. Scholars call it "language brokering." Youth Radio's Mayra Jimenez reports.

MAYRA: I was 13 when I spoke to a bank teller for the first time. That was five years ago.My parents were having money problems. Back then, they didn't speak a lot of English. So I had to translate their questions.

Here's my father, Jose Trinidad:

JOSE TRINIDAD, THROUGH A TRANSLATOR: It wasn't the same as us being able to directly ask the things we wanted to ask. It was very difficult. You weren't mature enough.You were too small to understand the things we wanted to ask about the house and the bank.

Scholars call this "language brokering." That's when children of immigrants translate for their parents. A Pew survey found that only a small minority of Latino immigrants say they speak English well. But almost 90% of their U.S.-born adult children are fluent.

Ana Castillo remembers translating for her mom. But she admits being kind of embarrassed about it:

ANA CASTILLO: I really couldn't imagine other children having to do what I was doing, and I feel like it's something that I never talked about when I was growing up. Like, "Hey I went to the bank yesterday with my Mom! What did you do?" It's not a conversation to have on the playground.

Now, Ana can smile about it. She's 26 and works full-time as a community organizer in South LA. But translating caused a lot of stress.

CASTILLO: If I made a mistake then my mom would be upset about it afterwards, and just getting picked for that, that was really hard, because I always tried to help my mom out, and having done the opposite--that just really sucks. But in the long run, I think it helped me as an adult, because I'm still in that world and still negotiating with people.

It helped me too. Now, I understand the basics of banking. I know how to watch an account. And I'm careful about avoiding overdraft fees. But, it was hard figuring out complicated transactions for my parents.

UCLA Professor Marjorie Faulstich Orellana studies the role of young language brokers like me.

MARJORIE FAULSTICH ORELLANA: They can feel indignation when they see their families being treated unfairly by institutions of the larger society. But they also are feeling the power that they have to make a difference: to speak up, to do things that other kids don't do; to feel needed and valued and appreciated.

About a year and a half ago, my parents wanted to buy a house in Texas. I had to translate all the fine print for them. When the house was in escrow, my mom stopped working because of an injury.We lost the house.And, in Ana's case, things got bad when her mom's house foreclosed. At the time, Ana wasn't around to help.

CASTILLO: In some ways, I try not to feel responsible for what happened to that house, because that's when I was in college. So I was 300 miles away from home, so I couldn't help her through that. And so I wonder, had I been in Los Angeles, would it have been different, would I have helped her to make a better decision along the way.

Having to translate for our families puts young people like Ana and me in a tough spot. But, for the health of our families' finances, we need to give our parents a voice.

Previously:

Ex-US Soldier Gets 5 Life Sentences For Iraqi Deaths

kchau — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:26:03 -0500

Cell Phone Boarding Passes: The Latest "Green Tech"

denise — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:42:28 -0500

San Francisco Airport is one of 30 US airports—and the only airport in the Bay Area—to use a cell-phone boarding pass system. This new system allows passengers to download their boarding pass onto their cell phone and have the two dimensional barcode read by an electronic boarding pass scanner. This system is free and most importantly paperless. According to TSA—Transportation Security Administration—this system has been in place at SFO for two weeks and has gotten little attention, with only 60 to 100 passengers per day taking advantage of the new system.

Jared Miller, Continental's senior director of customer self service, insists there have not yet been any issues with the program at SFO. He said if a passenger's phone dies, or has trouble loading the bar code, they can have a customer service agent at the airport print out a regular paper pass for them. Via The Oakland Tribune

Cell phones are no longer just for calling or texting, they're quickly becoming the center of our identity—at least in other countries. In Japan, cell phones are used to make electronic payments, open doors, access subways, and serves as a potential second form of ID. I’m not sure if we’ll ever see this country adopt Japan’s lifestyle but if it does it would mean we won’t have to carry as much.

Seeing SFO go “Green” is a reminder of how desperate this country is to have its culture change in a way that helps the environment. Like Cash for Clunkers, which allowed people to trade their 25 year old cars for a brand new and more gas effcient vechicle. That program was a triple dip that helped out the automobile industry, the environment, and rewarded participants with the means to drive off the lot in a brand new car.

Whatever the case is, one thing is clear, going green is in for America.

Previously:

Ling & Lee: Hostages in the Hermit Kingdom

noah — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:22:10 -0500

When journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were captured by North Korean forces on the border with China in March we had questions. What were they doing there? Why were they taken? Why was their employer, the viewer participation cable news pioneer Current TV, staying silent about the case? Even to the point of censoring viewer created content on the subject?

Last night Ling and Lee issued a written statement about their imprisonment and the events leading up to it, with a focus on the story they were there to pursue: the plight of North Korean defectors in China.

In their statement published on Current, the pair paint a dramatic picture of their capture:

Feeling nervous about where we were, we quickly turned back toward China. Midway across the ice, we heard yelling. We looked back and saw two North Korean soldiers with rifles running toward us. Instinctively, we ran.

We were firmly back inside China when the soldiers apprehended us. Producer Mitch Koss and our guide were both able to outrun the border guards. We were not. We tried with all our might to cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil, but we were no match for the determined soldiers. They violently dragged us back across the ice to North Korea and marched us to a nearby army base, where we were detained. Over the next 140 days, we were moved to Pyongyang, isolated from one another, repeatedly interrogated and eventually put on trial and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor.

The answer to the most baffling of the questions raised at the time-- why was Current remaining silent-- comes in at an unexpected angle, and sheds light on the character of Ling and Lee:

AFTER WE WERE detained, the two of us made every effort to limit the repercussions of our arrest. In the early days of our confinement, before we were taken to Pyongyang, we were left for a very brief time with our belongings. With guards right outside the room, we furtively destroyed evidence in our possession by swallowing notes and damaging videotapes. During rigorous, daily interrogation sessions, we took care to protect our sources and interview subjects. We were also extremely careful not to reveal the names of our Chinese and Korean contacts, including Pastor Chun. People had put their lives at risk by sharing their stories, and we were determined to do everything in our power to safeguard them.

Our families and colleagues back home maintained total silence about our work for two full months, both to minimize the potential impact on sensitive underground work in China and to protect us. We were surprised to learn that Chun spoke with reporters publicly in the immediate aftermath of our arrest. Among other things, Chun claimed that he had warned us not to go to the river. In fact, he was well aware of our plans because he had been communicating with us throughout our time in China, and he never suggested we shouldn't go. Chun's public statements prompted members of our families to speak directly with him in Korean, pleading with him to refrain from any further comment that might jeopardize our situation and those of relief organizations working along the border.

In a media landscape where the news personality is considered more important than the news it's heartening to see two reporters who became the story seek to put the spotlight back on the work.

Previously:

Sawyer to Replace Gibson as 'ABC' News Anchor

rpereira — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:34:09 -0500

Another Supreme Court Retirement?

rpereira — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:36:46 -0500

Historically, Obama's Fall is Fast

rpereira — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:34:31 -0500

Oscar Grant's Father Sues BART for Son's Death

denise — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:02:05 -0500

A civil suit was filed Friday by the father of BART shooting victim, Oscar Grant. Grant's father, known as Oscar Grant, Jr. (himself the son of an Oscar Grant, Sr.) is currently in prison on a first-degree murder conviction and has been in prison for the duration of his son's life. If Grant, Jr. wins his case, he would collect any monetary damages that could be awarded. But Grant, Jr. isn’t the only one filing a civil suit; other members of Grant’s family have filed for the amount of $50 million. The third civil suit is from Grant's friends—who were arrested and detained the night of the shooting—for the amount of $1.5 million.

“Grant Jr.'s lawsuit claims he was "mentally, and emotionally injured and damaged" as a result of his son's death, suffering a loss of familial relations. The suit names as defendants BART, BART police Chief Gary Gee, Mehserle, and BART police Officers Anthony Pirone and Marysol Domenici.”

Grant, Jr. was convicted in March 1986 at the age of 22, less than a month after his son’s birth. According to Grant, Jr.’s attorney Panos Logos, his son visited him as a minor, but Grant, Jr. hadn’t seen his son in over five years.

This case is striking given the unfortunate connections between the lives of father and son. Grant, Jr. was convicted at the age of 22, the same age his son was killed. He was also convicted a month after the birth of his son. Oscar Grant's death leaves behind a young daughter.

It may sound harsh, but I don’t see how Grant, Jr. could be mentally or emotionally damaged by his son's death when he hadn’t seen his son in over five years. I think this is just a tactic to get some cash from his son's death.

As Oscar Grant's case continues to unfold, it is becoming a symbol for the pursuit of justice. Others like Gary King, Andre Moppin were also killed by police officers, but their investigations are ongoing without a court date set. Grant’s father, however, symbolizes something much different -- taking advantage of a horrific situation -- and that’s the worst part.

Previously:

Wildfire Grows to More Than 122, 000 Acres

rpereira — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:31:32 -0500

Kidnapping Suspect's Prison Term Raises Questions

rpereira — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:25:38 -0500

DJ AM Found Dead

kchau — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:45:21 -0500

Adam Goldstein, best known by his stage name, DJ AM, was found dead in his New York apartment after the police forced their way into his home when a friend knocked on the door but didn’t get an answer. The police discovered drug paraphernalia inside his apartment. (via Rolling Stone.)

CSU Students Scramble From Class to Class

kchau — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:02:55 -0500

As a result of the CSU Budget Cuts, hundreds of classes were slashed in each of the 23 CSU campuses thanks to Governor Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers as they slashed funding for the public institutions. And that’s not the end of it—student fees will go up to 20 percent making the yearly cost to around $4000. CSUs have already cut back enrollment by 10,000 and it’s already bad enough that they will not accept any new applicants for the spring 2010 semester.

Going back to SF State this week was complete chaos as students struggle to crash courses in order to fulfill their schedule. Fortunately enough, I registered the required 12 units that a full-time student must take in order to receive financial aid, but for some, it wasn’t so easy. I had to witness frustrated students in each of my classes trying to put themselves on a wait list that’s not even the official wait list, all in hope to fill in a possible empty seat.

Not only are students feeling the pinch but faculty and staff are facing the bite as well, watching their salary get cut by 10 percent. On top of that, they are being temporarily furloughed on certain days of the semester, in efforts to generate $275 million and fill in the holes of the deficit.

Chico State President Paul Zingg believes that this budget crisis is partly to be blamed on the CSU system itself. He says that the campuses have been enrolling more students than they can afford as $600 million in funding has decreased in the past decade. Needless to say, the system needs to acknowledge what President Zingg says if they want to avoid the same problem in the future. I, too, personally believe that CSUs need to be a little more competitive and selective and not necessarily except every applicant who has a high school diploma as they have in the past.

Previously:

LA-Area Blaze Size Doubles, Threatens 12,000 Homes

kchau — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:31:31 -0500

State of Emergency Declared in L.A. County

rpereira — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:27:42 -0500

California Garage Sale Starts Today

rpereira — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:13:50 -0500

Woman Kidnapped as an 11-year-old in '91 Found

rpereira — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:11:15 -0500

Race for Kennedy's Seat Heating Up

rpereira — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:21:23 -0500

One in Four Californians May Be Affected by Swine Flu

rpereira — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:46:21 -0500

Edward Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Dies

rpereira — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:49:47 -0500

California Holds a Garage Sale

rpereira — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:04:33 -0500

Vote Could Open 250 L.A. Schools to Outside Operators

rpereira — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:07:09 -0500

Cheney Criticizes "Political" CIA Probe Plan

rpereira — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:53:54 -0500

LA Coroner To Treat Michael Jackson's Death As A Homicide

noah — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:29:26 -0500

Justice Dept. Report Advises Pursuing C.I.A. Abuse Cases

rpereira — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:29:15 -0500

Vote about Control over LA Schools Heats Up

rpereira — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:45:02 -0500