OPEN BORDERS - My Power Ranger Had One Leg :

My Power Ranger Had One Leg:  The Open Borders Youth Radio Project

Note: See the accompanying article, "The Youth Radio Project," which contains the transcripts of the stories discussed in this article.

Glenda Vargas, age fourteen, writes about the most important object in her bedroom—a scrapbook filled with cards, photos and small toys her father sent her from jail when she was four to ten years old. In her scrapbook is her most precious possession—a letter from her father. She decides to ask him to read the letter for her audio story.  He had no idea she was making a digital story about him. They talk about his being away, his leaving suddenly, how important his letters and cards were, how much they meant to each other. He records his letter with passion and tears. (Glenda decides to edit out the tears—his and hers.) [Listen to Glenda’s story, My Scrapbook, My Father. Read the  transcript of her story at the end of this article.]

Latino teens often live in two worlds. Out on the streets and in school they live in the English-speaking world, filled with the universal themes and struggles that confront all teens.  At home they enter their Spanish-speaking world, whose parents or grandparents immigrated to this country.  These two worlds often clash, literally and figuratively speaking different languages. Their stories reflect this duality in their lives, as they try to merge their two identities, their two worlds.  They often feel nobody really cares about their stories, that they don’t have anything important to stay. This is the challenge: how to make teens believe their stories matter, are important to tell, need to be heard

For the last three summers we have held the Open Borders Youth Radio Project, in which 15-20 teens, mostly Latino, from North Philadelphia were paid to work as producers, twenty hours per week for six weeks. We divided the project into two sessions. During the first two weeks, we used a set of exercises to teach participants the elements of telling a good story--how to build a story arc, using description and creating scenes, being specific while exploring a universal theme.  Participants wrote personal stories about the most important thing in their room, a sad or happy memory,  an event or person that changed them forever.  During this period they also learned technical aspects of recording and sound editing in Audacity, an open source program.  Most importantly, the first two weeks were about taking risks by telling stories that were important to them, and building trust as they listened to each others’ stories and carefully honored them.  During the second session, which lasted four weeks, teens formed production teams and interviewed local heroes in our community.  For example, in the summer of 2008, a team produced a radio show about an ex-offender who mentors other men who have come out of jail and want to re-build their relationships with their children .  Another team did a show about a Mexican woman who fights racism and sexism in South Philadelphia . A third team interviewed a Mexican mural artist who works with prisoners and victims, police and teens, and uses murals to create communication from opposite sides of the fence.

Are you willing to Risk it?

A story about my life.  I sit down with Reyna, age 15, to go over her first draft about  “One of the most important people in my life,” an aunt who she says she says she really doesn’t know.   I mention that it feels as if she’s not really in to her story, and begin to “peel the onion,” as we say at Open Borders. “Why did you decide to write about your aunt?” “Well, I didn’t know her, but I heard that she would really be there when you needed her.”  “Does she remind you of someone who has really been there for you?”  “Well (a long pause), my mom was there for me.” “When was that?”  “When I got pregnant last year.”  “Is this the story you really want to tell?” We talk about risks, and Reyna decides to go for it.  She writes a brutally honest letter to her one-year-old, Jonathan, about how angry she is-- because of him she can’t hang with her friends after school or on weekends; then she describes how much she loves him and  all she’s going to do to assure he has the best shot in life.

Devon, seventeen, with a history of problems in school but now back on track, writes of being homeless. “My favorite toy in the shelter was a Power Ranger with one leg.”  [Listen to Devon’s story, My Power Ranger Had One Leg. Read the transcript of his story at the end of this article.]

 Darnell describes a family photo: “This looks like a beautiful happy family, but just before this picture was taken, my father ordered my mother to put on some make-up to cover up the bruises on her face.” He tells of planning revenge with his brothers to punish his father for all the beatings his family had endured.

Eduardo, an artist at nurturing his tough persona, describes the favorite object in his bedroom—a photograph of his mother taken thirteen years before, the last time she was happy, just before his father left.

Instructors decided that if we were going to push teens to take risks, we would have to take risks too: we offered them the opportunity to interview us. Any questions were legitimate, as long as they were respectful. After we did a workshop on interviewing, students worked in teams, developed question sets, and interviewed teachers while other students observed.  One group asked a service-learning volunteer about her personal life, what she thought about living with her boyfriend before marriage. Another group interviewed a volunteer teacher about being bi-racial: did she think of herself as White or Black, how did she fit those two worlds together?  An Anglo teacher was asked about why he worked in the Hispanic community, what he got out of it.  Student observers gave feedback about the quality of the questions, extent of active listening, and opportunities for follow-up questions. With this feedback, the interviews were resumed.  

Listen!

Something powerful occurs when you believe someone is really listening to your story, an affirmation that you have an important story to tell. Learning how to listen and provide feedback and reflection was a critical component of the Youth Radio Project. We developed an exercise called “critiquing the cookie, ” to model a way of giving constructive feedback to help students improve their stories. Teachers baked cookies, and students brainstormed a list of criteria of how you know a great cookie when you taste one. Students then (blind-) tasted the teachers’ cookies, and chose the best according to their criteria. We then developed criteria for what makes a “good” story.

As the stories were developed, students met in small groups, listened to each other’s stories, talked about what

parts of the story moved them, and suggested ways to make them more powerful. When the stories were completed, recorded and mixed, the entire group listened to the final cut.  We recounted memorable scenes and images, and acknowledged the bravery of telling stories important to us.   Long discussions were stimulated by the stories, about abuse in the home, difficulties communicating with parents, betrayal by friends, relationships between boys and girls.  When Reyna played her story about having her baby, the group talked about teen pregnancy and whether they had had “the sex talk” with their parents. After interviewing Irma  Zamora about the racism she had faced since coming from Mexico, Daquan and Janet reflected on their own experiences with racism.  [Listen to Daquan and Janet’s story, Irma Zamora, Juntos.]

Share It!

When the Open Borders teens shared their stories with their parents, it created opportunities for dialogue, for missed conversations. Vanessa recorded the story of the most important day of her life—the day she went to a baseball game with her traditional Mexican father. Miracle of miracles--the game was rained out, and they had The Talk- about her wanting more freedom, needing him to trust her, how she was Mexican but American, too, how it was hard for him to let go, and how they loved each other.  In some ways, it was a perfect story, told in less than two minutes: a powerful theme expressed in an arc of expectation, tension, resolution, a scene filled with vivid descriptions and dialogue.  Vanessa’s father listened to her digital story and learned how important that moment was for her, how important he was. [Listen to Vanessa’s story, Rained Out at the Ball Game. Read the transcript of her story at the end of this article.]

Some students shared their stories with their parents for the first time at our graduation party, attended by all the families of the participants.  Darnell’s mother nodded with knowing and a sense of pride as he played his story about ending the abuse in his family.  When asked if it was hard to hear her family story told in public, she said , “It’s a story that has to be told.”  Eduardo’s mother cried as he described the photo of her smiling thirteen years ago and his hopes of taking a new photo of her, again smiling.

Through their stories, teens in the Youth Radio Project explore their identity, their relationship to each other and their families, their place in the world.  They learn to feel safe, to take risks, to honor the risks that their fellow teens take.  They learn to listen and to be listened to—the basis of all real relationships.

Putting It All Together:  

We are in the second phase of our summer program, time for production teams to create a radio show about a local hero. I ask Micaela Hernandez, Glenda Vargas, and Tatyana Martinez why they chose to be on the team that will interview Gregory Taylor, an ex-offender who works for the National Comprehensive Center for Fathers, where he mentors other ex-prisoners who want to re-build their relationship with their children. Tatyana talks about her father being in prison since the day she was born; Glenda tells of the years her father was away in jail; Micaela says,  ”It’s just a topic I’m interested in.” Two days later, when we are developing the question set for the interview, Micaela says “My father would have a hard time answering that question,” and comes out  about her father being in jail since she was three. This is the first time she has told anyone about her father for many years.

The interview goes well. As they listen to the recording, Micaela and Tatyana get into a long discussion about how their lives would have been different if their fathers had been home, and try to imagine would it would be like if they ever came home.  They work hard to write and record their own stories and mix them with  Gregory’s interview, to talk about missing their fathers, how Gregory is an inspiration, gives them hope about reuniting with their fathers.  [Listen to Tatyana and Micaela’s story, Gregory Taylor, A Local Hero. See the transcript of their story at the end of this article.]

After completing her interview with Gregory, Micaela makes the long trek by bus to visit her father who has been in jail for the last fifteen years. They talk for two hours about how they have missed each other, what they want for their lives, what is possible.  They will write. Micaela considers recording a conversation with her father on her next visit.

Micalea and her two teachers take the final version of their radio story to the NCCF, play it for Gregory and Kofi Asanti, the NCCF executive director. Gregory listens to a CD of his story, and quietly begins to weep. He asks for a copy (which Micaela immediately pulls out of her backpack).  “My two older children understand why I went away for four years,”  he says, “but my younger children don’t. I want to play this story for my two younger kids, it’s time we had the conversation about why I really went away.”

Gregory and Kofi hatch a plan: to incorporate digital stories into their work, use their computer lab to bring ex-offenders  and their children together to create mutual digital stories in which they have a conversation about being separated, forgiveness, how they are learning to be together, future hopes for their relationship. They will use storytelling to create the possibilities for important and difficult conversations, to re-build relationships.

Listen to the remarkable stories of Glenda Vargas (My Scrapbook, My Father, 4:11), Devon Aponte (My Power Ranger Had One Leg, 2:15), Vanessa Rodriquez (Rained Out at the Ball Game, 1:53), Micaela Hernandez and Tatyana Martinez, (Gregory Taylor, Local Hero, 5:18), and Janet Tapia and Daquan Gibbs (Irma Zamora, Juntos, 9:00)

Note: See the accompanying article, "The Youth Radio Project," which contains the transcripts of the stories discussed in this article.

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