"Our students often don't have an elder to talk to. They left them behind in another country."

 At a South Los Angeles High School

I was heading to the first volunteer session for one of my favorite writing programs expecting a few fun hours spent with students. Our task was to prepare them for interviews with elders from their families and later support them in writing stories about what they heard.

I figured that this assignment would be easy for me. I prepared a thousand interviews in my reporter life. At least! So I could not wait to meet the students and hear the stories they were about to collect.

The task turned out to be very different from what I had expected. Not only had I completely forgotten that most teenagers find it anything but exciting to sit down with their parents or grandparents for an intimate interview. I also had not thought about the possibility that some of these children do not really have an elder in their family to interview ...

Sitting in a classroom of a High School in South Los Angeles I learned that 80 % of the students here come from Mexico or countries in Central America - Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvdaor. The ones from Central America used to live with their grandparents until just a few years ago. Their parents had left the countries for jobs in the United States, escaping gang violence, corruption and poverty. As the grandparents became too old to take care of the kids and violence in Central America increased, the parents payed smugglers to bring the teenagers to the United States.

What does all of this have to do with the oral history project? Well, the elders the students grew up with, trust, and know intimately, can be reached only via phone or skype. How do you ask very personal questions under these circumstances? 

So how about interviewing the students' parents about their journeys, feelings, dreams and thoughts. They are sort of elders for the kids. I sure would LOVE to do that. But how can you expect a teenager to interview two people who left them behind years ago, whom they have not seen and barely talked to for ten years and really just get to know now?

Luis, the student I am going to work with in the coming five weeks, does not have anybody in his family to interview for this project. He chose a totally different path and will talk with an elder from the community: a 76 year old lady who made it from this High School to college, city clerk and hospital administrator. When she applied for her first job, she says, "People were not ready for a 17 year old African-American girl in the work force." She has been in the White House, loves to travel and goes by the name of "D - like Darling."

I cannot wait to hear more of her story. Some of the questions Luis came up with in our first session are really cool!

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