Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Education in "Journalism"

Reporter
Right now, somewhere in Oakland, a 14-year-old girl paints on eyeliner and mascara before heading to school. This girl?let's call her Erica lives in a group home, which gives foster kids a safe, but temporary, place to live.

Journalists have trouble telling stories like Erica?s for multiple reasons. For starters, teenagers aren't the most eloquent, media-savvy speakers.

<:17
MA: Can you tell me what a typical day, like, is for you? E: Typical day is me coming to school. Um, I don?t get it. MA: What?s the matter? E: What am I supposed to talk about? Just be natural, talk about any (laughs). E: Can you rewind it?>

MA: Earlier that morning, the principal from Erica?s school called, inviting me to interview Erica. I asked him if I needed permission forms before recording her voice. His response: "Come on up to our school before my coffee wears off."

Three hours later, Erica sat slouching in a chair in front of me. Her eyes drifted around the room and she mumbled, but as we kept talking, she finally looked me in the eye and spoke passionately. Every time I turned off my recorder, I scrambled to turn it back on as she launched into another story.

<:10
IN: but I had a warrant for my arrest?"
OUT: ??five months pregnant.?>

MA: Erica grew up in gangs and got expelled from every school she attended. Now, she's seven-months pregnant.

<:07
E: they keep telling me they might take my baby away if I keep getting into gang-related acts, so that?s why I changed my ways because?>

MA: But I never got to see HOW she changed her ways.

<:06
MA: So, here I am calling 559?FADE UNDER NEXT TRACK>

Since Erica's a minor in foster care, any reporter would need written permission to record her voice. Including me. Each school official or social worker I talked to passed along my request to someone else. Until I came to Mary Esparza with the Health and Human Services Agency, who gave me an emphatic NO.

<:03
MARY: we have to abide by our confidentiality?>

<:09
HOLLY: the reason I didn't want her to do this story is because everybody has trouble with this. It?s just notoriously difficult to report on this stuff, and the problem is is the timeline.>

MA: Holly Kernan, my radio-reporting professor, HAD warned me about my story?s possible pitfalls: stereotyping teen mothers, and more important, getting consent, ON DEADLINE, to interview younger teens. But if reporters avoid these ?notoriously difficult? stories, no one will ever hear them.

Before I was told that I couldn't talk to Erica on the record, she shared her hopes for the future.

MA: Erica wants to tell teens about her situation NOW. While her foster-care guardians protect her from nosy reporters, they also keep her from sharing her experiences with a larger audience.

<:06
E: And yeah, we did mess up our lives, but we can do something better, we can do something with our lives.>

As I worked on this story, I met Jamila Akua Williams. She's a Mills College MBA student whose teenage years were similar to Erica?s. Like Erica, Williams was involved in gangs and drugs. When she was 15, just a year older than Erica, she had a son. Williams is ?almost 30 now. She draws on her history to counsel pregnant and parenting teens, like Erica.

<:14
JW: Whether she has to put on her superwoman boots and kick down the wall, you know, whatever she has to do, mentally, physically, emotionally, then do it, you know? When something becomes difficult for her, THAT?S when she knows she?s on the right path.>

MA: And even though I took a DIFFERENT path and told a DIFFERENT story, you?ve heard Erica?s voice. Maybe someday she?ll tell you the end of her story herself. For KALW, I?m Madeleine Anderson.

E: And we used to cry under our beds, I still remember that, I was just a little kid, and I was like, why is he hitting our mom? Why is he hitting me?

Although Erica wants to tell her story so that others can learn from her experiences, she is prohibited from doing so.

Erica?s story compelled me, and made me want to know more. I wanted to ask her what it was like growing up being passed from family to family as if she were a hand-me-down shirt. I wanted to know how she found the strength to leave her life of violence and pursue education.

Clip from Erica about education

But just like that, I was cut off from knowing more. Because she is a minor and in the foster care system, access proved tricky. Trying to talk to her was like trying to climb over several fences of barbed wire. I just got lucky the first time. Without more information, the story felt incomplete. I had recorded Erica in an empty office, and only briefly stepped into her classroom, so I felt I knew little of her day-to-day life. I was on the verge of abandoning the story, but something stopped me.

(something about getting oral approval for the story?)

MA: Leaving gang life and going to school is only the first step. Erica turned herself in to Juvenile Hall because she wanted help and support, but ultimately, her future is in her hands. Her outside support only goes so far. Even getting maternity clothes has proven difficult.

E: They keep telling me that or I keep telling them that I need money, that I?m not fitting into my clothes no more, I mean I?m not going to suffocate myself or hurt myself, but all they tell me is, we?ll give it to you, it?s coming in, it?s coming in, but it hasn?t come in, and I?ve been asking for like a month or two months already.

MA: And clothes are the least of her worries. At seven months pregnant, Erica has not attended a single parenting class. And while she wants to go to a school especially designed for teen moms, she has not yet found one.

AR: My hope is that she?ll get out of just asking for what she need and start taking the action to get what she needs, rather than only speaking up, because asking is cool, but sometimes people are going to say no.

MA: And Erica isn?t the only person people are going to say no to. In the process of trying to speak with her, I was told that I could not.

MA: Phone conversation with Mary?.

MA: But I wasn?t going to take no for an answer. Her story struck a chord deep inside me. The fact that she still had hope for turning her life around after going through a lifetime?s worth of struggles and hardship made me want her to succeed. I saw her falling through the cracks. Too young for a real parenting class?. An expelled status that made her ineligible for most schools for teen parents?. too shrouded in protection to get her story out there. The sad thing is, the protection has come too late. Erica recalls the abuse she felt and witnessed as a young child.

E: And we used to cry under our beds, I still remember that, I was just a little kid, and I was like, why is he hitting our mom? Why is he hitting me?

MA: But as a 14-year-old, unable to work and provide for herself, Erica is heavily dependent upon others. At seven months pregnant, she has still not received maternity clothes.

E: They keep telling me that or I keep telling them that I need money, that I?m not fitting into my clothes no more, I mean I?m not going to suffocate myself or hurt myself, but all they tell me is, we?ll give it to you, it?s coming in, it?s coming in, but it hasn?t come in, and I?ve been asking for like a month or two months already.

(AMBI SOUND FROM SCHOOL/CLASSROOM?STUDENTS JOKING?)

MA: it?s not like Erica isn?t willing to talk. When I returned to her school TK weeks later, she and her classmates were pretty chatty. Her teacher, Ally Roth, had a hard time quieting them down.

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