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Playlist: Sasha Aslanian's Portfolio

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Divorced Kid

From American Public Media | 54:00

America's divorce rate soared in the 1970s. Thirty years later, kids who grew up in the divorce revolution look back at that experience, and describe how it shaped them as adults. The 1970s also offered some lessons on how to improve divorce for kids today.

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Award-winning former American RadioWorks’ producer Sasha Aslanian explores the "divorce revolution" of the 1970s through the perspective of kids--like herself--who lived through it, and experts who have had three decades to make sense of it.

This program debuted on Minnesota Public Radio and received a torrent of positive listener calls and comments, and earned the top hits on the station’s web site. Listeners connected deeply with the topic and voices and wanted to contribute their own stories. Highly listenable, engaging and at times, humorous, consider airing “Divorced Kid” over the holiday season as families get together, or anytime in 2010. Newscast compatible and audio promos available.  Full web build-out at www.americanpublicmedia.org/divorcedkid

 

 

Using a lively blend of first-person storytelling, (surprising scenes like playing the reel-to-reel audio of her own parents' wedding vows back to them), interviews with Avery Corman, the author of Kramer vs. Kramer, and revisiting the now-grown kids who wrote "The Kids Book of Divorce" in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1979, the first half of the documentary reports on the lessons learned from the 1970s.
 

The second half of the program examines how the experience of divorce has changed for kids since the 70s. We hear the voices of 4th and 5th graders in a court-mandated class for kids in Minneapolis as they learn how to avoid “divorce traps” kids can fall into. Aslanian follows one of the kids in the class, 10-year-old Lizzy, as she gets a new stepmom, half-brother and stepbrother, and enters adolescence. The program also features judicial reforms to improve divorce.

 

 Note: Promos need tags. :23 + :06 music tails.

 

 

Welfare Migration

From MPR News Stations | Part of the MPR News' Youth Series series | 07:06

Paris Porter explores the truth around his family's move. Was it Minnesota a welfare magnet in the 1990s or a jobs magnet for people who wanted to build better lives?

Paris_serious_small Paris Porter moved from the South Side of Chicago to St. Paul, Minnesota when he was 6. His family was part of a migration to the Twin Cities in the 1990s when the economy was creating more jobs than it had workers to fill them. Porter revisits the journey, and the controversy that flared around families like his moving in.

TRiO Fuels College Dreams

From MPR News Stations | Part of the MPR News' Youth Series series | 04:05

Profile of Tenzin Choerap, a Tibetan immigrant benefitting from a federal program that helps low income and first-generation students attend college.

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When it comes to college, students of color in Minnesota face longer odds than their white peers. Less than half of students of color graduate from high school on time.  Fewer than five percent get a bachelor’s degree from a Minnesota college within ten years of their freshman year in high school.

 

The TRiO program is trying to improve those statistics. TRiO’s a federal program that targets low-income and first generation  students and helps them get into college. It grew out of the War on Poverty in the 1960’s. In Minnesota, about 15-thousand students now participate.

 

As part of Minnesota Public Radio’s youth radio series, Mara Kumagai (KOO-mah-guy) Fink of St. Olaf College, brings us the story of one TRiO student.

Graduating Homeless

From MPR News Stations | Part of the MPR News' Youth Series series | 07:04

A surprising story about staying in school and graduating while homeless.

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 Valencia McMurray has been on her own almost two years. She’s been homeless for about a year and a half of that time. But she’s managed to do something less than a quarter of homeless teens do: she graduated from high school. Valencia tells her story about struggling to stay in school and succeeding on her own:

Mom's accident

From MPR News Stations | Part of the MPR News' Youth Series series | 04:52

How a mother's skiing accident changed a family's life and offered lessons to her daughters.

20091229_kiyomizudera-in-tokyo_1_small For the Fink family, each New Year's Day marks another anniversary of an event that profoundly changed the family's life.

Every New Year, the family of St. Louis Park loads up the car with cross-country ski gear and heads up North. These days, they make the trip minus one pair of skis. Eleven years ago, when Mara Fink was in fourth grade and her sister was a second-grader, their mom fell on a ski trail and was paralyzed from the neck down.

Mara is now a junior at St. Olaf College.  

Young, Gay and Homeless

From MPR News Stations | Part of the MPR News' Youth Series series | 07:02

Gay and lesbian teens are at greater risk of homelessness than their straight peers. Roy Lee Spearman Jones tells his story of being young, gay and homeless in Minneapolis.

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An estimated 20 to 40% of homeless teens are on the streets because of their sexual orientation. Some are kicked out by their parents. Others feel like they can't be themselves if they stay at home. As part of Minnesota Public Radio News’ Youth Radio Series, Roy Lee Spearman Jones tells the story of being out on his own.

Picked in 3rd grade, dreaming bigger at graduation

From MPR News Stations | Part of the MPR News' Youth Series series | 07:12

In 2001, Tiara Bellaphant became part of an experiment. Third graders at seven low-performing Minneapolis and St. Paul schools were offered mentoring and college scholarships if they stayed enrolled in the district. It was an attempt to combat transiency and see if poor kids could beat the odds.

Tiara takes us inside her experience, and interviews those who made it with her, and those who didn't.

Tiara_graduation_small Almost a decade ago, third graders at seven high-poverty schools in the Twin Cities got an offer: Stay in school, and we'll give you $10,000 for college. There was just one condition -- the students had to stay enrolled in either the Minneapolis or St. Paul school district.

The offer came from the Minneapolis Foundation, which wanted to fight the problem of transiency, and get more kids to graduate and go to college.

One year later, one-third of the kids were already gone. The remaining students had scattered to more than 50 different schools.

Tiara Bellaphant made it all the way. She explains what it was like to be part of the experiment.

Japanese-American granddaughter questions internment

From MPR News Stations | Part of the MPR News' Youth Series series | 06:43

Mara Kumagai Fink explores her family's experiences in the internment camps during WWII. Mara spent the summer interviewing family members and revisiting the camps with them. She wondered "Why am I angrier about it than they are?"

Mara_resized_small Mara Kumagai Fink, a senior at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN set out on a quest to interview surviving family members who spent years in internment camps during WWII. Growing up, Mara's grandmother had told her that the internment was "fine." Mara didn't believe her. She visited the camps to piece together what life was like and the disruption it caused in their lives. She struggles to understand why she feels angrier than her relatives seem to.

Mara's grandfather worked for the military intelligence so he was free to come and go from the camps recruiting soldiers while his family was locked inside. This fall Congress is expected to approve Congressional Gold Medals for those Japanese Americans, including Mara's grandfather, who helped the war effort. 

Bullying in schools through the eyes of teens

From MPR News Stations | Part of the MPR News' Youth Series series | 05:30

Grace Pastoor, a high school junior in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, interviewed students about how they see bullying and whether they think adults can do anything about it.

20110506_1bullying050511_39_small Grace Pastoor, a high school junior in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, interviewed students about how they see bullying and whether they think adults can do anything about it.