“You can’t live with ’em, can’t shoot ‘em” or so Winona Ryder’s character Corky says about men in Night on Earth. The same could be said for teenagers. I have two and this series was inspired by my struggle to make sense of them. A professional reason loomed as well. When Bay Area editors visited my class last spring, they all wanted copy on young people.

Once we got underway, Mydria Clark recalled an excellent series “Thirteen” that Thomas French, Monique Fields and Dong-Phuong Nguyen published last summer in the St. Petersburg Times. Mr. French, also the author of a newspaper series and book on high school students, kindly advised the class. As he reminded us, issues of privacy and fairness are front and center with minors. In cases where the teen was under 18, reporters sought clearance from parents. They also selected teenagers who were not in a full-blown crisis and, for the most part, opted for older teenagers who represented a larger group.

Over a period of three to four days, the reporters spent time with their subjects at school, play or work and at home. As the following stories demonstrate, teenagers in the Bay Area live strikingly different lives. In a tribute to Joan Didion’s 1967 essay, “Slouching Toward Bethlehem,” Peter Orsi went back to the Haight. Sachi Cunningham drove up to Marin to follow her teen as he pursued his dream to become a professional paintball player. Steven Bodzin found a high school graduate—one of many in the city—who has no immediate plans to go to college. Anna Sussman’s teen in Piedmont offered the exact opposite—an adolescence spent priming for college.

Academic pressures take on new meaning in different circumstances. In San Francisco, Lisa Lambert reported on an undocumented student at Mission High, Rujun Shen on a new immigrant at Newcomer High and Matt Wheeland on a young woman at Galileo High’s alternative education program.

Jonathan Jones followed a young man who seemingly has everything, but finds ambition lacking. Some of the teens negotiated high school by finding balance in a job or the arts. Fiona Williams reported on a young woman who survives by writing poetry and Mydria Clark’s teenager stays focused by fulfilling a dream to model.

Regardless of their circumstances the teenagers share a similar angst. They are trying to figure out who they are in the midst of pressures from peers, parents and popular culture. It’s clear from the stories that they do so with amazing resilience and good humor.

Lydia Chávez, December 2003

 

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