New SALUD Radio Novelas address mental health and nutrition of immigrant families

This summer at Radio Arte, as part of the SALUD: Healing through the Arts project 11 youth, 14-23 years old, have been working on writing two more radio novelas addressing issues of immigrant health Researched, written, and produced (edited using ProTools) by them, these 2 radio novelas address topics such as isolation of immigrant youth, mixed-status families, transphobia, solidarity, body image and healthy diets.

Los de Afuera Hechos en América (The Outsiders Made in America) tells the story of Carlos, who is a recent immigrant student is struggling to adapt due to the constant discrimination in his school. The radio novela follows him from His best friend Jamie, is a person who also faces discrimination for identifying as transgender and is in constant conflict with the society that assigns him a role for his biological sex. This story explores how discrimination affects mental health, particularly of youth, and the possible solidarity that can exist amongst individuals who are marginalized for diverse reasons.

Y Tu Amigo Tambien (And your friend too) is about Miguel, a high school student who is overweight and dates Rosy, a girl who cares a lot about physical appearance, dieting and exercising. This creates problems between them and leads Miguel to depression and anorexia. his story explores on topics related to physical appearance and self-esteem such as: eating disorders, depression, diets, and healthy eating.

The summer program is ending this week, and by the last week of August both of these radio novelas will be posted on this site. Right now the youth are getting ready to do their presentation/ workshop where they will use these radio novelas to have discussions (in Spanish) addressing all of these issues (It will take place on Friday August 21st at 5pm at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St.).

I wanted to include as part of this update, a reflection by Rosalinda Guzman, who is in her second year participating in the SALUD project, and who at 14 is the youngest member of the group. In this picture, Rosi is standing up, surrounded by her peers during a workshop where they were discussing how adults can be allies to youth. To the right, is the workshop coordinator Tony Alvarado Rivera.

Meet Rosalinda Guzman, a returning SALUD: Healing through the Arts participant

My name is Rosalinda Guzman I am from an immigrant family who came to the united stated in order to get a better life not only for themselves but especially for the family who kept growing with only a blink. I wish my parents didn’t have had to go through what they did in order to be where we are today, but everything in this world is hard to earn. I want to make a difference in my family, but I specially want to make my parents proud and I want to let them know that all they did to get me and my 4 sisters a better life then they did was all worth it. I want to be an architect; I want to be the one who begins a dream in a couple who wants to have a family, for those who are sick, for those who don’t have money, for those who want to help out their community, specially for the children who were born [to live] without both of their parents. This is my dream, and all I can do is dream of how happy the people will be when they see the new building, their new home, and their future.

I have been part of the Salud program since last summer. Yes, I am the youngest one and have been since last summer. When we (the returners) started last year, I felt left out. I thought that I could not make an opinion or add any ideas because they would all laugh since they were older than me. I felt like I couldn’t communicate with nobody but my sister who was also part of the program last summer.

I told her after the third week, “I don’t feel like I am part of this, I feel as if all I am doing is following orders and doing everything that is being said to do.” All she told me was “Don’t be scared to bring out your ideas”. I was still scared to say what I thought or give any opinions, but every once in while they would ask me what I thought and I felt forced to talk. They never told me that my ideas were stupid or that a 14 year old girl had no good ideas.

As I began to realize this I thought that maybe sharing my ideas wouldn’t be as bad as I thought, so I began sharing more and more often with the rest. I began to feel more part of the group and with time I also realized that I had been learning so many different things. Being with older teenagers than me made everyone realize they had a lot to teach and to learn about the younger generations. I came back not only because my family loved what I did over the summer, but because I learned so much. Now I have the ability to go to many of my friends and explain to them many things I did not know. Being here summer 09 I knew that it was going to bring me more learning but also a lot of time to completely forget about school and less time in the streets.

In summer 08 we separated into 5 groups that would all have different subjects all related to the immigrant community. This summer not only were we less, but we were also able to see that most of the big topics were discussed in the 08 radio novelas. We realized that having the same topics wouldn’t get us so happy nor the listeners so we decided to only split into 2 groups and have 2 new topics. What we want is to get the immigrant community and the rest of the community to be able to see that many of us are going through the same thing today. Seeking for help is not hard at all, because there is always someone out there that is willing to help in what ever way they can or should.

There are many things that I have learned here that I had never thought about. There is one thing that I was amazed to be able to realize. When I thought about, “why do most children think being gay is funny”, or “why is being gay bad, and you shouldn’t be gay”. When I thought about this, I asked my self what makes children think this? Were they raised with parents who told them being gay was bad? . . . but then I remembered that my parents never talk about gay and my little sister thinks that even the word is just hilarious its self. ?....?....when they were talking about this they said that society can build and create an image inside many generations many different ways, this made sense. I am really surprised to know that society can bring an image to the young generations and make them laugh at something that is not even funny.

There [are] many things that I want these radio novelas to do: I really want these Radio Novelas to make the people be more aware of their community, let them know of problems they haven't thought are out there, and I would also like to expose them to new ideas. I would like to see our work expand to other communities, and be able to pass the CDs to people that attend to our workshop in order for them to be able to hear the latest radio novelas.

SALUD: Healing through the arts is a collaboration between Radio Arte, Latinos Progresando, and the National Museum of Mexican Art. It is a project of the New Routes to Community Health, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with assistance from the Benton Foundation. More information at www.newroutes.org

Tags: estudiantes, inmigrantes indocumentados, Latino, LGBT, radio novelas, SALUD, transgenero
Topics: Arts, Citizenship, Community Health, Education, Ending Sexism, Immigrant Integration, Immigrants, Immigration, Non-profit, Youth