Darlene Gonzalez and Lydia Arce huddled over a mixing board in an editing suite in Loyola University’s communications department. The girls, students at Antonia Pantoja High School in Bucktown, were listening to an interview they had recorded the day before, trying to decide what to include in their radio documentary about the political future of Puerto Rico. “What if we put a little piece of this part at the beginning and a little piece of it at the end?” suggested Gonzalez.
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She and Arce were among the first group of students to complete their school’s girls-only radio production class, the pioneer project of a larger program called Radio Educate Chicago. The program is a partnership between the Puerto Rican nonprofit agency ASPIRA, which oversees the high school; the Guatemala Radio Project; and the Girl’s Best Friend Foundation, which stipulated that the course be open to girls only, in part because of the underrepresentation of girls and women in journalism.
The students spent half their time in a classroom with teacher Claudia Valenzuela discussing journalism theory and issues close to home, like domestic violence. They also took a hard look at the role of the mainstream media. “We were trying to expose them to issues in the media and the political scene around the world,” says Valenzuela. “So that when they produced their shows they’d be socially conscious and have some kind of context.”
Puerto Rico: Points of View airs at 10:30 AM Friday on WLUW FM (88.7). Hip Hop: More Than Music airs at 10:30 AM next Friday, July 17, on WLUW and at 3 PM Tuesday, July 21, on WHPK FM (88.5). Gang Days airs at 3:30 PM Tuesday, July 21, on WHPK and at 10:30 AM Friday, July 24, on WLUW. Call 773-348-6994 for more information. –Cara Jepsen
