My favorite piece this month is “Half My Family is Illegal” by Alicia Martinez of Radio Rookies. The piece begins with Martinez telling her younger cousin something that she probably wished she understood at his age: his parents, like hers, are undocumented. As one of the two American-born members of her family, Martinez feels a tremendous amount of pressure to excel academically and to protect her family’s privacy.  Among the diversity of voices featured in the piece, she interviews teens who are faced with the similar responsibility of “laying low” and having to apply for their parents’ citizenship once they are of age. We also hear Martinez confront her…

Margo Blanco may be small, but she isn't shy. Last summer, not long after moving from her home in the Philippines to Santa Fe, NM, Margo went with her Youth Media ProjectSummer Intensive class on a field trip to Albuquerque. There, she stood on the street with a tape recorder, asking strangers: "have you ever felt like you are little in this world?"

Surely anyone who moves across the world knows what it's like to feel little. In fact, in the previous episode of Youthcast, Jacob Holley-Kline talked about how traveling to a new place made him feel like a baby — knowing little about where he was, who he'd meet or what was expected of him. But, as Marga discovered talking to people on the…

My favorite piece in April was “The Backpack,” from Youth Media Project.

In the piece, youth producer Nofar Hamrani tells her story of buying a backpack and getting prepared for school. Her story, though, takes place in the Gaza Strip, one of the most war-torn regions in the world since 1947.

The piece starts with her going to look for a new backpack for the upcoming school year. She buys a new backpack and returns home. All seems normal until a terrorist attack occurs at her local shopping center, from where she bought the backpack. The attack changes her school life significantly. She now has to stay home and also coup with all the…

Last month, Jacob Holley-Kline went on a school trip to Greece. He had worked all of the previous summer to pay travel expenses. When he got there, he was stunned by the beauty of the place. "The water looked like a melted gemstone or something. Like congealed tanzanite," Jacob told me. But something was bothering him. Why does he get to go to Greece, and other folks don't? Did he deserve to be there? This is the question Jacob puzzles over in this beautifully written and delivered commentary, from the Alaska Teen Media Institute.

While Jacob was in Greece, he kept a diary — writing between 5 and 9 pages…