“‘Way before the ambulance and police arrived, my aunt was there, running and looking for my father. My aunt found my father lying on the bathroom floor, and she checked his pulse; there wasn’t one. She fell back against the wall and burst into tears saying no puede ser (it can’t be),” wrote Palisades Charter High School senior Mario Ramos, about the murder of his father in Guadalajara, Mexico, when he was six years old. Ramos, 18, was one of 35 Palisades High students who wrote memoirs that were recently published in an anthology, ‘Next Voices.’ ‘Everyone has a story, but not everyone puts it in writing,’ Ramos said. ‘Now, my story is out there.’ His father was overseeing the construction of a house during a family trip to Mexico when he was robbed and murdered. Many of Ramos’ classmates told him that his memoir ‘My Father’ made them cry. ‘Everyone was very supportive,’ Ramos said. A family friend said ‘it was really good I wrote about it, to talk about it and have it out there.’ His family does not speak of that day. Ramos and his classmates wrote personal stories ranging from dealing with divorce to the tribulations of young love as part of PEN in the Classroom, a program of PEN USA, a nonprofit writers’ organization. They will read their memoirs aloud to the public on May 29 between 12:30 and 2 p.m. in room B101 at the high school. PEN in the Classroom gives high school students the opportunity to work with a professional poet, novelist, screenwriter or journalist for 12 weeks. At the end of the class, the student work is published in an anthology. The goal of the program is to enhance the writing and reading skills of students and expose them to role models. PEN selects writers from its membership to assist students and pays them a small stipend. English teacher Dennis Danziger applied to PEN in the Classroom because he thought it would be a great opportunity for his students. His wife, Amy Friedman, is a member of PEN, so he asked her to work with his non-honors students once a week on memoir writing. Since 1992, Friedman has written folktales in a syndicated feature ‘Tell Me a Story,’ which is published in about 125 newspapers nationally and internationally. She has published two memoirs and also teaches creative nonfiction and memoir at UCLA. ‘I love my students at UCLA, but I wanted to work with students who are a little more reluctant to write,’ Friedman said. ‘I really wanted to work with students who think they don’t like writing, and I wanted to convince them that they did.’ At the beginning of the course, Friedman led the students through a series of memory exercises. ‘They are designed to shut off the brain and get the heart working,’ Friedman said. She asked the students to free-write about different topics such as family and friendship. Senior Leticia Garcia, 17, wrote in ‘Not from You’ about her best friend dating a guy whom she liked and how that action strained their friendship. ‘I had had it inside for so long,’ Garcia said. ‘I was able to get it off my chest and go on with my life.’ At first, she found it emotionally difficult to share her piece, but that pain eased with time. Her classmates were supportive, positive and helpful ‘ they became like a family, she said. Friedman often divided the students into small groups, so that everyone would have a chance to interact. ‘It was moving,’ Friedman said of watching the students accept one another. ‘I really fell in love with these kids.’ Senior Kirsten Legaspi admitted that in many of her classes, she doesn’t even know her classmates’ names by the end of the semester. In this writing class, however, she had the opportunity to meet everyone and learn about their lives. ‘I didn’t realize my peers had gone through those experiences,’ said Ramos, who plans to attend Santa Monica College this fall. Shirley Jo Finney, an actress and director, and Tim Coyne, a writer and performer, visited the classroom to coach the students on how to read aloud. When Finney worked with the students, she taught them how to present their stories with emotion. She asked four students to read their pieces in front of the class and mirrored their energy level. Legaspi, who wrote a memoir ‘April’ (see page 2) about feeling abandoned by her mother after her parents’ divorce, presented that day. ‘[Finney] told me not to look at my paper the entire time and to speak out,’ said Legaspi, who admitted she felt nervous throughout the reading. But after that day, ‘I kept reading it over and over and it made me more comfortable,’ said the 18-year-old. ‘I got more confident sharing my story.’ Finney said she witnessed students having epiphanies. ‘When I left, I thought this one moment would affect the rest of their lives. The writers shifted that day. They realized it was OK to be who they were. I felt as if I had purpose that day.’ The students submitted their final drafts in December for publication. Senior Melody Satvat thought of the book’s title, ‘Next Voices,’ and her classmate Grace Bush-Vineberg designed the front cover. One hundred copies of the book were printed. ‘When they came in to get their book, it was pretty huge,’ Danziger said. ‘They had turned in their writing to a teacher, and it kept coming back marked up. They went through draft after draft, and then it came back in the form of a book.’ Garcia’s mother was so excited she called family in Mexico to share the news. ‘That made me feel special in the family,’ said Garcia, who will attend Cal State L.A. this fall. ‘I’ve become a stronger writer. I know what kind of details to include to get to my point a lot faster. I have learned to leave out everything that doesn’t matter so much.’ Legaspi, who will attend Santa Monica College, was excited to pick up her book because some of her classmates were too shy to read their pieces aloud. ‘I told the kids ‘you and your classmates will have this forever,’ Danziger said. ‘Someday you will find this stored away somewhere, read it and think that this person used to sit across from me.” PaliHi Student Memoirs: Leaving Family Behind It is almost 6 a.m. I still have two hours until my flight, but everyone is in a rush. I am ready to go, and my bags are at the front door. Eda, my six-year-old sister, is secretly trying to open my bag so that she can put in the letter she wrote, although she can barely write. But the bag is so full she cannot open it. My mother woke at 4 a.m. to make me a simit, my favorite food, although I told her not to do it. She is telling me that I must eat it because the flight between Istanbul, Turkey and New York will take 12 hours, and then another five hours between New York and Los Angeles. And she puts a sweater on my shoulders in case it is cold in New York in August. She has never been to New York, but she knew that it would rain. I still do not know how, but she was right again. And my brother is telling me to wait and not to go anywhere until his friends come to LAX and pick me up. My dad does not even say a word. I know him. He means more when he does not talk. He is the one who encouraged me to go to Los Angeles so that I can attend a good university. It is a five-year sacrifice for my future ‘ Secretly, everyone is checking each other’s eyes to see who will drop the first tear. I do not want to be the first one. I hear Eda crying quietly. Now I hear my mum trying to laugh and crying at the same time. I guess it is my turn to cry since there is no way my dad will cry, and my brother will wait for me. So I just let it go. The author will attend Loyola Marymount College to study business administration this fall. Meeting a Father By AIMARA DE ANDA I met him the second day I was there, a tall, skinny man with caramel skin and hair as black as night. He was standing in front of his house playing with his two little kids. Seeing them made me feel jealous; I wondered what they had that I didn’t have. Why did he choose to be with them over me? The first conversation we had was brief, just a simple hello, how are you. There was no hug or anything as I had imagined. I made our meeting short by telling him that I had to return to my tia’s house. From then on he never talked to me unless he was drunk, and even then he didn’t treat me like I was his daughter. He made me feel like I wasn’t worth anything to him, as if we had nothing in common. That’s when I realized who my true ‘dad’ is. That is my stepfather, Steve. He’s been there for me and cares for me so much. He never misses a birthday party or a school event. Even though I’m not his daughter by birth, he has done so much more than my real dad has. He supports me and is there to protect me. And when things get hard, he’ll stick them out with me, not like my real dad, who runs from any issue. I learned a good lesson from all this. Family is not composed of those who share your blood and genes. Family is made up of those who stick by your side no matter what happens. Family are those who love and care for you. Aimara De Anda will attend Cal State Northridge this fall. Brother Heads Off To College By LUCAS BERRY I waited eagerly as the day finally came when we would drop my brother off at the University of British Columbia. It felt like that day would never come. When Saturday September 1, 2007 finally came, I jumped out of my bed, took a shower and changed the fastest I ever had. For the first time in my life, I was the first to get ready to leave. The car ride there was the longest of my life. As soon as we reached the school, I helped my brother in every possible way so that he could leave more quickly. However, my dad informed me we were going to be there for much longer than I had hoped. We had to help my brother find his room, which took 47 minutes. Help him set up his room, 36 minutes. Buy him some last-minute items at the student store, 55 minutes. Then after all that we had our last meal with my brother before we could finally leave for home, 63 minutes. Our goodbyes took another 15 minutes. Each one of those minutes felt like an hour to me, but it was all worth it. After my family had dropped my brother off, life already started to seem pleasant. But after only two weeks of enjoying my newfound freedom, I started to miss him. Lucas Berry plans to study business in college. He plays first base on the high school varsity baseball team.
