A Newspaper by Teens, for Teens

Prisco Serrano: I met Donna around 1990. I was in 11th grade, and I was a writer for the youth newspaper. I saw L.A. Youth as a way of rebelling, because I thought that it was a way of me saying what I wanted to say. I thought journalists were, in a sense, rebels, people who spoke about injustice.

Later, when I was going to law school at night, I worked at L.A. Youth as the administrative assistant. To this day, I still remember the office phone number.

Jason Sperber: I joined L.A. Youth as an 11th grader at L.A. High in 1990, so I’ve known Prisco and Donna for 30 years. Prisco and I were writers, then we were student-editors, then we both had part-time jobs at the office. That’s when I met Mike. My Facebook friends list is full of people from L.A. Youth, people who were my mentors and people I came up with, and people I taught who later became friends.

The lessons I learned and the people I met have always influenced who I am as a person and as a parent. Those were formative years.

Johnathon: I joined L.A. Youth in the summer of 1992, after I graduated from high school. I couldn’t find a job. My mother came home with a copy of the newspaper she saw at City Hall, threw it at me, and was like, “Make yourself useful; get out of the house.” So I got on the bus and I went to the office, and I ended up being put to work right away on an article.

Mike Fricano: I was an editor at L.A. Youth. I am an exception to what Donna said—she did not meet me as a teenager. She met me as a 26-year-old. In 2002, I had quit my job as a newspaper reporter and decided to move to California. I didn’t have a prospect. I applied to some daily newspapers and also to this very bizarre-looking thing called L.A. Youth. I didn’t even know independent nonprofit teen journalism existed.

From the first time I walked through the doors, I could tell that Donna had created a place that just felt like where I needed to be at that point in my life. Probably all of us have felt that. It was a place where we all got to start actualizing, to be like, What’s the best version of me? It was a place where I could be weird me, nerdy me, and angry me, all of the different things. Before the term safe space was really a thing, I felt like L.A. Youth was a safe space.

Read: Friendship is crucial to the adolescent brain

Donna really emphasized that we have as much to learn from the teens as we do to teach them, and if anything, they have more to teach us. Being in a place like that, that valued the opinions of people whose brains weren’t fully formed, was a really, really, really powerful thing.

Stephanie: I’m the most recent teen staffer at L.A. Youth. I joined in my last year of high school, in 2003. They had this newcomers’ day coming up, and I was like, Why not? I got hooked. Mike was my editor and sometimes still is. I still lean on him to read my stuff and tell me to streamline, streamline, streamline.