Student Texts

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“Traditional sports build cultural solidarity. In rural North Carolina, Tomás, a retired semi-professional soccer player from Mexico, co-founds an organized soccer league with family and fellow Central and Latin American undocumented immigrants. The common language of the sport forges bonds among the players and across generations, helping to foster more open communication between fathers and sons, and creates mentoring relationships with other adults. Moreover, the league's frequent games promote physical and psychological resilience in a community burdened by the risk of deportation.”

“Many residents of Compton, California, live in a food desert, which means they lack access to healthy foods and young people have never acquired the habit of eating fresh fruits and vegetables. Retired neurosurgeon Sherridan Ross may have a solution: Teach them to grow their own food. Drawing on the legacy of farming in Compton by African Americans, Sherridan develops community gardens that transform the attitude of neighborhood youth to food, and benefits them in other ways, too.”

On July 6, 2016, Philando Castile was pulled over by police near Saint Paul, Minn., after being misidentified as a robbery suspect. He was then shot and killed by an officer during the traffic stop. In this StoryCorps edition, Chad Eisen-Ramgren has a conversation with his 10-year-old daughter, who was a student at the school where Mr. Phil managed the cafeteria.

Mia can’t understand why the new kid, Amena, seems sad, but she learns that a little empathy can go a long way.

“Padam and Purna were forced from their homeland in Bhutan and trapped in camps in Nepal for decades before being resettled in an alien land: Clarkston, Georgia. The refugees have found some stability, but still feel frustrated and uprooted, which leads to domestic violence and suicide in the refugee community. Padam and Purna realized that familiar food is the first step to feeling at home. They have opened a food store and other refugee-run businesses, which offer safe spaces and sources of mutual support for all the Asian refugees in Clarkston, who are united by their experience of trauma.”