The weight of the city’s struggle with violence falls heavier on some than on others. One person shouldering a lot is the principal of a South Side high school. WBEZ talked with her recently at the funeral of one of her students.
There is no news here. Nothing could be more every day – literally. I did something that one in 20 Chicagoans do on weekdays and something that I’ve done too many times to count. I took a ride on the CTA Red Line.
In 1993, a cocky and successful real estate agent was ordered by his boss to take one day off each week. He decided to volunteer at an orphanage. What he didn’t expect was that a 9-year-old boy would have a lasting impact on his life. WBEZ presents a half-hour audio documentary from producers Alex Kotlowitz and Amy Drozdowska.
I learned to write feature stories by listening to country music. The songs were filled with stories, characters and emotions that grabbed the listener's heart. I wanted my stories to have the same impact.
For white students in suburban Chicago, school has become a much more diverse place in the last 20 years. But the region has seen a jump during that time in the number of highly segregated black and Latino schools, a new WBEZ analysis shows.
Teresa Puente describes herself as "a brown-skinned Chicana." "People have guessed that I am from many places, including Venezuela, India, Morocco, Turkey and Guatemala," she writes. "They never guess I am Chicana or Mexican-American."
In Chicago and the suburbs, a quarter of a million black and Latino children go to schools where more than 90 percent of students come from their same race. For our ongoing series on race, reporter Linda Lutton talked to seniors who just graduated from some of these schools.
