Chicago is Da World

Our ethnic news media interns

How are people coping with unemployment? What’s the best strategy for families and schools and communities to deal with violence? How do you avoid sinking further into the housing and mortage swamp?

These are some of the stories that ethnics news media interns for the Community Media Workshop have produced. Their work has been published in Nuevo Siglo, La Raza, the Final Call and the North Lawndale Community News.

This work by journalism students from Columbia College is the workshop’s attempt to provide an extra source of news for Chicago’s ethnic news media.

Here are some of their stories:

For the Final Call

By Ebony Haynes

Carmen Jordan is running out job prospects and hope as well.

Frustrated by her failure to find a job during her high school senior year, she gave up looking, and decided to focus on her studies.

But now the 17-year-old from Chicago’s Southside faces a job search more difficult than before, and an endless seeming stream of rejections.

“Finding a job is even harder now because you have more adults competing for the same jobs that you used to see teens working in, such as fast food restaurants and retail stores,” said Jordan who is headed for DePaul University this fall.

With so many adults out of work, job-hunting teens like Jordan face slim prospects. But the situation is even direr for African-American youths, whose grasp on the job markets has been slipping in recent years, and who face many more obstacles than others.

The unemployment rate for all African-Americans was 14.7 percent in June 2009 as compared to whites who have an unemployment rate of 8.7, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the jobless rate for black teens was 39.7 in June 2009, nearly twice the rate for white youths, according to the BLS.

Why is this a more troubling summer for youths than before?

One reason is the heightened competition for retail jobs – the minimum wage paying jobs that most black teens have relied upon in the past. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the retail industry has lost tens of thousands of jobs in recent years. And that has only made the competition stiffer.

But the jobless situation has touched a wide sprawl of workers. In June there were 671,400 persons out of work in Illinois, the highest such figure since the last economic crisis in 1983, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

Camille Holmes, Global Career Development Facilitator at Roberto Clemente Community Academy on Chicago’s Westside, works with black teens throughout the summer and believes one of the biggest problems they have when it comes to finding jobs is that they are not persistent.

“Follow through is very important. Most teens don’t realize that they have to be proactive and go after the job they want. Don’t leave getting your job in the hands of someone else.” said Ms. Holmes. “You have to get names, call back and follow up because it shows commitment and initiative.”

For La Raza

By Jessica Rosenberg

If it weren’t for family connections and school resources, 17-year-old Ruby Montes de Oca might have been among Chicago’s disproportionately high number of unemployed Hispanic teens.

The senior at Lakeview High School is an accounting intern at HACE, the Hispanic Alliance for Career Development.  She got the paid internship after a teacher suggested she apply to Mayor Daley’s Youth Ready Chicago summer jobs program, a city-wide program that will put thousands of young people to work at for- and nonprofit organizations.

“I’m not sure I would have a job” if I didn’t know the right people, said Montes de Oca, whose brother got her a job at an Uptown pharmacy where he is also employed.

In these hard economic times, the job hunt is becoming increasingly difficult for Hispanic teens. There is less work for teens and competition from adults without work has made the situation even more difficult the youths.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, this year’s unemployment rate among Hispanic teens between the ages of 16 and 19 is almost 25 percent – up 6 percent from 2008.  That’s compared to about 20 percent for white teens and almost 36 percent for black teens of the same age group, according to the BLS.

“Hispanic teens are less likely to have a parent in a managerial position,” said Andrea Saenz, executive director at HACE.

He said the lack of relatives in management jobs creates a disconnect between Hispanic teens and positive career role models – just one more obstacle for Latino youth to face.

It’s important for teens to work because they develop valuable social skills, self-pride and become more disciplined, explained Jack Wuest, executive director of Alternative Schools Network in Chicago.

But more importantly, “there’s a progression,” said Wuest.  “When a kid works at 16- and 17 [-years old], they’re going to work at 17- and 18 [-years-old], and so on.”

When looking for a job, Montes de Oca, Saenz and Wuest agreed that networking is key.

“[Teens] need to be very creative,” said Saenz.  “Talk to everyone you know.  Tap into all resources.  And think beyond [jobs] you would normally do.”

But Saenz said that inner-city Hispanic teens have an edge that can give them an advantage. Many employers value bilingual skills and cultural insight, he said.  And Chicago’s transit system increases the mobility of teens without cars or living in the suburbs.

“Just keep working hard – everything is possible if you work hard,” said Montes de Oca.  “And don’t be scared, be outgoing.”

To apply to Chicago Youth Ready, teens between the ages of 14 and 24 must complete an application at www.youthreadychicago.org by July 6.  You can also call the agency at 1-877-587-WORK (9675) .