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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, we'll wrap up today's show with another Radio Rookie. Yesterday, we heard what the gentrification of New York City, particularly the South Bronx feels like through the eyes of young people growing up there today. If you missed it, definitely go back and listen to Christina Adja's piece. She received high praise from our callers during our segment yesterday and other people who wrote in after.

Now, we turn the page and head along the 7 line to Woodside, Queens, where 16-year-old Radio Rookies reporter Saldon Tenzin brings us to a Tibetan Community Center. There, the children of first-generation immigrants celebrate in order to keep their culture alive. Take a listen to 45 seconds.

Saldon Tenzin: There's one day out of the year that I look forward to the most, Losar, also known as Tibetan New Year.

Speaker 4: Five years, is that right?

Speaker 5: Yes.

Speaker 4: Step in. Wait by the line there, please.

Saldon Tenzin: In Queens where I live, hundreds of Tibetans turn out to celebrate. I always meet up with my friends at the Tibetan Community Center. The morning starts off with prayers and then the adults always ask us to help hand out food.

Speaker 6: Hi Saldon, you want to help us?

Saldon Tenzin: Yes. You know what someone said to us?

Speaker 6: What?

Saldon Tenzin: We're the future of Tibet. [laughs] Then we head to the auditorium to watch Tibetan school students sing and dance.

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Brian Lehrer: Now is the owner of that voice, Saldon Tenzin, along with Radio Rookies senior producer, Carolina Hidalgo. Saldon, welcome to The Brian Lehrer Show. Carolina, thanks for joining us here again today. Hi.

Carolina Hidalgo: Hi.

Saldon Tenzin: Hello. Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Carolina, just to start everybody off for those who didn't hear yesterday's segment or aren't hearing these full pieces on our morning and afternoon magazine shows, give us your Radio Rookies elevator pitch. Who can join? How can people support the program, and what's this series about home that we're in now?

Carolina Hidalgo: Radio Rookies is WNYC's youth media program. We work with teens and young adults to help them tell their stories. Anyone from age 14 to 24 who lives in New York City can join the program. You can go to radiorookies.org and see how to sign up for more information. We would love it if you'd listen and share our stories with your friends. Right now, our series is about-- We have three stories, so they're all loosely around the idea of home. We have one story about gentrification. Tomorrow, you'll hear from another Rookie, [unintelligible 00:03:06], about public housing. Today, Saldon's story is about the meaning of home.

Brian Lehrer: Saldon, your friend in that clip we just played said that you are the future of Tibet. What does that mean to you?

Saldon Tenzin: Yes, that's certainly right. I'm from Tibet. Tibet is a beautiful country with such rich people and culture, and it's often known as the roof of the world because of its mountain ranges and high altitude. It has a very long history, but right now, we are currently not an independent country. Ever since the 1959 national uprising, the Tibetan national uprising, they've been experiencing widespread brutality and people have had to escape Tibet and seek refuge in other places like India.

It's up to the next generations like teenagers like myself and my friends, my little brother, and my cousins to spread this story and help preserve our culture that's been taken away from us and oppressed for so long.

Brian Lehrer: You spoke with a friend in the piece about how she influenced your feelings about your shared culture. Let's take a listen to about 45 seconds of this interaction. Saldon speaks first.

Saldon Tenzin: After that, I didn't realize like, oh, she actually enjoys Losar and wearing the chubas, and I didn't really like to do that, but you kind of switched my perspective on that.

Speaker 8: I never realized I made such a big impact on you.

Saldon Tenzin: Were you always so open and proud of your heritage?

Speaker 8: Well, I think that so many children go through the same feeling of being almost ashamed of your culture and especially if it's so different from the ones that you grew up around. If you grew up in America, for example, you probably would be more influenced by American traditions rather than your own.

Brian Lehrer: Did you relate to your friend's sentiments there? Why did growing up in America make you feel somewhat ashamed of your Tibetan culture, and what did that look like in your case?

Saldon Tenzin: Since there are such little Tibetans, with that comes such little representation. Growing up as a little kid, most children have role models, and those role models are celebrities or for me, it was actresses from my favorite TV shows or my favorite cartoons, and none of them looked like me. Of course, I was growing up and watching these people that I adored and they didn't look like me, they didn't speak my language, they didn't have my traditions and my beliefs.

I think a lot of people go through this. Carolina and I actually bonded over this mutual experience that she had when she was younger with a similar thing. Since there's no representation, especially in media and movies which little kids surround themselves with, you grow up having some sort of cultural identity crisis, not knowing whether you're good enough to be the way that you are since everyone around you and everyone that you look up to don't look like that.

Brian Lehrer: Carolina, you want to talk from your perspective as senior producer of Radio Rookies, a full-time WNYC staffer, and a generation up from Saldon what that bonding was?

Carolina Hidalgo: Yes, I think it's something that's both relatable and understandable. When we first started working on Saldon's story, we were going to focus on her parents and what it took for them to build a community here in Jackson Heights and in Woodside. Then the more we talked, we did realize Saldon mentioned this, and it's in the story, she specifically had this favorite actress and she was like, "I wanted to look like her. I wanted her hair. I wanted her clothes."

I think that's something that's so relatable and what's also really relatable, and I think really beautiful though, is that it was around seventh grade, eighth grade is when Saldon said that she started trying to be more interested in her culture and more proud. That was something I could relate to also. I don't know if there's something about that age of wanting to express yourself, but growing up, I went to middle school in East Elmhurst, and around that same age, I do remember a very similar thing, just everyone starting to talk about where their parents were from and we would have bandanas with the flags of the countries and just started being more proud around that age.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting. In that clip, Saldon, you referred to or your friend referred to-- yes, it was you who referred to celebrating Losar, the Tibetan New Year's, and wearing a piece of traditional clothing. You want to describe that to us? What would somebody see if they could see you visually in that?

Saldon Tenzin: Especially on Losar, everyone wears their traditional clothing. It's called a chuba. For girls, it's a long dress and it ties like a robe in the back. It's very slim and it can be any color. It's made out of silk, it has patterns on it. When you go to places like the Tibetan Community Center on Losar, everyone around you is wearing that. I never really wanted to wear it growing up until I met my friends, especially that friend in the clip, [unintelligible 00:08:53], who loved wearing it.

That's when I really started to get that passion. It made me really happy the first time I was able to tie my chuba by myself and wear it without my parents helping me because it made me feel like, oh, I'm getting my cultural identity back. You know?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and yet, despite that you've grown to love being Tibetan, you share in your piece that you still don't feel close to your identity. Here's a clip where you talk about that a little more.

Saldon Tenzin: When I try to speak Tibetan at the dinner table, I have to interrupt myself to ask my parents how to say every other word. [Tibetan language] How do you say one in Tibetan?

Saldon's mom: [Tibetan language].

Saldon Tenzin: [Tibetan language]. I feel like I have so much to catch up on. I don't know how to cook any Tibetan dishes. I only know four prayers at best and at all the big gatherings, everyone else knows all the dances, but I don't know a single step. I want to tell myself it's because I didn't grow up in Tibet, but my parents didn't grow up in Tibet either and that didn't make them any less Tibetan.

Brian Lehrer: Why is it that not knowing things like the Tibetan language, prayers, and recipes make you feel disconnected from your roots? Or maybe that's obvious? Does a part of you wish that you grew up in Tibet instead of here in the US?

Saldon Tenzin: Of course, I wish that I was born and grew up in my own country. That, unfortunately, was not possible. I've never seen my own country. I've only seen it through Google Images. I don't really know what it looks like, what it really looks like, what the people there are like. I don't know anything. When I look at people that are older than me, my cousins, my parents, my older relatives, my Tibetan friends who kept this culture close to them, I feel almost ashamed and I feel kind of left back.

It's like when you're in an honors class and you're the only kid that gets a bad grade on the test and you're trying to catch up with all the smart kids. I felt so disconnected and also felt such deep regret that I didn't have this passion to learn more about my culture at an earlier age. That's why this Radio Rookies story was and is so valuable to me because it really helped me flush out those feelings. I recently spent a summer in India learning more about my culture, and right now, I feel closer to my culture than I ever had before.

Brian Lehrer: You want to hear from a caller who's relating to all this? Here's Armando.

Saldon Tenzin: Oh, of course.

Brian Lehrer: Armando in Nassau County. Armando, we're going to come pretty near the end of the segment soon, so we've got about 30 seconds for you, but hi.

Armando: Hi. thanks for taking my call. This story as yesterday's story by Radio Rookies has really touched a nerve for me but this one in particular. My daughter is born through surrogacy. She obviously has some-- a mixed race. I live in a predominantly white neighborhood where people want to touch her hair, ask her what her background is because of the color of her skin. She's slightly darker than the pale faces in Indian country over here.

Your story or this story just gives me so much hope that there is a sense of pride that grows in these young people to say, "This is who I am and I'm going to embrace it," so thank you.

Brian Lehrer: That's beautiful, Armando. Thank you. It must make you feel good, Saldon.

Saldon Tenzin: Oh my God, I almost shed a tear. It's great having people relate to this because for the longest time, I felt like I was almost the only one feeling this regret and this almost embarrassment. I'm so happy to say that there definitely is a light at the end of the tunnel. I never thought that I'd be able to catch up and bring back that part of me that I lost for so long, but I was able to start that journey and I hope it's the same for you. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to squeeze in one last clip because you mentioned in your piece that your parents also didn't grow up in Tibet, so we're going to hear 35 seconds of that.

Saldon's mom: [Tibetan language].

Saldon Tenzin: That's my mom. She was born in South India. Her parents fled Tibet when the Chinese government forcefully took over more than 70 years ago. Tibet is still under Chinese control. Children there have to learn Mandarin in school and people are scared to speak up about preserving our own language. They also can't display photos of our highest religious leader, the Dalai Lama.

Brian Lehrer: If Americans know anything about Tibet generally it's that, that the Dalai Lama comes from there. Oppression by China, not so much about Tibetan culture itself, which you bring us more into in this piece, and that's one of the things that makes it so great. Carolina, 10 seconds. What have you got on tap for us tomorrow? We'll do one more Radio Rookies live on the radio feature here at this time tomorrow.

Carolina Hidalgo: Tomorrow is [unintelligible 00:14:30] story. She's 17. She's from the South Bronx and she lives in public housing. She's going to talk about a program that the Housing Authority has right now. They're bringing private companies in to manage some of the buildings, so she wants to find out what that means for residents.

Brian Lehrer: Carolina Hidalgo, senior producer of Radio Rookies, Saldon Tenzin, thanks so much for joining us as a Rookie. That was awesome.

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