High School Students Do Their Part to Make a Difference

Their budding political activism may have been sparked by a dedicated teacher, a passionate parent or a personal brush with adversity. Whatever the catalyst, these four teen-age activists share the same conviction--that they can make a difference in the world.

Elizabeth Tobias, 18, is never without her battered Daytimer calendar.

On a recent day at Chatsworth High School, the busy senior and her nine Thespian Troupe colleagues sit down to business with brown bag lunches. Between bites of cold chicken, broccoli and fruit, Tobias dispatches 19 projects in which the club is involved.

Petite, with brown hair and level hazel eyes, she is businesslike and extremely articulate, especially about AIDS Project Los Angeles, a nonprofit group that provides support to victims of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

During the meeting of the Thespian Troupe, of which she is president, she tries to organize a volunteer day to do the sort of never-ending work of groups such as AIDS Project Los Angeles: stuffing envelopes, drafting appeals for money, writing legislators.

Tobias has been involved in AIDS Project Los Angeles for more than a year. She also works for Amnesty International, Vietnam Veterans of America, Child Help USA and the Spastic Children’s Foundation.

“There’s nothing altruistic or philosophical about it,” she says. “I’m Jewish by culture, but . . . there are no religious motivations at all. I just have a really big mouth, and I like to express my opinions.”

Last summer, Tobias was galvanized into a more intense commitment to one of her causes. Her best friend was gravely injured in an auto accident and spent two months in a coma. The friend, who is now recovering, had been deeply involved in AIDS Project Los Angeles.

“Before the accident, I was always saying it was something I wanted to do. After, it was ‘No, I’m going to do it.’ I was sort of doing it for both of us.”

Tobias’ activism was further stimulated by her social studies teacher, Ed Burke, a 22-year veteran of Chatsworth High, who believes in exposing students to the political process and sends them to school board and City Council meetings.

“He forces you to get involved, and that’s good,” says Tobias. “But it’ll still go on for me after classes are over.”

Each time an AIDS-related bill goes before the state Legislature, she helps AIDS Project Los Angeles members deluge the Assembly with supportive letters.

“It’s really a small thing writing letters, but I hope to write enough letters to get a bill passed to make people aware enough to stop AIDS. It’s almost like buying time for science . . . to find a cure.”

Tobias might have turned out shy like her sister or absorbed like her “workaholic” father, whose small business keeps him under tight rein. “My family is liberal-minded . . . but they’re not involved. My mother works, and she’s very home-oriented, very family-oriented.”

But Tobias always sought an outlet in activism. At one time, she tried debating and didn’t like it, and her opposition to year-round schools withered. When she became active in the AIDS battle, she knew she would stay with it until progress was made.

“You have to give people the tools” to deal with AIDS, she said. “It is a preventable disease. People have to know.

“But, first, you have to convert yourself. You have to believe in what you’re saying and you have to get involved for the right reason: You’ve got to want to change something.”

Even though he must spend several hours each day riding a bus from Chinatown to Granada Hills High School, 17-year-old Joe Pan still finds time to participate in a staggering range of activities.

The Canton native is active in Students Against Drunk Driving, his school’s Peer Assistance Center and the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He is also a member of the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council, a group of 35 high school and college students who serve as liaisons between City Hall and young people in each of the 15 council districts.

“I’m not a typical immigrant,” says Pan. “I don’t see a lot of Chinese immigrants who can be here two or three years and go out into the community and do something. When they come here, they have culture shock, they have language problems and family problems. . . .” Chinese immigrants often “don’t get involved in the community. They just hang around with other Asians.”

Pan, who has been in the United States two years, credits the Permission With Transportation program for his rapid assimilation. “Granada Hills is in the San Fernando Valley, and most of the students are white. . . . If I went to Belmont, I would hang around with other Chinese immigrants.” Located downtown, Belmont High has a large population of Asian students.

“When I came here,” he recalls, “I didn’t speak well enough, they couldn’t understand me, so they put me in low classes.” He now has a 3.5 grade point average.

Pan speaks intensely of the desolation and anxiety of new Chinese immigrants.

He said he would like to set up a Chinatown Service Center program to help immigrants “get skills, make a living. Lots of Chinatown kids can’t get a job any place other than Chinatown, only in restaurants. That’s low pay, long hours. Maybe if they could learn English, improve their skills. . . .”

Pan’s desire to improve life for fellow immigrants is fueled by a combination of his own difficult experiences and parental guidance. His father was removed from his teaching post at a major Chinese university during the Cultural Revolution for his “unreconstructed” views. In this country, he encourages his son to get involved.

Says Pan: “He gives me a vision to live up to.”

Esther Neil, 17, rises early on a recent Saturday to catch the bus from her North Hollywood home. She takes it to the sleepy weekend heart of Los Angeles, to the peaked dome of City Hall.

Inside the empty building, express elevators are still except to carry Neil and her colleagues to the 22nd-floor conference room of the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council. Neil stays until well past noon, reporting on youth activities in Councilman Michael Woo’s 13th District, absorbing a lecture on the Constitution, mapping forums and planning youth award ceremonies.

Neil is learning to navigate the political system she has been fascinated with since elementary school. Her goals are to help end youth drug abuse and suicide, work in education and improve the image of Hispanics.

An identity crisis played a large part in Neil’s political awakening. “My father is white, and I wanted to be white like him, and I turned out brown . . . my mother is Mexican,” she says. “For a while, I . . . hated being brown.” Hispanics, she says, especially Mexicans, are joked about as being lazy and stupid.

Her parents’ kindness sustained her through the confusion. “Mom and Dad never put me down; they would never do that. They’re very supportive.”

Then, last summer, she attended a Chicano-Latino youth conference in Sacramento, met state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) and Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp. And something relaxed inside her.

“I learned to like myself the way I was. I used to care what people said about me. . . . I used to get good grades to please my parents. Finally, I realized I don’t have to do anything. My parents love me anyway. Of course, it hurts sometimes . . . remarks, jokes. But now I don’t expect to go through life being praised. I just want to change people’s perceptions. Hispanics are not stupid, not dumb.”

In the future, she says, “I want to work in government, where one person can make a difference.”

Lanky and personable Tyri Williams is an inveterate wisecracker in Gregg Solkovits’ advanced-placement government class at Monroe High School in Sepulveda. At 16, he is a younger-than-average senior because he skipped the first grade.

In class, Solkovits insists that his students try to see themselves as part of the political process.

Williams embodies his government teacher’s philosophy. He is vice president of his school’s chapter of Senior Statesmen of America, a statewide mock government program that familiarizes high school students with the governmental process. He writes articles and editorials for the school newspaper and sends letters to Congress about the two issues that interest him most: the budget deficit and arms escalation.

Williams is enrolled in a program called REACH, which counsels and tutors promising minority students. He become involved in debate and surprised himself by how well he defended abortion in one competition, even though he is moderate to conservative on most issues.

“Mr. Solkovits kept pushing that I could do something myself , that I could change things,” he says. And that finally got through to him.

He began to see the world differently. “To know what’s going on is to know what affects my life--what I can’t do and why I can’t do it.”

He worries about “the elderly trying to live on $150 a month, people on welfare, on Social Security. They’re all suffering.” He is interested in the Jesse Jackson campaign, but not just because Jackson is black. Jackson “recognizes the need for social programs. But he hasn’t said enough about the deficit.”

Williams hopes to study law and someday own his own firm. He also wants to set an example for his 9-year-old brother: “If he really wants to make something of himself, he has to work for it. But if he’s sincere, he can do it. . . . I want to let him know that. Being black is not a hindrance to involvement; it’s something you can use to make yourself better.”