A Window on the World : A Jefferson High School student is discovering new parts of the city through journalism. And she talks about how she has survived in her own neighborhood. : ANA VASQUEZ

When we were at the University of North Carolina we ate, we breathed and we drank journalism. I enjoyed it a lot. I discovered a lot of things about myself--how much I missed my family and how much I could learn from other people. The other students were from different states, and yet we all had something in common--a love for journalism.

Sometimes, I find more adults read El Original than teen-agers--maybe because they’re interested to know what we think. I’ve gotten a lot of remarks from teen-agers, saying, “You’re doing a good job.”

We have about 12 people on staff. We have a translator, editor and an adviser, who is Lydia Ramos. We work six hours a week during the school year. If you want to write a story, you write it in English. Whoever is good in Spanish will translate that story.

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I’ve worked on an interview with Sandra Cisneros, a Chicana writer. I interviewed Palmer (Junior) Lee Usher, who has been working for 55 years at the Sentinel, the black-owned newspaper here on Central Avenue. We did a section on Central Avenue, how it was back in the ‘20s and ‘30s. I worked on a story about a piece of land that was donated to the city of Los Angeles so that people could grow their own vegetable gardens and bring their own food home.

The one I enjoyed doing the most was an AIDS story. I interviewed Jennifer Michelle. She attended Hollywood High School and was HIV-positive. I went through so much trouble to get the story, calling people, calling clinics, calling AIDS centers, until I finally got the person I interviewed. People didn’t want to reveal the names of teen-agers who had HlV.

When I interviewed her, she was on her way to Cal State Long Beach. She was still in pretty good health. She found out about two years ago that she had contracted the AIDS virus through sexual intercourse. She didn’t know exactly who she got it from.

Teen-agers probably talk about AIDS, but they are not very well-informed because they’re afraid to ask or because they are embarrassed to ask. It’s not that they don’t want to take precautions. It’s just that they are ignorant.

I have a lot of friends who are sexually active. I have a lot of teen friends who are already pregnant and have kids right now, and I think those teen-agers are the main ones who are at risk.

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My mom, who works at home sewing, was really excited when my brother decided to go to college, and now that I will be the second one, she’s happy. The way she sees it, we’re following through on what she couldn’t do because she only went to the third grade in Mexico.

It’s a big family. There’s three brothers, two sisters and myself. It was definitely a lot of responsibility because my mom was always working to give us as much as she could.

The way I see it, everybody gets the education that they want. If you really want an education, you find it yourself. You always find one teacher who really cares, and will tell you to follow whatever you want to do.

I hope I can eventually go to a paper like (The Times’) Nuestro Tiempo.

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Whenever I go to school, I don’t think about surviving that day, or not making it out, or getting killed. If I see someone who maybe is a gang member, instead of feeling unsure or unsafe, I kind of feel sorry for that person because maybe it’s not their fault. It was just the way they were raised, or something that led them to take that route. Instead of being afraid, I try to help whenever I can.

I’m always hearing on the news how dangerous South-Central is. Sometimes, I’m really scared to go home late at night. But it’s become so much the way of living that I don’t think about it anymore. Somebody might see it as odd.

The riots affected me very much. I saw a couple of businesses around my neighborhood burned. For me, it affected me more emotionally. It made me very sad that people don’t think about what the results might be.

There was a point during those days where I simply shut myself from the reality. I tried to not think about it so much. I turned off the TV, and I just went in my room. I was so saddened by what I was seeing.

The damage has been done already. All you can do is continue your life. There are some plans to rebuild L.A. but I think the damage that is there will stay with me forever, because I lived through it.