The highlight of the day was the two-hour
performance put on by the teens, in which they boldly laid out a host
of issues they face through dramatic skits, spoken word pieces,
speeches and song. The audience was alternately moved to hollers and
silence by the powerful presentations, which once again touched on
issues such as gang violence, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, and
immigration.

The recession was one notable new theme that
snaked its way through the skits and performances. While the bulk of
media coverage seems to cover the issue from an adult perspective, the
teens on stage made clear just how much the economic downturn is
affecting them.

One skit depicted students losing a young,
promising teacher due to lay-offs. Another showed a young girl forced
to look after her unemployed, drug-dependent mother. When the mother
finally does seek help, she discovers the shortage of substance abuse
resources available in Somerville. The skit referenced the closing of
the detox unit at Somerville Hospital, which will shut down in June due
to the Cambridge Health Alliance's significant loss of state funding.

In
a spoken word performance, Bendhjy Nazaire illustrated another problem
faced by teens in a down economy: competing with adults for menial
jobs.

"Application after application,

But still no replies,

Turns out all that stuff in the news wasn't just lies.

Jobs that used to go to teens,

Is now being taken by college grads with degrees?

Degrees? How we supposed to battle with degrees?

When most of us don't have high school diplomas or even GEDs?

Can't even get a job at Mickey D's.

Now I'm not telling stores who to hire or who to deal wit,

But the thing is their biggest customers are kids,

So why aren't we first on their hiring list?"

As
Nazaire's story shows, the spike in layoffs in recent months has
translated to newly laid off workers and recent college graduates, who
may face a shrinking pool of job opportunities in their own fields,
going after jobs traditionally held by teenagers. Nationwide, teenage
unemployment has grown twice as fast as overall unemployment in the
past year, reaching 21.6% in February, compared to the overall
unemployment rate of 8.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What happens when teens find themselves with fewer activities
and jobs to keep them busy after school? Students' sketches depicted
the pressures to skip class and wander the streets, and their personal
battle to stay engaged.

When Tyler Holmes, an SHS freshman,
asked the audience members to stand up if they had "ever experienced
violence in East Somerville", you could feel auditorium rise to its
feet. They rose again to their feet moments later when asked to "stand
up if you are proud of where you live."

"Because of the actions of a few," Holmes said, "East Somerville has gained a reputation for being associated with violence."

A
hush fell on the crowd when Terrell Walton took the microphone. Walton
was only 15 years old when he left paralyzed by a gang-related shooting
in Boston. "I thought I was invincible," he said, addressing the
audience from his wheelchair. The boy who shot him was sentenced to 14
years in prison, but his life as he knew it was gone, Walton said,
urging those in the audience to learn from his poor choices of gang
involvement.

Tension over the Somerville Police force's handling
of gang and youth issues also emerged as a significant issue among
youths. SHS student Nick Texeira spoke about how the trust he developed
through police-youth dialogues was eroded by a recent experience with
the police. He said that even though he was respectful to the officers
and admitted wrongdoing, he was sworn at, charged with assault, and
wrongly accused by police officers of being in a Latino gang.

"I
am not and never have been a member of a gang," Texeira said. "And I am
not even Latino, I am Portuguese," he said, evoking chuckles from the
crowd.

Texeira is also friends with the six SHS students who
made news in March when they were falsely accused by Somerville Police
Officers of being gang leaders, with no other cause than that they are
young and Latino.

When Mayor Curtatone took the stage to
speak, he addressed the issue of police relations, admitting to the
audience that "clearly, after what we've seen in recent weeks, we still
have a long way to go." When Curtatone urged the audience to
acknowledge that the police are trying to do a good job and protect
them, he was met with some loud jeers, highlighting the tension and
skepticism present in the young crowd.

With the struggles that
teens face, the necessity of a support system was made clear at the
conference, but this is something that may prove elusive for the many
new Somerville immigrants. Felicia Affua Abbuah spoke of the struggle
of adjusting to a new land in a spoken-word piece titled "Foster Care".

"Friends
and family made it easier to cope with the hardships of life," she
said. "Now we're here, in a place where the seasons change and the wind
blows cold as ice, where the doors are locked and windows closed, where
there's no sight of a friend or family, to help us cope with starting a
new life."

With such candid personal narratives, the event
fostered a sense of community and disclosure. During the Hope and
Healing Ceremony that followed the performances, the microphone was
open to anyone who wanted to dedicate a rose to those who have been
lost, and those working toward positive change. Youths approached the
microphone, some declaring their aversion for public speaking, to share
their personal struggles, from teen parenthood to poverty to just
fitting in. Speaking in front of a large crowd about these issues might
have been unthinkable for these students without the dialogue that the
performance had opened, allowing them to open up to their peers and
flout taboos.