I watched the man throw firecrackers into the street. As the explosive bangs fizzled out and the Cantonese tunes in the local stores could be heard again, I approached him – my first target. 

 

I interviewed Raymond for my new podcast, Exploring the City. It was my first time recording a podcast, and I was anxious to approach a random person on the street for an interview. After a lengthy conversation, I learned he set off fireworks for the first day of Lunar New Year’s. He aimed to celebrate the culture of his ancestors in Chinatown. What inspired me, though, was stories from his childhood growing up in this neighborhood and what the ethnic conclave meant to him. Multiple Chinese-American families were stacked within the layers of apartment buildings, connected – not by blood – but by their shared culture. To visitors, Chinatown is a place to grab fortune cookies or a shrimp dumpling, but to him, childhood memories linger within the pagoda-like buildings. 

 

As a student journalist, I envisioned producing a podcast unraveling the unseen stories of San Francisco, a city brimming with diversity. This first interaction was a catalyst for my journey into the heart of the city’s multifaceted tapestry. While filled with a startling amount of tech companies, it’s also a melting pot of robust social communities. I’ve read statistics about diversity, but I was curious to understand the people behind these numbers and how each piece of the city’s puzzle fit together to create a diverse whole. 

 

I roamed into a bookstore in the Castro, a district known as the former gay mecca of the US. While searching for my latest read, I met the clerk, a gay, former movie star who told me stories about his days in Drag and Indie films. A tattoo artist in Haight Ashbury enlightened me about how the Beat Generation shaped the music culture of well-known artists. I was excited that an iconic band, the Grateful Dead, started in that neighborhood. In the Mission, I listened to a Latina woman share the perils the locals were facing from gentrification. 

 

After recording, I came home and began to edit, struggling to piece the stories together. Creating a podcast felt drastically different from writing an article; instead of reporting on a certain topic like I did when writing a news piece, I was sharing someone’s story. I was confused about what to do with all the various clips. However, as I tackled editing the audio clips and created a narration for my podcast, I fell in love with how this format of storytelling because of the creative freedom that came with it, matching natural sound effects to what the speaker was saying and choosing cultural music relevant to each neighborhood. Editing each episode felt like locking into an artistic endeavor, with each episode improving as I learned about podcasting techniques. 

 

I had to truly comprehend the topics of the articles to edit the story and illustrate the narratives, which helped me to understand how each neighborhood thrives. I had a favorite question to close every conversation: “How does this neighborhood contribute to San Francisco’s diversity?” Everyone had a testament to their neighborhood’s contributions, whether it be the Mission's influence on the artistic scene across the city because of their mural filled with social commentary, or how Castro paved the way in making San Francisco a safe haven for the LGBTQ+ community. Interacting with many perspectives made me realize the innate necessity for community – we thrive and problem-solve when we cluster and put our minds together. 

 

By engaging with my environment this way, I discovered the importance of stepping outside my comfort zone. Approaching strangers on the street was anxiety-inducing, but I knew as a journalist, this should be a key skill for me. The only way to improve was through practice, repetition, and more experiences. I gained confidence in approaching unfamiliar situations and meeting new people. It paid off – I grew to love interacting with communities as I roamed, conversing off the record.

 

I frequently reminisce about the level of confidence I have gained from journalism, whether through my podcast or interviewing people for articles and the growth that comes with confronting anxiety for the sake of creative endeavors. I flourished from being the girl in the back of the classroom writing novels of fantasy creatures in Google Docs to sharing the stories she's been writing with her community. I transformed from being too anxious to speak to my classmates and keeping all my thoughts in a diary to sharing these thoughts with the world through opinion pieces and editorials. 

 

Being a journalist isn't just a title to me; it's now an identity. I embrace the identity of being a storyteller and a narrator of the world. I want to change the narrative by reporting the full truth to the world around me, using my writing to become a voice for the unheard, and experiencing the world through the lenses of those I interview. I want to contribute to this change in any way I can, whether through editing impactful feature stories throughout the year as the managing editor or going out and writing these stories myself. 

 

Through my experiences reporting, I've realized journalism is a way to reflect the world's complexities and ensure all voices are valued. In addition, editing for complex features ranging from profiles of unique immigrants to stories about parents who endured the adversity of raising children on the autism spectrum has further enhanced this view. The world is complex, and the stories of people you may see every day turn out to be special-- no one is mundane in this world. Applying these principles, I encountered a multitude of perspectives on the streets and while editing, and I have gained a firm belief in the value of embracing diversity within the realm of journalism, and beyond.