Voices of youth: the city's only Latino-owned public radio station provides a place for young people to learn the art of radio, and their own potential.

In an office overlooking a busy intersection in Pilsen, Jorge Valdivia has plenty to remind him of the achievements of his radio station, Radio Arte. Across from his desk, a shelf holds about a half-dozen plaques and statues awarded to the station over the years.

Among them is a framed picture of Valdivia, the station's general manager, posing with First Lady Laura Bush. It was taken in 2003, when Valdivia led a group to Washington, D.C., to receive the "Coming Up Taller" award, which hailed the station as a national model in empowering youth through the broadcast media.

The award reflects the growing influence of Radio Arte, one of a handful of Latino-owned public radio stations in the country. For more than nine years, it has provided a place for young people to learn the art of radio through a one-year program that trains them on the basics of broadcast journalism and production.

On the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Radio Arte's programming runs the gamut. "La Femme," for instance, is one of the station's flagship programs that reports on women's issues. "Homofrecuencia," which received a special honor from Mayor Richard M. Daley in 2004, is devoted to covering gay and lesbian issues.

Valdivia says these programs, which students help develop and produce, exemplify the station's willingness to take on the issues considered "taboo that the bigger stations are never going to talk about."

Chris Davila, 18, who works at Starbucks in addition to producing and hosting "LaFemme," said she appreciates the opportunity to research and write her own stories on community issues. "I actually learned more about the community," she said. "Not that I was blind--I just didn't care. Radio Arte opened my eyes more."

Valdivia himself began his career at the station as a student. In 1995, when the station was called WCYC, Valdivia, then 21, signed up for training classes, which were so poorly run that he essentially taught himself to use the radio equipment.

A year later, the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum bought the station to run as part of its youth initiative. Valdivia was brought on board to help transform the station from one that just played "cool rock en Espanol" to a "program that trains youth to become communicators, to mobilize and talk about issues," he said.

Valdivia recently talked with The Chicago Reporter about Radio Arte.

How did you get involved with the station?

Before it was Radio Arte, I was a listener of the station. I just remember listening when I was like 20 years old and thinking how different and fresh and innovative the programming sounded. I could tell it was different from the other radio stations but, being a very uninformed listener, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. And then it dawned on me that there were no commercials. And the music-I was able to identify with it because it was youth-focused. So, one day as I was listening, I heard about the classes and I joined.

When I started out, I'll be honest, I thought, 'Oh, I have all these great ideas for radio. When I get my own radio program, I'm going to be playing this kind of music because nobody else plays it.' And I think that's what a lot of the students here think. But, as I grew older, that mentality evolved. It did evolve because I started a documentary on Latinos with HIV and MDS. That was the very first time we had done a program like that. It was me and a couple of other students from the station, and we were interviewing people who were HIV-positive. I remember sitting in this room interviewing people who were talking about what it meant for them to be HIV-positive, to be Latino, all these different things. And I walked out of there really emotional--the three of us did. And we weren't prepared for that experience.

But that was a turning point for me because I realized it was much more about the information you provide your listeners with than the music. When I sat in the studio putting the programs together, I thought about how powerful the message was going to be. It really was about the radio, about music, but it became much more than that. The reasons for being involved with the radio station became much more meaningful. It went beyond the music. It was more so about the information we were providing and the potential to help educate people about issues that were impacting us as Latinos, as young people.

I learned so much, and I am so happy that I did. The station has grown, and I've grown with it. I was a young person who was merely curious about radio and, when I became involved in the radio station, I began to understand the potential of radio--the power that radio can have on people, communities, how it can influence people to mobilize, to come together, to advocate, to do all these different things, and how interwoven radio is in our everyday lives. I realized how much responsibility we carry on our shoulders as young broadcasters, because, when you're behind the mic, you can do one of two things: You can go on the air and say nothing in 15 seconds, or you can go on the air and you can speak about who you are as a young person, as a Latino, as a woman, as a gay or lesbian, as an immigrant. And that carries so much power in it. When you speak about your experiences, other people identify with you, and that's how communities are built. When we listen to the radio, we want to identify with what we're hearing.

What does the radio station mean to the community?

It means a lot to the community. We're the only Latino-owned public radio station in Chicago. When you look at public radio as a whole here in this country, it's sad to say that there are only about 15 that are Latino-owned. So here we're in a metropolitan area where you have Latinos, African Americans--everything. And yet the voices of youth somehow get lost within the mix of all these different things. So I think we're a very important resource. I mean, if you want to be very blunt, you can look at other Spanish-language radio stations. They're not going to talk about women's issues; they're not going to talk about gentrification; they're sure as hell not going to talk about gays and lesbians, unless it's a joke. So here you have this one resource that is showing the other side, and I think that's very valuable to the community.

What are students getting out of the program?

I've seen students evolve. When they first come into the station, they might be shy, or they might be quite the contrary-they might be very outspoken and ready to do this and that. But I think that everybody sort of learns how to tell their story, tell the story about their communities. And they learn how to work together-which is very important. And we're constantly telling them that they have the power to speak to the masses.

Not everybody has that chance, unfortunately. I mean, you're talking about young people between the ages of 15 and 21 who are given the opportunity to go on the air, given the opportunity to come in and do research on different stories they want to tell, given the opportunity to go out there and interview people, to come back and put all these different things together so that they can present them to their community. And I think that, when you give them the opportunity to do something that requires a lot of responsibility, for the most part, almost all of them get it. They understand it. They grasp what we're doing and what they're doing.

I see the different classes that start and I see so much potential in all these young people. And I can't help but remember the days when I started at the station and I was one of those students. Now the station's out there getting national recognition. We've been to the White House, and we got an award from Mayor Daley. I think we've come a long way.