Juan, 25 Years Later

Radio Diaries

Radio Diaries & Radiotopia

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2021

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week we continue celebrating Radio Diaries’ 25th anniversary by catching up with Juan from the Teenage Diaries series, which first aired on NPR in 1996.

Juan was 17 when we first gave him a tape recorder and asked him to record his life for a few months. He and his family had recently come to the U.S. from Mexico, and they were living in a trailer home just half a block from the Rio Grande in Texas.

Now, 25 years later, Juan lives in Colorado, where he owns his own company and has three kids. On this episode we air his original diary and more recent conversations where he reflects on life as an undocumented person, and the complexities of the American Dream.

CW: Juan’s original diary contains a description of a dead body.

****

Radio Diaries is a small non-profit organization. We make this show with support from listeners like you. You can hear all our stories, sign up for our newsletter, and donate on our website www.radiodiaries.org. Thank you for a quarter century of support.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm David Remnikin, each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:03.9	My colleagues and I unpack what's happening in a very complicated world.
0:08.6	You'll hear from the New Yorker's award-winning reporters and thinkers, Jalani Cobb on race
0:13.2	and justice, Jill Lapor on American history, Vincent Cunningham and Geo Tolentino on culture,
0:19.1	Bill McKibbin on climate change and many more.
0:22.5	To get the context behind events in the news, listen to the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever
0:27.7	you get your podcasts.
0:31.0	Radio Topia from PRX.
0:36.0	From PRX's Radio Topia, this is Radio Diaries.
0:39.0	I'm Joe Richmond.
0:43.0	This week, we're continuing to celebrate 25 years of Radio Diaries.
0:48.0	In our last episode, we checked in with Amanda, our very first direst.
0:52.0	My parents know that I'm bisexual, but they don't talk about it much.
0:59.0	That's Amanda when she was 17.
1:01.0	Her story first aired on NPR in 1996 as part of a series called Teenage Diaries.
1:06.0	Hello, no wrong button.
1:08.0	There, hello.
1:09.0	And soon after Amanda, it was Melissa, a teen mom living on her own.
1:13.0	We would have recorded the birth, but it happened so fast.
1:19.0	Josh, who had Tourette syndrome.
1:21.0	I control what comes out of my ass better than what comes out of my mouth.
1:24.0	Frankie and Alabama.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Radio Diaries & Radiotopia, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Radio Diaries & Radiotopia and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.