Profile: Victoria Liu

By Tiffany Eng


To Victoria Liu, being American is driving down a long stretch of road, Route 66 style. Its blacktop with yellow dotted lines calls her name and the wind swims around her in a beat-up old van.

Being American is nibbling down on some corn on the cob and mashed potatoes while her friends in the background sing her a version of “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga.

Liu was born and raised American in Roanoke, Va. She had a younger brother, two parents and friends — the only difference was her background.

Liu’s father grew up in Hong Kong, and that has changed who she is and how her life is diverse.

Her parents are from two completely different places with two completely different backgrounds but their one similarity? How they grew up. Both of Liu’s parents had what could be considered a hard life, she said.

Siuying Liu was growing up in an orphanage while Rebecca Liu, a Caucasian from Roanoke, was experiencing a troubled home life that included the worse kind of neglect and poverty.

"Compassion," Liu said when asked what her parents' childhoods had taught her.

In the summer of eighth grade, Liu's parents provided the opportunity for her to travel to Paris with E.F. Tours, where students across the country go to exotic places. With almost 40 other students accompanying her, Liu traveled to Paris, a place that her parents never had the chance to visit at her young age.

As a child, Rebecca Liu told her daughter that in her day, the only jobs that women could get was as a librarian, a teacher, a nurse or a stay-at-home mother. She described the feeling of being given a once in a lifetime opportunity as a sense of appreciation.

It was "a moment," Liu described, "gradual maturity" to realize how lucky she was to do so much in her life that her parents had not been able to do in theirs.

Liu can’t say she knows what it is like to grow up in such a difficult manner, but she knows what it is like to be loved and proud to be a true American.

Liu has always considered herself American, first and foremost, she said. Despite the fact that she has experienced Chinese culture through gifts and food, she has always regretted not having been more immersed in what her father has brought into her life, she said.

“Being American gives you a sense of freedom,” said Liu.

She explained that in the Chinese culture, children experience only what their parents want, whereas in America, children are able to explore their own likes and dislikes for themselves.

The sense of justice and pride are among her feelings of the American heritage that she shares with millions of others, and she remains proud to be an American.

Profile: Shaniqua Anderson

By Jamaica Pannell

Eyes crumpled and soaked in the tint of fury, fists unquestionable and prepared to strike -- this was how Shaniqua Anderson proclaimed her resentment in her past. It made it hard for students in class to even want to speak to her.

“I can’t stand you! Leave me alone,” she said. “Get up out of my face.” She doesn't remember how her friends responded.

But this young woman has been transformed.

Her poetry is a tension reliever for anger, she said.

Anderson, 16, felt very misunderstood because she says she felt like she didn't belong. She also noted that teenagers just didn't understand her and were too quick to judge. She wants to be heard, to be the center of attention and to be noticed, she said.

In her ninth grade English class at William Byrd High School, Anderson was assigned to work with two girls doing a poetry project that would be due in a couple of days. The girls would illustrate the images, and Anderson was to concentrate on the poetry verses.

She doesn't remember what set her off, but the amount of anger built into her was "unthinkable," she said. Her anger ruined multiple relationships, got her into lots of dilemmas and made her a bully.

After the poetry writing began, the changes worked well. Her mind went through a phase that is so hard to understand without the true experience and love to write, she said.

"I learned how to be respectful to myself as well as to others," Anderson said. "I had a huge heartfelt type of change. I could never go back to the way I was before." She became a new person.

“Things go right for so long, until you doubt the direction you took, and then everything goes wrong,” Anderson said after the change.

Later, she committed to writing poetry as a hobby. A poem of hers is called "Girl You Fake, Get Real."

Profile: Nephertitti Gray

By Bianca Moorman


Nephartitti Gray, 16, said that she thinks journalism is alright.

She has been writing poems and short stories since she was 9 or 10 years old.

She writes poems about random things, and there are reasons why.

Writing poems and stories help her to " release a lot of stress."
It helps Gray to express her feelings without hurting other people's feelings.

Gray writes poems about family and draws pictures, she said.She colors her pictures, too.The drawings tie into the poems and the stories that she writes.

In one of her stories, she wrote about why things happen in life, she said.

She wrote a poem for a competition at her school, and that the poem was based on one her short stories.

Gray said that she won second place for a poem that she had written, and the reward was that her poem was published in the school newspaper.

Only one person has read her poems and stories, and that person really liked them, she said. That person was her sister Aaliyah Gray, who is 13. Nephartitti said that her sister is the only whom she can trust with her personal business. She said that she is shy because she doesn't want everybody to know her business.

Gray goes to Northside High School in Roanoke, Va. Journalism might be a interest to her,but the career that she really wants to do is to be an anesthesiologist.