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The smokestacks of chemical factories tower over western Contra Costa County, in California, puffing yellow plumes night and day. Toxic spills sometimes force evacuation of whole neighborhoods. In others, gangs patrol littered streets scrawled with graffiti. Sipfou Saechao, a Laotian born in Thailand, was only four when she moved to this careworn corner of the San Francisco Bay Area. Her father had just died; her mother spoke no English. The family was so impoverished that Sipfou's brother was left with an aunt in Sacramento. But in this wretched environment, against all these obstacles, Sipfou has not only flourished but become a leader.
Soft-voiced, with downcast eyes and a toothy smile, Sipfou, 17, can still giggle like a girl, but her words are those of a woman. Last spring she took a hard look at her high school and saw racism: the student body at Richmond High is 45% Hispanic, almost one-quarter Asian, one-quarter black and 6% white. Fights among students are sometimes so violent that administrators are forced to search people with metal detectors. "Kids look at you funny if you hang with someone who's different from you," says Sipfou. "My friends and I didn't see any reason why people of different races shouldn't hang together. So we started a club at school that's mixed."
All Colors Together in One Nation began with half a dozen members and now claims more than 40, about as many as will fit into a classroom during lunch break. "It just kind of brings down the tensions," says Eva Morris, 16, an African American. The club's popularity soared when Sipfou began publishing a newsletter, called ACTION. The students write about changes they want to make at school. Articles by teachers demonstrate that they care. "She hasn't quite reached the masses," says history teacher Graig Crossley. "But she's making a difference. She's broken the ice."
Last summer Sipfou volunteered with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, a community agency, to help alert poor Laotian immigrants, who catch their own fish and grow their own vegetables, to the dangers of the area's toxic soil and water.
With summers spent tackling hazardous waste, and lunchtimes taken up with racial tensions, Sipfou spends her evenings tutoring other students. The need is great: about 30% of her school's freshman class began last year with third-grade skills.
Sipfou hopes to become a teacher or a writer, and she has already reaped bounty with her pen. As a competitor in this year's React magazine teen-activism contest, she was required to write an essay. She won $25,000 in merchandise to donate to the charity of her choice. She chose three: an elementary school where she has tutored, a day-care center for the children of students at Richmond High and a program for homeless students. --Reported by Laird Harrison/San Pablo
MARKED BY MAGIC A high school club creates an urban oasis
Sheila Roberts, a community leader in Camden, N.J., looks around the tidy little park between 8th and 9th streets in town, smiles and spreads her arms wide. "This is an oasis," she rejoices.