As the child of refugees from Vietnam, Vanessa “Vanni” Le held two very important jobs for most of her youth: interpreter and advocate for her parents. “There are people out there who would judge my parents’ intelligence based on the way they speak English,” said Le, who was born in Orange County, California and moved to Tampa, Florida when she was 7. "It was really frustrating to see them...
Arianne Edmonds is a 5th generation Angeleno and founder of the J.L. Edmonds Project, an initiative dedicated to preserving the legacy of The Liberator newspaper, one of Los Angeles’ earliest newspapers, and Black Angeleno history and culture.
As one of the recipients of the 2020–’21 Annenberg Innovation Lab Civic Media Fellowship, Edmonds has been able to “find her tribe.” The...
Ever since he attended the High School for Innovation in Advertising and Media in his native Brooklyn, Jermaine Anthony Richards was on track for a career in advertising. For his undergraduate studies at the City University of New York, he focused on computer science and application software development, with an eye toward building interactive experiences for brands.
But it wasn’t...
“Radical change is what we need, but what does radical truly mean?”
Hector Amaya , who serves both as director of the School of Communication and as associate dean of diversity, inclusion, equity and access (DIEA), posed this critical question to USC Annenberg faculty this past summer.
“Radical” means “roots,” Amaya...
As the world marks International Women’s Day, for women in the music industry, a new study reveals that for women in music, there is little to celebrate when it comes to industry change.
The fourth annual iteration of the “ Inclusion in the Recording Studio? ” report was conducted by...
Fifty years ago, on March 4, 1971, the Annenberg School was established at the University of Southern California. To mark this milestone, USC Life Trustee Wallis Annenberg as well as former deans Peter Clarke ,...
Ever since she was a young girl, Megan V. Green was determined to create DIY hair care products using easily available kitchen provisions, like eggs and honey, that would help her embrace the beauty of her natural hair. By the time she was 13, Green was getting paid to style hair in her neighborhood; during her high school years, she spent time working in a salon. By 2015, she was sharing her...
This story was originally published on USC Online and is republished here with permission.
Athena Fleming, a former Coast Guard petty officer and student in the online Master of Communication Management program, dreamed of attending USC after attending basketball camps taught by alumna Cheryl Miller....
