This interview aired in the February 5, 2026 episode of Crosscurrents.
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Young people in the Bay Area are outspoken and politically involved, but many say they’re not taken seriously by their local governments.
For instance, a recent survey revealed that nearly 70 percent of youth in Palo Alto say they have no idea what their City Council does…and they don’t feel heard by the city’s leadership.
But some young people are working hard to change that.
Recently KALW’s Johanna Miyaki hosted a youth empowerment summit called ‘Power the Future’ It was at our live Event Space in Downtown San Francisco. And it brought together young people from all over the Bay Area to discuss what matters to them as we head into the midterm elections.
The summit took place the day after thousands of Bay Area residents took part in a National Day of Action, including walk outs and protests against Federal Immigration officers. Many of those actions were led by students.
Ruth Sosa Martinez is a policy strategist at Power California, she opened the summit with these remarks:
Ruth Sosa Martinez: I know a lot of us are fighting to build communities that us and our families and our neighbors feel safe in. And that our future generations really do deserve. We’ve been seeing youth leadership for decades. And there’s a lot of examples of youth leadership today. And we saw that yesterday when young people all across the country led walk outs and organizing efforts to say, 'Hey ice you need to get out of our campuses, you need to get out of our schools and our communities.' And it’s really youth like you that led me to want to be part of that work.
16-year-old Charlie Zeitlin from the Palo Alto Youth Council was also part of the summit.
KALW News Editor Sunni Khalid spoke to him about what matters to the next generation of voters in Silicon Valley.
