PBS NewsHour full episode May 15, 2018

JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: We're on the ground in Gaza, as protests turn to funerals -- the human toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli troops in one of the most violent days on the border in years.

Then: helping first-generation students succeed - - how UCLA is mentoring students through the unique challenges of being the first in the family to attend college.

And the second part in our series focusing on the growing rate of depression on college campuses -- tonight, students speak out about their own struggles in hopes of helping others.

VICTOR MORALES, MIT Graduate: I thought, everybody gets stressed out, and everybody freezes when they're stressed out.

But I slept through an exam, and I didn't even feel like even e-mailing the professor, because I felt so much shame.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."

(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: There was more violence along the Israeli border with Gaza today, but less than yesterday's explosive reactions to the opening of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.

At least two Palestinians died as a result of Israeli gunfire.

World reaction included protests in and beyond the Muslim world, ambassador expulsions, and staunch U.S. support of Israel's actions.

Nick Schifrin has our first report.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In Gaza, today was for burying the dead, nearly 60 funerals in 24 hours, the deadliest day since the 2014 war.

At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the wounded overwhelm the small staff who's chronically short of beds and supplies.

In Ramallah, on the West Bank, young men threw stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli troops.

Israelis fired tear gas.

Palestinians call today the Nakba, or catastrophe, the date 70 years ago when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or fled their ancestral homes, on the day Israel was created.

Moustafa Barghouti is a prominent Palestinian politician.

MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI, Palestinian Parliament Member: We are here to say that this Israeli oppression will not break our will or our popular resistance.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, the flags are flying above the new U.S. Embassy.

In Jewish West Jerusalem, residents displayed signs thanking President Trump.

But from South Africa to Turkey, protesters criticized what they called an Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.

Turkey's prime minister called for Muslim countries to unite against Israel.

BINALI YILDIRIM, Turkish Prime Minister (through translator): I am inviting all faith groups, all politicians to be a united heart against the tyranny.

Muslim countries should review their ties with Israel.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Today, Turkey expelled Israel's ambassador, Israel responded in kind.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement responding to criticism from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: "A man whose hands are drenched in the blood of countless Kurdish civilians in Turkey and Syria is the last one who can preach to us about military ethics."

In London, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson criticized both Israel and the militant group Hamas that runs Gaza.

BORIS JOHNSON, British Foreign Secretary: I am deeply saddened by the loss of life in Gaza, where peaceful protesters are being exploited by extremists.

I urge Israel to show restraint in the use of live fire.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But the U.S. stood firm.

Only Hamas was to blame for the Gaza violence, said U.S.

Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley.

NIKKI HALEY, U.S.

Ambassador to the United Nations: For some people, the embassy opening is said to be a reason to engage in violence.

How is that justified?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Instead of blaming the U.S. Embassy opening, the world should focus on Iran, said Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon.

DANNY DANON, Israeli Ambassador to the United States: Iran is supporting the riots in Gaza.

We regret every casualty.

When we saw those pictures, we regret that, but they are being used by the Hamas.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour said Palestinians are expressing genuine frustration, and he asked for the world's help.

RIYAD MANSOUR, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations (through translator): How many more Palestinians have to die before you take action?

NICK SCHIFRIN: But there is no momentum for that action.

And the only communication between the two sides are during protests.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Nick Schifrin.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: The Trump administration slapped new sanctions on the head of Iran's Central Bank today.

It said the bank's chief had funneled millions of dollars to the militant group Hezbollah.

It's the latest move cracking down on Iran after President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal last week.

As the sanctions were announced, Iran's foreign minister told European officials in Brussels that Tehran must profit from the deal if it's going to remain.

MOHAMMAD JAVAD ZARIF, Iranian Foreign Minister: We are starting a process, a process that needs to be very intensive, and we don't have a lot of time.

We need to reach some sort of guarantee that these benefits can be guaranteed for Iran.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The European Union's policy chief said they'd left the meeting with a blueprint to continue efforts to save the nuclear deal.

North Korea has reportedly threatened to cancel next month's meeting with President Trump, and suspended a summit with the South just hours before it was set to begin.

North Korean state media blamed joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, saying the drills were -- quote -- "a provocation."

A State Department spokeswoman said she wasn't aware of any change in plans.

HEATHER NAUERT, State Department Spokeswoman: We are operating under the idea and the notion that the president's meeting is going forward with Chairman Kim next month.

JUDY WOODRUFF: White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement that the U.S. will -- quote -- "look at what North Korea has said independently and continue to coordinate closely with our allies."

Back in this country, the woman nominated by President Trump to be CIA director now appears to have enough support to be confirmed.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, Mark Warner, and others had raised concerns over Gina Haspel's role in the CIA's harsh interrogation tactics, including torture of detainees, after 9/11.

Today, Warner said he will vote yes after Haspel wrote in a letter to him that the program should have never taken place.

She had refused to make such a condemnation during her Senate confirmation hearing last week.

Facebook shed new light on its efforts to remove fake or offensive material, the first time it's made such details public.

The social network said it deleted over 865 million posts in the first three months of 2018, mostly spam.

It took down 583 million fake accounts in the same period.

There was room for improvement when it came to flagging hate speech.

Facebook had caught only a little of a third of such posts before users did.

And on Wall Street today, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 193 points to close at 24706.

The Nasdaq fell 59 points.

And the S&P 500 dropped 18.

And New Journalism's pioneer, Tom Wolfe, died today at the age of 88.

Starting in the 1960s, his vivid writing captured American culture in groundbreaking nonfiction, like "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," and novels like "The Bonfire of the Vanities."

We will have more on Wolfe's work and influence later in the show.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": life inside Gaza, where harsh conditions have contributed to deadly protests; pairing first-generation college students with mentors who have been in their shoes; and much more.

As we reported earlier, it has been a day of anger and recrimination in the Middle East and beyond.

In a few moments, Nick Schifrin will be back to speak with a former U.S. ambassador to Israel.

But, first, special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports for us again from Gaza.

JANE FERGUSON: Confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli security forces broke out on the West Bank today.

Protests also took place on the Gaza border, although they were smaller than Monday's, when an eruption of anger in Gaza led to desperate scenes, crowds of young protesters trying to rush towards the border fence with Israel, hundreds shot down and carried away.

For weeks, Palestinians have been protesting for the right to leave this strip of land.

And in the last two days, tens of thousands have joined in.

The Israelis have been mostly concerned about the size of this growing crowd and trying to persuade Gazans not to show up for these mass protests.

They have been dropping leaflets that say, what has Hamas ever done for you, and Hamas is killing the people here, in an attempt to try to stop them being told to come to the protests.

It didn't work, with people arriving in huge numbers to the edges of the Palestinian territory, including Imad Obeid.

He was shot in both legs by Israeli snipers at these protests weeks ago, but keeps coming back.

Limping slowly, and in pain, he brought his four young children with him.

You're not afraid?

The Israelis are close.

IMAD OBEID, Protester (through translator): We are not afraid of the Israelis, because this is our right.

We are ready to push forward.

Even with the pain of our wounds, even as people get killed, we are ready to sacrifice to free our lands and take back our rights.

JANE FERGUSON: To him, that means returning to their ancestral villages.

The protesters want to go back to the homes their families lived in before the formation of the state of Israel, a day marked today by Palestinians as Al Nakba, Arabic for The Catastrophe.

Israel says these protests are the sole work of Hamas, the armed Islamist group that runs Gaza.

Hamas has encouraged the people to turn up for the protests.

Shops were shuttered as a strike shut down city streets, and loudspeakers urged people to attend.

Hamas insists these are popular protests by the people.

BASSEM NAIM, Hamas Official: For the last few days, or weeks maybe, the Palestinian issue has been taken from the table and put under the table.

And the international community now is concentrating on Iran, Syria, North Korea and others.

Palestinians today were able to raise their voice and to remember to the world that we are still here, we are still suffering.

JANE FERGUSON: Life in Gaza is a painful struggle to get by.

An 11-year blockade by Israel and neighboring Egypt has cut off the Palestinian territory from much of the world and brought its economy to its knees.

The siege was put in place in 2007 after Hamas was took control of the Gaza Strip.

To the U.S. and Israel, the group is a terrorist organization.

Two million people are packed into this small strip of land one-tenth the size of Rhode Island.

Permission to leave is rare, and unemployment stands at 40 percent.

For the young generation protesting, few have any prospects of a job or a future where they can afford to raise a family.

MAN: You cannot believe how complex and different life as we are now.

All the streets are full of trashes, all of garbage.

All the people, they have no work.

They have no employment.

JANE FERGUSON: We visited Imad from the protest in his home.

He and his family have fallen on very tough times.

Before the 2014 war, he drove a taxi.

But his car and apartment were destroyed in the Israeli airstrikes.

So they moved into this cinder block shack.

It has no running water, and they cook on an open fire, unable to afford gas.

He did causal work on building sites to pay the rent, but hasn't been able to work since he got shot.

The family survive on handouts and the small vegetable patch in their backyard.

Most Gazans cannot afford a generator during the lengthy power cuts here.

When people run out of electricity here, they only get three hours a day.

They can either buy a small battery to try to operate lights, or they just go outside and light fires.

This life has given Imad, like many Gazans, a sense of having little to lose.

Why do you go?

IMAD OBEID (through translator): Although it is dangerous, and they use ammunition and gas, if the Palestinian nation doesn't go to fight for its rights, then who will do it for us?

We are walking into death, but we are not afraid.

I have the right to do this.

Even when the Israeli soldier shoots me, he is afraid of me.

The soldier knows this is my right.

JANE FERGUSON: Over 2,000 people have been injured in the protests.

Many, like Imad, have been shot in the leg.

At a field hospital nearby, the conditions were those of a war zone.

Some who had been shot were painfully young.

Medical workers raced to the demonstrations to collect the injured.

We're heading out with the ambulances now.

They have been racing back and forth from the field hospitals to the front near the fence.

And now they're going back to pick up more people who've been shot.

When we arrived close to the border fence, carried towards us on a stretcher another protester, another gunshot wound in the leg.

Back at the field hospital, some of the injured shook with convulsions, a side-effect of the tear gas fired by Israeli soldiers.

Others lay in pain, quietly hoping they will walk again.

Gazans have vowed to continue the protests, despite the deadly consequences.

With the peace process in the Middle East a mere memory at this stage, these bloody images will keep coming.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jane Ferguson in Gaza.

NICK SCHIFRIN: With me now is Daniel Shapiro, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Obama from 2011 to 2017.

Ambassador Shapiro, thank you very much for being on the "NewsHour."

We have heard from U.S. officials today and yesterday, really blaming Hamas, and only Hamas, for the violence inside of Gaza.

But as we heard from Jane Ferguson's story right now, isn't is there genuine frustration at Israeli actions inside Gaza and conditions inside Gaza as well?

DANIEL SHAPIRO, Former U.S.

Ambassador to Israel: Well, there's no question conditions inside Gaza are horrific, and people there are really suffering in a very genuine well - - a very genuine way.

I have to say, I think the lion's share of the responsibility for this immediate crisis does fall on Hamas' shoulders.

They are a terrorist organization, and they have intentionally embedded themselves within a civilian population in these instances, in which there are both violent acts aimed at the fence, things being lobbed and shot over the fence, and unarmed protesters, all in one large chaotic area.

Hamas has squandered a lot of resources over the years on building rockets to attack Israel with, which Israel can now counter with missile defense systems.

They have spent a lot of money on digging tunnels to attack Israel under the border.

Israel now has technology to detect and destroy those tunnels.

All that they really have left to try to assert their relevance and try to push back against those humanitarian conditions is to throw their own people into harm's way in this very chaotic situation where there are both violent and nonviolent events happening at the same time.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Should Israel and the international community, though, try and do its best to alleviate some of the humanitarian concerns inside of Gaza as a way to reduce that violence?

DANIEL SHAPIRO: The humanitarian situation in Gaza does need to be addressed.

I would say, in the first instance, the United States and Egypt should work together on an initiative to get the current violence to de-escalate by getting Hamas to put some more controls in, end these protests and these violent events at the fence, and get Israel to try to stand down its rules of engagement, and then to work with the international community to fund a significant humanitarian effort to bring in the humanitarian aid, the consumer goods, and the infrastructure repair to Gaza's very badly damaged water and power infrastructure, which is part of what's making people in Gaza feel like they are so desperate.

NICK SCHIFRIN: We saw this scene of dissonance yesterday.

And I will show viewers the split-screen.

At the same time we saw this violence in Gaza, we also saw the opening in Jerusalem.

You have been in favor of the embassy opening in Jerusalem, but doesn't the embassy opening contribute to some of the tension, contribute to some of the violence?

DANIEL SHAPIRO: It was certainly jarring to watch those scenes juxtaposed against one another.

I do think it's appropriate that the embassy be in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem has always been Israel's capital.

And the embassy is housed in West Jerusalem, which is really not controversial.

Israel will always maintain control of that territory, even in a two-state solution.

I think the administration made two very important mistakes, however.

One was, in announcing the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and the intention to move the embassy, they didn't frame that decision within the broader context of our strategic objective, which is not where the embassy sits.

It's a two-state solution.

It's a situation where Palestinians can also achieve their aspirations for a capital in East Jerusalem.

It would have to be negotiated.

The precise borders are not knowable yet.

But to make clear that we see all of these happening as part of a package would certainly have made it easier for the Palestinians to absorb a decision that they didn't care for.

The other mistake they made was the choice of the date.

May 14, yesterday, is the secular calendar anniversary of Israel's founding, and 70 years ago, President Truman recognized Israel when its independence was declared.

But also the day that Palestinians commemorate as the Nakba, the day they lost everything because of the establishment of Israel and their displacement from their land.

Today or tomorrow is the beginning of Ramadan.

So this event at the embassy yesterday could easily have been scheduled two weeks ago or two weeks from now, and separated from some of the most emotional days on the Palestinian calendar.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Ambassador, you mentioned the strategic situation.

I wanted to zoom out quickly just a little bit more.

Does the embassy opening, does the violence in Gaza, the deaths, does that challenge the alliance that's building between Israel and Saudi Arabia and the Sunni states?

And does it also fray the U.S.-European alliance?

The Europeans, of course, came out against this embassy move.

DANIEL SHAPIRO: There's a lot of things fraying the U.S.-European alliance these days, President Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear dealer first and foremost, a number of trade disputes, now the sense that European views, let's say, on how to address Israeli-Palestinian matters are being not taken into account.

So there are many things causing those tensions.

As for the Sunni states, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, they have made clear that, while they care about the Palestinians, it's not the highest issue on their priority.

The highest issue on their priority is Iran and other extremist organizations, ISIS and al-Qaida.

And they view Israel as a strategic partner against those enemies, because Israel also faces them.

And they are part a United States-led camp that can make common cause on those common security challenges.

Unfortunately, when the Palestinian issue descends into violence and chaos and despair, and it doesn't look like there's any pathway to achieve that two-stay solution, which is the only possible resolution to the conflict, it makes it much harder for Israel and those Arab states to make common cause, to bring their quiet security cooperation out into the open and do the kind of normalization that would really benefit everybody, Israelis, Arabs, and Palestinians.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, thank you very much.

DANIEL SHAPIRO: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now we continue our special series on Rethinking College.

Tonight, we focus on so-called first-generation college goers.

This year, 45 percent of freshman in the University of California system are the first in their family to seek a four year degree.

Hari Sreenivasan visited UCLA to see how campuses are responding to the challenge.

It's part of our weekly series Making the Grade.

LORRIE FRASURE-YOKLEY, UCLA: I am a first-generation scholar.

I was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Professor Lorrie Frasure-Yokley says her path to becoming the first tenured woman of color at UCLA's Political Science Department has shaped who she is.

LORRIE FRASURE-YOKLEY: I'm a product of my mom, a high school education, and my dad, an eighth-grade education.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And that's important to these students, who are themselves the first in their families to go to college.

Frasure-Yokley is taking part in a new initiative from California's U.C.

system that uses first-generation faculty to guide first-generation students.

LORRIE FRASURE-YOKLEY: I'm teaching this class today because I want you guys to be OK with being the first.

I want to be able to validate your concerns, and your fears, and your frustrations with being first-generation, because I have been there.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Last fall, university administrators asked 900 first-generation faculty and staff, like Frasure-Yokley, to become mentors.

The goal is to decrease dropout rates.

Nationally, only 40 percent of first-generation college students make it to graduation.

LORRIE FRASURE-YOKLEY: We want our first-generation students to thrive.

We want them to feel like they belong here and that they're going to be here for four years through graduation.

HARI SREENIVASAN: University of California president Janet Napolitano: JANET NAPOLITANO, President, University of California: Admissions are one thing.

Enrollment is one thing.

But graduation is -- is the thing.

HARI SREENIVASAN: But to succeed in a demanding academic environment like UCLA, the first-gen students have to overcome something called the impostor syndrome.

LORRIE FRASURE-YOKLEY: One of the definitions of impostor syndrome is students who worked really hard to get into campus, but they still are carrying with them, like, a sense that they don't truly belong, that, at any moment, someone is going to come and tap them on their shoulder and say, you know what, we made a mistake, right?

For first-generation scholars who are carrying around with them impostor syndrome, you are not allowing yourself to thrive.

Something as fundamental as saying, hey, I deserve to go to office hours every week if I want to.

I deserve to have someone sort of sit down with me during their office hours, and I can ask questions, right, one on one.

I deserve that opportunity.

HARI SREENIVASAN: UCLA senior Violet Salazar knows what impostor syndrome feels like.

Salazar helped create an entire dorm floor dedicated to incoming first-generation students, after her own freshman experience proved difficult.

VIOLET SALAZAR, UCLA Student: It was kind of hard to get to know people when you always felt like you were, I guess, lesser than them.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Because you're the first?

VIOLET SALAZAR: Because I'm first-gen, or because I am Latina, and also just coming from a very low socioeconomic background.

HARI SREENIVASAN: On the day we visited, the first-generation dorm hosted a meeting led by student Clara Nguyen, a first-gen student herself who also works with UCLA's mental health resources.

CLARA NGUYEN, UCLA Student: How do you practice resilience as a first-generation student?

It's really easy to get caught up in your failures, I feel like, in college.

So it's really important to be resilient, to keep in mind that it's OK, and you can, like, recover.

So, thoughts are the way that you think about things, like, oh, man, I think I'm going to be bad on this test.

Or, if I start getting nervous, like, my heart starts beating really fast or I start sweating, that's kind of a physical symptom, and then that might affect how I behave.

What is an example of how your thoughts, behaviors and physical symptoms like kind of come together?

STUDENT: You first think like, oh, my God, I didn't study enough, I'm going to fail, blah, blah, blah.

And then it's like I start sweating a lot, and my palms are sweating, that I can't even hold still the pencil.

And then I actually start forgetting things.

And I'm like, I studied this.

What's going on?

And then I forget things, and then I actually fail.

CLARA NGUYEN: One of the techniques that we use to combat that cycle is called mindfulness.

But being mindful is basically honing into those thoughts that you have and trying to control that environment around you.

I wanted her to notice physical symptoms, like the hands sweating, to kind of manage your thoughts better, and say, hey, you know, I'm not unprepared for this test.

I have the skills to do it.

Then maybe she can try to tell her body to calm down, and then those things will start coming back to her brain.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Many first-generation students are also balancing the guilt of not contributing to their family's income when they're away at school.

CLARA NGUYEN: You might have a financial struggle, so you should go to work, or you have siblings.

You need to take care of them before you get to do school.

I think those things are hard to let go of when you get here.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And, for some, there is the added stress of immigration status.

Freshman Jaquelin Tafolla, who is a U.S. citizen, worries that, in the current political climate, friends from her home community could be suddenly deported.

JAQUELIN TAFOLLA, UCLA Student: And there are millions of families that are struggling, whether it's having that scary moment where you never know if your family member is going to get deported, or you never know.

There can be a moment in your life where one day you're happy with your family sitting at dinner, and the next day, your mom, your Dad, your brother, your sister, you find out you're getting deported.

There's like that moment where you know that can happen.

So it's very scary.

Sorry.

HARI SREENIVASAN: University administrators hope their new focus on mentoring first-generation students will help both students and their families succeed.

JANET NAPOLITANO: We know that our first-gen students within just a few years of graduating are making more than their entire families.

We also know that they're tremendous contributors to the state of California, to the economy of California.

And it's what higher education is there for, particularly public higher education, to open those doors of opportunity, and to really give meaning to the cliched phrase the American dream.

HARI SREENIVASAN: In Los Angeles, I'm Hari Sreenivasan for the "PBS NewsHour."

JUDY WOODRUFF: Being the first in the family to attend college presents one kind of pressure on students, but, increasingly, a wide variety of students are presenting symptoms of depression and anxiety, and, worse, hopelessness.

Last night, we looked at this concerning situation in the first of a two-part series around National Mental Health Month.

Tonight, Jeffrey Brown returns to a school trying to address the problem.

He talks to three young people at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about their participation in the Portraits of Resilience Project.

EMILY TANG, MIT Student: I'm Emily Tang.

I'm finishing my junior year now.

I'm studying electrical engineering and computer science, with a minor in linguistics.

VICTOR MORALES, MIT Graduate: My name is Victor Morales, and I graduated in 2014.

I studied mathematics.

I'm looking for a job now as a teacher.

HALEY COPE, MIT Student: My name is Haley Cope.

I'm a senior here at MIT in women and gender studies.

JEFFREY BROWN: They are three high-achieving students at one of the world's most prestigious universities.

They have also suffered crippling depression, and been through years of therapy and medication.

For Haley, who grew up in rural Pennsylvania, the problems started well before college.

HALEY COPE: I thought it was kind of a normal thing: Oh, doesn't every middle schooler try to harm themselves?

No, they don't, and so definitely middle school.

High school was a very turbulent time, both in my family life, and with the stress of applying to colleges, trying to make myself perfect for that, for coming in to MIT, my dream school.

JEFFREY BROWN: Make yourself perfect?

HALEY COPE: Yes, sir.

JEFFREY BROWN: That's a big thing.

HALEY COPE: It is.

It's not something I can do alone.

It's not something achievable.

By the time I got to MIT, I failed every single class my freshman fall, and had a problem with alcohol.

By my freshman spring was when I realized, after a -- a classmate of mine in my dormitory committed suicide, I realized I really should be getting help again.

JEFFREY BROWN: Haley sought counseling on campus.

And, later, when she herself became suicidal, she spent time at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility outside Boston.

Emily, too, points to early pressures growing up in Plano, Texas, including expectations within her family, and stressful relationships with peers.

EMILY TANG: I got through it.

I kept going.

And then, once I got to college, I felt so tired, so out of it all the time.

The depression really hit me hard again.

And this time, it was sort of worse than ever.

It was really easy for me to just sort of slip through the cracks, for me to sort of stop going to class, stop functioning, stop living my daily life.

And that was when I went on leave from school.

JEFFREY BROWN: Victor says he always felt like an outsider, as an immigrant from Mexico who was raised in Merced, California, and as someone who came to see himself as bisexual.

By his sophomore year at MIT, he experienced debilitating anxiety, but says he didn't understand it was a form of mental illness.

VICTOR MORALES: So I just blamed myself.

And I slept through... (CROSSTALK) JEFFREY BROWN: What did you think was going on?

VICTOR MORALES: I thought, everybody gets stressed out, and everybody freezes when they're stressed out.

But I slept through an exam, and I didn't even feel like even e-mailing the professor, because I felt so much shame, just had so much anxiety built up.

I had this feeling like I didn't belong at MIT.

JEFFREY BROWN: You mean, as in you're an impostor here?

VICTOR MORALES: Yes, I'm not smart enough to be here.

And it wasn't until months after I graduated - - I was starting to go through the symptoms of mental illnesses and depression, and I realized, I think I have depression.

JEFFREY BROWN: Did opening up to your family help, or hurt, or what was that experience like?

VICTOR MORALES: At first, it was hurtful.

I come from a -- this kind of stereotypical Mexican family.

And depression in our community is like an evil spirit.

JEFFREY BROWN: Emily, what happened when you told your family or people back home?

EMILY TANG: I come from an Asian-American household, obviously.

And in China, there's not -- mental health care is not a thing.

It's sort of like you don't talk about it, you just get through it, it doesn't exist, right?

It was really a struggle, I think, to really get my parents to understand what I was going through.

JEFFREY BROWN: What about coming here, the pressure cooker of coming to a place where everybody is a high achiever?

HALEY COPE: Oh, absolutely, not to discount the, I don't know, perhaps utilitarian mind work of -- framework of MIT that kind of puts people's value based on how many hours you can spend in lab, or how well you do in your classes.

JEFFREY BROWN: You feel that?

HALEY COPE: You do.

JEFFREY BROWN: And you did get to a point, at times, where you thought of taking your life?

HALEY COPE: Yes, sir.

It got the worst at the end of my freshman spring semester.

And I was hospitalized.

JEFFREY BROWN: Did either of you ever get to that point?

Yes?

VICTOR MORALES: Yes.

I didn't want to live life without the flavor.

JEFFREY BROWN: For Emily, things came to a head at home during her leave from MIT.

EMILY TANG: I applied three times to return before I finally got accepted to return.

And, you know, they were sort of like, why aren't you doing this?

Why aren't you e-mailing this person?

Why aren't you trying harder?

I was like, I can't do this anymore, and I walked out of the house.

there was like a body of water like in the neighborhood.

And I kind of walked to the edge of it, and I was just kind of sitting there.

And I was thinking about -- I was thinking about killing myself.

I saw my parents' car, like, driving by.

They were driving around the neighborhood looking for me.

And after a couple hours, you know, a friend talked me down.

And the next day, we talked about it, and my dad kind of hit the point.

He was like: "You know, I really think Emily does care about this.

It is her future, after all."

And I think that was kind of the turning point.

JEFFREY BROWN: That goes to a larger theme in the Portraits of Resilience Project.

In addition to therapy and medication, these students found critical support from friends and loved ones.

EMILY TANG: I actually got really lucky in that respect.

I was in a living group.

It's really small, really tight-knit.

And two upperclassmen had been through really similar experiences.

And so I sort of had their experiences to guide me.

I had friends to walk me to my appointments.

VICTOR MORALES: Through my depression, I built up kind of like a collection of techniques.

Like, how do I overcome anxiety?

Like, what do I do if I feel anxiety?

Sometimes, I would call a friend to get me out of bed.

Anyone, even people who are not at a campus, parents especially, can do something about this just by talking about it.

JEFFREY BROWN: All three are now eager to share what they have learned about themselves, in the hope of helping others.

VICTOR MORALES: I don't determine my beauty, my smartness, my success based on other people anymore.

And that was one of those things that I deconstructed.

And, after that, it felt so natural to tell my story.

These weaknesses that I used to think were weaknesses are now strengths of mine.

HALEY COPE: In my community, I had these kind of conversations with people that went something along the lines of, if you're going to mental health and counseling, make sure that you don't say anything about suicide, because they're going to commit you, and then you're going to be forced to leave MIT, and then you're never going to come back.

And so I really wanted to address that kind of stigma.

It's like saying, don't go to the doctor after your heart attack, MIT is going to kick you out.

EMILY TANG: I started an antidepressant that I think is working, finally.

It's a process.

But I think I get a little better at learning how to navigate my resources and how to get through the crisis with minimal damage and minimal impact on my life.

JEFFREY BROWN: Victor, what are your plans for the future?

VICTOR MORALES: There's so much I want to do.

I want to go back to grad school.

I care a lot about people from Latin America.

But I also want to learn more in math.

So, I'm kind of like, which direction do I go?

We will see what ends up falling into place.

EMILY TANG: I'm the president of my dorm, and I have been for the last year.

I will openly talk about what I'm going through.

I will tell people about the resources available, and I will offer myself.

JEFFREY BROWN: Haley has a coding job when she graduates.

And there's a happy new twist to her story.

In her essay for "Portraits of Resilience," she wrote of a new friend.

HALEY COPE: In the story, I talk about meeting a friend in the psychiatric hospital.

That friend became my best friend, who became my boyfriend, who became my fiance, and in October will be my husband.

Making that journey together has been a great and difficult and process full of grace and growth.

JEFFREY BROWN: Emily Tang, Victor Morales, Haley Cope, thank you all very much.

HALEY COPE: Thank you.

VICTOR MORALES: Thank you.

JEFFREY BROWN: A follow-up now from a leading expert on depression and anxiety in young people.

Alfiee Breland-Noble is associate professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center.

Welcome to you.

ALFIEE BRELAND-NOBLE, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Georgetown University Medical Center: Thank you.

JEFFREY BROWN: We have been watching an attempt to put a public face on this problem.

So, I want to first ask you, how much does the stigma remain, and how much are young people more willing to come forward and talk about it?

ALFIEE BRELAND-NOBLE: So, I think there's always going to be a stigma associated with mental illness.

It's just a part of what it means for people who struggle with these illnesses.

I think what I have noticed in recent years, five to 10 years, is that millennials and the young people coming right behind them are far more likely and willing to talk about these issues.

I wouldn't say that it has completely eradicated the stigma, but, absolutely, young people who are in college and right behind them, high schoolers, are far more likely to share that these are the things they're struggling with.

JEFFREY BROWN: How much do experts like yourself understand why this seeming rise in anxiety and depression and suicide?

Why is that happening?

ALFIEE BRELAND-NOBLE: One factor is that, when you look at the young people we saw, you see racial diversity, which I think is amazing and wonderful, because these illness are so much more stigmatized in communities of color.

I do think that people are more aware of what some of these issues are.

They're aware of signs and symptoms.

And what we find is that, for African-Americans and other communities of color, people feel that they're exponentially stigmatized, in addition to race, gender, sexual orientation or sexuality, by having a label or being diagnosed with a mental illness.

And so we heard one young man say, the Latino brother, when he talked about seeing these things and thinking it was normal, at some point during his college career, someone enlightened him and shared with him, these are signs and symptoms of depression and anxiety, which a lightbulb was able to go off for him.

JEFFREY BROWN: And in terms of factors behind, do we know more about the -- is it the genetics or the social behavior?

We heard some references to social media playing a new role.

ALFIEE BRELAND-NOBLE: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So, there's always going to be the hereditary and the chemical and biological factors.

I think what has changed for some of our young people is social media.

They are so much more inundated with all kinds of information, not all of it positive.

The young people spoke about what it means to be constantly comparing yourself.

JEFFREY BROWN: Right.

ALFIEE BRELAND-NOBLE: So you're always looking at report cards, so to speak, in different aspects of life.

And I think it can absolutely have a negative impact on our young people.

JEFFREY BROWN: How prepared or unprepared are schools today?

ALFIEE BRELAND-NOBLE: So, I think, what I will say is, for colleges and universities, they're trying.

Right?

So, they don't always have the bandwidth and the capacity to accommodate the sheer volume of students who are coming forward.

Much more so now than even 20 years ago, when I was in school.

I think that what colleges and universities are trying to do is find extenders, find other ways to provide support for young people, so that everything is not funneling just through the counseling center.

And there are many opportunities that I think colleges and universities have found to do that, whether that's connecting with community members who can also provide care, connecting with different kinds of apps or other electronic types of things to help our young people develop coping skills.

So it's not necessarily full care, per se.

But it is providing a stopgap measure so that, in between visits or until a young person can get a visit with a person in the counseling center, they have other ways that they can support themselves.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, what kind of treatment is available to young people now?

ALFIEE BRELAND-NOBLE: So, what I always tell young people when I treat them is that there's the fast way, the slow way, and the best way.

And I think, when we think about fast and slow ways, medications, psychotropic medications, psychiatrist medications are absolutely an option for people.

I think, along with that, it's important to think about the kinds of talk therapy that are available to people.

And I always say that the best way is to try to do a combination of both, to the extent that a young person and their families feel comfortable with psychiatric medication.

So, for talk therapy, we're thinking about things like cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, teaching coping skills, and support groups.

And then we know what some of the different kinds of anti-anxiety and antidepressants are that are available to young people.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, finally, what's the most important thing you want young people to know who perhaps are starting to experience anxiety and depression, and what -- and their parents?

What should they know?

ALFIEE BRELAND-NOBLE: I think, for parents and young people, they should absolutely know that they are not alone, that mental illness doesn't discriminate.

It can impact anyone, and that there are people right around us, our loved ones, family members, community members, church members, other peers at school, who are struggling with these issues.

And so it's really important for them to know they're not alone.

There's help.

And I tell young people all the time two things: Take diets and breaks from social media.

JEFFREY BROWN: Take diets from social media.

ALFIEE BRELAND-NOBLE: That's exactly right, diets and take a break from social media, and reach out for help to people you feel like you can trust.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Alfiee Breland-Noble of Georgetown University, thank you very much.

ALFIEE BRELAND-NOBLE: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally tonight: remembering the American writer Tom Wolfe, who died today.

Wolfe first broke through to a wider audience in the early '60s, as one of the seminal voices behind so-called New Journalism, a form of nonfiction writing that used fictional literary styles and was distinctively different in technique.

His magazine pieces for led to nonfiction books that put American subcultures under the microscope, often with a wry and biting tone.

"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," zeroed in on the counterculture.

"The Painted Word" targeted the world of art.

And one of his best-regarded books, "The Right Stuff," which was later made into a movie, showcased the heroism of the first American astronauts.

Wolfe later turned to writing novels.

His biggest hit, "The Bonfire of the Vanities," was a lacerating satire of money, power and New York life in the '80s.

He spoke with the "NewsHour"'s Elizabeth Farnsworth in 1998 about why he wanted to bring his reporter's eye to his fiction.

TOM WOLFE, Journalist/Author: Reporting is absolutely essential to the novel, now more than -- now more than it ever was.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why?

TOM WOLFE: It's because the novel is not going to be able to compete with television, with movies, with other forms of stories, unless it exploits to the full what only print can do and what only -- in this case, only the novel can do.

And that is to bring people inside of these amazing worlds that exist in the United States today.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Some thoughts about Tom Wolfe and his work from a writer he influenced.

Susan Orlean is a journalist, author, and staff writer for "The New Yorker."

She's the author of eight books, including the bestseller "The Orchid Thief."

Susan Orlean, it's a pleasure to have you with us.

What was it about Tom Wolfe?

What was it about him that influenced you?

SUSAN ORLEAN, "The New Yorker": I read "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" when I was in high school.

And as much as I was a big reader at the time, this was transformational.

There was a voice, a confidence, a tone that I had never encountered before, particularly in nonfiction.

I carried that book around with me for years.

And I really do think it's what made me want to be a nonfiction writer.

There was just a spirit in his writing that had never -- I had never encountered before.

It was like hearing jazz for the first time.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, it's interesting.

He just said if that interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth, he mentioned American life.

He was uniquely American, wasn't he?

SUSAN ORLEAN: Yes.

And he took the amazing mosaic of American subcultures as his subject, everything from the Merry Pranksters, traveling on their bus, taking LSD every five minutes, to the Upper East Side, very affluent and indulged denizens of that neighborhood.

And he looked at them all in a somewhat equal way.

These were tribes that he wanted to analyze and understand.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Of course, there was so much praise for his work.

At times, his critics said he went too far, he wasn't sensitive enough to race, to other things.

Did he go too far sometimes?

SUSAN ORLEAN: He had -- he was pretty unburdened by the propriety of what he said.

I think his feeling was that everything was fair game.

He could e easily misinterpreted, which is an issue for a writer.

You do have some responsibility for the way your words could be perceived.

And I think he felt that his responsibility ended at the page, and if people read it wrong, it was really their problem.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Where do you think that all came from?

He was Southern.

He was born and raised in Virginia.

Any sense of what made him the writer he was?

SUSAN ORLEAN: He was a serious student of literature.

And I think it's really important to realize that he had these two very basic, but serious underpinnings to his work, namely, a really serious understanding of literature and a deep regard for and talent for reporting.

His books only succeed because the reporting was so good.

He seemed to take a sort of anthropologist's delight in analyzing subcultures, figuring out how power flowed within them, how people made their way out of them, and what impact it had for these little groups to bump up against people who were not inside the tribe.

I think he really was, at heart, an anthropologist.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It sounds like, Susan Orlean, you're saying his nonfiction more important than his fiction?

SUSAN ORLEAN: No, not necessarily.

I think his fiction, when he hit it right, was brilliant.

And I don't think the world is the same after "The Bonfire of the Vanities," quite honestly.

For him, I think fiction was merely an extension of the nonfiction, where he took the kind of reporting that his nonfiction had, and simply created an ideal narrative in which to tell that reporting.

And he said often that his novels were very dependent on fact and on observation and on the real world, and that that's what they were meant to do, to explain the real world to us through a fictional narrative.

I think that his nonfiction and his fiction were very closely related.

Just, one had a narrative drawn from real life, and the other had a narrative that he created.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Last thing.

He was also personally distinctive.

He dressed in white all the time.

I read that he always wore the vest, the white shoes.

What was that all about?

SUSAN ORLEAN: Well, I think he liked -- as he once said, he didn't think he could blend in, so he decided he might as well really stand out.

He was a real dandy.

I think he had a Southern gentleman's enjoyment of being fully turned out every day, and perfect contrast to an era in which, starting in the '60s, the idea of dressing -- for reporters to dress well was unheard of.

I mean, people came to work in T-shirts and Birkenstocks.

And there was Tom Wolfe.

I think he enjoyed playing on our expectations of convention.

And just as we expected the ink-stained wretch in the newsroom to look a certain way, he looked exactly the opposite, refined, elegant, and completely out of no particular era.

He was a sort of timeless figure with that - - with his getup.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Remembering Tom Wolfe.

Writer and author Susan Orlean, thank you so much.

SUSAN ORLEAN: My pleasure.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Later this month, Starbucks will close its more than 8,000 coffee shops for an afternoon of anti-bias training.

The aim is to raise their sensitivity of the employees around race and ethnicity, after last month's episode at a Philadelphia shop where the police were called about two black men simply sitting and waiting.

Talks on the subject are always sensitive.

And tonight, writer Ijeoma Oluo shares her Humble Opinion on why that talk can be so fraught, even with one's own mother.

IJEOMA OLUO, Author, "So You Want to Talk About Race": Here's the thing about my mom.

My mom, who is white, is the kindest, most generous person I have ever known.

But she's also exhausting.

She's a bundle of whimsy and emotion, and she doesn't always think before she speaks.

So, when she left me a voice-mail saying that she'd had an epiphany about race, and I should call her back right away, I really, really, really didn't want to do that.

Don't get me wrong.

I think I talk about race every day, as an activist and educator.

And while I had noticed that my work on race had started to build some awkward distance between my mom and me, I still didn't want to talk about race with her.

I mean, she's my mom.

It's personal and awkward, like talking to your mom about sex.

Turns out I didn't need to worry about whether to call her back, because, like many moms, she immediately called me back, and kept calling until I answered the phone.

The conversation was as bad as I had feared, maybe worse.

She'd made a joke at work that had to do with race, not a racist joke, but one that was more a joke for the black community.

And a black colleague had challenged her: "What do you know about being black?"

Well, my mom was pretty indignant at first.

"He doesn't know me.

He doesn't know I raised three black kids."

I was cringing as she said this to me.

Had she not read my work?

And then came her epiphany.

She realized that her co-worker must face so much racism as a black man that he couldn't tell who the good white people were and that, if she were in his shoes, she'd probably be angry all the time too.

That was this whole epiphany.

She had decided that, the next day, she was going to march over to her co-worker and explain that she had raised three black kids, so she got it.

I literally shouted "Nooooo," like people do in action movies when they try to stop their friends from getting into the car that is rigged with explosives.

Then I took a deep breath.

I tried to explain that being a white woman who loves black people, who has even given birth to black people, is still very different from living as a black person and experiencing firsthand the full force of a white society every day of your life.

She asked if she at least got credit for doing black hair for all those years.

I said no.

It was a long conversation, and, oh, was it painful.

But it opened up a new way of seeing each other.

So, as awful as it was, I'm glad the conversation happened.

It is in our conversations about race and racism that we find understanding, empathy, and opportunities to make real change in our day-to-day lives.

Start talking.

More importantly, start listening.

It is not always pleasant to talk about race.

In fact, it almost never is.

But it is worth it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Ijeoma Oluo.

And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

Join us online and again right here tomorrow evening.

For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, and we'll see you soon.