04/07/04

LC040407

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

The untold story of a California exodus and the innocent people
who got swept across the border.

Maria Ofelia Acosta>> We thought maybe they're going to give us
a better job and then they said we decided to send you to
Mexico, so line up and come one by one and get your tickets.

Val>> And then, Dr. Judith Reichman on coping with middle age
and slowing down the body's biological clock. Plus, beating the
drums of history. A new generation carries on an ancient
tradition.

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> We're about to tell you a story of a mass deportation
that's been overlooked in many American history books. It
happened right here in California. It affected as many as one
million Mexicans and it wasn't all that long ago. In fact, many
still remember how it felt to be rounded up for no particular
reason and hauled away to the Mexican border. NewsHour
correspondent, Jeffrey Kaye, tells us even some U.S. citizens
got caught up in the great exodus.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Maria Ofelia Acosta is a seventy-two year old
grandmother of three who lives a tranquil suburban life of
retirement in a Los Angeles suburb. But as a young child,
Acosta says she and her family were victims of a little-known
and little-told chapter in American history, the mass
deportation of people, many of them U.S. citizens, to Mexico.
Acosta says her family's odyssey began in June 1932. That's
when her father, a legal U.S. resident from Mexico, was
approached by federal authorities. He was one of many Latino
laborers on a U.S. public works project in northern California.

Maria Ofelia Acosta>> He thought maybe they were going to give
us a better job and then they said we decided to send you to
Mexico, so line up and come one by one and get your tickets.

Jeffrey Kaye>> After a bus trip to Los Angeles, the family was
put aboard a train bound for Chihuahua, Mexico where Acosta, a
U.S.-born citizen, lived until she was a teenager.

Maria Ofelia Acosta>> Well, it was kind of embarrassing, you
know, when they throw you out. I mean, it's nothing to brag
about.

Jeffrey Kaye>> The expulsions are chronicled in the book
"Decade of Betrayal" by California State University professors
Raymond Rodriguez and Francisco Balderrama. The authors
document how, during the Depression, upwards of a million
people, more than half of them U.S. citizens, were sent to
Mexico. The goal was to reduce welfare roles and cut down on
competition for jobs. The program, they say, was also driven by
racism.

Francisco Balderrama>> The idea that a Mexican is a Mexican,
that they are foreign, that they are not part of this country
even though "they have lived here, they have worked here, they
have built lives here", they're still not part of the country,
there is no distinction made in terms of legal residence, no
distinction made in terms of "those that are U.S. citizens,
those that are American citizens of Mexican descent." No
distinction made.

Jeffrey Kaye>> The program largely ended with World War II when
a labor-hungry U.S. needed as many workers as it could find.
Acosta eventually returned to the U.S. finding work as a
seamstress in Los Angeles. Now efforts are underway in
California to seek justice for the victims of the repatriation
program.

Senator Joseph Dunn>> "This morning, we're going to be
examining a tragic part of United States history."

Jeffrey Kaye>> California Democratic State Senator Joseph Dunn
has conducted an investigation and held hearings in which people
exiled to Mexico told their stories.

Emilia Castaneda>> I was frightened. I had never been to
Mexico. We left with just one large trunk full of belongings in
1935. No furniture, a few metal cooking utensils, a small
ceramic pitcher because it reminded me of my mother.

Senator Joseph Dunn>> What our intent is is to have both the
federal government and the State of California create
commissions to investigate the deportation program beyond what
our resources allowed us to do, to really find out exactly who
was involved, where the critical decisions were made, why they
were made.

Jeffrey Kaye>> So-called repatriation trains departed regularly
from Los Angeles. The deportations took place with the
cooperation of Mexican authorities who saw resettling Mexicans
and Mexican-Americans as a national obligation. Train
departures were widely publicized in the city's English and
Spanish language press.

Francisco Balderrama>> The scene was primarily that of women
and children crying, men being very, very pensive about what was
to happen to them. The trains were locked because there were
cases early in the period in which some of the repatriates at
the very end would try to escape.

Jeffrey Kaye>> In 1931 at La Placita Plaza in downtown Los
Angeles, one roundup turned violent. Federal agents beat up men
and women and drove them into vans, but more often city and
county officials used persuasion, not billy clubs, to encourage
people to cross the border, even enlisting social workers in the
effort.

Francisco Balderrama>> The social workers, with their caseload,
would go to individual families, knock on the door, tell Mr. and
Mrs. Gonzalez we think that you've been on relief for quite a
long time, we think that you would be better off among your own
people, we think you would be better off in Mexico.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Such arguments resonated with many people who,
confronted with America's bleak economic situation, went
willingly to Mexico to find a better life. But once they
arrived there, life for many exiles often got worse. That was
the case with Acosta's family.

Maria Ofelia Acosta>> It was a setback for us because I could
have gone to school, my family could have gone to school, my
sisters, my brothers. We could have had a better life here.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Although expulsions occurred across the country,
Los Angeles was the epicenter of the program. Municipal and
county authorities with the assistance of business leaders
established homegrown immigration departments to oversee the
deportations.

Francisco Balderrama>> Here in Los Angeles County, they set up
a desk called deportation and that type of thinking then led
federal authorities to, hey, let Los Angeles County operate like
a sovereign nation. Let Los Angeles County organize trainloads
of individuals and ship them to the border. Let them go ahead
and deport people, which is a function of the federal
government.

Jeffrey Kaye>> State Senator Dunn is particularly troubled by
what he says are documents showing that local governments such
as Los Angeles County might have actually profited from the
repatriations.

Senator Joseph Dunn>> For families that owned homes, Los
Angeles County engaged in the following program. Once the
family was illegally deported, they would put a lien on that
house for the cost of the transportation. Say a whole family
was deported to Mexico, that might be fifty dollars. Since the
family was gone, there was no one there to pay off that lien,
they would foreclose on the lien and the county would take
possession of that home, turn around and sell it for fair market
value and pocket the cash.

Jeffrey Kaye>> To correct these injustices, Dunn says
California should establish a financial compensation program for
deportation victims. Similar reparations were paid to Japanese-
Americans interned during World War II.

Senator Joseph Dunn>> I wish we could turn the clock back and
give them their lives back. We can't. The only way to make
amends is through an exchange of money. It's gross, but it's
the way our system is built.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Dunn's efforts have been supported by many of
his fellow Democrats in the state legislature, as well as by
California's Spanish language press which has closely covered
the hearings. Opponents of Dunn's idea argue that California,
mired in a multi-billion dollar deficit, can't afford to pay
people for long-ago wrongs. More philosophically, others argue
that there are limits when it comes to correcting the injustices
of the past.

Victor Davis Hanson>> We try to go back and rectify everything
in the past, but the problem with that is that there's no end to
it.

Jeffrey Kaye>> Conservative social critic, Victor Davis Hanson,
writes about history and culture from his farm near Fresno.

Victor Davis Hanson>> The wounds of the past are something that
should be talked about, they are something that should be
recognized. That's the job of historians, that's the job of
journalists, that's the job of the public, that's the job of
public debate. But if you think you're going to take the
coercive powers of government to go back, investigate something
and then punish people in the present, it's not going to work.

Jeffrey Kaye>> But some victims aren't waiting for the
government's help. They recently filed a class action lawsuit
seeking unspecified damages from the State of California as well
as Los Angeles City, County and the Chamber of Commerce for
their roles in the repatriation program. Acosta is ambivalent
about such actions.

Maria Ofelia Acosta>> A lot of people say, hey, what do you
want? Are you going to sue them? I say, you know, no money can
repay that. The years that you wasted, your life?

Jeffrey Kaye>> More than money or apologies, Acosta simply
wants people to know about how her country, battered by economic
hardships long ago, expelled many of its own citizens.

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Val>> Looking young is an obsession here in southern
California, but looking young and staying healthy is what Dr.
Judith Reichman is an expert on. You may remember Dr. Judith
Reichman from her specials on PBS. She also practices and
teaches at Cedar Sinai Medical Center and UCLA and she's an
author. Her latest book is "Slow Your Clock Down: the Complete
Guide to a Healthy, Younger You". This is your fourth book and
it's the most comprehensive yet. It starts from our
reproductive years all the way to death virtually (laughter).

Dr. Judith Reichman>> Well, no. The whole idea was that we
wanted to increase our health span and our "wellgevity". Those
are two words that I think are very important. So I started
with our reproductive time clock because we do have a time
clock. Actually in that chapter, I tell the story of my patient
who came in and she was crying that "he ran away with my sperm".
It was a woman who kept postponing having her children until she
was forty and then her husband ran away with someone he met at
the gym with twenty-eight year old eggs.

The issue is, what can you do at forty? I talk about that and I
talk about the issue of what happens as we get older. What
happens to our eggs? Can we freeze them? What are the
therapies out there? How late can we wait? In today's world,
with our multitasking and delaying, with our education and our
careers, we do want to know how to wait.

Val>> Well, we can do more than ever before.

Dr. Judith Reichman>> Absolutely. And I give all the different
options that we can have as far as reproductive technologies in
the crazy world of reproduction today. I tell how much it
costs, how do you find the right doctor, where do you go and
what can your expectations be. I also tell women that, you
know, maybe the importance here is getting pregnant and not
raising a child, so you really have to look into your psyche.

Val>> You also deal with -- this is your specialty -- hormone
replacement therapy as women go into menopause.

Dr. Judith Reichman>> Yes. Peri-menopause, a time when we
think that an alien has taken over our bodies and our hormones
go up and down, what to do, what are the symptoms, when to freak
and when not to, menopause, the whole issue of hormone
replacement. I really go into all of the studies, the newest
ones out there, and try to explain to women what they mean, how
to interpret them, do they apply to me, does it apply to the
hormones my doctor gave me, what are the best hormones and, if I
don't take hormones, what can I do? I think women need choices,
that there's a major transition in our lifetime. It's probably
less of a transition than puberty, but it is a major transition.
I'm trying to help them go through it. Not get through it, but
go through it.

Val>> And updated information is really important too because
of the recent scares that have come along with hormone
replacement therapy. A lot of women backed away thinking, oh,
my God, I can't do it. But you're saying no. You look
carefully.

Dr. Judith Reichman>> Absolutely. And nothing is set in stone.
If a woman is having a lot of symptoms in her early fifties and
wants to treat them, she is not making a decision as to what
she's going to do in her sixties and seventies. I remind them
that most of the studies out there really deal with women who's
average age is sixty-three and may not apply to a fifty-one year
old who can't sleep, who's having terrible night sweats, hot
flashes and feels that a fog has come over her brain and just
has tremendous symptoms.

Val>> Obviously, if you eat well and exercise and so forth,
you're probably going to do a lot of preventative maintenance on
yourself, but there are certain diseases that you think you need
to zero in on and really prevent.

Dr. Judith Reichman>> Absolutely. And I give the stories of
women who came in for one reason and I did, say, a cholesterol
test or I say to go get your mammogram or you must get your
colonoscopy, and the effect it's had on their ultimate lifespan
because we picked up a disease early enough to make a
difference. I think the stories tell a lot, but I really
emphasize to women that you cannot live in the twenty-first
century and practice nineteenth century medicine. If you don't
get the tests at the right time, you will not prevent the
disease or detect it early enough to make a difference.

So what I do here is give a schedule. I tell women that you
need to do this once a month, for example, a self breast exam.
You need to do this once a year. When to do your pap smears,
when to get a pelvic exam, what to do every two years, what to
do every three or four. It's a list that you can really copy
off, put on your refrigerator, on your bulletin board. It's
like what they give you when you get a car (laughter). It says
how often you have to take the car in. Well, this is taking
your body in and getting the tests so that it will run well for
as long as you want it to run.

Val>> So, hopefully, healthy body and healthy mind. You know,
we have virtually an Alzheimer's epidemic in this country going
on. What can we do to keep our brains alive?

Dr. Judith Reichman>> I talk about brain muscle power and what
we can do to work out our brains. Most of what we know from a
medical point of view has got to do with preventing plaque
formation, closing of the arteries, so what we tell women to do
for heart disease applies for brain disease and brain aging. I
also talk about some of the new diagnostic testing we have. If
you think your memory is going, what can you do? Is this just
that I'm forgetting and I'm overtaxed and I have too many things
on my mind, or is this truly an onset of memory loss with age
or, worse yet, Alzheimer's or dementia.

We talk about the new smart drugs out there and what they can
do, and also the effect of depression on our brain and the fact
that depression itself can shorten our lives and cause disease,
and ways to combat that, so I go over all the anti-depressants
also.

Val>> Because it really is, in the end, mind, body, soul, even
mood. Everything in the end contributes to our health.

Dr. Judith Reichman>> Absolutely. What I've tried to do is, in
various chapters, go into detail what we need to know and sort
of a minimum of what you need to get in order to maintain the
lifestyle you want through the years to come and I talk about
the years to come in my last chapter.

Val>> And you also do confess how old you are.

Dr. Judith Reichman>> Yes. I'm fifty-eight and I'm very proud
of it (laughter). I also say that I want to live to 120. The
reason I said 120 is there's this wonderful Hebrew expression
that means "may you live to 120". Every time you have an
anniversary or birthday, someone will say, "may you live to
120". So I figured I'll over-achieve and I'll try to get to
120. I may die getting there (laughter), but I'm going to try.

So I confess what I do and I tell everybody, look, I've read the
literature, I'm supposed to know the secrets. This is what I
decided to do and I have done the good, the bad and the lazy,
but I'm also trying to improve. I go through my diet, my
exercise program, my skin care program, my hormone program, the
tests I get, the tests I haven't gotten, and it's sort of a
confession of a female doctor who's supposed to know it all and
what she's doing to get to that 120.

Val>> Well, Dr. Reichman, I hope we'll be back in fifty years
to check up on you and talk to you about yet another book.
Thank you very much.

Dr. Judith Reichman>> Val, I expect to do it.

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Val>> Taiko drumming is sometimes called the heartbeat of
Japanese culture, but it's part rhythm and part Zen meditation.
It dates back thousands of years to the time of the Samurai. We
thought we'd open up our Life and Times vault and bring you this
story about how a new generation is perfecting its strokes right
in the heart of Los Angeles.

Vivian Seki>> Through Taiko, I can really express my feelings,
my pride of my Japanese-American culture, my background, my
heritage.

>> Taiko gives me self-confidence.

>> I learn discipline and a lot of self-confidence.

>> I'm sure all the other kids here have the same experience
where it's like a completely different world once they step into
the world of Taiko.

Gay Yee>> It was once used on the battlefield to scare the
enemy or signal the troops, to conduct religious ceremonies and
dispel evil spirits, for communication between villages or start
to celebrate the harvest. Now Taiko drumming is considered a
performing art popular around the world. In fact, the
traditional Taiko is far more popular now than ever before.

In the heart of Little Tokyo at Zenshuji Temple, a group of
youths spend their Friday evenings rehearsing for upcoming
performances. Vivian Seki is the group's instructor.

[Film Clip]

Gay Yee>> The group, Zenshuji Zendeko, was formed in 1986.
They were initially trained by an internationally acclaimed
Taiko group from Japan.

Vivian Seki>> A famous Japanese Taiko group from Japan came to
Los Angeles to tour. They trained with us for approximately a
year. We went through some rigorous training and we decided to
form a performing arts group. From that time forward, we have
just trained new generations of kids coming in.
Vivian Seki>> "You guys are small, but you have to give the
image that you are big, okay?"

Gay Yee>> Zendeko has been described as one of the premier
performing arts groups in the United States. Members endure
strict practices and all of the students learn to play a variety
of instruments.

Vivian Seki>> Students in our group learn all the different
drums. We have small drums, we have medium drums and we have
the large drums. We also have wind instruments. We have a
Shakuhachi, which is a long wind instrument, and we have a
flute, a bamboo flute.

Gay Yee>> Zen meditation is an important part of training.
That's where the students learn focus and concentration.

Vivian Seki>> We incorporate that into our drumming by having
the individual concentrate on their breathing, breathing and
also the rhythm, nothing else.

>> They tell you to focus beyond the wall.

Gay Yee>> Through most of history, only men played Taiko. Even
as late as the 1950's, women were not allowed to hit the drum,
not even allowed to watch men practice, but that's changed.
Some people believe it's because of Taiko's popularity among
Japanese-Americans.

Vivian Seki>> In Japan, these types of traditional arts were
actually diminishing. The young people didn't really want to
explore the old traditions of Japan. The Japanese-American
Taiko groups actually play a role in bringing back the
traditional arts to Japan.

Gay Yee>> There are about 150 Taiko groups in North America.
Most groups don't receive any funding. To save money, they make
their own drums, using wine barrels. This cost-saving design
has helped inspire the growth of Taiko in this country.
However, Zenshuji Zendeko has been fortunate. Through donations
and money they earned from performances, they now boast of
owning the traditional type of drum made from one piece of wood.

Vivian Seki>> Our instruments are made out of a Japanese oak
and it's made out of the entire trunk of a tree, which is
prepared by cutting down the tree. They hollow out the inside
of the tree and they attach the skin which is cow skin.

Gay Yee>> Zendeko has performed before some impressive
audiences, including the Emperor and Empress of Japan, Pope John
Paul II, Nelson Mandela and former President George Bush. They
also perform several times a year here in Los Angeles at
community events and festivals.

>> At performances we have done, it's really great seeing
peoples' faces when they just enjoy it. It's really special.

>> They see a whole different side of me. When they see me do
this Taiko, they're like, wow, you have strength and you have
power.

Gay Yee>> One of the main reasons students join Zenshuji
Zendeko is to bring them closer to their own Japanese heritage.

>> I've learned more about my culture, not just about the
drumming. We go and perform at different events. It kind of
brings us closer to the Japanese community.

>> I learn a lot of Japanese traditions.

>> It teaches me a lot about my culture. I have so much fun.

Gay Yee>> From the youngest Taiko drummer to the oldest, each
will continue their Japanese tradition and share their culture,
their music and their art with the world.

Vivian Seki>> In this day and age, culture is the way of
extending yourself to other people. I believe Taiko really does
that. It really touches people in a way that most other things
have a hard time doing. All of those things mean so much to me
and Taiko has given me all of that.

Val>> It's not just the Taiko tradition that dates back
thousands of years. Some of the songs the Zendeko drummers
perform talk about warriors and battles that date back to
ancient Japan. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For
everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you
next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times, he is the high roller who
wants what Indians already have and Larry Flynt is betting that
voters will say yes to slot machines in Los Angeles County.

Larry Flynt>> There are a lot of people that don't like
gambling, but there's a hell of a lot more people that don't
want their taxes raised.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.