10/18/04

LC041018

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

They laid the groundwork for ending segregation in schools, so
why haven't we heard their story until now?

Silvia Mendez>> There's nothing we can do. Certain cities here
in Orange County have decided to segregate the Mexicans and they
have to go to Mexican schools and we cannot interfere with what
they're doing.

Val>> And then, the best of the current crop of student
filmmakers. Will the next Fellini or Spielberg be among them?

All that and more 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.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> It was a landmark decision that ended segregation in our
schools. No, I'm not talking about Brown vs. Board of
Education. I'm talking about a case that happened ten years
earlier and much closer to home. It's an Orange County case
called Mendez vs. Westminster. That decision ended the
segregation of Latinos in California schools, but it's little
known in spite of its far-reaching effects. Hena Cuevas tells
us the story of the local family at the center of the case back
in 1944.

Silvia Mendez>> They didn't care how it looked. It was just a
building there for the Mexicans to go to.

Hena Cuevas>> The year was 1944. Silvia Mendez was only seven
years old, but old enough to remember how difficult it was for
her and her two younger brothers to go to a school in their own
neighborhood.

Silvia Mendez>> It was all dirt and then the flies would come
from the dairy that was right next to the Mexican school.

Hena Cuevas>> It's been half a century since segregation was
declared unconstitutional, but Silvia Mendez still can't forget
her first taste of discrimination. Her aunt Soledad was taking
Silvia and her two brothers to register them in the Seventeenth
Street School in Westminster. Also with them were their
cousins, two girls who had distinctly lighter skin and hair.

Silvia Mendez>> So they said your children can stay in the
school, but your brothers will have to go to the Mexican school
and she got really upset. She said, "I'm not leaving my
children here if you won't take my brother's children". So she
gathered us all up and took us home.

Hena Cuevas>> When Silvia's father, Gonzalo Mendez, heard what
had happened, he went to the see the principal, then the
superintendent. Both said they could do nothing. Rules were
rules. Gonzalo then went to the Westminster School Board.

Silvia Mendez>> They told Mr. Mendez that there's nothing we
can do. Certain cities here in Orange County have decided to
segregate the Mexicans and they have to go to Mexican school and
we cannot interfere with what they're doing.

Hena Cuevas>> The official justification for segregation was in
a document from the school district that said "Mexican children
have a higher percentage of contagious diseases, have problems
learning and have lower moral values." Facing a dead end,
Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez decided to take on something even
larger, the law. The family owned a restaurant and some
property and tapped into their own savings to file a lawsuit
against the school district. Silvia Mendez didn't realize how
determined her parents were.

Silvia Mendez>> At the time, I was not aware of the extent to
what they were doing. I knew they were -- because we would go
to court every day, so we knew they were fighting.

Hena Cuevas>> The court battle took several lawsuits and lasted
for two years. Finally in 1947, the San Francisco Court of
Appeals in a unanimous decision ruled that segregated schools in
California violated the state's constitution. The Mendez family
had won a major civil rights battle ten years before the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled against segregation on a national scale.

Frederick Aguirre>> So that is the first time in the history of
this country that a public school had been told that separate
facilities, even though they were "equal", were not equal.

Hena Cuevas>> Orange County Judge, Frederick Aguirre, has
studied the Mendez case extensively.

Frederick Aguirre>> It's been culturally easier for the media
to assume and promote that there was only a black and white
issue, but obviously Mexican-Americans have been a part of that
civil rights struggle.

Hena Cuevas>> He says Mendez didn't have an impact nationally
because it never reached to the U.S. Supreme Court. However,
for the Mendez children, the change was immediate.

Silvia Mendez>> They put certain grades in the Mexican school
and put certain grades in the white school, so they integrated
us that way.

Hena Cuevas>> What was the reaction from the parents and the
children at the white school?

Silvia Mendez>> The parents were very upset that they had to go
to that dilapidated school in the middle of the Barrio, so they
started verbally protesting to the school board and eventually
they just got rid of that school.

Hena Cuevas>> In the late 1940's, racial tensions were high in
Orange County. In the meantime, the Mendez family had moved to
Santa Ana. Even there at the new school, the children say they
still weren't welcome.

Gonzalo Mendez>> We were the only three Mexicans in the whole
school.

Hena Cuevas>> Gonzalo Mendez was six years old at the time.

Gonzalo Mendez>> Oh, yeah. I didn't want to be there at all.
I didn't like it for the obvious reason. They didn't want us
there, so where you're not wanted, you don't really want to be
there.

Hena Cuevas>> Their younger brother, Geronimo, was only five,
but he remembers the insults.

Geronimo Mendez>> They called us names. Wetback, dirty
Mexican.

Hena Cuevas>> And even though you were young, you knew what
those words meant?

Geronimo Mendez>> Yeah. I didn't want to be there. They
didn't want me there. I remember my father having a fit because
I didn't want to go. I wouldn't go. I said I'm not going, I'm
not going. My father said I went to all this trouble and you
are going (laughter). After all this we went through, you are
going. I'd say no, I'm not. He'd say yes, you are. You know
who won (laughter).

Hena Cuevas>> They laugh about it now, but the Mendez children
are deeply grateful for the opportunities their parents'
determination afforded them. Almost fifty years later, Gonzalo
and Felicitas Mendez were finally honored with this school that
carries their name. It's an honor that, according to their
children, would have gone against a decision their parents made
never to talk about the case after they won. Why do you think
your parents never talked about the case?

Silvia Mendez>> Once they won and we were all going to
integrated schools and that's what they had fought for, they
were just happy that we were all in school.

Hena Cuevas>> In 1954, Brown vs. Board outlawed segregated
schools in all fifty states, but Judge Aguirre argues that it
was the Mendez case that had the biggest influence over Supreme
Court Justice Earl Warren. Warren had been the governor of
California during the Mendez lawsuit.

Frederick Aguirre>> When he went up to the Supreme Court, he
already understood the legal basis for dealing with segregated
public schools. So when you look at Brown, you can't look at it
in an isolated sense. You have to look at what preceded it.

Hena Cuevas>> Another Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall,
also had ties to the Mendez case. He was one of the attorneys
for the NAACP who wrote briefs supporting the Mendez family.
Now the Mendez siblings want to make sure their case gets the
place it deserves in civil rights history. They're getting some
help from a new documentary, "Mendez vs. Westminster: For All
The Children", produced by Sandra Robbie. And Silvia Mendez
takes her story directly to the children who are attending
schools that would have been closed to her sixty years ago.

Silvia Mendez>> We want it to be taught in schools and we're
hoping that someday it will be in the California curriculum.

Hena Cuevas>> She says she always gets the same reaction from
the kids.

Silvia Mendez>> Oh, we never knew about that. Why don't we
know about this, especially the Latinos? Oh, we're so thankful
that you have told us this. It has inspired us so much. So
with that, I feel that it must go on.

Val>> The Mendez family is finally getting some recognition for
its role in this civil rights case. The Smithsonian has a copy
of the documentary that tells their story and the family was
invited to the White House as part of the celebration of
Hispanic Heritage Month.

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Val>> We here in Southern California have been grappling with
the problem of immigration for years, but we're not the only
ones. Europe too is becoming a magnet for immigrants, many of
them Muslims, so how does Western European culture get along
with Islam? Saul Gonzalez traveled to Holland to see how a
country with a reputation for tolerance is handling the growing
Muslim population.

Saul Gonzalez>> The Netherlands has long been a country
synonymous with peace and prosperity with its sixteen million
citizens enjoying one of the highest standards of living in the
world. It's also a nation known for its liberal social values.
Here prostitution is open and legal, as is the use of some drugs
like marijuana which can be bought as easily as a cup of coffee.

However, like other European nations, Holland's reputation for
tolerance is being tested as the country grapples with how to
welcome and integrate its growing immigrant Muslim population, a
community of 900,000 people who are increasingly vocal in
demanding a quality Dutch society.

Samira Abbos>> I don't want to be tolerated in this country.
I've lived here for thirty-two years. I am a citizen of
Holland. I want to be accepted.

Saul Gonzalez>> Samira Abbos is a writer and social commentator
of Moroccan birth. She says many of Holland's Muslims,
especially the young, are trying to find ways to reconcile their
identities as both Muslims and Europeans.

Samira Abbos>> What I see here in Holland that's very important
is that a young generation of Dutch Muslims is coming up. Dutch
Muslims who say I want to be Dutch and I can be Muslim here in
Holland. Give us the freedom.

Saul Gonzalez>> As Holland and other European countries
struggle to assimilate their growing Muslim populations, many
fear a gulf is growing on this continent between Muslims and
non-Muslims, a gulf characterized by mutual suspicion and
hostility.

Barry Madlener>> If you say I reject the Western way of
lifestyle and I don't want to fit in your way, I say keep away.

Saul Gonzalez>> Barry Madlener is a municipal councilman in the
Dutch port city of Rotterdam. It's a metropolis where nearly
fifty percent of all residents are foreign-born with most of
them from Muslim countries. Echoing the views of many
Europeans, Madlener favors tighter immigration laws and argues
that too many Muslims living in Europe are unwilling to accept
European cultural values, such as equality for women and gays.

Barry Madlener>> They really reject Western lifestyle and we
think that's very strange because, if you don't want to have a
Western life, you shouldn't come here. So they come here and
they want to claim their own lifestyle and, of course, we are a
liberal society. But when the children of these people cannot
fit in in our society, then the problems will grow.

Saul Gonzalez>> Madlener's views are not unique. A recent
national poll found that more than a third of Dutch citizens
feel threatened by Muslims. Such public concerns have spurred
Holland's center right government to propose some of the
toughest immigration reforms in Western Europe, including the
expulsion of thousands of asylum seekers in the country. Fears
of terrorism also contribute to Europeans' ambivalence toward
the continent's more than twelve million Muslims, especially in
the wake of the Madrid train bombings of last March. Those
attacks planned and carried out by Islamic militants killed
nearly two hundred people.

Many young European Muslims like Dutch Moroccan kick boxer,
Fekre Tayardi, say their saddened that Islam has become
associated with bloodshed and fanaticism in the minds of some
Europeans. Tayardi says the only people he wants to fight are
in the ring.

Fekre Tayardi>> I feel power in my religion, but I don't feel
hate. I feel only love and power and everything I need is in my
religion, so I am happy with my religion. But people see it
like, yeah, there is bad religion and hate religion.

Saul Gonzalez>> Abbos feels that the actions of a radical few
make it easier for Europeans to demonize all Muslims.

Samira Abbos>> It can make you crazy because you don't know me,
but you are afraid of me, and we live in the same country. For
me, that's a very big problem.

Saul Gonzalez>> However, this woman, one of the most
controversial figures in Holland, says European society should
fear some in the Muslim community. She is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a
Somali-born Dutch legislator and former Muslim herself who says
Europe is increasingly threatened by Islamic fundamentalist
beliefs imported from the Middle East, beliefs that are
appealing to many poor and alienated Muslim young people.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali>> You see that these individuals have now gone
through a complete mental change and take a hostile attitude
towards Europe and Europeans and label people unbelievers.
Those Muslims who are mild about their religion, let's say those
Muslims would practice their Islam like most Christians practice
Christendom in Europe, even those Muslims have been labeled by
the radical Muslims as unbelievers or working with the
unbelievers.

Saul Gonzalez>> Hirsi Ali says she is especially concerned
about what growing Islamic fundamentalism in Europe means for
the progress of Muslim women on the continent.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali>> So fathers forbid their daughters to go to
school. They forbid them to have friends. They forbid them to
mix with the native Dutch people. After a certain age, they are
forced into marriage or they are persuaded into marriage and,
when society discusses this, then the left would always say it's
their culture. We are supposed to respect it. But what you see
is that these are human rights abuses.

Saul Gonzalez>> Many European Muslims complain that it's their
rights and freedoms that are in jeopardy as suspicion of them
grows.

Dyab Abou Jahjah>> When a Muslim declares openly that he is a
Muslim and is quite outspoken about that and wants to
participate in politics and wants to participate in public life
out of his own beliefs which is what everybody does, that Muslim
is considered extremist.

Saul Gonzalez>> Lebanese-born Dyab Abou Jahjah is the President
of the Arab-European League, a controversial Muslim civil rights
group. Jahjah argues that the plight of Muslims in twenty-first
century Europe is no better than that of African-Americans
during the days of segregation.

Dyab Abou Jahjah>> I think it's even more oppressive. I mean,
they are unemployed. They have no education. The level of
dropping out of school is phenomenal. They have no housing and
they have no practical civil rights.

Saul Gonzalez>> Jahjah criticizes recent laws passed in Europe
such as a ban on head scarves in schools, and a requirement in
Holland that Muslim clerics use the Dutch language in religious
services. To Jahjah, such laws are repugnant examples of forced
cultural assimilation that send a clear message to Muslims.

Dyab Abou Jahjah>> We don't want them to stay like that. We
don't want them to be different. We want them to be exactly
like us and, only when they are exactly like us, we accept them.
Well, if you only accept people who are exactly like you, you're
not tolerant.

Saul Gonzalez>> As he lectures about the oppression of Muslims
in Europe, however, Jahjah himself is attacked as a dangerous
demagogue by his critics. Those critics often cite Jahjah's
qualified condemnations of past terrorist attacks such as the
Madrid bombings.

Dyab Abou Jahjah>> I said clearly that I condemn the bombings
and then they ask me is it absurd violence? I said, well, it's
not absurd in the sense that there is a political agenda behind
it. I can understand. If you ask me why they did it, I can
tell you why they did it. So I'm not going to come into
political correct discourse. I don't care about that. I just
say things like they are. I know why people attacked Madrid. I
say stupid of them. They should have taken other targets.

Saul Gonzalez>> Jahjah's comments stir concern in Holland which
has 1,300 soldiers deployed in Iraq. In Dutch cities,
authorities fear some Muslim institutions, such as the ultra-
conservative mosque located in this plain building in Amsterdam,
are teaching a militant form of Islam, one which could encourage
disaffected Muslim young people to turn to violence. As Islam's
influence in Europe continues to grow, Europeans face a
challenge familiar to many Americans, welcoming the traditions
and beliefs of newcomers while protecting freedom and equality
for all.

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Val>> So where will the next Spielberg, Spike Lee or Coppola
come from? Chances are, right here in Southern California where
some of the best film schools in the country are putting out
some of the best student films in the country, as I found out
when I took a look at the selections for this year's "Fine Cut".

[Film Clip]

Val>> One film called "The Anniversary" tells the moving story
of two Vietnamese brothers separated when they were boys. They
encounter each other years later on very different terms.
Another is a light look at a sociopathic ribbon.

[Film Clip]

Val>> And still another is a humorous look at road rage and
revenge.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Recently at the Vista Theatre in Los Feliz, a crowd
gathered for a special screening of the "Fine Cut" selection. I
talked with some of the students who represent a new generation
of filmmakers. Among them is animator, Elizabeth Ito, from
CalArts. She created a charming animated short called "Welcome
to My Life".

[Film Clip]

Elizabeth Ito>> I guess that it's about my family and it's
really entertaining. It's kind of like a documentary about a
family of monsters trying to fit in in normal life.

Val>> So are the voices coming from your family and then you
animate them?

Elizabeth Ito>> Yeah. I wanted to do a film about my brother
because he had written this really cute autobiography about
himself that was talking about what it's like to be a high
school student. So I thought it would be kind of interesting to
play with that idea of how sometimes it's difficult to fit in in
high school and make it really difficult and make him a monster.

[Film Clip]

Val>> The competition among student films can be as intense as
the pie bakeoff in the film "Easy as Pie".

[Film Clip]

Val>> The Festival's benefactor is Jack Larson. You may
remember him from years back as Jimmy Olson in the Superman
series. His Foundation aims to get students' work seen by the
public and studio executives, thus the Sunday evening television
time slot.

Jack Larson>> Where the executives who young filmmakers want
them to see their films can't fast-forward a cassette. They
have to watch "Fine Cut" on Sunday night and they like to watch
"Fine Cut" at the end of the week. So it's been very
successful.

Val>> But how many aspiring filmmakers will actually realize
their dreams? Bill Condon has. He wrote the screenplay for
"Gods and Monsters" and the Oscar-winning "Chicago". He's the
host of this year's "Fine Cut" Festival.

Bill Condon>> I think that we're entering a radically new world
because it is so much easier to make a movie. It's very hard to
get them shown and seen, which is why this show is so important.
The amount of movies that get made, it's just expediential how
many more there are than actually get distributed. But I think
one of the exciting things this year is that it's coming from
unlikely sources. You know, it's not just the great big famous
rich film schools that are producing some of the best work. I
think technology is available to so many people now that it
really is more of a bubbling talent from, you know, all
different directions.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Several of the films are animated. While computers have
revolutionized the craft, many young filmmakers still prefer
hand-drawn animation like this one called "Skies of the Fallen"
produced by a team of four from CalArts.

[Film Clip]

Gennady Babichenko>> It takes place mostly with an air battle
and the shells from the ammunition being fired are raining down
on the village below, so the film basically represents how
others are affected by war indirectly.

[Film Clip]

Val>> One skill that you can't see on the screen is navigating
through the business maze of Hollywood, but some of these "Fine
Cut" winners already have.

Jack Larson>> For instance, this beautiful film which is
nominated for an Academy Award, a short called "The
Anniversary". Out of the whole thing, he's making his first
full-length feature right now in Vietnam.

Val>> Another film called "March 26th" refers to an anniversary
date of a father's death. It's an experimental film told with
no words. Nick Crew is the director.

Nick Crew>> Well, the idea just kind of came slow. I was kind
of examining the whole war issue. I just kind of made it about
their memories and what might be created through like so much
emotional stress that they go through and what might happen to
the different family members.

Bill Condon>> The forum is breaking down. I know tonight we're
going to see animation, documentary, narrative features and some
that combine all of those. I think that's a really exciting
trend in movies. People aren't sticking to just one thing. Not
only are they exploding out of genre, but they're all taking
different kinds of movies and throwing them together.

Val>> Others head down the documentary road, like Luke Fisher
from Loyola Marymount who made a documentary called "The Road to
Hanoi" about three American ex-patriots living in Vietnam.

Luke Fisher>> I know that, in every large country, there's
always a community of ex-patriots who are sitting in a bar
drinking. So if you go to certain bars, you're going to meet
all of them within a couple of weeks. Initially, I was going to
do a documentary on the paving of the Ho Chi Min Trail. They're
paving the Ho Chi Min Trail, so I showed up with a backpack and
a lot of film on a motorcycle and just sort of tried to find
this story. I realized that they're not going to finish paving
the Ho Chi Min Trail until 2010, so I had to shift gears a
little bit and do another story.

Val>> Films may go through phases and technology will continue
to evolve, but the most basic ingredient hasn't changed and
never will.

Luke Fisher>> I just want to tell a good story and I think that
any filmmaker should in any kind of film production try to tell
good stories no matter what their format is.

[Film Clip]

Val>> 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.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.