11/08/04

LC041108

This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City
of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Why would Rosemead embrace what Inglewood rejected? Wal-Mart
Supercenters gained their first foothold in Los Angeles County.

Jay Imperial>> Wal-Mart is going to give them jobs. Wal-Mart
is going to save them money in what they can buy.

Val>> And then --

[Film Clip]

Val>> With tongues firmly in cheek, these actors poke fun at
all things Latino. They're using laughter to change perceptions
and open minds.

It's all next 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 made national headlines. The people of Inglewood
rejecting a Wal-Mart. But now the city of Rosemead has said
yes. Wal-Mart has won approval to open a Supercenter in
Rosemead. Now there are plenty of regular Wal-Marts in the
area, but this would be the first Supercenter in the county of
Los Angeles. As Stephanie O'Neill Noe tells us, critics say the
Supercenter, with a complete grocery section, will hurt local
merchants and the quality of life.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> This empty twenty-four acre lot on the
corner of Walnut Grove Avenue and Rush Street has sat vacant for
years, a spartan field that normally would go unnoticed. But a
decision this month by the Rosemead City Council has catapulted
the land into a stormy controversy, one that's divided this
mostly Asian and Hispanic suburb twelve miles east of downtown
Los Angeles.

Senator Gloria Romero>> What we've begun to see in California
is what I've called the "Wal-Martization" of the California
economy.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Democratic State Senator Gloria Romero
represents Rosemead in Sacramento.

Senator Gloria Romero>> What local governments like Rosemead
have begun to do is essentially look for the quick fix and that
is to say we want to find the biggest box retailer who will come
into a neighborhood, who will come into a community, and offer
the almighty dollar. Essentially, that's sales tax revenue that
cities are thirsting for.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Romero is among a growing number of
politicians challenging Wal-Mart's efforts to build forty so-
called Supercenters in Southern California. These mega-stores
combine discounted general merchandise in a fully stocked
grocery store in a single building of more than two hundred
thousand square feet. Romero says the vacant lot in Rosemead is
the wrong place to put a super-sized Wal-Mart.

Senator Gloria Romero>> It's not near the freeway. You have to
travel on city streets in order to get to the site. It's right
across the street from a large elementary school with some three
hundred students who walk to school. It's right across the
street from a condo development where you find many senior
citizens. It's essentially been a quiet community. The first
objection is why are you totally changing the character of this
neighborhood in order to put a Wal-Mart? It doesn't make sense.

Jay Imperial>> We've got people in higher office in the state
of California that are so busy coming in and bothering us with
this Wal-Mart thing. I wonder if they don't have enough to do
up there.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Jay Imperial has served on the Rosemead
City Council for twenty-seven years and says the Council's
unanimous vote for the super store does make sense. Rosemead's
retail community is sluggish, comprised mostly of small
immigrant mom and pop stores that are pockmarked by abandoned
businesses. Among the latest casualties is this former Ralphs
grocery store that closed its doors in August leaving this city
of 53,000 residents without a local supermarket. Lifelong
Rosemead resident, Barbara Magayana, says that's been tough.
Rosemead, she says, needs new shopping.

Barbara Magayana>> I'm just really glad that it's coming. It
makes it more convenient, you know. It gives us more choices of
places to shop other than just K-Mart and, you know, Target.
Then we'll have at least a third choice and I'm glad it's
coming.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> A Wal-Mart Supercenter would also boost
Rosemead's annual sales tax earnings by $640,000. What's more,
Imperial says, with a poverty rate of more than twenty-two
percent, Rosemead needs jobs. A city study estimates that Wal-
Mart will create up to five hundred new jobs.

Jay Imperial>> Wal-Mart is going to give them jobs. Wal-Mart
is going to save them money on what they can buy. What they
can't afford today, they might be able to afford tomorrow and
that's what it's all about.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Still, opposition is strong. Rosemead
resident, Larry Bevington, is leading the anti-Wal-Mart charge.
Bevington heads up Save Our Community, a group of about forty
residents funded in part by labor money.

Larry Bevington>> The big problem is that the traffic and the
air pollution from the fumes and the trucks that come here, one
percent of their traffic is trucks and so, from all those
sources, the air pollution is going to get substantially worse.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> The Wal-Mart Super Store is expected to
increase traffic by about twelve thousand vehicles trips per day
and that's especially worrisome to nearby residents. Mary
Ferris has lived for thirty years in these condominiums at the
corner of Delta and Rush Streets across from the proposed site.

Mary Ferris>> I don't like the idea of a Wal-Mart across the
street. This is the mega store followed by a Supercenter that
will open twenty-four hours a day, not even a hundred feet from
my front door. I don't like it at all.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Bevington says opposition to the
Rosemead Wal-Mart extends beyond the immediate impact.

Larry Bevington>> Wal-Mart has a reputation that, within three
years, half of the small businesses will be gone. They can deny
that, but that's the history.

Shirley Svorny>> You might lose some jobs in competing firms,
but over time, this is a wealth-enhancing thing to do, not
something that's going to hurt Southern California.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Shirley Svorny is a Professor and
Chairwoman of the Department of Economics at Cal State
Northridge.

Shirley Svorny>> There used to be mom and pop stores, then we
went to the large chain grocery stores. Now we're going to
these even bigger box stores and, without it, we would be a lot
less prosperous.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Last fall, grocery workers took to the
streets in Southern California's longest grocery strike.
Supermarket managers said concessions from workers were
essential in order to compete with the non-union pay low prices
of Wal-Mart, already the nation's largest grocer. The strike
finally ended without a clear victory for the workers. Earlier
this year, the Wal-Mart corporation battled the city of
Inglewood's opposition to a Wal-Mart Supercenter by forcing a
showdown at the ballot box.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson>> What they did was essentially tell the
city of Inglewood, get out of here. We are going to because we
are the biggest corporation in the world. We have more money
than is anywhere in creation. We can go in and essentially buy
an election.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Wal-Mart spokesman, Peter Kanelos,
disagreed.

Peter Kanelos>> The reality is that the bully are the labor
unions. Organized labor has continued to bully Wal-Mart and its
customers and if the unions and the elected officials that they
put in office think they're going to be able to attack Wal-Mart,
they'd better expect Wal-Mart to fight back.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> In a rare defeat for the biggest
corporation in the world, Inglewood voters rejected the Wal-Mart
Supercenter. Also this year, the Los Angeles City Council
passed an ordinance requiring big box retailers to prove that a
Super Store would not harm the local economy. So why are
smaller cities like Rosemead embracing Wal-Mart? One reason is
because the sales tax dollars generated aren't diluted by a
large population and go much further in a smaller town. But,
Svorny warns that, even in the case of big cities, banning the
big boxes is short-sighted.

Shirley Svorny>> It's just so ironic that an area that needs
something so badly like South Central doesn't have the
opportunity to have a Wal-Mart in its midst, and it wouldn't
just be the Wal-Mart. It would be other businesses that would
be attracted to those areas. It's exactly what we need.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Meanwhile, as the future of the vacant
lot on the corner of Walnut Grove and Rush Streets is battled
out in Rosemead, Wal-Mart officials are hoping their well-tested
strategy of expansion into small communities will win them their
first foothold into Los Angeles County. I'm Stephanie O'Neill
Noe for Life and Times.

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Val>> It is one of the loneliest of professions, long-haul
truck driving. Little wonder that among truck drivers, there's
a high incidence of alcohol and drug abuse. But at one of the
biggest truck stops in the country, truckers can fill up on more
than gas, coffee and small talk. Saul Gonzalez takes us to
Ontario where he met a minister who's working to lead fellow
truckers down the road to God.

Saul Gonzalez>> Sixty miles east of Los Angeles along a stretch
of freeway near old Route 66 sits one of the busiest truck stops
in America. For bone-weary drivers, the stop is a welcome if
spartan roadside oasis, a place to rest and relax, grab some
food and coffee and do the wash. Some drivers, however, pull in
here to refuel their religious faith in a truck trailer turned
House of God.

Reverend Doug Young>> "And I think as truck drivers, I think we
can appreciate the Book of Corinthians."

Saul Gonzalez>> This is the Southern California Chapel of
Transport for Christ. It's an interdenominational Evangelical
Christian group that ministers to some of America's three
million cross-country truckers. The chaplain is Doug Young, a
former big rig driver turned ordained minister.

Reverend Doug Young>> We have a mission statement and it's a
simple one. To win truck drivers to Jesus Christ and to help
them or teach them to grow in their faith. So it's evangelism
and discipleship in the world for the truck driver.

Reverend Doug Young>> "I don't know if you've ever gone down
the wrong road in your truck. I have. The place I got to go is
back the other way. That's what I got to do. I got to make a
complete turnaround and go back the right way. Well, that's
what the word repent means."

Saul Gonzalez>> Reverend Young's ministry is but one outpost in
a growing roadside missionary movement with Transport for Christ
and other religious groups operating hundreds of chapels and
prayer services at America's more than two thousand truck stops.
Reverend Young says it's a movement powered by religious faith
within the trucking community.

Reverend Doug Young>> There's a lot of talk among drivers and,
if you talk to them long enough, they'll tell you, well, you
know, I believe in the man upstairs. He's kind of a macho God.
Their God is probably a truck driver.

Saul Gonzalez>> With drivers constantly coming and going,
Reverend Young finds new congregants by walking the sprawling
truck yard.

Reverend Doug Young>> "Good morning."

>> "Are you with that church thing right over there?"

Reverend Doug Young>> "Yes. We're having services at eleven
o'clock this morning."

>> "Okay, yes. I thought about coming to it."

Reverend Doug Young>> All right. Well, you're welcome to join
us."

>> "Okay, well, thank you. I love Jesus too. That's why I
love my gospel. I tell the whole U.S. about Jesus."

Reverend Doug Young>> "There you go."

>> "Women truck drivers rule."

Carolyn Young>> "May I have your attention, please? Church
services will begin at 11:00."

Saul Gonzalez>> Reverend Young's assisted in his ministry by
his wife, Carolyn. When her husband was a trucker, she drove
thousands of miles with him. Now she's something of a truck
stop den mother.

Carolyn Young>> These guys and gals are warm, they're loving,
giving, generous people, and they'd give you the shirt off their
backs, but they need to be treated decently. When you give them
love, they just love back in return and it's just such fun.

Saul Gonzalez>> Common among drivers is a conservative
religious faith married to a fierce independence.

Daniel Ponder>> I like truck driving right now because, in a
short sentence, I don't like going to work at the same place
doing the same thing with the same people in the same building
every day. I don't like it.

Saul Gonzalez>> Daniel Ponder says attending truck stop chapels
helps him feel connected to a religious community when he's far
from home.

Daniel Ponder>> If you were home every night and you could go
to church every Sunday and go to bible study every Sunday at the
same church with the same people and do that kind of fellowship,
you know, that's what I hunger for.

Saul Gonzalez>> A job spent traveling the highways of America
might seem romantic to some outsiders, yet many road-hardened
drivers say trucking is a profoundly lonely life, taking them
away from loved ones for weeks, even months, at a time.

>> It's isolated. Nobody to talk to. I mean, it's good to
have places where you can go talk.

Saul Gonzalez>> I don't want to get in your private life, but
how does that affect things like a relationship between father
and son, a relationship between husband and wife?

>> Hard. I missed my kids growing up. Like I say, my oldest
one will be nineteen this year and I missed him growing up. I
missed my sixteen year old growing up and it makes it difficult.
I try to make up for it when I am home, but you just can't make
up for the time that you've lost with them.

Saul Gonzalez>> Loneliness can lead to alcoholism, drug abuse
and marital infidelity, temptations easily found on the
interstates.

Edward Morrow>> I come into these truck stops. Now this one is
not as bad as it used to be. This used to be a bad truck stop
here. At most truck stops, you can get anything here you want
and a lot of things you don't want.

Reverend Doug Young>> "Hi, driver. Come on in. You're just in
time."

Saul Gonzalez>> Reverend Young says truck stop chapels are
sanctuaries for drivers in strange surroundings.

Reverend Doug Young>> Drivers will come into the chapel and
they don't want to talk about trucks and trucking. They know
it's a chapel. They walk through the door and they're looking
for answers to their loneliness, to their problems, to their
situation.

Saul Gonzalez>> America's just in time economy creates other
problems for drivers. With shippers demanding ever-faster
delivery schedules, truckers will routinely spend sixty,
seventy, even eighty hours a week behind the wheel. Grueling
work schedules are further encouraged by a wage system that pays
drivers by the mile and not the hour. The work also claims
lives. In the year 2000, the last year when numbers are
available, 852 truckers were killed in accidents, the highest
number of fatalities in any industry.

>> We just came from Washington. It was snowing. It was
windy, rain, ice on the road. Man, we seen a lot of trucks
being jackknifed, people getting killed on the road. That makes
you think twice if you really want to be out here. But if you
believe in God, God will always be there for you. That's for
sure.

Reverend Doug Young>> "Everything we have, everything we need
is found in Jesus Christ in our relationship with him."

Saul Gonzalez>> Many truckers say that prayer and faith help
them deal with the burdens of the job. For husband and wife
drivers, Peggy and Edward Morrow, God is a constant traveling
companion.

Peggy Morrow>> You can feel Jesus behind you. That's an uplift
right there. You know, just kind of a push. You know, like to
keep going, keep going, keep going.

Edward Morrow>> One year we came out here and we lost a
transmission in Oklahoma. Two thousand miles from home. We
were stuck there for six days getting the transmission replaced.
When you go, what do you do? Without God, it's just not worth
it. I wouldn't be out here on the road without Him.

Saul Gonzalez>> Along with saving souls, truck stop chaplains
like Doug Young preach a message of dignity to their
congregations.

Reverend Doug Young>> I think everybody wants to feel like
they're valued, like they're worth something. Everybody needs
to have that feeling like they're contributing. They need
somebody that will listen and I found that the best gift that I
could give them is to listen to them. Let them talk. Let them
share. Then I can share some good things with them.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us
by mail at this address:

Life and Times
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contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val>> Is it entertainment or is it just playing off of
stereotype? One thing is clear. The theatre production called
"Latinologues" has hit a funny bone so much so that it's being
produced time and time again with different actors stepping into
the roles. Hena Cuevas went to the Coronet Theatre to find out
what's behind the appeal of "Latinologues".

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> The single pregnant girl from the Bronx, the
dignified Miss East L.A.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> Or the Border Patrol Agent.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> This is where some of the biggest Latin names
come from. Edward James Olmos and Esai Morales are only two of
the hundreds of actors who've performed the more than fifty
monologues. "Latinologues" is the product of Rick Najero,
actor, producer and writer of "Latinologues".

Rick Najero>> And the show is very diverse. We go from
Chicanos to Cubanos to Puerto Ricans.

Hena Cuevas>> Najero was born in San Diego, the son of Mexican
immigrants. He says that growing up in two separate cultures
inspired him to create "Latinologues".

Rick Najero>> We see people, especially Latinos because a lot
of times they're working class. We don't know their stories
underneath and we don't see them as human beings. We see them
as occupations. I think that's one of the lessons of
"Latinologues" and done with humor.

Hena Cuevas>> It's the imperfection of the characters that
attracted Cuban actor, Rene Lavan.

Rene Lavan>> The show has heart that shows characters that are
not victims, who do not see themselves as victims.

Hena Cuevas>> Lavan was named one of People in Espanol's
magazines twenty-five most beautiful people in 2001 and played
the older brother in "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights".

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> You use a lot of stereotypes in your monologues.
Do you think there's a danger in using those stereotypes?

Rene Lavan>> Yeah, there is that satire element to it, but, you
know, if you can't laugh at your own shortcomings, then, you
know, I think we tend to take ourselves a little too serious
sometimes. You know, we laugh at our shortcomings and, at the
same time, there is a message of hope.

Hena Cuevas>> One of his characters is Fidel, a Mexican getting
ready to cross the border.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> We've all seen the sign along the highway and
probably never noticed that she is wearing heels. It's these
observations that Najero uses to open eyes and minds.

Rick Najero>> "Bam, get their eyes. Bam, get each person."

Rick Najero>> We show characters, warts and all. Sometimes
we're called the equal opportunity offender because we sometimes
do that.

Hena Cuevas>> Has anybody ever been offended?

Rick Najero>> Normally, the people that are most offended are
the stereotypes (laughter). It's funny. A guy showed up in a
red velour jacket, gold pinky ring and gold teeth and he's like,
"Let me tell you something. I'm a little offended that you use
accents. I want to show our people without accents up there.
Don't do no accents. It's like too difficult to have an
accent." I'm like, excuse me, you got an accent, and the pinky
ring and the velour jacket some people might call stereotypical,
and he was more offended.

Hena Cuevas>> Another skit features student activists who are
testing the crowd to find out if they're "real" Mexicans. The
one Litmus test for a true Mexicano is what they think of Puerto
Rican singer, Ricky Martin.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> It's the twisting of our perception, going beyond
what we see on the surface, that allows Najero to send his
message.

Rick Najero>> We'll start the first image as stereotype, maybe
a gangbanger type guy, a Cholo. He's on the phone and he starts
in talking to someone. You don't know who it is.

[Film Clip]

Rick Najero>> It's the beginning of taking a stereotype and
turning it upside down to say that underneath that stereotype is
a complex human being.

Hena Cuevas>> And then, there's a Dominican janitor who loves
to clean things, proud to work at the World Trade Center. Amid
the jokes, he tells how he lost his wife on September 11.

Rene Lavan>> You can hear a pin drop in the theatre when I do
the monologue because it's such a story of, you know, a person
who's there cleaning. You know, no one cares how many times you
go by the hallways and, you know, they don't realize that that
person has a story.

Lina Acosta>> The stereotype grabs you and then we go, okay,
now you're listening. Now here's what I have to say.

Hena Cuevas>> Lina Acosta has been with the show since 2002.
She's also worked at other productions like the independent film
"Real Women Have Curves".

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> Still, her biggest challenges are the characters
that spring from Najero's imagination.

Lina Acosta>> You can play them up here because they are,
they're funny, but there's all this other like so many layers to
these monologues.

Hena Cuevas>> Her favorite is Rachel, the pregnant single
mother from the Bronx who says she's had an immaculate
conception.

[Film Clip]

Rick Najero>> Sometimes an Anglo won't laugh first, but seeing
Latinos laughing around them is like, hey, you mean I can laugh?
All right. Yeah, you can laugh.

Hena Cuevas>> Why do you think "Latinologues" has been so
successful?

Rick Najero>> It's funny, bottom line. I really think that's
been a big part of it. It's funny. It's not preachy. It's all
the things that so many shows are. When I deal with ethnicity,
a culture, a lot of times I'm going to give you the best lesson
of your life. You need to hear this story. It's going to
educate you. And it's a feeling when an audience is watching it
like, yeah, I should see this. Oh, those poor Latinos. Those
poor, poor Latinos. Then you've got the other Latinos like this
is all climbing over the border, a lot of that, and this is
really a celebration.

Hena Cuevas>> And just like he recommends at the end of the
show, if you're Latino, tell your relatives. If you're Anglo,
then tell your employees.

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.

This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City
of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

The Huck Finn days of playing hooky are over. Truancy is a
serious problem and California is getting tough.

>> So I want to put fear into the child's heart to let them
know the truant officer is there working and we'll come and get
you at the fishing hole. When they come to me, they have a
choice of just one of two things. They're going to be in school
in the community of their choice or they'll be in school in the
Juvenile Hall, but they will be in school.

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