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Life & Times Transcript
09/21/05 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- They've already done hard time behind bars, but some ex-offenders say it's even harder when they get out. Theresa Cusimano>> When I would look for a job -- after I would be released from jail, I would go look for a job and they would deny me and I said that, okay, well, no one's going to hire me. I may as well go back to my same ways. I would just give up. Val Zavala>> And then, one of the jewels of our state parks system is about to get even better. We'll see a part of the central coast that's been strictly off-limits. It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Announcer>> 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 Zavala>> Call them ex-offenders, felons, criminals or previously incarcerated, but don't call them useless. Many people who get out of prison find that building a second life for themselves can be as hard as doing time. But as Toni Guinyard found out, many of them are determined to do it. Theresa Cusimano>> I started when I was twenty-three. I never had a juvenile record, never got in trouble by the police, never had a ticket. Toni Guinyard>> At first glance, Theresa Cusimano looks like any other student. Her appearance gives no indication of her past. Theresa Cusimano>> I started stealing cars and I started doing forgery and I just started doing a lot of that. Toni Guinyard>> You got caught. Theresa Cusimano>> Yes, I ended up getting caught. The first time was for forgery and then a couple months after that, it was for stealing a car. Ever since then, I was going in and out of the county, in and out. I couldn't stay out more than a month. I would go right back in and finally I ended up going to prison. Toni Guinyard>> When we met Theresa, she was on parole, free after spending five months of a sixteen-month sentence behind bars. She's keeping busy juggling the demands of school, motherhood and a part-time job. She's also speaking out and providing us a glimpse of the challenges faced by ex-offenders trying to re-enter a world that was once out of their reach. Theresa Cusimano>> I'm doing okay. Actually, to be honest, I'm surprised I even made it this far. I'm almost off parole. I wouldn't have done any of this if I was using drugs. Toni Guinyard>> Theresa is well aware that most law-abiding residents don't care about her situation or that of others who have served time in prison, but she believes the public should care. A disproportionate number of released felons live in Los Angeles County and their success or failure at re-entering society impacts the community. Yusef Omowale>> You look at a lot of people in Los Angeles living in gated communities, living in fear. Why is that? Because of the climate of fear created around incarceration and decisions that we're making and we're all worse off when these large segments of our population that are suffering, facing economic problems, poor educational resources, all those kinds of things. Toni Guinyard>> Yusef Omowale is director of the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research. The stories of ex-offenders have found a home here in the stacks of books and archives. Yusef Omowale>> There are people that use our resources and may not agree with creating new policies to benefit people in this community and they believe in increasing incarceration. But they can still hopefully come and look at that to make a more informed decision because right now we don't feel that it's really informed with the voices of people who are experiencing this. Toni Guinyard>> The library wants to know what the former inmates know, the personal and societal effects of incarceration and re-entry into the community. So it's collecting items from ex-offenders documenting their stay in and release from prison for its generation locked-down collection. Yusef Omowale>> So we have release statements. When you get out, you get this and you get approximately two hundred dollars gate money which you have to find a place to stay, to eat, to do all those kind of things. This is a card from someone who is incarcerated sent back to their family and talked about how they wish they could have some more money to send home. This is a canteen list with the prices for everything from a toothbrush and deodorant to lotion to tortilla chips. Toni Guinyard>> Transferable skills? Yusef Omowale>> Right. Toni Guinyard>> Explain this one to me. Yusef Omowale>> I wish that I could. Toni Guinyard>> The transferable skills form was distributed to an inmate during a class that is supposed to help ex-felons describe their skills when searching for a job. Omowale is far from impressed. Yusef Omowale>> So for auto theft, I can say I have good mechanical skills. I work well alone. I work well under pressure. Forgery: I'm creative. I have the ability to improvise. I have the power of observation. For example, if I was convicted of prostitution, I could put on my resume that I'm good at adaptability, that I'm a good listener, that I have money management skills. So that's the kind of thing that they were given in their class. If some people from your community are gone, they're spending years behind bars. There's no programs in prisons and ninety percent of the people incarcerated are going to get out. What are they going to be like when they get out? There's no transition or re-entry programs. All these services have been cut. What happens to the community? How does the community begin to rebuild itself from them? Toni Guinyard>> What part of that question have you been able to answer? Yusef Omowale>> That you have this revolving door of people being incarcerated coming out and ending up homeless. South Los Angeles has one of the highest rates of homelessness with the least amount of services for homeless. Those people end up back in prison. Toni Guinyard>> The incarceration rate in California has quadrupled since 1980 and, of the felons paroled from California prisons, fifty-two percent have returned to prison within two years. Michael A. Stoll>> Two things we know from the research that leads to successful reintegration: housing and employment. You don't have either one of those, the recidivism rate is very high. Toni Guinyard>> Michael Stoll, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the UCLA School of Public Affairs, is co-author of a report examining the incarceration rate and the labor market for ex-offenders. Michael A. Stoll>> Our survey tried to gauge employers' willingness to hire ex-offenders. Toni Guinyard>> Not surprisingly, the survey of more than six hundred Los Angeles area business owners reinforced a commonly held belief. Most employers are unlikely to hire someone with a criminal record, but -- Michael A. Stoll>> The willingness to hire ex-offenders varies with the industry and occupations into which employers are hiring. So if industries such as manufacturing to have very little customer contact, that don't require trustworthiness of the employee per se are industries in which employers are very much willing to hire ex-offenders. Toni Guinyard>> Theresa didn't need a study to tell her what she learned after trying to get a job. Theresa Cusimano>> When I would look for a job -- after I would be released from jail, I would go look for a job and they would deny me and I figured, okay, well, if no one's going to hire me, then I may as well go back to my same ways. I would just give up. Toni Guinyard>> But she didn't give up. After being released from prison, she moved into A New Way of Life sober living facility and she's working. Through a chance meeting, she met Yusef Omowale. You hired Theresa. Why? Yusef Omowale>> She needed a job. We needed someone to do the work and we don't have that fear that someone who was experiencing incarcerations is going to come in here, steal all our money, hurt us and those kinds of things. Toni Guinyard>> Theresa has plans for the future. She's going to school part-time and working to earn her GED at the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center. Janet Clark>> There are a hundred parolees released at the Watts area a week. There are so many more people than there are employers and there's opportunities and training and there's education. But we're going to do whatever we can to assist. Toni Guinyard>> Despite the talk of rehabilitating prisoners, Theresa admits she was not prepared for re-entry into the community after serving her term. She credits all of the people who have helped her along the way and hopes that, at some point, the public begins to care about people like her. If I sit down with you a year from now, where do you hope to be? Theresa Cusimano>> Hopefully, I'll have my GED and still be working at the Southern California Library because I'm not going anywhere. Michael A. Stoll>> One prisoner per year costs the state of California about thirty-six thousand dollars a year to house. If we were to take that money and put it in a job training program which usually only costs between two and six thousand dollars a year, the economic reason for why we should care becomes very clear. Theresa Cusimano>> Once you've been through the system, there's a chance you don't have to go through what they call that revolving door. Toni Guinyard>> I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times. Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times". Val Zavala>> We sometimes forget that civil rights history was written not just by African-Americans, but by Latinos. And one Mexican family in particular made an impact on the law that is felt even today. Hena Cuevas has their story. 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 brother's children 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. 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. Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Val Zavala>> About two hundred miles north of Los Angeles is a beautiful state park called Montana de Oro and, if you've never seen it, well, here's your chance. And as Stephanie O'Neill Noe tells us, now there's even more of it to see. Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Ten miles west of Highway 1 along a picturesque stretch of rugged central California coast, Montana de Oro is considered a gem among California state parks. Its name is Spanish for Mountain of Gold, an apt description of its postcard-perfect scenery splashed each spring with the vibrant gold of California Poppies. Ranger Ray Smith supervises the eighty-four hundred acre park. Ranger Ray Smith>> It has everything from seashore to sand dunes, hiking trails, equestrian trails, grasslands, oak forests. It's amazing. Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> A favorite of hikers, Montana de Oro boasts nearly sixty miles of trails. In fact, most visitors spend at least part of their stay hoofing it through trees and expansive grasslands on trails that lead to the ultimate payoff: the breezy bluffs of the Pacific Ocean. Ranger Ray Smith>> You have a lot of great exercise because of the various sizes and slopes of the hills. On a clear day with a pair of binoculars, it's pretty neat. Then, of course, you look east and you can see Los Osos Valley all the way to San Luis Obispo. Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Seven miles of shoreline hug Montana de Oro and offer people a number of sheltered coves with beaches, the most popular of them being Spooner's Cove just below the Visitor's Center at the park entrance. Kids especially enjoy swimming and exploring tide pools. The rocky cove is named after the first private owners of the land. The Spooner family ran a dairy on the land in the 1800's through the 1920's. The land changed hands several more times before California bought it for a state park in 1965. A few minutes walk from Spooner's Cove leads to Montana de Oro's fifty campsites, each with car paths, tables and grills. And it's not only people who are allowed to camp. Horses can camp out too with their humans in one of five nearby sites equipped with corrals. These days, however, the buzz around Montana de Oro is about a chunk of unspoiled land adjacent to the park that's owned by Pacific Gas & Electric Company. PG&E fenced off the property when it bought it in the 1960's and later built the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant at the far south end. Peter Douglas>> They recently came to the Coastal Commission for permission to store spent nuclear fuel which we feel will be here in perpetuity. There's no place in the country to store this. Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Peter Douglas is Executive Director of the California Coastal Commission. Peter Douglas>> So we felt when they came in that a fair trade-off was to open up three miles of access from Montana de Oro State Park where we're standing now down to within about a mile of the power plant itself so that they still have the mile security zone. Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> What does this mean to you that Californians have access to this land? I mean, is it something that you would go out of your way to come and see? Peter Douglas>> Oh, absolutely. The only way that I've been able to enjoy this is through photographs. So when I first came out here to look at this, I was blown away by the beauty. The natural beauty of this stretch of coast is just incomparable and, because it's not been open to the public, it really is a pristine stretch of coast. Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Douglas is leading a fifteen-member task force of government officials and scientists. The group is balancing public access with environmental protections and security needs of the nuclear plant. Until then, however, only Pacific Gas & Electric employees and their guests are allowed onto the land. Sally Krenn is a PG&E biologist who's studied wildlife on the off-limits property for the past twenty-five years. Sally Krenn>> This area is known as Coon Creek. Historically, there is always a lot of raccoons in the area primarily fishing on the trout. What you're looking at in the background is actually man-made of granite and, if you notice, there are little waterfalls and deep pools which allow the steel head trout to access the upper corridor. There are a lot of birds in this area, swallows, kingfishers and quite a bit of wildlife too. In the early morning, this is an incredible watering hole for the bobcats and coyotes and occasional mountain lions. Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Because the property hasn't ever been open to the public, its pristine wilderness will offer something few Californians have experienced. Sally Krenn>> We actually have Peregrine falcons too nesting on the coastal bluffs here which you won't see in the state parks. They feed primarily on the migratory birds that come up from South America and they also feed on some of the smaller birds in our grasslands here such as swallows. This spectacular headline is known as Point Buchon and it's the westernmost point on the central coast. It's composed of Monterey shale formations. It has a lot of salacious chert which the Chumash Indians used to make arrowheads out of. It's also home to quite a variety of marine mammals such as harbor seals, sea lions and sea otters. Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Like these federally endangered otters that wrap their torsos in seaweed anchors in order to float in place on top of the ocean's swells. Nearby, California Brown Pelicans also thrive on this coastal bluff, spending lazy summer and fall days dining on an abundance of sardines and anchovies. Protecting these lands from human degradation is a key issue in the negotiations between PG&E and Coastal Commissioners. Jeff Lewis is a spokesman for the utility company. Jeff Lewis>> This land has basically, since PG&E owned it, been off-limits to the public primarily for security and safety reasons related to Diablo Canyon. So one of the things it's been able to develop from that is a land that's fairly pristine and untouched in a lot of ways. Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> It seems ironic that actually in this post-9/11 era that we're opening up land around nuclear power plants. Jeff Lewis>> Since 9/11, the only things that have happened relative to public access is that they've made it tougher and tougher for people to get close. So allowing people to get closer to the nuclear power plant kind of runs contrary to that. But that being said, we do have an agreement with the Coastal Commission to look at what kind of public access can we manage, can we develop, in this part of the plant? Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> PG&E will maintain a one-mile no-entry zone around Diablo Canyon. Still, developing the public access to appease the utility's security needs and the Coastal Commissioners' desire for maximum public access will take some time. Peter Douglas>> So we want to make sure that the public access that does occur is done in a sensitive way, and it will take some effort. It's a three-mile trek in and three miles out, so not everybody's going to be able to do it. But those people who can do it will have a remarkable experience of natural beauty unparalleled in the state of California. Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> The Diablo Canyon trail is scheduled to open in December 2006. For Life and Times, I'm Stephanie O'Neill Noe. Val Zavala>> For more information on Montana de Oro State Park, you can check out their website. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time. Announcer>> 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. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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