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Life & Times Transcript

02/01/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

For generations, Monterey Park has been the place to go for Chinese food, but what about the new generation?

Benjamin "Frank" Venti>> We now have their children and their grandchildren coming up out of our schools and those children are going to Pasadena to shop, they're going to Barnes and Nobel book stores, they're going to Mimi's Café, they're going to Cheesecake Café. They are now assimilating into this greater American way of life.

Val Zavala>> And then, these photos may look staged, but they're straight out of nature. An up-close look at encounters of an animal kind.

These stories and more next 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>> We all say we love those mom and pop village stores, but do we actually shop there? And what happens when a city discovers that those mom and pop stores are the weakest link in this chain store economy? Toni Guinyard takes us to Monterey Park where major changes are happening.

Toni Guinyard>> The city of Monterey Park sits just seventeen miles east of Los Angeles, close in proximity but far in terms of size, demographics and economic development. The city's big attraction is food, Chinese food.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> This is a typical weekday crowd at the popular Ocean Star Restaurant. It seats eight hundred. Jason Lo is the Assistant General Manager.

Jason Lo>> On the weekends, it's crazy in here. I mean, people will wait an hour or two hours to eat here, to have Dim Sum here, and I'm so surprised that the customer will wait that long.

Toni Guinyard>> Despite the number of customers drawn to the city to dine at one of its many Chinese restaurants, it takes a lot of servings of Dim Sum to help the city economically.

Benjamin "Frank" Venti>> The city survives on taxes. They survive on real estate taxes and they survive on retail taxes.

Toni Guinyard>> Monterey Park Mayor Benjamin "Frank" Venti says the city which spans only 7.7 square miles has got to find a better way to boost revenue. The very businesses that helped earn Monterey Park the reputation as the first suburban Chinatown are costing the city.

Benjamin "Frank" Venti>> We're probably losing millions of dollars in revenue because the mom and pop stores in Monterey Park really don't do a big volume of business. The small restaurants don't do a big volume of business.

Toni Guinyard>> But the restaurants and the small shops are a crucial part of what makes Monterey Park the city that it's become over the years. Just ask where to go for authentic Chinese food or goods.

Terence Hew>> They have a great restaurant. They have a good Chinese gift shop.

Toni Guinyard>> Chances are, you'll be told to come here. Asian Business Association Executive Director, Dennis Huang.

Dennis Huang>> After Chinatown, this was like the place to go because, if you wanted good food or some food from home and some commonality, you're here.

Benjamin "Frank" Venti>> You know, Monterey Park is at its crossroads today. We are predominantly an Asian city at this time. About sixty-three or sixty-four percent of Monterey Park is Asian.

Toni Guinyard>> Mayor Venti is walking a fine line between making good on campaign promises to lure big businesses here while respecting the businesses that have helped build the city's image. Development plans call for building massive retail centers. It's a move expected to transform the city from quiet bedroom community --

Benjamin "Frank" Venti>> Our big claim to fame right now is Marie Callender's (laughter). You know, we have a Marie Callender's. Big deal. That's it.

Toni Guinyard>> -- to thriving metropolis.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> The challenge is building without losing the city's cultural feel. Nearly half of the Asians who live here are Chinese. Their influence on the city is undeniable. Block after block, small businesses welcome customers in Chinese. This is downtown Monterey Park. It's one of three areas of the city targeted for major redevelopment projects. For years, different mom and pop businesses have been thriving, but the mayor says it's now time for the city to attract some nationally known businesses and restaurants. He says it's a matter of the city's survival.

Benjamin "Frank" Venti>> Without those types of businesses, we just have a very difficult time supporting our police, our fire, all the health and safety measures that the city needs, and our infrastructure.

Toni Guinyard>> Monterey Park was incorporated in 1916. The infrastructure needs to be updated. The city budget is stretched thin.

Assemblywoman Judy Chu>> The major retailers are ones that will provide a very, very solid source of sales tax revenue. But secondly, the residents are asking for a balance of different kinds of stores.

Toni Guinyard>> California State Assemblywoman, Judy Chu, looks forward to the construction of the project dubbed "Atlantic Times Square", a mixed use development of two hundred twenty-five thousand square feet of retail space and condominiums.

Assemblywoman Judy Chu>> This project has been in development for ten years already and I am eager to see it finished because I was around (laughter) when it was first proposed for development. Nobody wants an empty lot and old buildings that are falling apart.

Benjamin "Frank" Venti>> We'll have the nationally recognized stores and restaurants on the first floor and then, above, they're going to have condo developments where people can live. They can walk downstairs and go to the movies. We're hoping for a Chili's Restaurant or a Mimi's Café. We'll bring in Coldstone Ice Cream, maybe a book store like Barnes and Noble.

Toni Guinyard>> The project will be built adjacent to the Ocean Star Restaurant. Rather than shy away from what could be competition, Assistant General Manager Jason Lo welcomes the new businesses.

Jason Lo>> I would like to, you know, go out and try something different.

Toni Guinyard>> To understand the struggles faced in figuring out how best to attract visitors and their money to the city, you have to understand the city's evolution from predominantly white in the 1960s to Latino in the 1970s to Asian in the 1980s. It was in 1988 that Assemblywoman Judy Chu was elected to the Monterey Park City Council. She's served on the Council thirteen years and recalls the tension when the large influx of Asians began.

Assemblywoman Judy Chu>> Some of the old-time residents really felt a sense of loss and there was a backlash. There was a movement to have English only on the signs. There were some who were pushing for only English books in the library. And finally the City Council passed an English only resolution for the city.

Toni Guinyard>> That resolution was eventually killed and Monterey Park evolved into what's considered the heart of southern California's Asian community.

Benjamin "Frank" Venti>> We now have their children and their grandchildren coming up out of our schools and those children are going to Pasadena to shop, they're going to Barnes and Nobel book stores, they're going to Mimi's Café, they're going to Cheesecake Café. They are now assimilating into this greater American way of life and we need to bring that into town so they can do it here.

Toni Guinyard>> Do it here. Shop, eat, spend money. Despite the current popularity of the Chinese shops and restaurants in Monterey Park --

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> -- some members of southern California's Asian community say that Monterey Park is no longer an automatic attraction, especially to the younger generation of Chinese Americans who have grown up here.

Anna Yu>> About thirty years ago, when we come here, we have to stay in the tenant house because here that's everything we have. But after a few years, we built [inaudible].

Francisco Lin>> Actually, we kind of go to the Rowland Heights, West Covina, Walnut, that area instead of Monterey Park, so we're moving kind of more even.

Toni Guinyard>> An indication that Monterey Park with its redevelopment plan blending east and west will have to work hard to keep current visitors while attracting new ones. The challenge? Developing without costing the community the things that make Monterey Park Monterey Park. 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, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> We've all heard stories about redemption, but this one is unusual. This man was a thief, an alcoholic, a con man and a convict. Was there any hope for him? Saul Gonzalez has his story.

[Film Clip]

Saul Gonzalez>> On an early Friday evening, a group of Los Angeles Jews is attending Sabbath services. Although the music and singing create a festive mood, most people here are in the fight of their lives, struggling with drugs and alcohol addictions.

Brian>> "Hello, I'm Brian, a grateful resident of the house and a recovering alcoholic."

Saul Gonzalez>> Later in the services, they share stories with one another about successes and setbacks in the battle to stay clean and sober. Glen Cohen is fighting a crack cocaine habit.

Glen Cohen>> "Today I really felt like using. I mean, that obsession -- all the addicts here know what I'm talking about -- just hit me harder than it has since I got sober six months ago. I just had to come here and get centered again. You know, it was either that or hit the pipe."

Saul Gonzalez>> These addicts and their families are members of a congregation at the crossroads of Judaism and substance abuse, a congregation that makes its home at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. Called Beit T'Shuvah, Hebrew for "House of Return", the center is an addiction treatment facility grounded in Jewish spirituality.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> "The worst crime that anyone can commit is to rob a human being of their dignity."

Saul Gonzalez>> Rabbi Mark Borovitz, Beit T'Shuvah's spiritual leader, has committed his life to using Jewish faith to save Jewish addicts.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> Addiction is a malady of the body, it is a malady of the mind and it's a malady of the soul. So we take the language of the soul of Jewish people, we go back, we help them return to the language that their soul understands and to knowledge that they have, and we bring it together and we bring a community together.

Saul Gonzalez>> It's not only the addicts at Beit T'Shuvah who know how hard it can be to break a drug or alcohol habit. Rabbi Borovitz himself has first-hand knowledge of addiction and the dark places it can lead a person.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> I'm sixteen and a half years sober and sixteen and a half years out of prison.

Saul Gonzalez>> Long before Rabbi Borovitz became a man of God, he was an alcoholic, con man and thief.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> I was a bad guy.

Saul Gonzalez>> You were a bad guy. You were a thug.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> I was a bad guy. There were times when I carried a gun. There were times when I was hanging out with Mafia people. I was a bad guy. I was a nightmare.

Saul Gonzalez>> Rabbi Borovitz wasn't forced into a life of vice. He was born into a stable, middle-class, religious family in Cleveland. Yet at a young age, he decided to take another path.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> When I got into high school, I was getting stolen merchandise on credit, you know, on consignment actually.

Saul Gonzalez>> You fenced goods?

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> Yeah. Whatever somebody wanted, I would get. I was the guy who could get you anything.

Saul Gonzalez>> After moving to California in 1980, Borovitz moved on to insurance fraud, check kiting, even armed robbery. Many of his crimes involved preying on the vulnerable.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> I was a really good con man, so I could convince somebody that I was just helping out and I'm just this nice guy and all of this kind of stuff. And then, all of a sudden, I'm stealing. And you're like, "What happened? I thought this was my friend."

Saul Gonzalez>> However, Borovitz was caught and sentenced to prison twice in the 1980s, in all spending more than four years behind bars. It was during his second prison sentence that Borovitz began to study and re-embrace his faith.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> I started praying again, and I started studying the Torah, and I read the story of Jacob. Jacob was a con man, a thief. He was a liar and a cheat. I loved him. I loved him.

Saul Gonzalez>> Your kind of guy?

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> My kind of guy. So what happens? I see that he could change because he has this wrestling with his soul, and how his name changes to Israel, "one who wrestles with God." And at that moment, I knew that change was possible.

Saul Gonzalez>> After being released from prison in 1988, Borovitz made his way to Beit T'Shuvah, which at that time was a lot smaller and ran a halfway home for Jewish ex-cons. When Borovitz arrived, he asked the center's founder, addiction treatment counselor Harriet Rosetto, for help.

Harriet Rosetto>> He needed a job and I hired him. I hired him first to run our thrift store and then I hired him as my secretary. And then I noticed that he'd begun teaching Torah to the guys and that he was getting some real attention from them.

Saul Gonzalez>> In the years that followed, Borovitz got clean and sober, became an ordained conservative Rabbi and fell in love, marrying Harriet Rosetto in 1990.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> "Rebbe, how come you're not, you know, just so happy to see me and welcoming me and believing everything I'm saying? I didn't use yesterday."

Saul Gonzalez>> Rosetto says her husband's unusual personal story gives him a special authority among the recovering addicts at Beit T'Shuvah.

Harriet Rosetto>> He can talk to them in their language, you know. And it's not put on and they know that, you know. And he represents the hope that you can be where he was and become a credible, respected person.

Saul Gonzalez>> The community of addicts seeking treatment at Beit T'Shuvah come from all segments of the Jewish community, rich and poor, old and young, religious and secular. What unites them is their substance abuse. More than a hundred of them have addictions so serious that they live for months at the center as they go to rehab. Much of the help Beit T'Shuvah offers addicts, such as twelve-step counseling and group therapy, can be found at other addiction treatment clinics. What's different here, however, are the Jewish religious activities, such as regular six a.m. Torah study sessions led by Rabbi Borovitz.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> "It's the whole idea of why the first temple was destroyed."

Saul Gonzalez>> In these sessions, Beit T'Shuvah residents try to apply the teachings of scripture to their own struggles with heroine, cocaine and alcohol. Stan Coleite is at Beit T'Shuvah to fight years-long drug and booze habits. Echoing others here, Coleite says that this treatment facility helps him fight his addictions by renewing his ties to faith and tradition.

Stan Coleite>> One of the things that this place has shown me is that, by reconnecting to my religion, I can reconnect to myself. I can be a whole person. I can be with others who understand me, who know me, and that means a lot to me. That isolation, that separation that addiction puts all of us into is upended.

Saul Gonzalez>> Rabbi Borovitz says that his commitment to working with addicts is part of his own redemption. However, he acknowledges that he's not a completely changed man.

Rabbi Mark Borovitz>> I'm still a hustler. I'm using all of those skills. It's what we call in Judaism "tikkun". What you used for negativity, you use to repair. So I use all of those skills to listen to people and to convince and to manipulate and to control and to move them. All this stuff, all those tools -- I use them right now. I am in action all of the time. I love it. I love it. And I'm using everything that I have in me and, instead of hustling and using it for myself, I'm using it to serve God. That's freedom. That's really action.

Saul Gonzalez>> For Life and Times, I'm Saul Gonzalez.

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>> You've probably seen the billboards and the ads -- stunning photographs of encounters between wild animals and humans. Are they real or staged? They're the work of a Canadian photographer who calls animals "nature's living masterpieces". Vicki Curry takes us to Santa Monica Pier where a huge temporary structure has been built called the Nomadic Museum.

Vicki Curry>> This nondescript industrial building sits at the foot of the Santa Monica Pier, but walk inside and you're instantly transported into another world, a world dominated more by animals than by humans.

Gregory Colbert>> Unashamedly, it's about the whole of the dance of nature and man is shown as just one small part. We have to humbly say, well, there are other poets that are, in nature, very much and every much our poetic equals, including other cultures.

Vicki Curry>> Canadian artist, Gregory Colbert, has traveled the globe for fourteen years, making over thirty expeditions to photograph animals interacting with people in their natural environment.

Gregory Colbert>> We've been working in India, Burma, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Tonga, Borneo. It's all over the world. I began a collaboration with elephants and that collaboration has sort of unfolded into a collaboration with another forty-four species so far.

Vicki Curry>> His work culminated in the project "Ashes and Snow". Colbert has two goals for this collection of still images and films: to call attention to the environment and to narrow the distance between animals and humans, a division he equates with racism.

Gregory Colbert>> These fictional boundaries that we've created between different species and these are the underpinnings of the ideas of otherness or racism, and I think, when we refer to animals as others than ourselves, as not part of their family, we're also flirting with not a racial slur, but a slur that's kind of a specie-ism. Well, say the elephants are not going to go to the back of the bus. We're coming up front.

Vicki Curry>> That message and the large scale of the project make pretty bold statements, especially for a man most people have never heard of. Gregory Colbert has never shown his work in a commercial gallery or United States museum. His support comes from a few private collectors who discovered Colbert early in his career.

Gregory Colbert>> It was a question of opportunity, having the dream and the dream being bigger than my doubts and my finding me delusional enough to think that it was still possible.

Vicki Curry>> Except for a chosen few, the "Ashes and Snow" project was a secret during the ten years Colbert spent working on the exhibit.

Gregory Colbert>> I wouldn't say I was under the radar. I would say I was off the radar (laughter) completely.

Vicki Curry>> (Laughter) Completely off.

Gregory Colbert>> It was radio silence. It's a gift and a privilege to work in an undistracted way and there was a lot of enthusiasm and I was really grateful for it. But I was very conscious that, if it was to be too present, then maybe the way that I was able to work would be altered.

Vicki Curry>> Colbert's photos inevitably raised two questions. Are they all real? And how did he take them?

Gregory Colbert>> My staff and my crew, we go as apprentices and we collaborate. With humility, we say, "You are the masters. Please lead and show us the dance." When we go, we don't usually know when we're coming back precisely, so we can let them truly decide. We spent two and a half years doing the work with the whales and, while working, we also sensed the times, well, this is the place. It's not the day, it's not the time, and are we welcome today? There's clearly moments and we try to take advantage of those moments and show that we have the patience and we will artfully wait because they say that patience is the art of hoping. So we will artfully wait for the time when they would like to invite us in.

Vicki Curry>> Colbert says he adapts as much as he can to each situation. He even learned to hold his breath under water for up to three minutes because the bubbles from scuba tanks scared off the whales.

Gregory Colbert>> It's unplugged nature. It's not enhanced. Why would you need to enhance it? It's sublime as it is. We're used to this idea of staging things. These are not party tricks that are meant to amuse people. While this may seem unthinkable and people come in here and say, "How are these images possible?" or "It must be trickery", to me it's yet another example of our narcissism because what are we saying? That I, a human, would be able to invent these interactions? Of course, they give me far too much credit.

Narrator>> "Feather to fire, fire to blood, blood to bone, bone to marrow, marrow to ashes, ashes to snow."

Vicki Curry>> Some critics compare his work to advertising and fashion photography.

Gregory Colbert>> There are people that will try to kick you in the teeth. That's a good sign to me because, if you're free enough to do something that you really love and you're not prepared to take a kick in the teeth, then you're not worthy of being given that chance.

Vicki Curry>> Some of that criticism may come from the fact that Colbert is working outside the mainstream art world, exhibiting his work in his own specially designed space.

Gregory Colbert>> This required, I guess, a different paradigm that doesn't exist. If it did exist, boy, I would be happy. I could not go through all this trouble. This isn't a photo exhibition, it isn't a film exhibition. Even the exhibition word is kind of -- you know, all those people could say, oh, this is art with a capital "A". This is a building, please. If you've been alienated or you feel left out or that you're not invited in, I'd say, yes, please, please rethink and know that the elephants will open the doors wide if they wish to visit.

Vicki Curry>> Colbert asked architect, Shigeru Ban, to create the space for "Ashes and Snow". He designed a building that could travel with the exhibition while still showcasing the message of the work.

Gregory Colbert>> You wouldn't want to see these works with the ceiling leaning down on top of you. Shigeru has really done something quite remarkable and created something that's almost like a temple for nature. Look at what he's been able to do with wood and river stone, paper columns, shipping containers. It's really remarkable. It's ingenious and it's simplicity, but so is nature.

Vicki Curry>> The Nomadic Museum is designed to be reusable. Ban discovered that shipping containers are a standardized size around the world, so in each location, most of the containers are rented. The entire exhibit can be packed into eight containers and shipped on to its next site.

Gregory Colbert>> Probably the world's largest Lego set that's eve been created. Every piece in this building has a number and it gets taken apart and fits in the containers, including the roof, the lights, the projectors, and the building is built in such a way that it will enable us to even change the configuration of space. The whole installation is all one and maybe that's, in a way, philosophically what we're trying to get people to think in terms of how they relate to other species and other races.

Vicki Curry>> The public seems to be responding. An estimated half a million people saw "Ashes and Snow" when it was in New York and thousands have already come to Santa Monica.

Gregory Colbert>> What are they responding to? They must be starving for something that doesn't have -- we seem to be very focused on the things that separate people and cultures, and this is about maybe bridging as opposed to polarizing. You walk into this space and you can see peoples' faces. They leave their compasses at the door. They really allow themselves to lose themselves in this space. To be able to work in the arts and do something that seems to have a relevance in my time, not when I'm gone or here, and be truly impactful, that's pretty great and pretty wonderful. That's even better.

Val Zavala>> "Ashes and Snow" will be on display through May 14. After that, the building is disassembled and moves on to a new location. For more information, you can go to their website at ashesandsnow.org. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks 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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