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06/21/06
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 --
Wal-Mart offers jobs and low prices, so why is it having trouble expanding in California?
Tom Fenaughty>> Then it becomes that the only place to work is Wal-Mart, the only place to buy anything is Wal-Mart, and essentially what you have is the twenty-first century version of the one-company town.
Val Zavala>> And then, we visit a place where turning art into a paycheck is part of the curriculum.
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>> You know those Wal-Mart Supercenters? The ones with groceries? Well, Wal-Mart had big plans to bring as many as forty of them to California, but they've had to scale back their ambitions. Compared to states like Texas, the giant retailer finds it hard to build Supercenters in the Golden State. Why is that? Sam Louie explains.
Sam Louie>> The newest Wal-Mart Supercenter in Los Angeles County is in Santa Clarita, thirty miles north of Los Angeles. Open since January, it boasts almost two hundred thousand square feet of shopping, everything from belts to electronics to a full-scale grocery store, all part of Wal-Mart's strategy to garner more customers in California.
As it stands, there are seventeen Wal-Mart Supercenters in California and the world's largest retailer had plans for forty in all, but they scaled back their ambitions. Now the goal is to build only twenty-five. So why the reduction?
Kevin McCall>> I think it's simply our ability to find locations to get the stores built. You know, I don't think we want to go into a market where we haven't fully researched what the market wants. We've got our organic product.
Sam Louie>> Kevin McCall is Wal-Mart's Manager of Public Affairs for Southern California. He says, compared to other states, California has relatively few Supercenters. Texas, by comparison, has a whopping two hundred fifty Supercenters, but with a much smaller population.
Ralph Saltsman>> "I'll be here all day Monday, the 19th."
Sam Louie>> Ralph Saltsman is a land use attorney in Los Angeles. He says the state's stringent environmental quality act is one primary reason.
Ralph Saltsman>> There are federal environment issues and there are state environmental issues. I can tell you this. If one of our clients is facing a serious environmental impact, then that adds years, lots of money, lots of investment to the project and that becomes another reason why they don't want to become involved.
Sam Louie>> The state law passed in 1970 requires environmental impact studies be conducted to measure the impact of projects on wildlife and air quality. The goal is to protect California's environment. Opponents of Wal-Mart often file lawsuits challenging the environmental reports and, in some cases, it could bring a project to a complete halt. In Bakersfield, for example, two Wal-Mart stores were ordered to stop construction in December of 2004.
Kevin McCall>> What the suit simply required us to do was to expand our measurement of our environmental impact report to include both stores rather than each store individually, so we're underway making the changes to that environmental impact report.
Sam Louie>> But Saltsman believes these practices discourage business.
Ralph Saltsman>> We've got money invested, time, effort, plans drawn, and they start off down that construction road and then it stops. I think that's brutally unfair and it does not speak well for the city whether it's Wal-Mart or somebody else because other developers are looking at a municipality and seeing how that municipality deals with new development.
Sam Louie>> Saltsman also points out that some of these challenges mask a political agenda.
Ralph Saltsman>> In the research that I did, I found a group or two or more who were all dedicated to stopping Wal-Mart and, when you trace where the money comes from, it comes from their political enemy. It comes from the unions.
Sam Louie>> In fact, organized labor played a major role in defeating a proposed Wal-Mart in Inglewood in 2004. Wal-Mart is a non-union shop criticized for its low pay and costly health insurance. And then there are those who simply object to the massive size and dominance of the Supercenters. Wal-Mart critic, Tom Fenaughty, is the founder of an organization that promotes livable cities.
Tom Fenaughty>> Supercenters are kind of a new architectural thing that's coming on the landscape and they are, in a lot of cases, built to a scale that's not really appropriate for their, you know, the neighborhoods and the communities that they're trying to serve.
Then it becomes that the only place to work is Wal-Mart, the only place to buy anything is Wal-Mart, and essentially what you have is the twenty-first century version of the one-company town like the coalmining towns of the 1880s where, you know, the only person you could get something from was the boss, the only person that paid you was the boss. So now you've kind of eviscerated the entrepreneurship of having a diverse, small and midsize company base.
Sam Louie>> Mike's Tire Man in Santa Clarita is one of those small companies. Mike Cone, Jr. says his father started this tire and maintenance shop thirty-six years ago. Now they're keeping a close eye on Wal-Mart.
Mike Cone, Jr.>> We were worried and my dad thought maybe he was going to have to take actions to advertise.
Sam Louie>> They've never had to advertise, instead building their business on the family's reputation for honesty and integrity.
Mike Cone, Jr.>> He will never rip you off, he'll never steer you wrong and he won't sell you something you don't need. And if something happens, he'll take care of it.
Sam Louie>> However, Wal-Mart's presence is undeniably presenting some challenges to the local tire store. Competition from Wal-Mart means more comparison shopping by potential customers.
Mike Cone, Jr.>> A customer calls, "Mike's Tire, how's it going?" "Do you have such and such tire?" "Yeah, we got this tire for this much." "Oh, really? Well, Wal-Mart's trying to tell me that it's this much."
Sam Louie>> Cone says Wal-Mart's opening six months ago has not hurt business, but he also admits having Wal-Mart around the corner hasn't helped. Could you be doing more hypothetically if Wal-Mart wasn't around?
Mike Cone, Jr.>> Yeah, possibly. Hypothetically, yeah, of course.
Sam Louie>> But an independent study sponsored by Wal-Mart concluded that Supercenters siphon sales from existing businesses in the area.
Tom Fenaughty>> In the worst case scenario, Wal-Mart moves in, builds a big Supercenter and, within four or five miles of what used to be a diverse and vibrant commercial center and those places that have been, you know, family-run businesses start to go out of business.
Sam Louie>> And Wal-Mart is no longer assuming that communities will welcome them with open arms as local governments have passed ordinances to keep Wal-Mart Supercenters out.
Tom Fenaughty>> When you become, you know, the world's largest employer, it's easy to become a target. We will see in the next ten years that, as the people that work at Wal-Mart are treated, you know, that will have ripple effects into how workers across the nation will be treated.
Sam Louie>> With hopes for more Supercenters still not built here in California, experts believe that Wal-Mart's efforts to grow and expand in the twenty-first century hinges on its ability to give workers a good wage and affordable health care. If not, they believe Wal-Mart faces a rougher road ahead. I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times.
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Val Zavala>> You hear it all the time. Undocumented workers are stealing jobs from Americans, especially low-wage jobs. Well, is it true? And why don't you hear Black and Latino leaders talking about it much? Well, for some frank discussion, we brought three people together in the kitchen of a Los Feliz home. They are writer and novelist, Gary Phillips; commentator, Sonia Lopez; and Joe Hicks of CommUnity Advocates, who gets our conversation started.
Joe Hicks>> Now the question here is there clearly is a great deal of tension and conflict that has developed almost underneath that in some urban communities between black and brown residents of those neighborhoods. Let's just cut right to the chase. Is this the strength of this migration, if you will, the illegal workers across the border, taking jobs away from people that were indigenous, if you might want to use that term, of these communities? Is it taking jobs away from them?
Gary Phillips>> Yes, there's some of that happening. It's also the case, though, that we have a leadership on both sides of this issue that is talking at one level and clearly that's a disconnect from what's happening down at the grassroots. So once again, clearly this leadership, if it's going to really reflect anything, it's got to really start to talk about the intentions that in fact exist on the ground level day to day.
Sonia Lopez>> If you pay a decent wage or you pay enough money, anybody will do any job basically. So do they take some jobs away? Yes, they probably take some jobs and that has to be acknowledged. Not all of the jobs, but some, and that has to be acknowledged and the political leadership does not acknowledge that on a Democratic side and the Republican side wants to, you know, attack the immigrants when they're just here illegally, but they're trying to make an honest wage to support their families.
Joe Hicks>> But isn't that the appeal, though, of illegal labor? In fact, you've got people that are willing to outbid, if you want to use that term, others and undercut the wage of most Americans that generally comes as --
Gary Phillips>> -- well, of course, that's been the split within the GOP and what's hung up the first series of these bills which is in fact you're right. You have a certain part of the GOP that in fact represents business and in fact depends upon agriculture in this state and other sectors depend upon that low-wage labor and the other sector that says, no, let's close the border. Let's shut it all down. So there's that fight, but it is certainly the case that it has to have some economic analysis. Part of whatever leadership we're talking about has to be addressing and has to look at it in an honest way.
Sonia Lopez>> And the corporations and the companies have to be held responsible, not the people that are here working. I mean, they're just here trying to make a living. But the corporations and the companies that hire undocumented workers have to be held responsible.
Joe Hicks>> But the people that are coming here are clearly fleeing something. They're coming from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras or Mexico, which is the major block of people coming here illegally. So what's going on in Mexico? Clearly, even Vicente Fox is basically just throwing up his hands and saying, "We can't afford those folks there. We need open borders." That's sort of a tradeoff to labor.
Sonia Lopez>> Well, if he wants open borders, then he should let Americans buy property in Mexico because we cannot buy property there and the middle class in Los Angeles cannot afford to buy a home.
Joe Hicks>> And the biggest kept secret, by the way, is how Mexico deals with illegal entry into their country, their southern borders. I mean, the Federales will shoot them (laughter). Here they get critical of our immigration laws in a nation that deals very harshly with illegal entry into their country.
Gary Phillip>> On their part, that's right.
Joe Hicks>> But what is the response with Mexico to try to maintain a hold on their workers? Because I don't think that all people of Mexico or any other country, for that matter, coming here are particularly enamored with Mexico. They're coming for the access to shops and --
Sonia Lopez>> -- right, yeah. They love their country, but they're here because they want to make a living.
Joe Hicks>> So what should we be expecting Mexico to do? What can they do?
Gary Phillips>> Well, what might happen anyway is a more southward drift of factories and jobs that we already have sort of the sector in Tijuana. I frankly think that you're going to see more of that. The fact that you've had -- for instance, in the south you've had car companies locate particularly in the south. I think you're going to see more of that pressure on places like GM and Ford which are now losing money market share. I think there's going to be pressure on them to go south of the border and in fact put factories up in Mexico where in fact they can get cheaper labor.
Sonia Lopez>> Well, that's a really long, long-term solution. I think what's even more short-term is that we have to put these undocumented workers on the road to citizenship and we have to have a guest worker program. Not the kind of guest worker program that George Bush suggests because I think the wages are way too low, but you have to have higher wages for a guest worker program, maybe working in conjunction with the unions, something that the unions will agree upon, and have a wage that is high enough that it does not compete with jobs for --
Joe Hicks>> -- but are you guys going to join me to help convince Americans that to afford a three dollar head of lettuce or a dollar and a half tomato is okay?
Gary Phillips>> We're priming them, we're priming them. You're paying more at the gas pumps. You're going to pay even more at the gas pumps and that's a realistic cost, so we're going to be stuck. Wal-Mart's trying to go for more upscale customers now.
Sonia Lopez>> Well, you know how Wal-Mart started. They started "Made in America". Everything in Wal-Mart was made in America. That was their whole campaign to begin with, but not anymore.
Joe Hicks>> But wait a minute. It seems that we got a conference that either just concluded or is soon on the agenda here at USC that brings Christina Chavez, the grand-daughter of Cesar Chavez, and Al Sharpton, of all people, as the keynote speakers.
Gary Phillips>> You're brave.
Joe Hicks>> The theme, of course, is trying to build this black-brown.
Gary Phillips>> Which is a good thing.
Joe Hicks>> It is, but the question is, the leadership of the old guard civil rights movement here and, in some ways, the old guard Latino civil rights movement, all trying to build this political unity here, but at the grassroots level. It seems to be still a great deal of discontent and a disconnect. Why the disconnect? Who's speaking to this?
Sonia Lopez>> The leaders are not being honest in their discussions. They're not acknowledging the other side. They're saying exactly what they think will make them more popular with their own constituency and not acknowledging the other side. Until the leaders start acknowledging that there are actual differences of opinion and tensions and acknowledging -- like the Latino leaders, a lot of them will not acknowledge that, yes, there are some jobs that are taken away from African Americans or inner city legal citizens. They just act like there --
Joe Hicks>> -- if those organizations, the NAACP and on and on, and MALDEF constituencies, are believed to be middle class and working class Mexicans and black Americans --
Sonia Lopez>> -- well, they're not speaking for their own constituency. That's right.
Joe Hicks>> We got Ted Hayes. Just like the Minutemen.
Gary Phillips>> That's up to some debate as to who in fact are the constituencies of these organizations.
Sonia Lopez>> And I think they're making a mistake because they're second, third, fourth, fifth generation Hispanic Latino Americans who feel differently than first generation, so they're totally missing out on a large portion --
Gary Phillips>> -- it does get to be these various organizations, if they're going to really be real and viable, they really need to clearly be surveying who the heck their leadership is.
Joe Hicks>> Believe it or not, we've just scratched the surface here (laughter). We have not actually dealt with all the issues around this whole question. We're going to have to come back here and do this once again.
Sonia Lopez>> Definitely.
Joe Hicks>> Thanks a lot, guys.
Sonia Lopez>> Thanks, Joe.
Gary Phillips>> Thanks, Joe. Appreciate it.
Joe Hicks>> We'll be back.
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Val Zavala>> Parents often wince when they hear this coming from their son or daughter: "Mom, Dad, I want to be an artist." Well, take heart, Mom and Dad. Having artistic ambitions doesn't necessarily mean eating tuna casserole every night. In fact, I visited a prominent art school in Los Angeles where the message is quite the opposite.
This is Otis College of Art & Design just a stone's throw away from LAX. It's a four-year private college where students hone their talents in fine arts, fashion, toy design, graphics and writing, illustration and animation. Gee, this sure beats chemistry.
And the man in charge of this arts factory? Hong Kong-born, Sammy Hoi. His father was in the Chinese furniture business and his family came to the United States when Sammy was seventeen. He went on to Columbia University and graduated from the prestigious Parsons School of Design in New York.
Sammy Hoi>> Otis is the most ethnically diverse private art school in the entire country. Over sixty-five percent of our students are students of color, so we encourage them. . .
Val Zavala>> Five years ago, Sammy Hoi left the Corcoran in Washington, D.C. to become the President of Otis College of Art & Design. Their philosophy?
Sammy Hoi>> At Otis, we don't believe in the concept of starving artists and designers, so we want to make sure that our education prepares our students for the real world and for career success.
Val Zavala>> My visit coincided with the exhibit of senior projects, the culmination of years of study and hard work. First stop? Fashion.
Sammy Hoi>> This is a project where we worked with a well-known New York-based designer, Yo Li Tang. She wants a project look at recycling and responsibility to sustainability in the world, so the students really have to use either recycled materials, organic materials. They cannot make this dress with any power tools, so no sewing machines. Everything is hand-dyed, hand-sewn reusing existing materials. These are reused collars, reused shirts and they look fantastic on the runway.
Val Zavala>> And every year, a fashion show sponsored by top designers gives students a chance to compete.
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> Just down the hall from the fashion exhibit were three students hovered over a computer screen. No voices or sound effects yet, but the imagery in this animation is impressive.
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> And then there is toy design. Otis's program is only one of two toy design programs in the country. A lot of people think, "Oh, gee, you just design toys. You just play all day."
Sammy Hoi>> Yes, they do play. They have a lot of fun, but it's also very hard work. They work until midnight and sometimes the early morning because this is basically an industrial designed program with toy as a focus. So the students learn child psychology, market research, presentation, and also some engineering as well because they have to make the toy functional and safe and, of course, a lot of design.
Val Zavala>> And even some of the toys are designed to bring in a little pocket money.
>> This is Chomper's Lemonade Stand. The stand goes up and it rolls and kids roll it around and they're selling their lemonade.
Val Zavala>> And with partners like Mattel, Disney, Hasbro, Fisher-Price and Lego, potential employers can become acquainted with potential employees. So with this one, you can move things around yourself.
Sammy Hoi>> Yes, you can move things and be very creative and create your own little monster toy to your liking. Different hair, or the hair can be a beard. And the eyes can come up here if you like.
Val Zavala>> Oh, that's cute. I would imagine your students get snapped up right away.
Sammy Hoi>> Yes. It's a very small program. Each year, we graduate just about twenty students and we have pretty much a hundred percent placement rate right after graduation.
Val Zavala>> So no starving toy designers.
Sammy Hoi>> Definitely not (laughter).
Val Zavala>> Next stop? Communication arts where social commentary is welcome. This comic book superhero is, well, not exactly Superman.
Sammy Hoi>> We have a student who is an artist and has collaborated with his wife who's a writer in creating a new story and a new book based on a transgender superhero because, in our society today in all the comic books, there's really no role model for the transgender population.
Val Zavala>> And then there's this piece. Remember FEMA chief, Michael Brown, of Hurricane Katrina fame? Well, the student behind this work says Brown was a scapegoat, that officials were "gambling" on the levies, that reforms were mere "band-aids".
>> Then with so much media involvement, you'd have people shooting these people from their helicopter and not using their helicopter to get them out of the water. It's kind of ridiculous.
Sammy Hoi>> And I think the whole point is that our students can know that creativity, social mission and their personal dreams can really come together in a powerful way.
Val Zavala>> But between the politics, toy design, fashion and animation, is there any training in fine arts?
Sammy Hoi>> This is the fine arts portion of our class of 2006 exhibition. Some of the pieces in here, for example, will illustrate the philosophy of the school, that we want our students to be fully creative, but at the same time, very smart in terms of the content of their work and smart in terms of how to relating socially relevant messages to the world, if the students choose to.
For example, the works over here are about students who are very interested to examine kind of the masculine psychology of society, both about a humorous aspect, but also from the violent aspect as well.
Over here, there is a student who is a little older, African-American background, who's coming to the school very interested in expressing her cultural heritage, but also interested in rectifying some of the stereotypical media images of Africans and African-Americans whose images often appear in media in impoverished or stricken circumstances.
Val Zavala>> Even after four years of concentration in one area, there's no guarantee that students will end up there.
Sammy Hoi>> We have had fine arts graduates who become the visual arts supervisors of "Lord of the Rings" and has won three Oscars back to back. We also have graphic designers who end up being very successful in fine arts galleries or fine artists who end up being gallery administrators or museum administrators.
Val Zavala>> Sammy Hoi is a case in point. He got in to Columbia Law School, graduated, passed the Bar, then promptly said goodbye to law and made a beeline for art school. Here he is today, head of a vibrant art college with more than a thousand students ranging in age from eighteen to sixty. What is the thing that's drawing so many students to art these days?
Sammy Hoi>> Well, we live in a visual culture nowadays. We are surrounded by movies, video games, images on billboards and on video screens. So I think the younger generations nowadays are very familiar with the power of visual communication. At the same time, our economy is very driven by the so-called creative class nowadays as well.
If you look at the Los Angeles industry, for example, the top half of the revenue-generating industries of Los Angeles are tourism, the movie industry, fashion, toy, furnishing. You really can group them and call them the creative economy of Los Angeles. There are jobs available. There is a cultural style that encourages engagement with the visual media. All this, I think, combines to make for a very welcoming platform for students to come and study art and design.
Val Zavala>> 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.
This program was made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.
Sponsored in part by:
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