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Life & Times Transcript
08/31/06 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- What if they gave a harvest and nobody came? Is California in the middle of a farm worker shortage? Joe Stewart>> It's the worst I've ever seen it and I hope never to experience it again. I don't mind having short crews if at least I'm getting something picked, but I was on some days not getting anything picked. Val Zavala>> And then, he was part of aviation history from the early days of barnstorming through the first space flight. The record-breaking career of Jimmy Doolittle. 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>> It's hard to believe, and it goes against everything we've been told about immigration, but California farmers say there is a severe shortage of farm workers, legal and illegal, and their crops are in jeopardy. How can this be? Well, Sam Louie goes to Bakersfield to find out what's happening down on the farm. Sam Louie>> On a crisp December morning in Bakersfield, sweat builds on the face of Rafael Garcia. The thirty-five year old Mexican immigrant is busy picking naval oranges. Rafael Garcia>> It's very hard. On a scale from one to ten, I'd say it's about an eight. Sam Louie>> He works for Sun World International, one of the country's largest growers of fruits and vegetables. For every one of these big white bins he fills, he gets fourteen dollars. Filling it can take up to an hour and a half. Despite the hard work from these pickers, the usual cash crop of oranges could turn into a financial hardship for the company. Citrus supervisor, Joe Stewart, says the company is facing an unprecedented labor shortage. Joe Stewart>> It's the worst I've ever seen it and I hope never to experience it again. I don't mind having short crews if at least I'm getting something picked, but I was on some days not getting anything picked. Sam Louie>> Stewart estimates the loss of workers during the first few weeks of the orange harvest costs the company close to one million dollars. He says it's those early weeks that are most lucrative since oranges are in short supply. Joe Stewart>> The first two days, nobody showed up, using sources that I've never used before, trying to get people to show up and nobody was available. Sam Louie>> The agriculture industry estimates there is a shortage of fifty thousand farm workers in California and Arizona for this winter's picking season. Joe Stewart>> It's a crisis for the entire farming community as far as getting perishable crops off in time. Sam Louie>> Farmers believe there are several reasons for the fewer number of workers, a majority of whom are illegal immigrants. First, there are better wages and working conditions offered in other jobs like construction. There is also a crackdown on illegal workers coming across the border. Finally, there's no guest worker program for migrant workers. Joe Stewart>> We're not getting the migrant workers coming back and forth like they used to and the ones that have been here for a couple or three years are moving on to minimum wage jobs that are guaranteed eight hours a day at local casinos and hotels and mostly the construction industry is booming. Sam Louie>> But some dispute this claim, believing the number of lost workers is exaggerated. Ira Mehlman>> These claims have always been made by agriculture. They're always crying about a shortage of labor and part of it is due to the fact that they've created conditions that dissuade a lot of legal workers from taking those jobs. They pay low wages, they provide extremely poor working conditions and then they discover that not that many people want to take those jobs. Sam Louie>> Ira Mehlman is with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, otherwise known as F.A.I.R. He says that farmers are planting this idea of a shortage as a way to reap a constant source of low-wage workers. Ira Mehlman>> What the agricultural industry wants is a steady supply of foreign labor that's prepared to work at whatever they want to pay rather than having to compete for the workers who are here at fair market wages. Sam Louie>> To compete for workers, Sun World has Merced Meza. Meza is the crew leader in charge of recruiting more workers. The company gave him a fifty percent pay raise to do the job, but he says it's still been a struggle. Merced Meza>> I don't know if we need more workers or they go for making more money somewhere else or we don't know. The only thing I know is that we need more workers. Sam Louie>> On this day, Meza says there are only sixty-five workers. There was almost double that number last year. So what do you try to do to get more workers? Merced Meza>> Like I say, you know, we call every single day to find people, but everybody's busy right now. So everybody is looking for workers. Sam Louie>> Part of the sales pitch is to offer incentives. Sun World boosted its pay to pickers. Each full bin of oranges fetches fourteen dollars compared to last year's thirteen dollars. For tangerines, it was even better, from twenty dollars up to twenty-seven dollars. Workers like the extra pay, but they're not as thrilled with the extra hours. Rafael Garcia>> It's got its pros and cons. We have to work longer hours which means more money. I get more money, but at the same time, you know, we spend less time with the family. Sam Louie>> Other incentives include offering carpools. Some farms even broke with the long-held tradition of piece-meal pay and started paying by the hour. Joe Stewart>> Some of the other guys were trying to guarantee a nine dollar per hour for picking and even they did not get pickers even making guaranteed wages. Sam Louie>> Stewart forecasts a troubling future for our economy if immigration and public policies are not changed to offer illegal immigrants a chance to work. Joe Stewart>> If you include money to the grower, to the farmer, that trickles down the economy through the pickers and everything, it could be millions of dollars just from the citrus industry that could be lost back to the small towns that they support. Sam Louie>> He believes a guest worker program is a good solution to meet the needs of the labor market. Joe Stewart>> Right now, it's too much of a hassle for most of the people to come back or they're afraid to go home in fear of coming back. Sam Louie>> But others strongly disagree, saying a guest worker program would continue to encourage illegal immigration. Ira Mehlman>> What we need to do is create a labor market that allows people who work for a living in this country to continue to see their incomes improve. We should not have government programs in place that deliberately drive down wages and working conditions for workers in this country. Sam Louie>> Critics of illegal immigration feel, if industries continue to rely on undocumented workers, it would create a growing disparity between the middle and lower class and some say that, if this doesn't change, it would create conditions ripe for turmoil. Ira Mehlman>> We've seen a perfect example of it just within the past few months in France where you have a huge number of children of people who came allegedly as guest workers twenty and thirty years ago with no education, with very few job skills, and we saw the results. You have a huge alienated class of people who don't identify with the society that they're living in and, you know, if you're not going to be productive, you’re probably going to end up being destructive. Sam Louie>> Mehlman also points to the hidden costs many don't see with illegal immigration. His organization estimates that California spends more than ten billion dollars on incarceration, health care and education of illegal immigrants. Rafael Garcia>> Well, after eight hours or six hours of work, you tend to get real tired. Sam Louie>> Workers like Rafael Garcia readily admit that it's not their top pick of choice, but they say they need the money. Rafael Garcia>> Just the financial part of it and providing for the family and making sure you make your monthly quotas as far your utilities and just providing for the family altogether. Sam Louie>> Meanwhile, it remains to be seen if the shortage is as severe as the farmers claim, but what is apparent is the desire from both sides to have a more consistent immigration policy that will deliver workers to farmers without creating a permanent under-class. I'm Sam Louie 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>> In the 1960's, baby boomers tried to change the world. Well, now the baby boomers themselves are turning sixty and they're getting a second chance. I talked with Marc Freedman, author of "Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America". I met him at the Westin Hotel in Pasadena where he told me that the image of the elderly as "greedy geezers" is changing. Marc Freedman>> We've heard about this long gray wave of greedy geezers who are poised to take America to the cleaners and people have told us we're going to have a quarter of the population that's a leisure class over the age of sixty. I think what people miss is that they take the lifestyle of the previous generation which was very much focused on leisure and recreation -- Val Zavala>> -- like Florida. Marc Freedman>> Right. In fact, people today are talking about the "Floridazation" of America as the baby boomers age. Val Zavala>> When you say the "Floridazation" of society, you're talking about basically a leisure, kickback, recreate, consume, take vacations, and you're saying it doesn't have to be that way, that there can be a whole different purpose to this new stage in life? Marc Freedman>> Yes. In fact, after social security which did so much to shore up the economic security and independence of older people, it had an unanticipated consequence which is to drive a wedge between more and more older people in the workforce. As people started living longer in the 1940's and 1950's, there was this great loss of purpose in that stage of life. Walter Reuther, the UAW leader, described retirement as "too old to work, too young to die". But what we're seeing from all the research is that people are planning. This is not only a new stage of life, but a new stage of work and contribution and purpose. People are looking for connections with others for work that not only means something personally, but in many cases means something beyond themselves. In a way, it's like a social Prius. It's a hybrid between the spirit of volunteerism and the seriousness we usually associate with work. That's great news in a society that's facing profound shortages in teaching, in health care, in the nonprofit sector. Val Zavala>> Give me some examples. Your book is full of personal choice. Marc Freedman>> Well, we all know about people like Jimmy Carter and Paul Newman who are doing this kind of work. But there are many, many more individuals who are not ex-presidents or celebrities who are making enormous contributions. Here in California, there is a new effort called the Campaign for College Opportunity. It was created by two retired higher education administrators, Steve Weiner, the former Provost at Mills College, and David Wolf who was a community college president. Their whole focus is on the destruction of Clark Kerr's forty-year promise in California that any high school student who qualified for higher education would be guaranteed a spot in the state system. That's being demolished due to under-investment in education and it's being demolished for a new generation of students who are mostly Latino, African American, Asian American and it really is a loss of one of the great promises in California. These two men, who may not even see these changes enacted, have raised millions of dollars in building an organization called the Campaign for College Opportunity to change the options for future generations. I think it's one of the most profound examples of this notion of leaving a legacy. Not just doing it in your own family, but doing it in a way that could affect millions of young people. Val Zavala>> Another person you profile is this Doctor Glass, a woman who wanted to volunteer. She was retired and had all this incredible medical experience, went to the hospital and said, "I want to volunteer" and what did they tell her? Marc Freedman>> Well, they were delighted that she'd come. She had been head of a medical school department in Philadelphia. She was an established physician who had decided to take some time off, but was bored, restless, ready to go back into medicine. She showed up at the hospital, told them about her skills and said she was available for free. They said, "We'll get right back to you." The next day, they did, offering her a job refilling water pitchers. In a nation with forty million people who have no access to quality health care and in a country where we've made an enormous investment in the education and in human capital of baby boomers and couldn't build enough campuses in the 1960's, how can we write off people like that who not only have the skills we need, but the desire to use them? Val Zavala>> But she is the one who started, what, a clinic of some kind? So what did she do? She said, no water pitchers for me? Marc Freedman>> Well, she's part of a movement all over the country of retired doctors and nurses who are starting free health clinics. In San Mateo, there's a wonderful place, The Samaritan House Free Medical Center, where retired UCSF and Stanford doctors and nurses have come together. They see five thousand patients a year for free and it's also become one of the favorite rotations for University of California medical students where they can come and be mentored by the older doctors and find out about the art of medicine, the soul and spirit of the profession, all those things that are hard to learn in the process of medical school. Val Zavala>> Now these are all personal stories and these are great individual stories, but you're saying "how baby boomers will revolutionize retirement and transform America." Is there really enough people doing this to transform America? Marc Freedman>> Well, if you look at the individual strands, people who are starting free medical clinics, people who are going into nursing, nearly half of the new students in divinity school and rabbinical school are over the age of fifty. Val Zavala>> Really? Marc Freedman>> People who are going into the nonprofit sector, when you look at those individually, it seems disparate. But when you look at them as a whole, you start to see something that's as profound in many ways as the early days of the women's movement where people -- Val Zavala>> -- and I guess this is where the power of numbers comes in? Marc Freedman>> Absolutely. And all the dynamism is in the people themselves. We're not doing much to meet them halfway in terms of policy. The nonprofit sector, education system, has been relatively unreceptive and they're forcing their way in much the way that so many women did in the 1960's and 1970's as they moved into roles that had been barred to previous generations. Val Zavala>> So although they're working as individuals, they are part of the baby boomer generation which has power in numbers. So will that also make an impact on what they're doing? Marc Freedman>> Absolutely. In fact, half the people who've ever lived to sixty-five in the country are already alive and their numbers are about to double in the next -- Val Zavala>> -- now you have to repeat that because people may not get this. Say it slowly. Half of all people -- Marc Freedman>> -- half of all the people who have ever reached the age of sixty-five in America -- Val Zavala>> -- in the history of humankind? Marc Freedman>> In the history of the United States, are currently alive. Val Zavala>> Today. Marc Freedman>> Today, and the numbers of people in that stage of life are about to double. So you get a sense that, when people talk about the demographic revolution, if anything, it's an understatement. We're seeing the combination of this great increase in longevity and health and education with these big numbers. It turns out, I think, in many ways to be one of the great hopes for our society in the coming decades. It's a chance to create a society that works better for all generations. Val Zavala>> Marc Freedman, thank you for your book and thank you for casting the retirement years in a very different and more positive light. Marc Freedman>> Thank you. It was a pleasure to be on the show. 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>> Anyone who knows World War II history knows the story of the Tokyo Raid. Well, the man who led that raid was aviator, Jimmy Doolittle. Doolittle set a lot of records and went on to become a four-star general. In short, American aviation history wouldn't be the same without him. Now his granddaughter, Jonna Doolittle Hoppes, has written a book about her grandfather called "Calculated Risk: The Extraordinary Life of Jimmy Doolittle". Vicki Curry talked with Hoppes at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino. Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> I would say that he was one of the greatest aviators that ever lived. Vicki Curry>> Jimmy Doolittle was a renaissance man of aviation. He is best known for leading a raid on Tokyo during World War II, but he was also a barnstormer, a racer, an executive, a military commander and an aeronautical engineer. Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> His love of aviation, his dedication to the science behind aviation, the contributions that he made not only as a speed pilot, but as a scientist, all impacted where aviation went, all the way up into being on the first force in the beginning of our space exploration. Vicki Curry>> We here in southern California can be proud because Jimmy Doolittle was a native. He was born and raised here and ended his life here. Tell me a little bit about his childhood. Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> He was born in Alameda, California and, although he spent a number of years up in Nome, Alaska when his dad went up to follow gold, his mother came back when Jimmy was about eleven years old. He went to Manual Arts High School. He married his high school sweetheart. In fact, they were forbidden to marry because her parents said he would never accomplish anything (laughter). So they eloped on Christmas Eve in 1917 and she passed away on their seventy-first wedding anniversary. Vicki Curry>> Now how was it that he first fell in love with flying? Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> He attended one of the early air shows out at Dominguez Hills and he was absolutely fascinated with all the different planes that they had out there. He went from plane to plane to plane trying to figure out what made each one fly. In fact, he built his first plane. He built a glider when he was in high school, strapped it on, went running off the side of a cliff and destroyed it twice (laughter). But he fell in love just watching the planes fly here. It really wasn't until he took his first flight that it was a love affair that would go on forever. Vicki Curry>> And that happened when he enlisted in the Army? Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> Right. Down in San Diego. A gentleman by the name of Charles Todd was his flight instructor and he took him up in his Ginny, one of the old Ginny's, and I don't think he ever really wanted to come down. I'm not sure he ever really came down. Vicki Curry>> Sounds like he spent his life flying high. Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> He did. He loved it, he loved it. And he was an amazing pilot. He accomplished a lot during his lifetime. Vicki Curry>> Doolittle was the first pilot to fly cross-country in under twenty-four hours. He was the first to win all the major aviation racing trophies. He set the world's high-speed record for land planes and won the Schneider Cup race with the fastest seaplane ever flown. He was a highly decorated four-star general and he was the first pilot to take off, fly and land an airplane using only instruments. Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> In fact, I asked him what he felt his greatest contribution was and it was the blind flight. Before the instruments were created, you couldn't fly in any kind of weather. You couldn't land if there was any fog. By creating the instruments, by working with the Guggenheim Foundation and working with Elmer Sperry, they were able to get past that so that we could have regular air mail deliveries and eventually so that we could have airlines that would deliver passengers on a regular schedule. Vicki Curry>> But Jimmy Doolittle is most famous for the raid on Tokyo in 1942, America's first response to Pearl Harbor. Doolittle led a mission of sixteen bombers specially modified to take off from a short deck on the U.S.S. Hornet. The plan was to get within four hundred fifty miles of the Japanese coast, drop bombs on Tokyo and then land in China. Jimmy Doolittle>> "They were told that there was a mission to be accomplished, that it was a dangerous mission and how many of them would like to volunteer. The entire group volunteered and then from that group were selected the people who went. Then the B-25 had to be modified in order to permit it to have the necessary range." Vicki Curry>> And we're here at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino. They have one of the B-25 bombers, the same kind of plane that was used in the Tokyo Raid, is that right? Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> That's right. Now the thing about this, if you look at that plane, there's no way that that could ever land on an aircraft carrier. So they knew that it was a mission that they would have to take off close enough to Japan where they could drop their bombs and then make it to China. But the interesting thing about this raid is that rumor has it that it was a suicide mission. That's not true. They knew the science behind taking these planes off. They knew that they could take them off, they knew that they could hit their targets and they also knew that they could land safely in China. What made it an almost suicide mission was the fact that they were discovered early and had to take off. Vicki Curry>> They were more than two hundred miles further off the coast than they'd planned. This forced the pilots to load their planes with more fuel which threatened their takeoff from the short deck. Then when their fuel ran out, most were forced to crash land in China or bail out by parachute. But the raid was a public relations victory for the United States, scaring the Japanese and boosting Americans' morale. [Film Clip] Vicki Curry>> You mention in your book that part of the reason you decided to write it was in response to the movie, "Pearl Harbor". Why was that? Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> Well, we got a copy of the original script and, in the original script, the character of Jimmy Doolittle was portrayed as someone who was not particularly bright, who had a very, very foul mouth, didn't even know what a slide rule was. Now I'm going to start with a disclaimer here right off the bat because the Disney people were absolutely wonderful. When they discovered that it was not an accurate portrayal, some of them worked very closely with us. In fact, both Michael Bay and Jennifer Klein and Jerry Bruckheimer went out of their way to make sure that the movie was not disrespectful. Vicki Curry>> And Alec Baldwin was the one that portrayed him in the movie, correct? Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> He did. He did play Doolittle in the movie. It was kind of funny. I told him, "Your eyes are great, but you're going to have to shave your head" because Gramps was bald (laughter). That didn't go over. But that's where we discovered that you can write anything you want about someone once they've passed. Vicki Curry>> What are some of the things that you most wanted to point out about him? Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> I wanted to point out the honesty, the integrity, the humorous side of the General in addition to the family man, the guy we knew, who Granddad was. I was very lucky because I spent a lot of time with him over the years, with both of my grandparents. Vicki Curry>> Well, it's been just over ten years since his death, but it seems that Jimmy Doolittle had such a tremendous impact on our lives today. Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> For me personally, I don't think I'll ever get past missing him, his warmth, his humor, his impact on my daughters, on our family. He was a joy to know and I think one of the best things was that he cared. He listened, he cared, he involved himself with us. Vicki Curry>> Jonna Doolittle Hoppes, author of the book, "Calculated Risk", thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. Jonna Doolittle Hoppes>> Thank you very much, Vicki, for asking me out here. I've had a great time. 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. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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