Penning freedom from within prison walls

I have a book on my desk in the newsroom called “What We See,” a collection of poems and essays written by youth incarcerated within LA County’s juvenile detention system.  I received the book when I went to visit with television writer Susan Cuscuna, who leads writing programs inside the juvenile detention center in Sylmar.  It was lunchtime, and the kids got plain hot dogs with one thin line of ketchup spread over the meat. Their holding cells were as drab as could be. The photo above is from the LA Times:     From my story, (Daily News June, 2007):

SYLMAR – They write as if the words they search for deep inside can tear down the concrete walls holding them or melt the shackles from their ankles and wrists.

Inside Sylmar’s Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall, teenage boys grab donated pens and notebooks, eager to compose honest accounts of their troubled pasts.

As young as they are, they already understand that, like truth, it’s the words that can set them free.

Free to write about fathers who walked out, or the disappointment in their mothers’ eyes. Free to express the bad choices they made while gang-banging. Free to admit they are scared of what awaits them when they move on to the penitentiary.

“When I’m stressin’, I put it on paper,” said one teenage boy, his hair neatly trimmed, his gray, county-issued sweat pants, sweat shirt and black Converse sneakers crisp and clean.

“I like how it makes me feel when I write. It’s like freedom. My escape.”

Since 1996, journalists, poets and screenwriters have voluntarily brought pens and notebook paper into the county’s Juvenile Halls and camps to teach incarcerated boys and girls how to express themselves through the written word.

Called InsideOUT Writers, the program was formed by Juvenile Hall chaplain Sister Janet Harris, children’s book author and illustrator Karen Hunt and journalist Duane Noriyuki in Los Angeles’ Central Juvenile Hall.

Since those early days, the program has grown from three classes to more than 28 a week with 150 young writers. Some of the students’ work is then compiled for an anthology called “What We See.”

“Instead of putting a fist through a wall, you can channel that anger through the pen,” said Jackie Gelfand, who was appointed recently as executive director of InsideOUT. “They may write about what happened in court that day, how they miss their mother.”

Funded through grants and fundraisers, the $300,000-a-year program provides a modest stipend to its teachers. InsideOUT Writers is now taught at three Juvenile Halls, but Gelfand’s goal is to expand the course to the juvenile camp system.

“If I were to really boil down what the program is about, it’s about listening,” said Harris, the chaplain who 30 years ago produced a documentary on gangs. And she saw that within the juvenile detention system, there were not enough rehabilitation programs that let teens talk about why they committed the crimes they did.

“A lot of kids are dealing with father hunger,” she said. “They have scales over their hearts. Even though they were caught up in gangs, there is a core of inner goodness in many of them.”

On a recent Saturday morning in Sylmar, teacher Susan Cuscuna passes out papers with the word “empathy” written across the top. She tells them that empathy means to feel what another feels, to walk in someone else’s shoes.

“We saw the movie `The Pursuit of Happyness,’ and I felt empathy for that man,” one boy said of the Will Smith movie about a father trying to make life better for himself and his son.

Cuscuna then asks the boys to write about a time when they showed empathy for someone else or someone showed empathy for them.

They struggle at first. Some stare off, their minds far away. Then the pens begin to move.

“We look forward to this class,” said another boy. “No one writes to me. I don’t write to anyone, so I write to myself.”

While Cuscuna teaches a wide range of offenders, the boys in this class live within a section of the Sylmar facility called the compound.

Surrounded by yards of chain-link fence and topped with spirals of barbed wire, the compound houses what the Los Angeles County Probation Department calls the system’s worst offenders. Some have killed; most are awaiting trials and court dates. Some, already 18, will soon go to the Pitchess Detention Center until they are sentenced.

Si Se Puede!: A chant born within the vineyards

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Farm Workers by Cesar Chavez.  Chavez began the movement when he saw how farm workers from  Central Valley lived in terrible conditions,  to work in the fields.   Phrases such as “uvas no!” or “no grapes!” were born during the Delano grape strike, and later, “Si Se Puede!” or “Yes we can!”.   The UFW  is the first successful, and largest, farm workers union in U.S. history.  I met with farm workers in Ventura County five years ago, and while some conditions were better,  the lack of immigration reform then and now continues to threaten any sort of stable livelihood.  From my story (Daily News, May, 2007).

OXNARD — The workers bend over raised rows, capturing strawberries the size of plums in their hands. It is good picking weather for the back-breaking job, the workers say, better than it has been in the last few days.

But deep anxiety still lingers among those who make a living working the fields of strawberries and celery, avocado and citrus in verdant Ventura County. Forty-five years after labor leader Cesar Chavez brought the plight of the migrant to the forefront and planted the seeds of reform through his United Farm Workers, some hardships still remain, some too big to be bargained with.“People feel unsatisfied inside,” said a 61-year-old field supervisor who identified himself only as Javier.“What Cesar Chavez did for us was all good, but I don’t know what’s happened since. We hold meetings. We march, and still, the people are afraid.”Lingering worries about the fate of immigration reform will likely overshadow the Chavez holiday observances that begin today, workers say. Adding to their frustration is January’s record-breaking cold snap that stole away precious crops and the farmworkers’ jobs. “Workers are moving to Colorado, to Kansas because California is too expensive,” said Teresa Nava, a mother of four who’s worked in the strawberry fields since she arrived in California from Mexico 18 years ago. “People are leaving because it’s been so tough this year. There is no feeling of security here.” Last week, federal lawmakers introduced a bill that would overhaul immigration, providing a pathway to U.S. citizenship for 12 million illegal immigrants. But the proposed legislation also includes tougher border security and workplace enforcement measures intended to stem the flow of illegal immigrants slipping into the United States. The ongoing dialogue on immigration has many of Ventura County’s work force uneasy. Some workers go back to Mexico during Christmastime to visit with family, then return to work the fields. Some say they have seen fewer workers return — bad news in an area where agriculture is a billion-dollar industry. “The economy has been damaged because of those concerns,” said Alfonso Velasquez as he headed into La Gloria Mercado, Oxnard’s popular Latino grocery store. Velasquez said the market has always been a hub for the locals, the parking lot always crowded. But not in the past year. There are too many fears, said Velasquez, 60, who recalled meeting Cesar Chavez in the 1960s. Velasquez once was a professional guitarist and played in an Oakland restaurant where Chavez held organizing meetings. “People don’t go to the market anymore,” Velasquez said. “They don’t come to the parks. Even though the migrant workers have more rights than before, the problem now is simply bigotry.”

Sex trafficking in L.A.; ‘It happens way too often.’

People believe that sex trafficking happens only in poor countries, where children are pimped to tourists or brought to the U.S.  as slaves because families cannot care for them.  But it happens here too.  Los Angeles is one of the second busiest for sex traffickers behind Las Vegas.  The LAPD’s Innocence Lost Task Force works with several local agencies to arrest pimps. One such man was 70-years-old when he was caught pandering a 13-year-old he met on Hollywood Boulevard.  He was one of the few who was sued in a civil trial.  The photo above is by David Crane.  Here’s part of my story:

BURBANK- He plied her with pot and promises.

I’ll give you a car, he told her, an apartment of your own. I’ll protect you from the streets.

She was 16. He was 70.

For Matilda Evans (a pseudonym to protect the identity of a sexual assault victim) those two weeks spent in Michael Mersola’s Burbank home, manipulated into having sex with him, left a scar on her heart. Instead of learning algebra in a high school classroom, she was taught that acts of kindness only came at a cost.

“I developed a terrible distrust of people,” Evans, now 22, said. “I felt alone, because no one believed me.”

Evans told her story to the Burbank Police Department in 2007, but it was a Los Angeles Police Department detective who linked Mersola to an ongoing investigation into a larger problem in Los Angeles: sex trafficking.

Mersola was arrested for pimping and pandering runaway girls in Hollywood. One was 13 years old. He was imprisoned for those and other offenses.

“He was lending out one of the girls,” said LAPD Detective Dana Harris, the acting officer in charge of the department’s Human Trafficking Unit. “These guys use the child as property.”

Harris is also one of the supervisors at the Los Angeles branch of the Innocence Lost Task Force, a national program formed in 2003 with the FBI, Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The program has 44 initiatives throughout the country that work with local law enforcement such as LAPD and groups such as Children of the Night, a Van Nuys nonprofit that rescues children from prostitution.

While most of the public believes that child prostitution and sex trafficking are endemic to poor countries, it also occurs in areas throughout the United States.

Since it began, the Innocence Lost Task Force has rescued more than 1,800 children and arrested more than 800 pimps, madams, and associates nationwide who exploit children through prostitution, according to the FBI.

In Los Angeles, at least 33 people are arrested annually for pimping and pandering underage youth, Harris said. Among those arrests last year, four were women.

“There really is no difference between pimping and pandering and human trafficking,” Harris said. “All involve the force, fear and coercion of their respective victim.”  Here’s the rest of my story: (Daily News,  May 6, 2012):

Showing prostitutes a way off the streets

As a general assignment reporter who covers the San Fernando Valley, my main beats seem to be  porn, pot, and prostitution.  But there are many good people who sort of emerge from these beats, those who are trying to make a difference.  The Mary Magdalene Project is  a nonprofit organization that helps older prostitutes leave “the life.”   Hollywood has glorified prostitutes (Pretty Woman), but in reality, there are few places where older women can seek help.  I found the Mary Magdalene Project years ago, but recently they opened a drop in center to help women find resources.  Here’s my  story (Daily News, 2009):

 

VAN NUYS – The bright yellow fliers posted along Sepulveda Boulevard dare street walkers to try a new path.

Some take up the offer, though the women are suspicious as they enter the air-conditioned office building in Van Nuys.

What’s the catch? Will I be arrested? They ask these questions as they rest on couches and listen to music while someone offers them low-calorie snacks, travel-size toiletries and free condoms.

But this is no trick.

The prostitutes who visit the Mary Magdalene Project’s drop-in center find a place to catch their breath, escape a pimp and, maybe, leave behind “the life,” for good.

“It’s hard to get people to care about prostitutes,” conceded Martin McCombs, executive director of The Mary Magdalene Project, a 30-year-old agency that provides long-term shelter in a Reseda home for women who want to leave prostitution.

“People don’t want them in their neighborhoods, but we see it differently,” McCombs said. “We see them as victims. Some of these women have horrific pasts.”

The recently opened drop-in center on Haskell Avenue is the first of its kind in Los Angeles. Its purpose is to offer a bridge between the pimp-controlled streets and the residential home, where prostitutes seeking a new life can receive counseling and learn new skills, McCombs said.

According to the Mary Magdalene Project, 85 percent of female prostitutes were sexually abused as children. Nearly 80 percent have mental health issues and abuse drugs. And many women who work as prostitutes have three or more children.

The Los Angeles Police Department makes about 1,000 prostitution-related arrests each year in the San Fernando Valley – a figure that has remained flat since the late 1990s.

But with motels, liquor stores and bars serving as a backdrop, the Sepulveda Boulevard and San Fernando Road corridors remain hot spots for street walkers and prostitution-related loitering in the San Fernando Valley. And it recurs in cycles, usually increasing during the summer, when “circuit girls” are trafficked by pimps to Los Angeles from Fresno, Las Vegas, and even as far off as Hawaii.

Woman is lost, then found among the homeless

I have written many stories about the homeless, particularly women. One recent day, I met Susan Lest, who had been living in her Volkswagen for 18 months in North Hollywood. She was “rescued,” but so many women are simply deemed mentally ill and forgotten.  She reminded me that in these economic times, homelessness can happen to anyone.  From my story (Daily News, Feb. 20, 2012)  with photo by Hans Gutknecht:

SUN VALLEY — Her prayers were once filled with pleas:

For safety, so that thieves, rapists and murderers wouldn’t discover her sleeping alone with her cat inside her car;

For strength, so she could survive the heartache of losing her job, her Valley Village apartment, and those she thought were her friends;

For someone, anyone, to open a door of opportunity for work.

Susan Lest prayed for 18 months straight, hoping she wouldn’t get lost among the homeless forever. She slept upright in a yellow, 1974 Volkswagen Beetle on the streets of North Hollywood, quivering out of fear and cold. She sustained herself on apples and peanut butter sandwiches, and managed to stretch out a modest Social Security check.

She lived like that until one early morning last August, Lest was found by a woman with a clipboard, wanting to know why she was homeless.

Today, Lest can close her eyes when she sleeps at night, in her own bed, in her own apartment.

Earlier this month, thanks to Los Angeles nonprofits and the national 100,000 Homes Campaign, Lest is living in Palo Verde, a new supportive housing complex in Sun Valley where low-income single men and women, some with mental health needs, can live and receive counseling services.

“It was fate,” Lest said one recent day inside her new studio apartment, which features a large window overlooking a courtyard filled with plants.

Her 16-year-old cat, named Social, stretched out on a pillow on Lest’s new bed.

“There was a time when I was very frightened that I would never get off the streets,” Lest said. “Then L.A. Family Housing found me.”

Lest, 64, was one of 271 people named during an effort last August to register the San Fernando Valley’s most vulnerable homeless men and women. The local registry was part of a national effort to help the homeless called the 100,000 Homes Campaign that launched two years ago.

New clues to Amelia Earhart’s disappearance

Every few years,  stories emerge about some new investigation into Amelia Earhart’s disappearance.  This time,  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she’s interested in the latest search, which will last 10 days in July.  Researchers will  use underwater robotic submarines and mapping equipment in the waters off the remote island of Nikumaroro, in what is now the Pacific nation of Kiribati, according to the Associated Press.  I wrote about Earhart a few years ago, when a biopic starring Hilary Swank was to be released.  Earhart spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, specifically in the San Fernando Valley.  From my story (Daily News, October, 2009).

Even today, the sepia-toned photographs of a short-haired, gap-toothed beauty leaning against a polished Lockheed Vega give Les Copeland the shivers.

In them, he can sense her love of adventure, can recall the enduring story of how man-made wings gave the young woman the freedom to be herself and the courage to fly farther and farther until one day, Amelia Earhart vanished.

“If Amelia had survived, I wonder what she would have accomplished,” Copeland said dreamily one recent morning as he flipped through donated photographs of Earhart that he keeps inside a shrine to aviation.

“I bet she would have been part of the space program,” added Copeland, who is president of the Burbank Aviation Museum. “I bet she would have gone to the moon.”

More than 70 years after “The Queen of the Air” disappeared while trying to fly around the world, Earhart remains a beloved local figure, an icon who still leaves a deep impression on the minds of those who met or were influenced by her.

And one who left deep footprints across the San Fernando Valley.

Earhart and her husband, publisher George Putnam, moved to Toluca Lake in the 1930s and lived in a Spanish colonial-style home at 10515 Valley Spring Lane. She flew out of Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale and of course, Burbank.  While living in the Valley,  Earhart played golf at the Lakeside Golf Course and did research at the North Hollywood library that would one day be her namesake.

It is believed she bought her last pair of shoes at Rathbun’sdepartment store, which stood on Lankershim Boulevard.

“All the records she basically set were done while she was living in the Valley,” said Guy Weddington McCreary, who served as president of the Amelia Earhart Bronzing Committee.

“We can claim her as ours,” McCreary said.

Girl Scouts forever; organization celebrates 100

The Girl Scouts of America turns 100 this month  and while I wasn’t  very enthusiastic at the time, I am now proud to say I was once a Girl Scout.  People are surprised at how much I learned (aside from selling cookies).  Part of the reason was our leader,  Mrs.  Schilf,  who I write about for this column last year as the Girl Scouts prepared for the centennial celebration (Daily News, Oct. 2011):

We learned how to cook hobo stew in a hole in the ground long before television was flooded with reality shows on how to survive in the wilderness.

It was Mrs. Schilf who taught us that, along with other skills. She was our Girl Scout leader, who also went by the nickname Yogi. She was unlike many leaders of that time, who favored sewing and building gingerbread houses over toughing it out in the forest.

For those of us sensitive types who preferred our adventure from library books, Mrs. Schilf was about as warm and cozy as Clint Eastwood from “Gran Torino.”

She was tall, wore her blond hair short, and was never without Girl Scout regalia, especially a windbreaker crammed with badges and shiny pins.

Before we headed out on camping trips, some of us held our breath in fear as Mrs. Schilf reached her hands into our duffel bags to pull out what she considered contraband: pillows, chocolate bars and handheld radios.

“Girl Scouts make their own music,” she would say. As for the candy, the last thing she wanted was 20 hyper 11-year-olds suffering from fructose-induced stomach aches.

Once we reached a campground, our instructions were sharp and clear. We assembled tents with a precision reserved for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. We established safety zones around the campfire, always made sure there was a bucket of water nearby, and kept the kindling in a dry place.

After an exhausting first day of setting up camp, we turned in early. Mrs. Schilf would settle into her sleeping bag to doze off under the stars, while some of us cried in our tents. Tears dripped down our faces as we picked foxtails out of our socks and tried to figure out a way to sleep without pillows or radios to soothe away our homesickness.

Just before daybreak, we could hear the sound of wood being chopped as Mrs. Schilf used her hatchet to make kindling. She tapped on our soggy tents that sagged down to our noses under morning dew and barked: “Up and at `em girls!”

Despite her gruffness, Mrs. Schilf kept us safe and she knew the importance of balance. In between teaching us how to tie bowline knots, we learned how to boogie board at Refugio State Beach. Once, we walked along creeks within Leo Carillo State Park while she talked about the importance of conservation and we happily picked up cigarette butts, aluminum cans and other trash along the way, knowing we were protecting rare fish, birds and amphibians.

When our camping weekend ended, we always left the area cleaner than when we found it. That was part of the code. And when we were dropped off back at our homes, we were different: smarter, stronger, and brimming with confidence.

When I became a teenager, I quit the Girl Scouts as many girls do, believing then that makeup and daydreams of escaping my hometown were cooler than assembling old tents and tying knots. But the values I learned as a scout stayed with me. In college, friends would brag about camping trips that included beer, pot and air mattresses, and I would think of my Girl Scout leader, who would certainly have disapproved.

When the Girl Scouts of America recently announced plans to celebrate its upcoming centennial, I thought about those like Mrs. Schilf who voluntarily lead troops of girls into adulthood and teach them skills to survive almost anything.

And over time, I realized that Mrs. Schilf taught us that to value and respect nature and the environment was to value and respect ourselves, a lesson that is never too old fashioned for any young girl to learn, no matter from what era.