Interview project methods and applications

¶ … intertwine past readings covered in class into your Preface. You may wish to do so.

Los Angeles, the city of the Angels or the city of stars has a mythical allure that probably touches all or most of its visitors but when you dig down beneath its surface, it dissipates.

I remember the first time, I visited LA. I was like this naive newcomer who was bedazzled by everything and bemused. I wanted to walk to Hollywood, thinking I'd see the celebrities where I'd go and actually jostle against them in the street. In the end, I saw the kiss and go subway (strange name) and the gory museums with the decrepit apartments, nothing like what I thought the famous Hollywood was like. There were the famous letters above the hill, but the rich and famous, I later found out, lived far away behind their mansion and rollicking hills. Almost in another world to a person who was out of their sphere such as myself.

I stayed at the Hilton hotel. It was a mind-turning dream where I felt like an immigrant African to the U.S.A. I rode by bus through the different neighborhoods; that was perhaps the most informative experience that I had since all tied together in to a seamless whole and I saw how the very poor lived jowl to cheek not far from the very rich with run down housing and small stores, side by side with sprawling malls and middle-class houses. And yet even the middleclass houses looked dismal compared to the villas and mansions. It was enough to turn anyone into a Marxist.

The materialism bothered me. I felt that people were too often evaluated according to externals. I remember one instance after departing from a non-profit institution when I hear the guards at the door deride a departing woman because f her hair.

The separation of classes was also evident to me. Conflict theory seemed to be corroborated in LA by conflict between class, race, gender, economics, and politics. Segregation into races was evident by the differentiation of communities even thoguh each lived in geographically close range.

First impressions are usually the most honest and clearest, so it is therefore these initial impressions that I am elaborating on. Later impressions that followed were more inchoate and blended into the mundane.

I have a love-hate affair with LA, as many people seem to have. My fascination of the place has never dwindled, but I still consider the attachment to materialism and segregation inane and insane. There are certain things that still bother me and the interviews brought down in this essay replicate some of those concerns.

Five Interviews

1. Counselor working with ethnic teens on drugs

Sandra of the Los Angeles Counseling Center: a volunteer worker, who calls herself a life coach, working with teens that have problems with drugs.

Sandra, a woman in her 40s immaculately dressed and heavily made-up Has contact lenses, sepaks in a stammering way Tries to speak like a teenage. Keeps on tugging at her shirt..

I try to help teens approach life's challenges with confidence and competence as well as attempting to help parents understand the issues that the teens in LA face. I feel that adolescents in LA are particularly prone to the drug problem given the fact that disparities between rich and poor are so vast.

There may be at least two categories of people who come for help. On the one hand, there are those from the very rich and 'topmost' echelon of society who feel apathetic and drugged-out with their lives and do it for 'kicks'. They get a sense of excitement. A high and thrill from it.

In marked contradiction to this are teens at the opposite end of the spectrum who come from the disadvantaged, brutal ghetto backdrop and are pushed into drugs as way of life that they have picked up from their parents, from their peers, or from surrounding community. Often too drugs give them a reason to live and a way to survive.

I also see LA as a place that is particularly effective in creating the drug problem.

I asked her why.

The growth of technology has made depression almost epidemic. .. our society has become extremely technological. Many people have disconnected from authentic relationships in favor of virtual ones. People are spending more time with their iPods and chat groups than with families and friends.

Do you see solution or hope for surcease?

LA seems to be worse than areas of NY and Boston that I worked in and I see only progression of the problem in the future.

Interview 2: The Jail Situation

Interview that I heard over the radio the other day. Sheriff Lee Baca's take on the state of Los Angeles as heard over KYRM AM 1460, Los Angeles, October 14. Interviewer: host Earl Ofari Hutchinson. Excerpts.

EOH: How are you addressing the presumed pattern of violence by some Deputies against inmates?

LB: I see a progression of violence by some Deputies against jail inmates. I am currently investigating all 78 allegations that are in the report, by firstly going into the jails and listening to the inmates. we have to do a better job" and I am endeavoring to assemble a comprehensive force prevention strategy in order to investigate the causes of tension in the jails. 30 deputies have been punished, and I am seeking to compile methods to improve respect in the police force towards inmates. My goals are two-fold: more education for the inmates, and training the Deputies to better understand and deal with the inmates.

EOH: Would you support the recommendation for an independent commission apart from your department?

LB: I have introduced 3 "very outstanding Patrol captains" who are experienced in problem solving:

We are the only police agency in America that has a civil rights group of 6 lawyers headed by a former Prosecutor of the U.S. Attorney's Office who has successfully prosecuted cases against police officers who have abused citizens of the Southern California area. We will hide nothing. Deputies have rights too.. And we have to work within the framework of what is best for everybody."

EOH: Where should we go with reform?

LB: I myself have taken a $128 million cut. I see LA suffering from less police violence in the future and from better communication between police and inmates. I have to be in the middle of it all. I need to know what the deputies feel about how things went, and comprehensive involvement on my part. Better policy, better training, better supervision. (Adapted from the HUTCHINSON NEWSMAKER NETWORK http://thehutchinsonreportnews.com/profiles/blogs/6296329:BlogPost:13411

Interview 3. Drama & the homeless

John Malpede, a 50-year-old man bespectacled with white hat and denim pants, director of a theater for people who live in the Skid Row neighborhood of Los Angeles that is particularly rife with homeless people. Malpede's theater is called the Los Angeles Poverty Department. Malpede was originally on the Homeless Organizing Team and then started doing free drama workshops for the homeless

Q1: What is your appraisal of the poverty situation in LA, the gap between rich and poor, your general impression of LA and your predictions of the future?

Q2: How does your project help the homeless?

I believe that my idea is original. I believe that through acting, the actor takes on another persona and that he can act out stories of his degradation of how his victimization is reversed.

Malpede told us some grizzly stories of how acting even prevented some form committing suicide.

Acting also gives the actors ideas about how to deal with their situation, as well as venting their rage. There was someone for instance whose mother was dying and who lost -- well, at least 20 jobs. Day in, d ay out he'd tell himself he'd kill himself come the coming day. Also rough spots with girlfriends and just didn't have a home. Wanted one. Kicked around by police. There was no going up only down.

Well, oen day he comes in.. took him a while. He acted out all his rage on another woman, an actor of course. Through acting he picked up social skills; picked up interview skills to. We gave him a place, gave him food. I no longer see him around.. Hope that's a good sign.

There was another guy. Called up oen day: thanked us. Said he was going to continue living and that we'd given him hope. There are many more stories like that. it's great.

Q. "About the future? Will the epidemic of homelessness continue? Get worse?" Yes. Likely. Very likely. Yes. This will continue. And get worse. The recession is particularly bad.

There have to be more programs like mine. Certainly, They will help the homeless in LA deal with their miserable situation.

Interview 4: Rodney King

Anne, a relative of a friend of mine had seen Rodney King, on March 2, 1991, beaten by white police officers on television. A white woman in her 20s, sitting cross-legged on the floor, patting the dog at her side. Dressed in T-shirt that says 'Life is slum' and frayed jeans.

Oh yes! His beating was intentional. The way they kicked and stomped him -- over and over again. Though beats me why 20% didn't think so. Bigoted idiots.

Three LA Police officers stomped, kicked and beat King with metal batons. The scene was video taped by George Halliday, manager of a plumbing company, from ninety-feet away.

Q. What were your reactions?

Scandalized. I remember thinking it impossible that such acts of police brutality -- Police of all things! You would think they would be above that -- were happening today. In America. In Los Angeles.

California is oen of the most civilized states. This isn't the South after all. Here's where we're supposed to, like, love everyone else and against prejudice. Especially the police. Couldn't get to grips with this at the time. Scary.

That riots started a few days later did not surprise her.

Some White people that I know came out real mean and their prejudice showed. These were friends I'd known all my life. My sympathies were utterly and entirely and solely and exclusively with the Black fold. I could understand them.

Q "Can such a thing happen today? Or some time in the future?"

Maybe. Possibly.

No, I don't think so. Even thoguh Black-White differences are as huge as ever, police officers are aware that they can videotaped by any passing cell phone any time. this alone will keep them in check.

The LA Police Department has said that it has made changes.

My friend was not too sure; she did however believe that technology had become so much more advanced since 1992 that police would be too afraid to perpetrate a repeat.

Our police department still has issues -- most certainly. There was the rally in MacArthur Park a few years ago where police smashed demonstrators and injured loads of people and there's still some real issues of trust in certain sectors of the community

There's still work to be done

Interview 5: Rodney King

Jack, an engineer, a Black man in his 70s who lives alone in Hollywood. Dressed in suit and smoking on his pipe, Jack smells of cologne and looks me direct and searching in the eye whilst speaking.

Yes. I clearly remember how many of the kids started riots and harmed a lot of people.

Some of the children of my friends were involved, although many of my other friends forbade their children from joining. They were mainly jealous "very jealous" and wanted to hit out at their bad fortune.

The way Stephen described it, the riots were mostly conducted by youngsters and children of immigrants who were fed up with their measly fate and felt as thoguh they had been pushed against the wall long and hard enough and had enough.

They weren't protesting against prejudice per se, or for King per se but rather as protest and yell against their circumstances. Living side by side with untouchable riches made these youngsters even more furious. Look, you come from a university. They didn't. You have parents. Many of them don't. Or they have parents who beat them, or use their money for drugs or drinks. What kind of life is that!