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AN INSIDE VIEW OF L.A. RIOTS Youths Pick Up Cameras, Put the Focus on Watts Newsday; 8/17/1993; Esther Iverem Newsday 08-17-1993 AN INSIDE VIEW OF L.A. RIOTS Youths Pick Up Cameras, Put the Focus on Watts By Esther Iverem. STAFF WRITER YOLANDA WOODS, aka Yo-Yo, lives in Watts and is 17 going on 25. She used to run with a section of the Bloods gang called the 79 Swans that did drive-by shootings. Though she dropped out of high school for one year, she expects to complete requirements for her high school equivalency diploma during the coming months. Street-hardened and smart, the slender girl with her hair pulled back close to the scalp nonetheless appears vulnerable and frail. Cleophas Jackson is a chubby, talkative, 13-year-old boy with a charismatic, entertaining personality. Nestled in his working family - his father is a security guard and his mother used to work as a secretary - he has managed to steer clear of gangs. But, when asked, he points out quickly, as if to certify his hard-core credentials, that he has "done bad stuff," like fighting, cutting class and bringing a knife to school. Both Yolanda and Cleophas are among the dozen young people, aged 8 to 21, featured in the documentary, "112th and Central: Through the Eyes of Children," which opens tomorrow at the Village East Theater, Second Avenue and 11th Street in Manhattan. The filmmakers plan to show the documentary in selected art houses around the country. The young people were in New York recently, on a busy round of interviews. The film, which the young people produced with the help of film professionals, focuses on Watts, one Los Angeles-area community devastated by riots following the acquittal of police officers in the first trial stemming from the beating of Rodney King. Rather than a comprehensive post-riot report, it offers various residents, primarily young people and gang members, the opportunity to speak directly about their lives. In the process, Yolanda, Cleophas and their peers - designated executive producers of the project - also learned the rudiments of how a film is put together, how to shoot with a High-8 camera, interviewing techniques and how the outside world views their community. The project gave Cleophas a chance to polish his on-camera poise. In a voice that is still somewhat high-pitched, he often poses the same question, using his best TV reporter demeanor: "So uh, what did you think of the riots?" "They should have went to somebody else's community," one girl responds. "They messed up their own community." The idea for the project was born after filmmaker Jim Chambers gathered a group of concerned Hollywood professionals in his home after the riots. Through a friend, Chambers and the group were introduced to young black and Chicano people gathered at the L.A. Achievement Center, a South Los Angeles-based program at 112th Street and Central Avenue in Watts. The initial meeting was tense. The young people felt used and "ripped off" by TV camera crews and others in the media who had come and gone quickly during and after the riots. Crews would shoot predictable footage and ask questions that invited stereotypes: "Do you worry about getting killed when you walk to school?" The result, the children believed, were stories that didn't reflect who they were or the unfolding events. "I didn't like it at first," Yolanda recalled. "I said, `I'm not going down there. I don't trust white people.' " "I had the same reaction," Cleophas said. "I felt like, what y'all doin' down here?" But after a series of meetings, the young people were convinced it would be their movie. They would do interviews, shoot footage and be paid - those over the age of 16 were paid $6 an hour while those younger received a $100 stipend. Community members were paid to provide security. Some of the moments they captured include gang members talking about their effort to call a truce. A woman walks through the scene of her nephew's death at the hands of the police. And 13-year-old Violeta Soto opens the film with a verbal barrage that shows her budding talents as a poet. Yolanda said that the film experience has made her more trusting of whites and boosted her self-confidence. "I learned about myself," she said. "I improved my self-esteem and before I didn't have any." Without the project, Cleophas said matter-of-factly, "I think I would have been destined to be a gang member." News Topics | Home | Research | History | Blood Gangs | Crip Gangs | People| Life in a Gang | Gallery | Iraqi Cards | Memorial | Migration | Graffiti | Resume| Injunctions Homicides | Maps | California Prisons | Contact

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