COMMUNITY : ‘American Me’ Depicts Reality, Filmgoers Say

A 10-year-old boy who saw the film “American Me” with his father at a City of Commerce theater said: “I liked it because it teaches kids to stay out of gangs so bad stuff won’t happen to them.”

He was talking about the drugs, killings and rapes in jail. “That was gross,” the boy said.

The youth was part of a near-capacity audience of almost 500 Latinos--babies, elementary school students, teen-agers, parents and other adults, including many senior citizens. They had viewed a Spanish-subtitled version of “American Me,” an $18-million Universal Studios movie starring and directed by Edward James Olmos.

Louis Gonzalez, a Maywood resident, was the only person of a dozen interviewed who said he did not like the film. He thought it glorified gangs. But his young son, daughter and two other young relatives spoke highly of the film because they said it showed the negative effects of gangs.

Loretta Smith of Alhambra said she appreciated the film’s realism. Smith, 54, a mother of eight who said she has served two prison sentences for drugs, blames part of the gang problem on parental neglect. She said too many parents fail to keep track of their kids and who they hang out with.

Before the film’s release, many community activists had feared that the film would glorify gang life and intensify the gang violence that last year claimed more than 700 lives in Los Angeles County. But since its release last month, the film has been widely praised as a way to discourage gang membership.

Alex Nogales, vice chairman of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, described “American Me” as a powerful film that exposes the vicious realities and causes of gangs. “I don’t have much patience with the criticism,” he said. “It’s silly.”

Rosalinda Lugo, a leader of United Neighborhoods Organization, shares Nogales’ opinion.

“I know the intent of the motion picture was to steer kids away from gangs,” said Lugo, a former teacher and a bilingual employee recruiter for the Los Angeles school system. “It’s not only an East L.A. problem anymore and it’s not just a Latino problem. Gangs are in (predominantly Anglo) Pacific Palisades, Brentwood and Westwood too,” she said.

The motion picture follows the life of a homeboy from his days as a teen-age street gang member in East L.A. to his leadership in a California prison gang. It was the fourth and sixth highest-grossing film during the first two weeks after its March 13 release.

Olmos told Nuestro Tiempo that surveys of people of various racial groups in nine cities had shown a clear understanding of the picture’s purpose. “In other words, the film is working,” said Olmos. “People are seeing it and they’re understanding it.”

The motion picture compels people to talk about the gang problem, Olmos said. “We’re running into a situation that has to be looked at immediately . . . the whole concept of children killing children for no reason,” the East Los Angeles-born actor said.

“When you look at that issue, you get into having to look at what creates that environment and that situation,” Olmos said. He cited some of the factors as drug abuse, lack of education, inadequate gun control and a weak economy.

“We can look at such films as ‘Lethal Weapon,’ ‘Terminator’ and ‘The Last Boy Scout,’ as films that portray violence as entertainment,” one filmgoer said. “In (‘American Me’), on the other hand, violence is not intended to entertain but rather to educate.”

Arthur Garcia of Los Angeles said the film should be a “lesson to all of those people who are in gangs that, if they continue living (like that), they’re going to end up dead.”