City Times Cover Story : True Colors : Instead of Fun and Games, This Summer Camp Teaches Teens to Confront the Stereotypes That Tear at Los Angeles

Among the evergreens of the San Bernardino Mountains, far from the Echo Park neighborhood where he ran the streets as a tough cholo years ago, Jose Esqueda cried out to be seen not as a stereotypical immigrant or gangbanger, but for who he really is.

“I’m a human being. I have feelings. I am a human being. See me that way! See me that way!” he bellowed to 102 teen-agers of varying races.

Serwa Fontenot, a student at King-Drew Magnet School in Watts, sat rapt along with cliques of other teens as Esqueda, 24, talked of the pain of being stereotyped as an illegal immigrant or criminal. When Esqueda finished, Fontenot walked up to him and put her arm around his shoulder.

“I understand,” she said.

Esqueda’s emotional outburst jarred Fontenot, 17, and several other teen-agers into examining the harshness of stereotypes, which is the point of Brotherhood/Sisterhood USA, a weeklong camp where Asian, Latino, African American, Native American and white teen-agers live together and confront the prejudices, separatism and stereotypes that tear at the social fabric of life in Los Angeles. Esqueda, who volunteers as a staff member at the camp, was ending a discussion on stereotyping before he broke down in tears.

For seven intense days last month, Fontenot and 14 teens from Central Los Angeles high schools joined other high school students from throughout the Los Angeles area to grapple with prejudice on a personal level. They explored sexism, racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and discriminatory attitudes toward immigrants and the disabled.

“Literally, kids will come here and have a life transformation,” said Lori Nelson, director of youth and education programs for National Conference, a nonprofit interdenominational organization that runs the project in a mountain retreat in Yucaipa, about 100 miles east of Los Angeles at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains.

National Conference has been organizing human relations programs in Southern California since 1950. The weeklong camp, which is run twice each summer, is one of 17 programs that include sessions for adults, teachers and police as well as high school students.

At Brotherhood/Sisterhood USA, campers met as a large community and in separate racial groups, and in smaller dialogue and cabin groups. The rules for communication were simple: honesty, personal responsibility, patience, cultural sensitivity and active listening.

The process, however, was anything but simple.

“It’s scary,” said Leora Goren, an attorney from Los Angeles and a staff leader who was a camper in 1980. “We stick them in different cabins and tell them to be friends. And then what do they have to do? They have to say nasty things to each other.”

“But if you really want a relationship with someone, you have to get through that . . . or else there’s no trust,” Goren said.

Through emotionally charged and painful exercises and discussions, the camp has become a rite of passage for thousands of high school students over the years. Many leave with a newfound determination to rid themselves and their friends of prejudicial images of others.

“I’ve learned a lot of stuff about myself, that I could be versatile and don’t have to cling to one group,” said Fontenot, who had often struggled with the pressure of being accepted by her African American peers.

“This is helping me to be more sure of myself . . . of what I want to be and who I am,” she said. “The hardest part is I think I’m changing, but people at my school haven’t all gone through this so they haven’t changed. And how am I supposed to change them?”

Carlos Perez Jr., a senior at Belmont High School, learned from his teachers that he would be discussing issues in society. “I didn’t think it was a normal camp, but I didn’t think it would be this intense,” he said.

Perez came to the camp to understand more about peoples’ stereotypes. He didn’t believe he held stereotypes of others. He quickly learned otherwise.

“I realized that I do have fears about people and then think things about them. I just never considered they were stereotypes,” the 18-year-old Guatemalan native said. “This is a good experience because it makes me go inside myself and learn about what I think inside my head and my heart.”

Students attend the camp for various reasons, from meeting new people or dealing with race relations to gaining the social studies credits offered to those enrolled in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The teen-agers are selected for the camp on a first-come, first-served basis from applications they receive from teachers or former campers. Most of the students are from public schools, and for many the $200 fee to participate is subsidized in part by contracts with Los Angeles Unified and a substantial donation from the Herb Alpert Foundation.

The National Conference staff tries to pull together a racially balanced group. What they usually end up with is a microcosm of Los Angeles--socially, racially and economically.

The range of issues and the intensity of the discussions make for an emotional roller coaster, with dips and turns, sharp drops and steep climbs that test the levels of friendships the students are encouraged to build. Sometimes, things can get ugly.

“This scares me,” said Moira Potter, a student at South Pasadena High School.

She was staring at a lengthy list of stereotypes that non-Jewish campers compiled about Jews. It was Day 3 of the camp and the evening’s exercise was on anti-Semitism. The campers had started forming bonds that crossed racial, gender and religious lines, bonds they thought were solid. But opinions seemed to easily rip through that fabric as they did in almost every daily exercise, from religion to race to sexual orientation.

“I wasn’t feeling any true anti-Semitism before this,” Potter said to the cluster of Jewish campers in a room separated from the others. “It scares me because I didn’t notice it before,” she said. “I wasn’t on guard and now I’m going to be and I don’t want to be.”

Back in the large community meeting, the scene between Jewish and non-Jewish campers mirrored what would happen in the following days. The teens tussled back and forth trying to tell their story or their opinion. A few campers left the room feeling persecuted or misunderstood. Others sobbed from an increasing sense of futility or emotional pain.

Staff leaders stepped in at times like this to pull people back on track and sometimes clear up misconstrued statements. All but two of the 50-member staff are former campers who have returned over several years to voluntarily lead the groups. Although many have seen the process played out repeatedly, they are still affected by the stories and are sometimes reminded of their own experiences.

“If it wasn’t for this camp I don’t think I would be here today,” said Goren, 31, who came out as a lesbian when she was a camper. “For me, coming back here I believe in the goal. I believe in the kids, but I also want to be here for the gay kids. The camp was a safe place for me to come out and for many of these kids it’s the same thing.”

At the last retreat three weeks ago, several campers declared their homosexuality or bisexuality for the first time to a large group of people, some of whom were accepting, while others were confused or completely intolerant.

“I’m worried about how my cabin will react,” said one gay Latino camper. “It’s been five days that we’ve been together, that we’ve been friends and then all of a sudden by them knowing this about me, I can be rejected.”

Scott Marshall, a gay staff member, said: “Those attitudes in there end up having people beaten to death on the street. And we’re here worried what people think about us. This is where we have to start to confront that.”

The safe environment of the mountain retreat program resembles more of an ideal world than reality; campers can be open and honest about everything, no matter how hard.

“I would have never learned about different religions and things if I didn’t go there,” said Xochil Mora, 17, a student at Ramona High School on the Eastside. “There ain’t no Jewish people or white people who live around here. I don’t think I changed at all, but I learned a little more.”

In an exercise on sexism, Mora and more than 50 young women tried to conquer the pressure to fit the perfect model image that had led to bulimia among several female campers. Others painfully recounted incidents of molestation and harassment that have affected how they deal with men.

“In a way I believe . . . I’m fat and ugly,” cried Fontenot, a strikingly beautiful and statuesque African American. “And there’s so much that goes into it. . . . I’ve been mistreated. I’ve been disrespected. And it hurts so bad.”

She broke down sobbing and nearly a dozen other girls sobbed along with her because of their own similar experiences.

For men, the tables were turned. They became the oppressed rather than the oppressors as women whispered catcalls at their backs: “You know you like it.” “I didn’t rape you, (expletive).” “Why are all you women so emotional?” The exercise was to make the men more conscious of the effect their actions or remarks have on women.

For Jason Miller of Leuzinger High School in Hawthorne, the example was insuperable.

“I realize today that when I talk about women and make reference to how women look, that’s offensive,” he said. “I’m willing to make a change for the better. When I hear my homeboys saying something, I’m gonna remember each and every face here.”

The memory of people’s faces and their words rarely fade in campers’ minds, said Nelson of National Conference. They take their experiences back to their communities and schools, where they continue to struggle with teaching others or understanding more about themselves.

Maria and Carmen Nieto, students at Jordan High School in Watts, said the experience would help them deal with the occasional racial tensions between blacks and Latinos at their high school that they often shied away from.

“It helps you to learn what other people think about you and themselves so it makes it easier to talk to them,” Maria said. “I didn’t talk to many of the black kids at school, but maybe that will happen more. I don’t know. I’ll just have to wait and see.”

Esqueda left his camp experience in 1985 a confused 15-year-old. He ran with a gang and knew of death, but little of Latino history or successes in the Latino community. The camp turned his life upside down.

“When I came to camp, I was gangbanging and all I knew was my world,” said Esqueda, who left his Echo Park gang and now works as a youth counselor with an Asian American drug abuse program in the Crenshaw district.

“When I came here it all turned around for me,” he said. “I had to fight myself here. I knew a certain way and up here it was different.”

It took three years for Esqueda to leave his gang after continuing efforts to talk to them about respecting women or moving beyond their nihilistic lifestyles. Eventually, he had to walk away. Although he promised himself he would never return to the camp after such a wrenching experience, he has been volunteering for the past three years.

Each year, the pain is still there for Esqueda--as well as other staff members--when he sees his race pitted against another.

In a daylong dialogue on race, prejudices and stereotypes flew and stung relentlessly and people looked like they were preparing for battle rather than entering a discussion. The exercise on race relations was one of the prickliest in the camp. Racial groups were separated and compiled lists of stereotypes about themselves and other groups on 6-foot-long white sheets of paper that were often covered from top to bottom with stereotypical impressions.

Asians said they saw African Americans as abusing the welfare system, being involved in gangs and disliking Koreans. Blacks said Latinos have roaches in their apartments and sell oranges on the corner, and women prostitute themselves by the tight clothes they wear. Latinos portrayed whites as devil worshipers and oppressors. Whites stereotyped Asians as passive and very quiet and hard workers.

The groups then met head on--two by two--to confront each other and debunk some of the false impressions one group had of another. In a meeting between Asians and Latinos, a male Latino camper took offense at Asians who consider Latinos dumb and without regard for higher education.

“I’m breaking those stereotypes, and it hurts that every time I walk down the street that I might not be considered smart because I’m Mexican,” he said.

Then, an Asian girl said being called mute by the Latino group “implies that . . . we’re afraid to stand up for what we believe in and that hurts me.”

While the discussions were tense, nothing was more divisive than the Power Grid exercise, in which campers independently ranked the racial groups from most to least powerful. Four times, whites were ranked the most powerful and told to take the stage. Four times, Latinos and Native Americans were ranked last. The realism of the exercise was a blow to the Latinos, who were wailing before the end of the Power Grid exercise.

“They think we’re low-lifes,” said Mora, who likened the opinions of the Power Grid exercise to how Latinos are viewed in society.

“They look down on us because we don’t have the money. But this was our land,” she said defiantly. “(California) was Mexico and the white man just came in here and took it from us.”

The Latino campers’ despair trickled through each of the racial groups, each feeling the frustration and anger or, in the case of the white group, guilt.

In a separate meeting for the people of color, the tension from the day’s exercises in which they were pitted against each other disappeared into collective exasperation. The campers of color wanted to build bridges among themselves.

“I wish I had what you have--a language, a culture. You’ve got it,” Fontenot said to Asians and Latinos. “So can you teach me so I can bond with you?” she asked.

From across the room, a Latino camper passed Fontenot the Mexican flag he had carried throughout the day. She clutched it for the remainder of the night.

When the white group returned, camper Meldy Hernandez of Long Beach stood before all the campers to deliver a message that she hoped would leave an indelible impression.

“Whenever you think about stereotyping someone, remember me,” she told them. “Remember all of us. And remember when you stereotype one person you do it to everyone. And it hurts.”