Alice McGrath: 50 Years on the Front Lines

Ask Alice McGrath how she came to organize and lead dozens of humanitarian missions to war-scarred Nicaragua.

Ask her how she came to help establish and manage a Ventura County legal assistance program for the poor.

Or how she assumed a leadership role in one of California’s landmark civil rights victories.

Ask her, and the answer is always the same: “I dealt myself in.”

Indeed, the longtime Ventura resident has been dealing herself in on behalf of the underprivileged and abused for more than 50 years. That’s a long time to be on the front lines.

But then Alice, 80, has no illusions about her kind of work.

“It never ends,” she says.

A lot has been written in these pages and elsewhere about Alice’s remarkable life. Pulitzer-Prize winning author Studs Terkel included her in a chapter of his recent book, “Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who’ve Lived It.”

Though she is one of Ventura County’s real treasures, I had never heard of Alice McGrath until two years ago.

She called up out of the blue one day to arrange a meeting. She wanted to discuss her involvement in a local political campaign.

But first things first.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked.

“No,” I said, suddenly feeling like I should.

And so began our friendship.

The daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Alice grew up poor in Los Angeles.

At first, she aspired to be a labor organizer. But her life took a different turn in 1942 when she joined a campaign to free a group of young Latinos convicted of murder in an openly racist trial.

The case centered on the beating death of 21-year-old Jose Diaz at a Southside reservoir, dubbed “Sleepy Lagoon” after a popular song of the day.

Fueled by a sensationalist press and anti-Latino sentiment, 600 youths were arrested in connection with the crime, 24 were tried for murder and--despite no eyewitnesses--12 were convicted and sent to San Quentin.

“This was never about Jose Diaz,” Alice says now, with her usual fervor. “This was about showing those . . . Mexicans who was boss. It was like a witch hunt, except it was a racist hunt.”

In 1944, an appeals court overturned the convictions because of lack of evidence. The court also reprimanded Judge Charles Fricke for displaying prejudice and hostility toward the defendants, referred to in the press as “zoot suiters” because of the long coats and wide pants they wore.

The case was later dramatized in Luis Valdez’s play and movie “Zoot Suit,” whose heroine was based on Alice. The play was recently revived and enjoyed a successful run in San Diego.

But although Alice--formerly Alice Greenfield--is best known for her work on the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, it is only part of her story. Her resume offers a broader look at her life and adventures off the beaten path.

It is noted, for example, that she was not only a publisher’s sales representative at one point in her life but a supporter of the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War in 1936; that she not only taught self-defense classes at Ventura College for 12 years but helped organize W.E.B. Du Bois’ 83rd birthday celebration; that she is not only an author (“Self-Defense for Cowards”) but for years has led doctors and lawyers on humanitarian missions to Nicaragua.

And on and on.

To really appreciate Alice, though, is to spend time with her, to talk to her, to experience her wit and charm. Listen:

“Some people describe me as angry,” she says, letting out a chuckle. “I’m not angry; I’m intense.”

About getting things right:

“I don’t like euphemisms. I’m not a senior citizen. I’m an old lady.”

On her life’s work:

“I may not have changed the world in any degree, but I have lived a life I feel good about . . . “

Alice has taught me a lot about life and about living. I feel fortunate that she is my friend, someone I can talk to about anything and feel comfortable.

I will always remember her kindness during the breakup of my marriage. She would occasionally call me at work to check on me.

“How’s your heart today?” she would ask.

Another time she took me to a reunion party of some of the defendants in the Sleepy Lagoon case. “We weren’t all good kids,” one of them told me over a beer. “But we didn’t kill anyone.”

On New Year’s Day, Alice called and invited me over for a champagne brunch. As she cooked, I read passages from “Letters to an Imaginary Friend” by the late poet Thomas McGrath, Alice’s second husband.

These are his words:

Ah, there was a girl come along early to wake me

Out of the wintry sleep of boyhood: to take her hand

--And mine!--into countries where all may journey but only

Without maps

without compass

riding blindfold . . .

Alice glows whenever she talks of him. They were married seven years. “He was the love of my life,” she says.

After brunch, we went to see the movie “Amistad,” Steven Spielberg’s epic about a real-life mutiny by African captives in 1839 and their startling victory in the U.S. Supreme Court three years later.

We both loved the film, and afterward we went back to Alice’s house, opened another bottle of champagne and talked into the night.

It was a great way to start the new year.

Carlos Lozano is a Times staff writer.