Have-Nots Have Their Say in Washington

Many of the 210 Los Angeles middle school students had never been out of their neighborhoods, eaten in a restaurant or slept in a hotel when they boarded four American Airlines flights to Washington this week for an unusual lesson in civics.

These were not the blue-blazered high achievers usually selected to study in Washington. These sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders from 22 Los Angeles schools have been tardy, truant, suspended and courted by gangs.

Some are the children of drug addicts; some of their parents are in jail. One girl was 5 when she saw her pregnant mother murdered in a gang drive-by. One boy was abandoned by his cocaine-addicted mother on someone else’s doorstep.

Collaboration Led to Trip

But by the time the trip was over, these “at risk” students would have the ear of a United States senator, tour the White House and stand on the spot where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. talked about dreams. They would map out plans to make their communities safe, sample the fries at Planet Hollywood, testify before members of Congress and jam the phone lines of the Washington Plaza Hotel calling one another’s rooms.

“The kids have just been overwhelmed from Day 1,” said Kathi Houston-Berryman, one of the organizers. “I never thought about it until I saw them on the plane, but dreams really can come true. You don’t have to be an A student to go to Washington.”

The trip was the result of the first-ever collaboration by L.A. Bridges--the city’s fledgling gang prevention project--and Close Up, the Washington-based civic education organization that has brought nearly half a million students to the capital in its 28 years.

The idea was to invite, this once, not the cream of the crop but the whey--urban middle-schoolers on the brink of joining a gang or dropping out of school--and give them a seat at the table. They were to participate in workshops figuring out ways to make their neighborhoods safer, and present their ideas to members of Congress and take them back to the Los Angeles leaders.

Directors of the program took nothing for granted. Discreet inquiries were made as to whether each youngster had luggage. One group spent 5 1/2 hours at the Del Amo shopping mall buying new clothes and shoes “so that no one would feel ‘less than.’ ”

Each student was given a disposable camera, a phone card and $75 spending money (in two installments to ensure that it was not all gone the first day.)

Much of the film was used up on the plane taking pictures of clouds at 30,000 feet. Someone had to show the students how the tray tables unfolded. It was the first time in a while that flight attendants witnessed such delight over the choice of granola or an omelet.

Once in Washington on Sunday night, it took three tour buses, two hotels, 17 teachers and three principals to accommodate them all. There was a certain amount of elevator etiquette training required, and one unfortunate incident of extortion when eighth-graders wrested money from their sixth-grade roommates and then forced them to sleep on the floor--until chaperons found out.

But project directors bet that the students would rise to the occasion, and they clearly did.

Much of Monday was spent sightseeing. Tuesday afternoon was spent in small groups hunched over round tables in the hotel banquet rooms, thinking about what was wrong with Los Angeles. Students giggled and threw trash at first, but once they got down to business, the instructors couldn’t scribble fast enough. The answers went up on poster-sized paper taped to the hotel’s peach wall covering: drugs, racism, not enough good teachers, no job opportunities, kids having kids, nothing to do after school.

Next they considered solutions. “If you figure this out, you will be the first people in the country to do it,” instructor Ken Insley said as they tackled the drug problem. There were no “right” answers, he said.

They were undeterred. Insley scribbled faster. Time was running out and the hotel needed the rooms. They were told three times to break it up, but the students couldn’t stop.

“It’s gonna be different when we get back to L.A.,” Melissa Powell, 13, told a fellow student from Mark Twain in South-Central. “Now we know why they do it, why they use drugs. It’s gonna be different. Just watch.”

Later that night, after pizza, they reconvened to get their plans in shape to present at a mock hearing with the five members of Congress who represent them, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and representatives from the Departments of Justice and Education.

Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. they were all in their places in a Senate auditorium. Julie Herrera, 12, wore a new white dress. Dashawn Haws, 15, had put on a suit.

One by one, a dozen or so of them went to the microphone and presented their groups’ plans to the lawmakers. They were predictably nervous and remarkably poised.

“Most of the parents are at work or they don’t like spending time with their son,” one boy said to Feinstein, straining to reach the microphone. “The most important thing is family support. If you have that, you can do anything.”

Their suggestions were specific, thoughtful and, most important, possible: a neighborhood recreation center for after-school activities; rewards for employers who hire former drug users; more lights on neighborhood streets; teachers who control their classrooms; more homework; a Future Teachers program where students can experience how difficult it is to stand in front of an unruly classroom; help painting over graffiti; more support and interest from their parents; closer families.

‘Real-Life Ideas’

To get there they were ready to hold a rally, raise money, volunteer after school, tutor and paint. One group planned to form LDSAI--”Let’s Do Something About It,” an after-school gang prevention program that they hoped would feature celebrity speakers and reformed gang members.

Some Congress members listened raptly. Some talked more than they listened. All but two of them left to vote on a tax bill before the students were finished.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) stayed. “You did come up with good ideas. They were real-life ideas, workable ideas,” he said. “Beat us on the head if you don’t think we are supportive enough.”

They applauded.

It didn’t seem to matter whether Washington would listen. In fact, the youngsters never believed it would. “We’re kids, they don’t listen to kids,” Melissa Powell said. “But we know we tried.”

If the experience was the turning point that their teachers hoped for, it would be as much a result of the lesson in democracy as of a glimpse of something better.

For three days, they had been treated with more respect than they could remember. Teachers had taken time and listened. They had learned about government, a subject that they did not recall hearing about in school. The president himself had been informed of their visit. They could tell all of their friends that they had delivered their ideas directly to Congress.

When it was over and a few of them were still excited from having stood at the microphone and said their piece, they seemed somehow changed.

“When you are at home, you think nobody cares,” Miguel Escobar, 15, said. “When we got here, they were taking us everywhere. You felt like you had support, like you could really make a change.”

As the students prepared for the Thursday flight home, they agreed that they would not forget this trip, from the stunning Capitol dome to the dip in the hotel pool to the way the plane could be moving so fast and feel like it wasn’t moving at all.

Someone asked them if a visit to Washington--the place that has inspired so many students to careers in public service--gave them any ideas about what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Vincent Stevens, 12, answered without pausing.

“I don’t want to be no addict,” he said.