Building a Bridge to Reconnect Fathers and Sons

Inside an East L.A. building with a dark mural facade, young men from the neighborhood come to learn how to be good fathers and older men come with dreams of reentering their children’s lives.

Jerry Tello tells them about elephants:

Some scientists wanted to restore the wilderness in a part of Africa. They knew that elephants’ presence help the soil and growth of trees, so they brought in some of the animals.

But the males they brought to mate with the females were adolescent elephants. And instead of helping their environment, the young elephants were destructive: They fought with each other, they bucked the trees and mated excessively with multiple females.

What the scientists didn’t consider was that the young elephants needed adult male elephants--their fathers--to show them how an adult elephant should behave.

Tello, the 48-year-old director of the National Latino Fatherhood and Family Institute, oversees a dozen programs linked to America’s growing fatherhood movement. The difference here is the institute’s focus on Latino culture, which has simultaneously spawned an admirably high level of two-parent homes yet suffers the legacy of countless violent or drunken fathers.

At some meetings the institute sponsors, simply saying the word “father” is an emotional act.

“Me and my dad, we . . . we didn’t bond,” says Alejandro Martinez, 18, who has an infant daughter and participates in the institute’s program called Hombres Jovenes con Palabra--Young Men of Their Word--for teen fathers.

He has to fight back tears to continue the conversation.

“I want to be the best dad. You don’t want someone else raising your daughter saying, ‘That’s my daughter.’ ”

The institute’s values are simple: A man keeps his word, does not harm his circle of family, friends and community, and holds utmost respect for women.

The 2-year-old institute was an outgrowth of the National Compadre Network--started locally by men like Tello and now an organization of 2,000, many of whom gather each year at San Antonio de Padua mission near San Luis Obispo to discuss the problems of their communities, or simply to enjoy the camaraderie of other Latino men.

“Sometimes we laugh, many times we cry,” said Bobby Verdugo, 50, who leads the parenting programs for the institute. “We sit down and share--something that people don’t think we [Latino men] are capable of doing.”

The institute operates on a budget of about $1 million, most of it from federal and state health agencies dedicated to family planning.

There has been an increased focus in recent years on the father’s role in families, spawning groups like Promise Keepers and the National Fatherhood Initiative. In addition, efforts to come to grips with the problem of teenage pregnancy have resulted in more programs for men who become fathers at an early age.

Carlos Sanchez, a 37-year-old ex-gang member who serves as a mentor at the East L.A. institute, says the institute’s values are aimed at countering the spiral of violence. He holds up his life as an example.

“I hated my dad. I put a gun to his head,” he says. “Why? Why did I feel like that?”

Only later in his life did he realize that his father had been hiding his own pain, just like his son.

“In the barrio, we walked around with a mean look, dressing crazy, talking crazy. But inside the mask, we were tore up, we had pain, we had fear, we had scars.

“I found that my dad was the way he was because that’s the way my grandfather treated him. And the reason my grandfather treated him that way. . . . He was full of hate, anger, pain, hurt, fear. We need to break that cycle.”

Tello remembers how, in a recent session of fathers and young men, the fathers talked about what they carried inside:

“I’m ashamed I couldn’t raise you the way I wanted.”

“I’m ashamed I didn’t have any money to move you out of the neighborhood.”

“I’m ashamed that I can’t read.”

Mentors from the institute are sent to schools to talk to young men about subjects ranging from preventing teen pregnancy to domestic violence to gang violence.

Mentor Ismael Pereira, 57, who fathered four boys during a violent youth, may talk about lost opportunities: The way your children hate you when you come out of prison. He said he shared his experiences with Jimmy Smits when the actor was researching his 1995 movie “Mi Familia,” in which Smits played an ex-convict trying to reconcile with his estranged son in East L.A.

“I grew up the wrong way. Nobody taught me the right way,” Pereira says. “I’ll never make it up to [my kids] that I lost, but I can sure help [other kids] not to make the same mistakes.”

The premier of “Veteranos--A Legacy of Valor,” which focuses on Latinos’ contributions to the national defense, will benefit the institute. It will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Los Angeles Theater Center, 514 S. Spring St. Ticket information: (323) 728-7770.

The institute will hold its third annual Latino Male Health and Information Fair from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at Placita Olvera, 125 Paseo De La Plaza, Los Angeles.