Speaker 1: The person in charge of that movie made a lot
Speaker 1: of mistakes. American met Edward James almost yeah admitted do
Speaker 1: you know him? Oh yeah, I saved his life really
Speaker 1: and he won't admit that either. Welcome to more than
Speaker 1: a movie American Me. I'm your host, Alex Fomento. Today's
Speaker 1: our last episode of this season. We've been learning about
Speaker 1: this movie in pieces, from the actors who were on set,
Speaker 1: to the filmmakers behind the scenes, to the gang members
Speaker 1: who gave us the inside scoop on the murders associated
Speaker 1: with the movie. It's time to take everything we've learned
Speaker 1: in our last six months of digging in our hours
Speaker 1: and hours of interviews and wiki holls and YouTube videos
Speaker 1: with two views to try to put together some sort
Speaker 1: of complete picture. Who is the real Edward James almost,
Speaker 1: why did he make American Meat, who actually got killed
Speaker 1: because of this movie? And most importantly, was it all
Speaker 1: worth it. Let's start where we always start on this podcast,
Speaker 1: the one big interview, the guy we wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to but didn't want to talk to us. By now
Speaker 1: you should know who I'm talking about, Mr Edward James.
Speaker 1: Almost none of this happens without him, not the good
Speaker 1: stuff like a Latino director getting a major movie made
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, and maybe none of the bad stuff.
Speaker 1: More on that later, but first, that voice you heard
Speaker 1: at the top, that's Danny Trejo. He's probably the second
Speaker 1: most important person in this story. He wouldn't talk to
Speaker 1: us either. Maybe it's because we found out that a
Speaker 1: lot of what he wrote in his twenty nineteen memoir
Speaker 1: might have been embellished, misremembered, or just playing wrong. But
Speaker 1: we probably wouldn't have done this podcast where it not
Speaker 1: for Trejo and his attempts to sell his memoir off
Speaker 1: the back of American me stories like the one about
Speaker 1: when almost showed up to a Jewish Deli method acting
Speaker 1: in Prison Blues, or when a Mexican mafia leader supposedly
Speaker 1: called him from prison and to warn him not to
Speaker 1: act in the movie. From what we've heard, those stories
Speaker 1: probably didn't happen, or if they did, they happened very
Speaker 1: differently than how Trejo told them. But maybe he has
Speaker 1: an explanation for the discrepancies, like how Joe Morgan managed
Speaker 1: to call him from the Pelican based Special Housing unit
Speaker 1: where he was in solitary confinement for twenty two point
Speaker 1: five hours a day with more or less zero access
Speaker 1: to the outside world. If he calls us back, we'll
Speaker 1: do another episode. Phone lines are open, Danny. But Trejo
Speaker 1: had a lot to say about Edward James Almost while
Speaker 1: he was promoting his book. He's still pretty mad about
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Okay, the leader of Mexican Mafia would
Speaker 1: never raped Hey, at least that's one thing we agree on.
Speaker 1: But enough about Danny Trejo. After all, whether you believe
Speaker 1: his story or not, he wasn't the guy who made
Speaker 1: American Me, and what transpired after the release of that
Speaker 1: movie probably plays out the exact same way no matter
Speaker 1: what Trejo's involvement may have been. Throughout this season, I've
Speaker 1: been trying to get inside the head of one Edward
Speaker 1: James Almost, particularly the almost of the early nine nineties. Obviously,
Speaker 1: understanding the director of American Me would help us understand
Speaker 1: the movie itself, but could it also help us understand
Speaker 1: the version of America that the movie was made in, and,
Speaker 1: by extension, explain why Edward James Almost would make such
Speaker 1: a dangerous piece of art in the first place. Remember,
Speaker 1: this isn't Admiral Adama, this is Edward James Almost circa one,
Speaker 1: the rising Hollywood star, the recent Academy Award nominee, the
Speaker 1: household name from five seasons on Miami Vice. But also
Speaker 1: a family man with kids at home, an active community
Speaker 1: leader with a vision, a spokesperson. If you will, one
Speaker 1: clue into Edward James, almost as Psyche might lie in
Speaker 1: a story that we heard about him early in our process.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of story you think was made up
Speaker 1: or that's being taken out of context, if not for
Speaker 1: the fact that it's right on his website. It's about
Speaker 1: the civil rights uprising in Los Angeles, sometimes better known
Speaker 1: as the l A Riots, the culmination of a decade
Speaker 1: of reaganam X and militarizing police forces reaching a fever pitch,
Speaker 1: an event looking back that shows us Rodney King was
Speaker 1: just the straw that broke the camel's back. Uh. In
Speaker 1: our review or, we find that the officers struck him
Speaker 1: with batons of between fifty three and fifty six times.
Speaker 1: I was scared. I was scared. I was scared for
Speaker 1: my life. The inaction of the seventeen officers may now
Speaker 1: be investigated by the U. S. Attorney's Office for possible
Speaker 1: civil rights violations. That's right. Seventeen officers were involved. Four
Speaker 1: took turns beating up Rodney King while the others just
Speaker 1: looked on. All were caught on tape, and the tape
Speaker 1: was broadcast by every major news outlet. This was thirty
Speaker 1: years ago, when not everybody owned a cam quorder. In fact,
Speaker 1: this is so long ago, simme, y'all don't know what
Speaker 1: the cam quorder is. And just a couple of months
Speaker 1: after the event, those four officers were acquitted and the
Speaker 1: city of Angels just erupted for five days. There were riots.
Speaker 1: Even Sublime wrote a song about it. Where were you
Speaker 1: at this point? American Me has been out only six
Speaker 1: weeks and then all hell breaks loose on the same streets.
Speaker 1: Edward James almost is trying to keep clean. He made
Speaker 1: a movie to stop violence in Los Angeles, but how
Speaker 1: does he deal with the most violent period the city
Speaker 1: had ever seen. I'm gonna read you what he wrote
Speaker 1: about just that, though my voice is nowhere as cool
Speaker 1: as his, So just imagine Edward James almost talking to you.
Speaker 1: I was out on the morning that the military were
Speaker 1: scheduled to start to shoot to kill anyone left on
Speaker 1: the streets. That's why I went out. I wanted to
Speaker 1: see if they would shoot me with a broom in
Speaker 1: my hand. Then people saw it and turned out by
Speaker 1: the tens of thousands. The riot had not stopped, not
Speaker 1: until the afternoon of the friday we went out. It's
Speaker 1: funny how people think we went out after the fact.
Speaker 1: We were the fact of why the riots stopped. One
Speaker 1: person with a broom in his hands. It just happened
Speaker 1: to be me. And this is how his right hand man,
Speaker 1: Danny Harrow, explained that day. It was amazing. It was amazing. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember coming we started, I think any
Speaker 1: myself and maybe three other people. Five o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: We got brooms. Okay, that's what we're getting. Just that's
Speaker 1: all right. As as as it got light, people were coming. Amazing.
Speaker 1: People would come grab your cleaning stuff it with the
Speaker 1: little cleaning army would would rise in numbers. And I
Speaker 1: and I specifically remember we came to an intersection where
Speaker 1: there were rioters going on and they were the National
Speaker 1: Guarden and police, and they actually stopped for us because
Speaker 1: they were about to go at it. They stopped for
Speaker 1: us and were going across the intersection. Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: so so people like I remember Denzel Washington later in
Speaker 1: the day coming and spoke with Eddie, And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying they weren't doing their thing, but I
Speaker 1: just remember that. I can't remember anybody that thought of
Speaker 1: this and and and actually started implementing it in the
Speaker 1: middle of it. But I know that he reached out
Speaker 1: first to the African American community of leadership, and they
Speaker 1: were afraid. I don't blame him, like I was afraid too,
Speaker 1: but I thought, hey, we got you know what, at
Speaker 1: least if we get killed, we're doing something that's honorable
Speaker 1: and we're giving back. So Okay, he's in it, I'm
Speaker 1: in it, let's go. I think it says so much
Speaker 1: about this guy. He genuinely wanted to do something good.
Speaker 1: He made what is ultimately a small but theatrical gesture,
Speaker 1: and even today, seemingly he stands by the idea that
Speaker 1: him and a broom stopped the violence. Doesn't it sound
Speaker 1: a lot like the same kind of thinking that could
Speaker 1: lead a man to believe that a movie criticizing a
Speaker 1: very dangerous gang would somehow stopped children from wanting to
Speaker 1: be gangsters. I try to think of this bold claim
Speaker 1: by almost in the context of the Edward James almost
Speaker 1: that I met, Yes, I met the man years ago
Speaker 1: at a dinner for a magazine called Latino Leaders. The
Speaker 1: prize for being a Latino Leader was a dinner with almost,
Speaker 1: which frankly sounded pretty cool to me. The discussion at
Speaker 1: dinner became a big pep talk about how to navigate
Speaker 1: a Hollywood ecosystem that doesn't include you or even understand
Speaker 1: you most of the time. But two things surprised me
Speaker 1: that night. Almost asked us what the most watched movie
Speaker 1: of all time? Was not the highest box office, but
Speaker 1: watched the most times. We shouted out things like Titanic,
Speaker 1: Star Wars, and Avatar. Wrong. He said Stand and Deliver
Speaker 1: was the most watched movie of all time because it
Speaker 1: is played to this day in every school in America.
Speaker 1: A bold statement, but you try and prove him wrong.
Speaker 1: And he asked us if he was better known for
Speaker 1: his acting or his activism. I think we thought the
Speaker 1: point he was trying to make was that he was
Speaker 1: under appreciated for his activism. So every single person in
Speaker 1: the room shouted out acting, no activism. He shouted back.
Speaker 1: What became clear to me was that this was a
Speaker 1: guy who saw himself first and foremost as an activist,
Speaker 1: and that the work he did on screen followed that
Speaker 1: guiding light. And he believes he is someone who can
Speaker 1: personally make huge changes in our society. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: the type of guy who thinks he in a broom
Speaker 1: single handedly ended the l a riots. That makes it
Speaker 1: a little easier to understand why he'd go to such
Speaker 1: lengths and take such great risks. In American meme, coming
Speaker 1: up More Than a Movie, We're going to hear some
Speaker 1: of Edward James almost his sixties rock band, and we'll
Speaker 1: recap what we learned about the murders. Here are some
Speaker 1: of those commercials that you love so much. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to More Than a Movie, American MEA, Alex Fumeto, thank
Speaker 1: you for listening with us for the last twelve weeks.
Speaker 1: That's longer than my producer's marriage lasted. Unlike him, at
Speaker 1: least you know what commitment means. Let's talk about some
Speaker 1: fun ship we found while we were reporting this story.
Speaker 1: The man, the activist, the singer, Yes, Edward James almost
Speaker 1: his first performances on stage where as a rock and
Speaker 1: roll front man. Let's rewind a bit from ninety two
Speaker 1: Back to sixty two. Edward James Almost grew up in
Speaker 1: East l A And taught himself to sing and play
Speaker 1: the piano. By the early sixties, he was good enough
Speaker 1: to join a band, the Pacific Ocean. The band's name
Speaker 1: was Eddie's Idea because it was the biggest thing on
Speaker 1: the West coast with waist long hair. Eddie was the
Speaker 1: band's lead vocalist. I was a terrible singer, says Almost,
Speaker 1: but boy could I scream and dance means bitting his
Speaker 1: new dance. That was a song entitled Mickey's Monkey off
Speaker 1: the album Purgatory, the band's only album. It includes such
Speaker 1: classic tunes as the bluesy tracks of My Tears, Look
Speaker 1: at the Base, the seemingly James Brown inspired I Want
Speaker 1: to Testify, and even a funkified version of Bob Dylan's
Speaker 1: subterranean Homesick Blues Did. Why does it matter one because
Speaker 1: it's cool and it's a fun way to come back
Speaker 1: from commercial to the guy wasn't the bassist or the keys.
Speaker 1: He was the lead singer, the front man from day
Speaker 1: one and three. Because almost is always looking to push
Speaker 1: the envelope. As we've covered before, this is white dominated
Speaker 1: l A. So this makes almost who played at legendary
Speaker 1: l A rock venues like Gazari's one of the first
Speaker 1: Chicano frontmen on the Sunset Strip. So fast forward back
Speaker 1: and Almost has hung up his microphone and picked up
Speaker 1: a camera. Figuratively speaking, he's directing the story of the
Speaker 1: gang leader who created the Mexican Mafia, and once again
Speaker 1: he's leading the way, becoming one of, if not the
Speaker 1: first movie to shoot inside an active prison with real prisoners.
Speaker 1: I do remember on the yard, the big open yard um,
Speaker 1: there were uh, you know, people in towers with rifles
Speaker 1: and they were you know, they're they're on shoot to
Speaker 1: kill orders. These are the directors of the documentary Lives
Speaker 1: and Hazard, which shot alongside American me. If if if
Speaker 1: anybody had messed with us, you know, they would have
Speaker 1: been in you know, lockdown for years. That's that was
Speaker 1: That was kind of what the guards told us. So
Speaker 1: everybody was, you know, trying to be pretty polite. I
Speaker 1: would suffice it to say, when Eddie asked you to
Speaker 1: do something, he's pretty convincing. So he's pulling out all
Speaker 1: the stops making a movie that's going to change society
Speaker 1: as we know it. Then the movie comes out and
Speaker 1: people start getting killed. Here's one of the actors, Danny
Speaker 1: de la Pace. We were in France, um along the
Speaker 1: riviera at the con Film Festival with American me when
Speaker 1: we heard the news of Anna's assassination basically, and uh,
Speaker 1: I remember feeling a little bit scared. I was in
Speaker 1: a foreign country, I was far from home, and I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, what am I gonna be going back
Speaker 1: home to, you know, I it was an eye opener
Speaker 1: from me. I I I didn't know what to think.
Speaker 1: On the streets of Los Angeles, word was out about
Speaker 1: the movie and the Mexican mafia was very unhappy. Eric
Speaker 1: Galindo remembers, I mean I had heard that, you know
Speaker 1: when they made it, that had you got special permission
Speaker 1: from the real game ings to tell the story. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, definitely had heard that he was on green light.
Speaker 1: Um you know, so green light what it basically means
Speaker 1: is that you're you've been marked for death. There are
Speaker 1: so many stories about that movie. This is this was happening.
Speaker 1: There's these rumors, you know, like, but all I really
Speaker 1: did for for like my my little group of friends,
Speaker 1: was like it just added to the authenticity, Like it
Speaker 1: was more like, that's how fucking real this is, that
Speaker 1: there are real gangsters involved, that people are getting killed
Speaker 1: over this, and that's kind of the tragedy of this movie.
Speaker 1: Edward James almost wanted to make an anti gang movie instead. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's definitely not a movie that my parents
Speaker 1: would go watch, you mean, to be honest with you. Um,
Speaker 1: but I remember watching it with like sold out crowd.
Speaker 1: Remember there was like line out the door. It was
Speaker 1: sold out, and people loved it, you know. And and
Speaker 1: the funny thing was, I remember walking out, you know,
Speaker 1: people were like, oh, that's cool. Man Santana was a badass. No,
Speaker 1: young Jacob Vargas. That's not what Edward James almost wanted.
Speaker 1: Even some folks in the gang life were fans from
Speaker 1: the actor Sal Lopez. Well, uh, one of my brothers was,
Speaker 1: you know, it was a little bit involved in the
Speaker 1: life for a little bit of time. And uh, heat
Speaker 1: to this stage is loves that movie. He loves the movie,
Speaker 1: you know. Ship the former Lamb and member we spoke
Speaker 1: to even said members of the Mexican Mafia like the movie.
Speaker 1: Beef over the rape. Notwithstanding, I think they glorified and
Speaker 1: they wallowed in the attention, American Me actually put the
Speaker 1: Mexican mafia on the national international stage. Coming up in
Speaker 1: the very last segment of our deep dive on American Me,
Speaker 1: what do we know now about the extortion and threats
Speaker 1: made after the movie premiered? And did people really die
Speaker 1: because of America? Can me? Welcome back to more than
Speaker 1: a movie. I'm Alex Flumeto, and this is it. Thank
Speaker 1: you for sticking with us all the way through it.
Speaker 1: While we get to the bottom of what really happened
Speaker 1: in the fallout to American Me, Let's listen to one
Speaker 1: more anecdote from Almost and the l A Riots that
Speaker 1: illustrates an important part of his worldview. And now we're
Speaker 1: here to discuss some grimmer realities in the city of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Have you been out today? What have you seen? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta understand that we've been uh understanding this problem
Speaker 1: for a long time. We tried for many years and
Speaker 1: we have been for many years trying to bring awareness
Speaker 1: to it. Who exactly is the we he's talking about?
Speaker 1: It's hard to say. Could be he was just with
Speaker 1: a friend or his wife or a colleague, but I
Speaker 1: don't think that's it. Could also be the royal weed.
Speaker 1: But he doesn't strike me as that kind of guy either. No,
Speaker 1: for me, this is a kind of Freudian example of
Speaker 1: how almost Fuse himself always is a part of a
Speaker 1: larger movement. It's not him ending the l a riots.
Speaker 1: Actually we are doing it. It's not him ending gang violence.
Speaker 1: We are. It's as if he isn't deciding to do
Speaker 1: any of the things he's doing. The movement is sort
Speaker 1: of carrying him there like it's inevitable. And at the
Speaker 1: same time he's clearly someone who wants to control the process.
Speaker 1: No matter how much Edward James almost thinks he's acting
Speaker 1: on behalf of a movement, he's really the one making
Speaker 1: the decisions, and decisions have consequences. You could argue that
Speaker 1: his insistence on using the word we and always acting
Speaker 1: in the interests of the community is altruistic and selfless,
Speaker 1: but it also centers him as the leader of the action.
Speaker 1: He's the lead singer, he's the man, and as such
Speaker 1: he bears responsibility for the consequences of his actions or
Speaker 1: the actions of the people he chooses to represent. So
Speaker 1: what is Edward James almost ultimately responsible for when it
Speaker 1: comes to American me. There's really just two elements of
Speaker 1: the fallout that we have to look at. One did
Speaker 1: he face any personal consequences for making the movie? And
Speaker 1: two did the people who got killed after the movie
Speaker 1: came out get killed because the movie came out. For
Speaker 1: the personal consequences part, we're really just talking about the
Speaker 1: supposed green light on almost and the potential ransom that
Speaker 1: he paid. We've got two opposing stories to resolve, and
Speaker 1: both of the people were intimately involved in the fallout
Speaker 1: from the movie. The first is Danny Harrow, who was
Speaker 1: almost his assistant at the time, and his take on
Speaker 1: whether the extortion ever took place. What's your experience of
Speaker 1: the threats and aftermath that came to him as a
Speaker 1: result of give you Eddie's response to something like that,
Speaker 1: do you think if if anybody gave money, if you
Speaker 1: gave me a hundred fifty dollars and I'll leave you alone,
Speaker 1: So somebody gives on you think they're going to stop?
Speaker 1: That's That's the simple answer. That if you say yes
Speaker 1: to any of that, it won't end. They can always
Speaker 1: go back, Well, we need another hundred fifty and we're
Speaker 1: gonna do you see what I'm saying. So, so that's
Speaker 1: the answer right there. It's preposterous. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that's because I think that's a very viable, uh answer. However,
Speaker 1: I think from what we've learned from our source within Liama,
Speaker 1: they see themselves as a business, right, And so if
Speaker 1: I was running a business and my business revolved around
Speaker 1: me telling you better give me fifty dollars, you're gonna die,
Speaker 1: and then I asked for thy thar, and then I
Speaker 1: asked for another and another another, probably people are going
Speaker 1: to stop paying me. But if you give me fifty
Speaker 1: dollars and then I don't kill you, well then we've
Speaker 1: completed a business transaction. Turned that around. Give me another fifty,
Speaker 1: I'm going to kill you. I mean you always have
Speaker 1: that as you're operating motive operandi. You know, I have
Speaker 1: your your life in my hands. So how value is fifty?
Speaker 1: Is fifty or is it more? I mean, think about
Speaker 1: it for you know. I mean, that's unfortunately the way
Speaker 1: these guys operate. So so without being specific to my answer,
Speaker 1: that's the end that gives you the the the idea
Speaker 1: of whether there's truth in that or not. Does that
Speaker 1: make sense? It does? But then we have our source
Speaker 1: from the last episode, the former Mexican Mafia member. Was
Speaker 1: there ever a bounty on Edward James almost as far
Speaker 1: as you know, No, No, there was not a bounty.
Speaker 1: The Mexican Mafia never paid for a hit, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't pay for hits. You do a hit, it's for
Speaker 1: the honor and the glory and the privilege for killing
Speaker 1: for the organization. So I mean, he was a target,
Speaker 1: but not really a viable target. I mean, would they
Speaker 1: have killed him if you walk into gang territory and
Speaker 1: they were shooters there, sure they would have killed him.
Speaker 1: But I think he was more valuable being the target
Speaker 1: of extortion. So I mean you have to look at
Speaker 1: it through the prism of the mob, all right. They
Speaker 1: guys don't pay money, and he was a valuable asset
Speaker 1: of the organization for the period that they used them.
Speaker 1: Do you know what he paid them? Yeah? Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's actually less than what we heard. But I
Speaker 1: guess fifty thirty years ago is a different story. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't a bounty in the sense that they'll pay
Speaker 1: for anyone who kills him. But what it would have
Speaker 1: happened if almost hadn't paid Oh yeah. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have paid, it would have got whacked. We'll
Speaker 1: let you decide which story you believe. And then there's
Speaker 1: the people who were killed. We've narrowed down from Danny
Speaker 1: Trejo's vague eight to ten really to three individuals. Their
Speaker 1: names were Annalys Sa, Charlie Mandriquez, and Manuel Luna. Between
Speaker 1: all the rumors around the movie and the fact that
Speaker 1: Edward James almost was maybe extorted by the Mexican mafia,
Speaker 1: some people around and believe that the movie actually caused
Speaker 1: the murders, to the point that they're still afraid today
Speaker 1: that they'll get killed for talking about it. But as
Speaker 1: we know from our source from within the Mexican mafia
Speaker 1: at the time and from the federal indictment, these people
Speaker 1: were already on green light. So why why did the
Speaker 1: street react to this movie more than people in prisons. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the stuff, a lot of
Speaker 1: it was filmed in hazard So smile long Guiado. He
Speaker 1: was headstrong and it was an opportunistic for him to
Speaker 1: eliminate people. They used to call Rocky Luna the godfather
Speaker 1: of the projects, right, So it was opportunistic for a
Speaker 1: Guyardo to utilize, you know, what was happening in the
Speaker 1: political world of mafia to get them whacked. You know,
Speaker 1: Charlie Brown Mariquez, we had conspired to kill him. You know,
Speaker 1: I had volunteered to kill that guy years before. He
Speaker 1: wasn't even were killing though, right and the Lozarego was
Speaker 1: known as a rat through and through the hood, you know,
Speaker 1: because she went through Youth gang Services and she spoke
Speaker 1: to cops all the time, so she had smart on her.
Speaker 1: Charlie Brown Mariquez has smut on him for being a bum.
Speaker 1: He was degrading the organization by living in cars and
Speaker 1: being a crackhead, and Mauel Luna became a crackhead, so
Speaker 1: you know, they were diminishing the statue of the organization.
Speaker 1: So Smiland used this opportunity to gain a foothold and hazard.
Speaker 1: It turns out Puppet and Little Puppet were right all along.
Speaker 1: My understanding that she she had a relationship with prior
Speaker 1: to the movie. Obviously she was our our technical advisor,
Speaker 1: and then she ended up in the movie. But she
Speaker 1: was run in because she knew the world. And so
Speaker 1: my understanding was that there was some kind of thief
Speaker 1: that has something to do before the movie. I don't
Speaker 1: really know. I don't either, but I think American Me was,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe the straw that broke the camel's back.
Speaker 1: But there was more to it than just American as
Speaker 1: what you're trying to say, Like Rodney King, American Me
Speaker 1: was more of the straw that broke the camel's back,
Speaker 1: not the reason itself. Liss, Saga, Manriquez, and Luna would
Speaker 1: have been killed eventually for their trespasses against Lamy, So
Speaker 1: putting that on almost isn't any more fair than saying
Speaker 1: the entire l a riots happened over court case. In fact,
Speaker 1: unlike the Rodney King case, American Me had almost nothing
Speaker 1: to do with why these people died. I wish I
Speaker 1: could tell Edward James almost that directly. Would it make
Speaker 1: him feel better? I don't know. I think ultimately my
Speaker 1: quest to hear from almost or at the least to
Speaker 1: understand him, is really about the desire to understand the
Speaker 1: power of the artist himself. Is he right to believe
Speaker 1: that we can have that kind of impact, the kind
Speaker 1: that stops gang violence or riots through art and activism,
Speaker 1: or is that just a messianic complex? I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: What the answers to those questions are. But I have
Speaker 1: to think that was a humbling year for Edward James. Almost.
Speaker 1: What we do know is that, well, maybe he didn't
Speaker 1: become the Chicano Martin Scorsese. He did find a more modest,
Speaker 1: if not painstaking way to make an impact in the
Speaker 1: lives of young Latinos. I mean, the chairman of the
Speaker 1: a Cinema Project how found it. It was an evolutionary
Speaker 1: process that started back and then kind of evolved, almost
Speaker 1: turned his attention to the classroom, perhaps inspired more by
Speaker 1: him Escalante than anything else. Film influences the human mind.
Speaker 1: It's a very powerful medium. The way you address diversity
Speaker 1: is by going back to the drawing board and starting
Speaker 1: in fourth grade. The mission of the Youth Cinema Project
Speaker 1: is very simple. It's about closing the achievement gap in
Speaker 1: the classroom for our most underprivileged children and to close
Speaker 1: the opportunity gap in the entertainment industry for our communities
Speaker 1: of color Fi cattic to The program involves two filmmaking
Speaker 1: mentors going into the classroom and they teach the entire
Speaker 1: process of film, so how to generate ideas, how to
Speaker 1: write the script, all the planning and pre production, filming itself,
Speaker 1: in production as well as post that. They go through
Speaker 1: the process treating the students as colleagues rather than lecturing
Speaker 1: to them. It's inspired the community to the point of
Speaker 1: where kids are actually attending school mare. I mean, I
Speaker 1: wish I would have been had this class when I
Speaker 1: was in the fourth grade. My work would have been
Speaker 1: completely different. Our ultimate goal is to try to get
Speaker 1: the Youth Cinema Project inside every fourth grade class throughout
Speaker 1: the United States. I am the founder and the creator
Speaker 1: of the Youth Cinema Project, and I'm very honor and
Speaker 1: proud of it more than a movie. American Me is
Speaker 1: a production of Exile Content Studios in partnership with My Hearts,
Speaker 1: michaela Podcast Network, and Trojan Horse Media. This show is
Speaker 1: produced by me Alex Fometo at Angry Yuk on the
Speaker 1: Internets and our senior producer is Nigel torm Rose Reed,
Speaker 1: Nando Viela and Cream Taps are executive producers. Are Supervising
Speaker 1: producer is Sabine Jansen. Mixing and sound designed by Eduardo
Speaker 1: Albornos are executive for users at I Heart are just
Speaker 1: cl Bansas and Arlene Santana. For more podcasts, listen to
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