Good Day LA

[milquetoast]

Thai slave laborers freed in El Monte become U.S. citizens

Rick Meyer/LATimes

The women take part in ceremonies in Montebello. They were among 72 workers whose plight in 1995 captured the nation's attention.

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 14, 2008
Maliwan Clinton recalls her first taste of America with a shudder. In this fabled land of the free, she was enslaved behind razor wire and around-the-clock guards in an El Monte sweatshop, where she and more than 70 other Thai laborers were forced to work 18-hour days for what amounted to less than a dollar an hour.

When she was freed, a shocked public learned of slavery in its midst and flooded the Thai laborers with American generosity: Churchgoers offered shelter, community advocates proffered English lessons and job tips, lawyers fought for work permits and legal status for the group.

Exactly 13 years to the day the Thai laborers won their freedom, Clinton's American journey came full circle Wednesday as she acquired U.S. citizenship by taking the oath of allegiance to her new nation.

"I'm an American and this is my home now!" said Clinton, 39, as she waved a miniature American flag at the Montebello ceremony, where more than 3,600 citizens were scheduled to be sworn in by day's end.

Another former slave laborer, Sukanya Chuai Ngan, was also granted citizenship Wednesday. The two women are among dozens of the El Monte workers who have acquired citizenship this year or expect to do so soon.

More than 40 of them had gathered Sunday to celebrate with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, which successfully fought for a $4-million settlement from manufacturers and retailers for their exploitation and won an uphill battle to gain legal status for the workers.

"Because of their courage, they were able to take what was a horrific experience and emerge from it as victors," said the legal center's Julie Su, their lead attorney for 13 years. "I'm really proud of them, but I'm also proud of America because this nation opened its arms to them and showed its best ideals of freedom and human rights."

Bob Cary/LATimes

The El Monte case drew international attention, blazed new paths in immigration and labor law, led to legislation offering visas for victims of human trafficking and became the subject of an exhibit in the Smithsonian Institution.

The case marked the first time in federal court that garment workers successfully held manufacturers and retailers responsible for the actions of their labor contractor.

It was the shocking nature of modern-day slavery in such a nondescript American neighborhood that so riveted the nation, Su said.

Ultimately, law enforcement officers arrested eight operators of a Chinese Thai garment sweatshop in an early morning raid in August 1995 and freed 72 Thai immigrants, some of whom had been held captive for at least four years.

Gary Friedman/LATimes

As they celebrated their journeys to citizenship Sunday with American flags and certificates as "American heroes" from the Asian legal center, the former captives reminisced, often tearfully, over their trials.

Most of them said they came from impoverished farming families and had headed to the metropolis of Bangkok to find sewing jobs. There, they met labor contractors who promised them good jobs in America and monthly pay of $1,000 -- nearly 10 times what some were earning in Thailand.

They were told they would work 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., with weekends off to see the glamorous sights of Los Angeles.

But the reality was vastly different.

Buppha Chaemchoi, 37, said she was shocked to arrive in El Monte and realize that she would sleep crammed in one bedroom on the floor with nine others. The windows had been boarded up, she said, allowing virtually no sunlight. Her captors told her that if she tried to escape, brutal U.S. police would shave her head and stamp her scalp with marks of disgrace, she said.

"It made me worry and want to stay inside and just wait for my three-year contract to end," Chaemchoi said.

Chuai Ngan, 47, who came to the U.S. in 1993, said she also was intimidated with threats that her family would be harmed and their home in Thailand burned down if she attempted to leave.

Not all captives were willing to accept their fate, however.

Win Chuai Ngan, the 51-year-old husband of Sukanya, was the first to escape from El Monte. As one of the few male laborers, he said, he was allowed to go outside to take out the trash and help move sewing machines and other heavy supplies into the complex.
One day, he said, he saw a Thai newspaper in the trash, surreptitiously tore out the phone number for a Thai temple and kept it hidden in his pocket. In November 1992, he made his move -- jumping over the fence in the middle of the night. He ran to a taxi stand and asked to be taken to the temple.

"I was so scared the owner would see me and kill me," Win Chuai Ngan said.

He said he told his story to Thai authorities and newspapers in Los Angeles, and gave them an address label for the El Monte complex that he had torn from the newspaper.

But he said he did not report it to U.S. law enforcement officials because he was scared they would deport him.

A few others also escaped, and community advocates eventually helped get the information to authorities. On Aug. 2, a multiagency task force led by the California Department of Industrial Relations raided the complex.

Some of the women were cowed by their captors' earlier descriptions of U.S. police and refused to open the door, which authorities hacked open with an ax. Others said they were overjoyed at their liberation.

"I was so happy," said Clinton, who had been held captive since April 1994. "I thought, 'Oh my God, I'm going home!' "

In the end, most of the workers decided to stay after Su and others successfully fought to win legal status for them. The workers annually celebrate Aug. 13 as their first full day of freedom, since that's when all of them were allowed to leave immigration detention facilities.

Clinton and the Chuai Ngans said that whatever travails they endured here, their American journeys have been well worth taking.

Clinton fell in love and married one of the volunteers who helped her; the couple has two sons.

She works the graveyard shift at Target stocking shelves and aims to attend community college as a steppingstone to a higher-paying job.

Her biggest dream is to sponsor her niece's immigration to the United States -- the daughter of her only sibling, who died in an auto accident.

Gary Friedman/LATimes

Chuai Ngan, along with her husband, Win, have started two Thai restaurants and a massage parlor, own two North Hollywood homes and four cars, including a Mercedes-Benz.

They earn enough to send money home to relatives and have built a meeting hall, school lunchroom and library in their impoverished rice farming village in northeastern Thailand. The couple also sends school supplies and sports equipment to the village children.

Gary Friedman/LATimes

Like countless immigrants before them, the former slave laborers expressed gratitude for the bountiful opportunities in their adopted homeland.

"American people have such big hearts," Clinton said, "and now I'm so proud to say I'm one of them."

Los Angeles Times

[Imperfect Ending]

Omg in the last picture she looks like my mom.
But it couldn't be my mom because my mom hates dogs.

[milquetoast]

August 29, 2008

The 2008 'Six Man' Volleyball Tourney Photo Essay

Hoffmann

Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor did us proud at the Olympics this year. The two Californians by birth brought us home the Gold. And just one weekend before the games began, Manhattan Beach put on their own famous "Six Man" Volleyball Tournament, which would definitely win the gold if tournaments would compete each against each other.

metaphora

The games are a mix of "world-class players, top college stars and disguised AVP pros" in costumes as if it were Halloween.

metaphora

There's nothing like it and after we visited last year, we had to make sure we shared what was seen this year, thanks to three Flickr users (Nataline/metaphora, Mark Hoffmann and David J. Sullivan).

metaphora

LAist

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BREAKING NEWS IN MALIBU OMG!

by Sean Bonner

September 1st, 2008

LA Metblogs

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This is a Good Day-

Rugrats are BACK!

Irfan Kahn

Students on their first day of school at the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, formerly known as Belmont Learning Center, in Los Angeles. Roybal, built to relieve Belmont High School, opened Wednesday and will have other academies, including the Civitas School of Leadership and the School for Visual Arts and Humanities.

Irfan Kahn

Sharon Castro, 16, checks a list Wednesday to find her classroom on her first day of school at the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center.

Irfan Kahn

Thomas Yee, left, of the Los Angeles Unified School District, helps a student find her homeroom Wednesday, the opening day at the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center.

Robert Gauthier

Helen Bernstein High School students move to their classes Wednesday, the newly constructed campus' opening day.

LATimes

[nygirl]

Ugh, Oh man Sharon Castro should stop shaving her eyebrows to draw them back on.. runny eyebrows are not pretty. The Edward R. Roybal learning center on the other hand, is a stunner. What a great looking school.

[milquetoast]

Very Christina Aguilerish

[yamota]

She looks like a Romulan

[milquetoast]

Bettie Page dies at 85

Pinup queen played a key role in the sexual

revolution of the 1960s and later became a cult figure

Page, whose later life was marked by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state mental institution, died Thursday night at Kindred Hospital in Los Angeles, where she had been on life support since suffering a heart attack Dec. 2.

"The origins of what captures the imagination and creates a particular celebrity are sometimes difficult to define," Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner said Thursday night. "Bettie Page was one of Playboy magazine's early Playmates, and she became an iconic figure, influencing notions of beauty and fashion. Then she disappeared. . . . Many years later, Bettie resurfaced and we became friends. Her passing is very sad."

LOS ANGELES TIMES

[future_trance011]

R.I.P Bettie Page!

She was a pinup goddess for the ages! And her vampy-look has inspired many a young Goth chicks.

My Dad used to have shit loads of Bettie Page Paraphernalia, that he kept in the basement back at our old home in Colorado. I wished he still had it, but my Mom made him get rid of it when we moved out here to California back in '94.

[yamota]

that's sad, sad news I know I speak for every red blooded heterosexual male out there when I say that Bettie Page was just one of those girls that we have pleasured ourselves to at least once in our lives. I know I have. More than once as a matter of fact. Many, many times... Bettie, you will be missed...

[ArchiTennis]

silly willy.
you'd be surprised how she transcended this whole homo/hetero/don'tknow "titles" we give ourselves. she was admired by many.

[milquetoast]

Hugh Jackman

abbreviated

I'm beginning to think that Larry Mark and Bill Condon, the producers of this year's Academy Awards telecast, actually have a few tricks up their sleeves.

The first thing Mark said when I got him on the phone this morning told me all I needed to hear. "In keeping with the thinking that the event needs to be more like a party," he said, "we're trying to make it very much like a party." Mark believes Jackman has the perfect party-host persona. "The Oscars are a celebration of movies, so who better to host than a movie star," Mark said.

Patrick Goldstein

photo Jay L. Clendenin

LOS ANGELES TIMES

[milquetoast]

Mother, Geogie, carries her joey, Kirrhi,

the newest member of the Los Angeles Zoo's koala family.

Associated Press

[Imperfect Ending]

AWW!!!!! but they'll probably claw my eyes out

[ArchiTennis]

yeah..awww...why are koalas so cute anyway? aren't they ferocious?

[milquetoast]

Robert Graham, L.A. sculptor, dies at 70

Robert Graham

The artist designed major civic monuments throughout the country. His legacy is visible all over L.A.

By Suzanne Muchnic and Cara Mia DiMassa
December 28, 2008
Robert Graham, a Los Angeles sculptor with a towering public presence who designed major civic monuments across the nation, died Saturday at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, his friend Roy Doumani said. Graham, who had been ill for about six months, was 70.

An elegant, gentlemanly artist who maintained a large studio in Venice, Graham was enormously productive throughout his career. A fiercely independent perfectionist with high-tech skills and an enduring fascination with the female figure, he explored almost every conceivable position and attitude of the female nude in his personal work, often working in an intimate scale.

LATIMES

But he is best known for large public commissions that pay homage to historical figures or symbolize big ideas in prominent locations.

His legacy, Doumani said, "is all over the city. He brought a lot of beauty and a vision of what art should be. . . . Bob was special to this city and, fortunately, his work will remain here and elsewhere, and he's certainly not going to be forgotten."

In Los Angeles, Graham designed a set of free-standing bronze doors for the Music Center in 1978 and a sculpture of two headless figures known as the "Olympic Gateway" at the Memorial Coliseum for the 1984 Olympics. His largest and most prominent public work in the city is the "Great Bronze Doors," a huge entryway topped by an angel, made for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in 2002.

L o s A n g e l e s T i m e s

[milquetoast]

Suspect is held

in homeless man's fiery death

in Los Angeles

John Robert McGraham, seen in April 2006, was doused with gasoline and burned to death Oct. 9 on the sidewalk near 3rd and Berendo streets in the Mid-Wilshire area.

He was 55.

Witness identifications and DNA evidence lead to arrest of man with an alleged grudge against the homeless.

January 23, 2009
The detectives assured his family over and over that they would catch the man who splashed gasoline on their homeless brother, John Robert McGraham, and set him ablaze on a Mid-Wilshire street corner last fall. But the man's brother, David McGraham, wasn't so sure.

"They said unequivocally, 'We'll get him,' " he said. "As time passed, I thought it wasn't going to happen. I just figured the killer got away with it."

Then, on Thursday afternoon, his sister Susanne McGraham-Paisley called him at his home in Washington state. She was sobbing as she told her brother that she had just heard from one of the Los Angeles Police Department detectives.

"They got him," she told her older brother.

Detectives arrested Benjamin Mathew Martin, 30, on suspicion of murder just before noon Thursday in Rancho Mirage. Witness identifications and DNA evidence left behind tied Martin to the killing, said Lt. Mark Tappan. But officials did not provide details on what led them to Martin.

Law enforcement sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is open, described Martin as a former barber in the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood with a grudge against the homeless.

Martin is not believed to be a gang member, but he does have a previous criminal conviction for a drug offense. DNA taken from that conviction was tied to the October killing, the sources said.

"The attack occurred without any apparent provocation. The victim was totally helpless," said LAPD Chief William J. Bratton. "The suspect intentionally set the victim on fire and then ran from the scene, leaving a red plastic gasoline container."

LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck said the alleged motivation for the killing appears to be "straight-up personal dislike."

The gruesome slaying of John Robert McGraham, 55, as he sat on his usual corner at 3rd and Berendo streets Oct. 9 galvanized the multiethnic, largely working-class neighborhood. Martin is Latino, as are the neighborhood people who regularly gave McGraham -- who was white -- food and clothes.

On that night, residents and shopkeepers found McGraham lying on his back in a nearby parking lot, his body still ablaze. They rushed to extinguish the flames, but were unable to save McGraham, whose clothes had been burned off.

The crime provoked widespread introspection about the dangers faced by homeless people in the state. Hundreds gathered for vigils at the corner that McGraham called home.

On the day of his funeral at Immanuel Presbyterian Church on Wilshire Boulevard, more than 300 people -- homeless, the poor and the well-heeled, struggling immigrants and white-collar professionals -- packed the church.

McGraham had been a bellhop at the old Ambassador Hotel in the early 1980s before he fell into depression and lost his job. For two decades, his siblings were unable to get him help or get him off the streets. So instead they visited him at his adopted home on a grimy sidewalk in a teeming Mid-Wilshire neighborhood. They would bring their children to visit "Uncle Johnny."

They took comfort in knowing that some of the neighborhood shopkeepers and residents looked after him. McGraham was described as a "Star Trek" fan who looked up to the dashing starship commander James T. Kirk.

McGraham's mother had fretted about him until the day she died of cancer in 1987. "John, please take care of yourself," she told him the last time she saw him. "You look good."

Residents and shopkeepers described him as harmless and nice -- no trouble at all. But some worried that he could be a target because he was homeless and dingy. He smelled bad, but sometimes someone would pick him up and get him a haircut and a shower.

Jorge Garcia, owner of La Morenita Oaxaquena restaurant, was one of the people who ran out to the parking lot and tried to put out the flames engulfing McGraham. On Thursday he said there would be relief over the arrest of a suspect. "You didn't know who to look out for, to tell the truth," he said.

McGraham's sister said she was thankful to the neighborhood for helping with the arrest. Since her brother's killing, she has gotten involved in efforts to raise awareness of the difficulties faced by the homeless. She said she was thankful to the LAPD detectives, who she said not only kept in regular contact, but also vowed that they would find the killer.

About a week ago, she said, Det. Michael Whelan told her for the first time that they had "solid leads." On Thursday, Whelan called her again, this time telling her that they had caught the suspect.

David McGraham said he had lost a sister months before his brother was killed. When his sister Susanne called him Thursday afternoon, at first he thought another tragedy had befallen the family. She had started to cry soon after he picked up the phone.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

"No, David, it's OK," she said between sobs. "They got him."

He grew tearful as he recalled the phone call. "I thought, 'My God, I can't believe it. They got him.' "

hector.becerra@latimes.com

richard.winton@latimes.com

Hector Becerra

Richard Winton

Los Angeles Times

[milquetoast]

Pictures released of Rihanna

(Looks happy, doesn't she?)

.

myhaircuts.blogspot.com

TMZ

[Imperfect Ending]

guuurrl