The Long Beach girl who worked on a documentary about the Purépecha Indians who live in Duroville received letters from Oprah Winfrey and First Lady Michelle Obama.

As a sixth-grader, Stephanie Maldonado spent a summer exploring the lives of migrant farmworkers in the Coachella Valley. Her 30-minute documentary, “The Purepecha: Poorest of the poor,” was produced and directed by L.A.-based filmmaker Cheryl Quintana Leader and has been screened several times in the valley.

The documentary traces the struggle of these Mesoamerican people who settled in a dilapidated trailer park known as Duroville on the Torres-Martinez Reservation in Thermal, about 30 miles east of Palm Springs.

Both Obama and Winfrey wrote letters to Stephanie in June congratulating her on her work.

From the first lady: “Thank you for writing! Your letter was so kind and I appreciate the effort you put into it. As I say to my daughters, it's important to always do your best. I want you to know that you can make a difference.”

From Winfrey: “I truly applaud your creative ambitions and I hope that your efforts working with migrant farmworkers is the first of many future works for you.”

Duroville emerged in 1999 after a county crackdown on substandard housing. Facing eviction, many fled to Indian land.

The Purépecha Indians began migrating to the valley from Michoacan, Mexico, more than two decades ago. Most work in the fields and earn minimum wage.

In 2007, the Purépecha sent back to Mexico roughly $1 million in remittances used to pave roads and build schools, according to city officials in Ocumicho, Mexico.

The documentary chronicles the struggle of the Purépecha to maintain their community in the U.S. even as the U.S. District Attorney's Office unsuccessfully attempted to shutter the park.

To read the letters in full, go to www.indivision2000.com/purepecha_letters.html

Cheryl Quintana Leader always wanted to help people.

She didn't quite follow the path she planned as a child - to be a heart or eye surgeon - but in a way, she came close.

Leader considers herself a surgeon in a different way.
"I'm an eye surgeon with what I’m able to make people see, and a heart surgeon with how I make them feel," said the filmmaker.

Seeing and feeling went hand-in-hand in Leader's latest project, the documentary "The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor," which examines the living conditions of an indigenous American Indian tribe in Duroville, a mobile home community on the Torres-Martinez Indian Reservation in Thermal.

The majority of Duroville residents are farmworkers earning less than minimum wage in a location adjacent a defunct toxic waste dump.

Sister Gabriella Williams of the Diocese of San Bernardino inspired the documentary, which will be screened Saturday for the Coachella Valley Latino International Film Festival at the Indio Performing Arts Center.

"I read an article in the L.A. Times that intrigued me," said Leader, who produced the film. "Sister Gabi was actively involved in creating better conditions for the families and their children and I told her, 'What you need is a visual tool to progress this mission."'

This visual tool looks through the eyes of Stephanie Maldonado, now a seventh grader at Hill Classical Middle School in Long Beach.

"She was the most outspoken one," said Leader, who visited Roosevelt Elementary when Maldonado was in the fourth grade, looking for students to participate in another film project. "She has insight. Some kids are just kids, and some are thinkers. She inspired me."

Maldonado is one of the main outsiders looking in on the Purepecha.
"When we first started, I thought it was a grassy, pretty park," she said of Duroville. "I didn't know what to expect."

What Maldonado saw was a slum trailer park community with dirt roads, in a big agricultural area of the Coachella Valley. She saw dogs running loose and children looking sad.

Leader, who owns INDIVISION2000 Productions, the Mar Vista-based production company behind the documentary, also was caught off guard by what she witnessed.

"I was shocked this was happening," she said.

Leader, a 1978 graduate of South Torrance High School, said she is motivated by doing educational work for the community, especially young girls and women.

"When we are helping those who are less fortunate than ourselves then we’ve made a positive difference to balance things out," said Leader, who comes from a middle-class Jewish Caucasian/ Mexican-American family. "Once you create a story, it can become real."

Stephanie Maldonado (left) is an outsider looking in at an indigenous American Indian tribe in the documentary, "The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor," by Cheryl Quintana Leader (right).


The story Leader creates in "The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor" is one in which California is the richest state in one of the richest nations in the world, yet with Third World conditions in its own backyard.

"I don't care if you are American born or not, those working for our food should at least be able to be provided the basics," she said. "Good water, good living conditions, good working conditions, good education. In the end, it all comes back at us."

INDIVISION2000, formed in 1992, primarily works with non-profit organizations, and creates ‘triangles’ of funding either through corporate mandates or grants that lends for a ‘win-win’ situation for everyone involved.

"This is my passion," she said. "With the support and help of others, I’m able to create the message that will bring about positive change."

The documentary has been selected to screen this year at the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, HollyShorts Intl. Film Festival, and AFTRA.

"I would have loved to spend more time with the Purepechan families and do an intense, more documented documentary," Leader said of the Duroville community. "However, we didn't have time to go too in depth and had to move quickly."

Ultimately, Leader wanted the documentary to show how the residents of Duroville face living and working conditions similar to those encountered by farm workers decades before them.

"I’m a big believer on how our future is going to look if we are not helping our youth," Leader said. "They can either choose to be our doctors, lawyers, social activists - or they can become our welfare recipients, invisible down trodden or criminals."

Nick Ingram is a freelance writer based in Lawndale.

LONG BEACH - Stephanie Maldonado doesn't look like your typical community activist.

For one thing, she's just 12 years old.

But this spring and in the summer of 2008, the seventh-grader at Hill Classical Middle School spent time with destitute migrant farming families in the Coachella Valley. And that experience awakened something within her.

Maldonado is no stranger to hard times. She is the youngest of four children and her mother works two jobs: in a cafeteria and as a cook at a restaurant. Her father, she says, is "not in the picture."

She lives in a neighborhood on Elm Street in the gritty heart of Central Long Beach.

When the idea of helping poor children was first proposed to Maldonado, it didn't immediately register.

"She said 'Why do we have to give to the poor when we're poor?"' recalls Cheryl Quintana Leader, the filmmaker and activist herself. "She didn't grasp that there were levels of poverty."

But when Maldonado met the farm families, she realized there was a kind of poverty below anything she had known or lived.

"I think it helped me mature," Maldonado said. "When I got there I realized, this is real. I put myself in their situation."

Maldonado was introduced to the farmers by Quintana Leader, who first met Maldonado when the girl was in the fourth grade at Roosevelt Elementary.

At the time, Quintana Leader was doing a film for Long Beach's Department of Health and Human Services.

Soon after, Quintana Leader became a friend and mentor to Stephanie and a friend of the Maldonado family.

Quintana Leader had read about the plight of the migrants in the Coachella Valley and decided to do a film.

She recruited Maldonado to be the voice and face of that film.

The outcome of that project is "The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor." The half-hour documentary, produced and directed by Quintana Leader, plays today as part of the Coachella Valley Latino International Film Festival at the Indio Performing Arts Center at 1 p.m.

The tale and plight of the Purepecha people is heartbreaking.

An indigenous Indian tribe from Central Mexico, the Purepecha built a thriving ancient society known for its military prowess and beautiful artisan work with precious metals. The Purepecha were one of the few societies able to repel Aztec incursion.

The tribe has its own language of unknown origin that lives on today. However, Spain and a smallpox epidemic crushed the Purepecha empire in the 16th century and the tribe became impoverished and later shunned by Mexican society.

In the 1970s, the Purepecha began migrating from Mexico after deforestation destroyed hillsides and ruined once fertile farmland.

Many Purepechas moved to the small unincorporated area of Thermal near Palm Springs.

Most of the Purepecha now live in a dilapidated trailer park called Duroville on the Torres-Martinez Indian Reservation. Located near a toxic dump, many of the mobile homes are also contaminated with asbestos and lack air conditioning.

The community's water is drawn from a well that has been polluted by pesticides and toxins from the now idle dump and the sewer system is in disrepair.

Maldonado learned firsthand about the deplorable living conditions and the challenges and obstacles the families face.

In the summer of 2008, Maldonado, her sister Sammy and Quintana Leader were part of a contingent that delivered backpacks and school supplies to the children of these families.

Quintana Leader and Maldonado returned to conduct interviews and Maldonado wrote portions of the film script which she narrated.

The documentary has been shown at the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival and the HollyShorts International Film Festival. It was also screened for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in Los Angeles.

With the screenings, Quintana Leader brings in panelists, activists and civic leaders to discuss the Purepecha issue.

A UCLA graduate, Quintana Leader is the founder and president of INDIVISION2000 Productions, which produces educational media in English/Spanish for the Latino community.

Throughout the film, speakers such as Arturo Rodriguez, President of the United Farm Workers, a court-appointed receiver in Duroville and other activists describe the hardships of the Purepecha and the irony that they live on the outskirts of exclusive areas around Palm Springs.

"We all have the responsibility to help out the people making sacrifices to feed us every single day," Rodriguez says in the film. Tamara Damante, a news anchor and reporter from KESQ-3 has reported on the Purepecha and provides news and context.

The film was inspired by the work of Sister Gabriella Williams, a Dominican Sister of Oakford with the Diocese of San Bernardino, who is providing services, childcare, computer and educational resource programs to the Purepecha families.

Since the film was first aired, improvements have been made in Duroville, in part because of a judge's orders requiring changes. But the process is slow and painstaking and requires vigilance. On a personal level, Maldonado learned that despite the tough circumstances of her own life, she can make a difference.

"No matter whether you're rich or poor, you can give to society," Maldonado said.

CHI OMEGAS FLOURISH
Award-winning Documentary Director Has New Release

Festival to Screen Duroville Film
by Nicole C. Brambila • November 28, 2009

Immigration advocates and a former federal judge who handled a case involving the Purépecha Indians in Duroville will participate in a Coachella Valley documentary screening about the group.

The 30-minute documentary, “The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor,” was produced and directed by Los Angeles filmmaker Cheryl Quintana Leader and is being screened at the Coachella Valley Latino International Film Festival.

The documentary also was screened this year at the Palm Springs Intl. ShortFest.

“The importance of the film, ‘The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor' is bringing forth the awareness that there's a problem in our community and that our help is needed to those most in need,” Quintana Leader has said.

“If others are serving us, we all should be willing to serve them with equal social justice.”

The documentary traces the struggle of these Mesoamerican people who settled in a dilapidated trailer park known as Duroville on the Torres-Martinez Reservation in Thermal, about 30 miles east of Palm Springs.

Since 2003, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has attempted to shut down the park, owned by Harvey Duro, for health and safety issues that include open, raw sewage.

The park emerged in 1999 after a county crackdown on more than 200 illegal trailer parks following the electrocution death of a 14-year-old Mecca boy.

Fearing eviction, many fled onto Indian land, where county building and safety codes have not applied.

Depending on the season, an estimated 2,000 to 6,000 predominantly migrant farmworkers and their children live in squalor in dilapidated mobile homes. The Purépecha Indians migrated to the Coachella Valley from Michoacan, Mexico more than 20 years ago. Many were artisans. Most earn minimum wage, $8 an hour.

In 2007, the Purépecha sent back to Mexico roughly $1 million used to pave roads and build schools, according to Ocumicho city officials. The documentary chronicles the struggle of the Purépecha to maintain their community in the United States even as the U.S. Attorney's Office unsuccessfully attempted to shutter the park.

Among those expected to attend the film festival are Stephanie Maldonado, a Long Beach middle school student who participated in the film; Sister Gabriella Williams, who works with the poor in the east valley; and former federal Judge Stephen G. Larson, who ruled the park should remain open until alternative housing is available.

“It is not nearly as safe or as healthy as we would want it to be. It is, nonetheless, home for a community of people who are poor, undereducated, disenfranchised, and, in many respects, exploited,” Larson wrote in his order.

Thumbs up for Nov. 14

Indio Raises Curtain on a Fine Idea
by Marilyn Chung

The Indio Performing Arts Center is getting into the act with the inaugural Coachella Valley Latino International Film Festival.

The festival will be held from Dec. 4-6, coinciding with the 18th annual Indio International Tamale Festival — another great annual event.

“El Bola,” a domestic abuse drama from Spain that won four Goyas, the Spanish Oscar, kicks off the festival. In addition to eight movies, there will be seminars and an appearance by Gregory Cruz, an actor from TNT's “Saving Grace.”

The final day of the festival will feature a film by Christian Sesma, a Palm Springs High School graduate. His film, “I'm Not Like That No More,” stars Paul Rodriguez.

Director/Producer Cheryl Quintana Leader discusses her films,“The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor” and “Tanto Tiempo” during a press conference at the Indio Performing Arts Center.

The Festival will raise money for the Performing Arts Center and the National Hispanic American Educational Fund. It's good to see Indio celebrate the Latino culture on celluloid.

The Coachella Valley Latino International Film Festival
Announces Filmmakers, Panelists & Upcoming Press Conference
October 30, 2009

News Anchor, Tamara Damante of KESQ Ch.3 will moderate the panel discussion to follow after the screening of Cheryl Quintana Leader’s film, “The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor” on Saturday, December 5th at 1:00 PM as a part of the Coachella Valley Latino International Film Festival. Joining Ms. Damante as guest panelists are: Mexican Consulate San Bernardino, California -Carolina Zaragoza, former U.S. District Court Judge Stephen G. Larson, LA Times correspondent - David Kelly, among others.

“The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor is a short documentary unveiling the journey of a young Latina from a disadvantaged neighborhood who explores the plight of the Purepecha migrant farm-working families in the Coachella Valley,” said the film’s Director, Cheryl Quintana Leader.

Television star, Gregory Cruz from the TNT- TV hit series, “SAVING GRACE” (also starring Holly Hunter), will be present and participate along with CVLIFF Spokesperson(s) for the Latin Market, Juan De Lascurain, and for the English market, Kimberly Roberts, Radio Personality Cirenia Guerrero, Filmmakers Cheryl Quintana Leader (writer/director/producer) for “Tanto Tiempo” and “The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor,” and Christian Sesma (writer/director) for “I’m Not Like That No More,” (starring Paul Rodriguez), along with the Presenting Sponsor, Q3 Telecom’s Janie Hughes and David Clinton-Reid, and General Business Manager for IPAC at the Official Press Conference for the Film Festival to be held at the Indio Performing Arts Center at 12 Noon on Monday, November 9, 2009.

The First Annual Coachella Valley Latino International Film Festival will be held on December 4-6, 2009 at the Indio Performing Arts Center in Indio, California. The event will be a fundraiser to benefit two Non-Profit Organizations: The Indio Performing Arts Center, under the Direction of Manager, David Clinton-Reid and the National Hispanic American Educational Fund. International Latino films and documentaries, Special Events, with the participation from Latino filmmakers and entertainers will be a part of the first year’s 3-day event, with a Special Guest presenting the Audience Favorite Award, decided upon the Festival’s attending audience on Sunday evening, the close of the Film Festival.

The complete line-up of the film schedule will be announced at the Press Conference. IPAC is located at 45-175 Fargo Street, Indio, Ca. 92201.

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Riverside-based federal judge who presided over several high-profile cases, including one about the conditions at the Duroville trailer park in the east valley, is calling it quits, saying he is not being paid enough.

U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson, one of two judges assigned to the Central District of California’s Riverside courthouse, announced this week that he will be stepping down from the bench Nov. 2 to begin working in a private law practice.

‘‘Given that the much-discussed and anticipated judicial salary restoration has not occurred and is now not likely to occur any time soon, that even minimized COLAs are uncertain at best, and coupled with our primary responsibility to our seven children, we can no longer afford for me to continue my public service,’’ the judge said in a statement.

‘‘The costs associated with raising our family are increasing significantly, while our salary remains stagnant and, in terms of its purchasing power, is actually declining,’’ he added. ‘‘The short of it is that I know I must place my family’s interest, particularly the future of my children, ahead of my own fervent desire to remain a federal judge.’’

Larson did not indicate for which firm he will be working. In June, he joined the faculty at the University of La Verne’s College of Law in Ontario as a Distinguished Jurist in Residence.

The judge, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush and unanimously confirmed by the Senate in March 2005, presided over the highly publicized civil trial last year pitting toy giant Mattel against family-owned MGA Entertainment Inc., in what became known as the ‘‘Barbie versus Bratz’’ lawsuit.

Around the same time, Larson handled the precedent-setting criminal trial of former U.S. Marine Sgt. Jose Luis Nazario. It was the first known instance of an ex-serviceman being prosecuted for actions allegedly committed in combat. Nazario was acquitted.

Earlier this year, Larson presided over the Duroville civil trial, during which the U.S. Attorney’s Office argued for the judge to shut down a dilapidated 40-acre mobile home park on the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Reservation.

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