by Jerry Freedman Habush

NCCJ the National Conference for Community and Justice/ Los Angeles Region is offering a new thought-provoking program for schools and youth organizations engaging the immigrant experience with one-man theater performances. The program uses drama, humor, pathos and irony to reach teenagers facing a perplexing world into which they are growing - a world filled with racial, ethnic and gender stereotypes, including persistent anti-immigrant prejudice. The new NCCJ race relations programs were unveiled in a recent demonstration for about fifty teachers, school administrators and other youth-serving professionals. Many immediately began booking one or both of the performances, "WHEELS" and "KICK," for their school or youth group.

NCCJ is a respected national non-sectarian human relations organization founded in 1927 as the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Its stated mission is to fight bias, bigotry and racism and promote understanding and respect among all races, religions and cultures through advocacy, conflict resolution and education. The new theater performances are part of the group? "InterActions" theater-based anti-prejudice programs, which are being funded this year by the S. Mark Taper Foundation. Founded in 1989, the S. Mark Taper Foundation is a private family foundation dedicated to enhancing the quality of people? lives by supporting nonprofit organizations and their work in our communities.

"WHEELS" is a humorous 30-minute single-actor, multi-character performance which is then followed by a professionally-facilitated discussion about topics covered in the performance. Local professional actor, Kevin Sifuentes, provides us with an engaging and enjoyable 16-year old character applying for first driver? license, working his way through California? most infamous and maddening bureaucratic maze - the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). All the while, our character takes it in stride with humor and optimism. Students, teachers, youth group members and others in the audience experience his encounter with various accents and attitudes while standing in what seem like interminable lines.

The character tries to understand the people behind the desks and tried to make himself understood to them. Sifuentes also plays some of those people behind the desks, creating humorous exchanges with himself.
"WHEELS" is an exhilirating ride, brilliantly using humor and satire to score with young audiences recalling the frustrations many already have faced or heard about from their friends. Sifuentes smile and optimism carry the audience through his DMV journey while never trivializing the forms of stereotyping based in prejudices we encounter with him. "WHEELS" is a fascinatiing melange of accents, speaking styles, sound effects and quick-changes of costume.

DMV employees and customers alike are engaging, even while spewing stereotypes. This sense of good humor and optimism infuses the entire production and is the key to making it successful in reaching its target audiences - fellow teenagers. Poking fun at stereotypes, while not at all accepting them, enables the audience to feel entertained while learning. This is an effective methodology of combatting prejudices and ignorance about immigrants.

A key aspect of "WHEELS," as well as the second new NCCJ performance, "KICK," is the cultural schizophrenia so common among teenagers primarily raised in the U.S. - but whose families come from other countries and cling to comforting but often frustrating traditions. In this, both programs resonate for classes that include Korean-American teenagers, as well as those from other countries.
"KICK" is a parallel, one-person, multi-character performance, which treats with great poignancy and pathos - but with humor, as well - the often humiliating problems faced by American Indian teenagers attending schools with various Indian symbols and mascots. Performed by Delanna Studi, herself a young Native American actress, "KICK" strikes home for students of all ethnic backgrounds. Both "WHEELS" and "KICK" were written by local playwright (and NCCJ staffer), Peter Howard.

Either or both presentations can be booked for school or other youth groups of up to 100 and both are followed by an animated discussion led by NCCJ? experienced professional facilitators. Many of the group? facilitators have had experience in NCCJ? 50-year-old Brotherhood- Sisterhood Camp, an intense weeklong multi-ethnic workshop for 150-175 teenagers held each summer at a San Bernardino County campsite.

In addition to InterACTions, the S. Mark Taper Foundation? grant will help fund NCCJ? Human Relations Retreat for Teachers in March 2001, as well as the summer 2001 Brotherhood-Sisterhood Camp sessions. Human Relations Retreat for Teachers, to be held in March 2001, is a three-day program designed to give approximately 100 Los Angeles area public and private school teachers the tools to effectively teach and mentor students from increasingly diverse backgrounds and create an environment in which all children can learn and grow.

Fran Spears, the new Executive Director of NCCJ? Los Angeles Region, praised the S. Mark Taper Foundation: "We are proud that such a pace-setting foundation has chosen to partner with NCCJ? Los Angeles Region in our cutting-edge efforts to transform the Los Angeles community and ensure better opportunities for future generations. The S. Mark Taper Foundation? vote of confidence in our work serves as testimony that NCCJ is at the forefront of human relations work in our community with pioneering programs that address real life issues faced by youth today."

For information on InterACTions or any of NCCJ? other programs, call their Los Angeles office: (213) 250-8787.

Jerry Freedman Habush is communications consultant for the NCCJ and other local not-for-profit organizations.