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This is an excellent example of how Richmond can make multiple uses of
its rich historical heritage to revitalize neighborhoods, attract grant
funding, promote the arts, provide educational opportunities and expand
interpretive services of the Rosie the Riveter WW II Home Front National
Historical Park.
THE ART OF
WAR
MUSEUM
STORAGE DISCOVERY: Carefully preserved paintings by children who spent
long hours in WWII-era Richmond shipyard day care show young minds at
work in time of conflict
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, April 23, 2007
    More...
Checking a rumor, retired UC Berkeley Professor
Joe Fischer was poking around the cluttered basement of the Richmond
Museum of History and uncovered a long-forgotten "gold mine."
Hidden in a metal cabinet against a back wall were 4,000 meticulously
preserved children's paintings and collages.
But instead of children's typical renderings of rainbows, cheerful
family scenes, animals or make-believe worlds, there were menacing
portraits of Hitler, burning airplanes nose-diving into the ocean, a
sad-looking girl with long black braids next to a Star of David, empty
houses and dozens of intricately detailed battleships -- some with guns
blazing, others sinking.
The paintings, done by children in the Kaiser shipyard child care
centers, tell the story of World War II with the simplicity and
poignancy of a child's perspective. Their public unveiling was
celebrated April 14 with a reception for an exhibition of 50 of the
works at Oakland's Museum of Children's Art.
These were the children who spent 12 hours a day in day care while their
parents were fighting the war. Their moms were models for Rosie the
Riveter, toiling long hours in the shipyards, while many of their dads
were battling German fascism and Japanese imperialism overseas.
Many of the children came from lower-income families with parents who
moved to Richmond to work in the Kaiser shipyards, which in their heyday
turned out more Victory and Liberty ships than those in any other U.S.
port. The families lived in makeshift trailer camps, tent cities and
quickly constructed government housing.
In all, 27,000 of the 90,000 Kaiser shipyard workers were women, so
organized child care was imperative.
"This is a remarkably vivid part of the home-front story," said Lucy
Lawliss, resource director at Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park
in Richmond. "These children were seeing the home front and were able to
record it from their perspective."
Martha Lee, park superintendent, called the collection "a national
treasure."
Fischer, 80, a former education professor who has curated children's art
exhibits all over the world, called the discovery a gold mine.
"From a curator's point of view, it's extraordinary," he said. "All the
documentation is here to put it in cultural context -- this is
information you're not going to see anywhere else in the world."
Fischer had heard rumors of the stash from a neighbor who had worked at
the Richmond Public Library. When he finally found the collection, in
immaculate condition and carefully stored, it was the first time the
works had been viewed in decades.
The paintings were collected, labeled and stored in acid-free boxes by
teachers in the child care program, one of the nation's first and
longest-running federally funded child care programs.
Art teacher Monica Haley led the program when it opened in 1943 and made
art a priority for the thousands of 2- to 12-year-olds who spent a large
piece of their childhoods there. At least two hours every day were set
aside for art, and the children had access to high-quality easels,
smocks, poster paint and 18-by-24-inch paper in a calm atmosphere.
"Monica's philosophy was to give the kids materials and an orderly
environment and leave them alone," said Fischer, who has published
several books on folk art. "She was way ahead of her time."
Haley was reportedly horrified one day when she asked one of the
children how his mother enjoyed his painting, and he replied that she
had wrapped the garbage in it. After that, the teachers were instructed
to save nearly everything.
The pictures are neat, colorful and remarkably detailed -- obviously the
product of much thought and deliberation. The subjects range from
smiling snowmen and the Golden Gate Bridge to a bloody panorama of war.
One unlabeled painting shows a girl in the dark carrying a torch,
looking for something. Another picture shows an airplane battle scene
with a teacher's heartbreaking transcription of the artist's comment:
"The sky is falling because they had too much shooting."
Another painting shows Kilroy, the ubiquitous World War II mascot,
peaking mischievously over a fence.
Amanda Wilkening, studio coordinator at the Museum of Children's Art in
Oakland and a children's art therapist, said painting pictures of the
war probably helped many kids cope through an uncertain time.
"For these kids, art was probably an outlet for anxiety," she said. "It
also probably helped them to see other kids doing to same kinds of
paintings of the war. It's a very soothing, very healthy outlet."
Tom Powers, a former Contra Costa County supervisor who represented
Richmond, spent most of his childhood in the Richmond child care
centers.
His father was an air-raid warden, and he has vivid memories of wartime
and of the huge shipyard cranes hoisting giant pieces of steel for the
war effort, but Powers said he has fond memories of childhood and no
regrets about the time he spent in child care.
He did not, however, recognize the picture he painted of battleships and
airplanes that is now part of the exhibit.
"I do remember Monica Haley, though," he said. "She set up this
wonderful program."
Powers, whose mother was a teacher in one of Richmond's 14 child care
centers, was enrolled from age 3 to 12.
"What did I get out of it? I learned how to interact with people, how to
draw, how to work with people," he said. "And I guess most importantly,
I had fun."
Haley's art program spawned at least one professional artist. Noted
abstract painter Betty Kano, whose award-winning work has been exhibited
in dozens of galleries around the Bay Area, got her start painting trees
and houses in Richmond.
Kano was enrolled when she was 5, shortly after her family returned from
Japan just after World War II. Her mother was working in the family's
flower shop, helping relatives recently home from internment camps, and
her father was a student at UC Berkeley.
Several of Kano's childhood paintings can be seen in the exhibit,
including one of a house and a tree that is featured prominently.
Kano, who lives in Berkeley, didn't remember creating the paintings, but
she said they conjured nostalgia.
"I remember the warmth," she said recently from her Berkeley studio. "I
do believe my time there informed my thinking on the importance of
painting, the notion of painting as a validated activity."
The simplicity and passion in the paintings inspired her to rethink the
tradition and expectations of the grown-up art world. Studying
children's art is a good reminder to occasionally break from those
rules, she said.
"Kids have a certain openness about things," she said. "That kind of
drawing was lost to me for a while."
The state took over funding the Richmond child care centers in 1966
until the county began running them in 1980. As part of the Rosie the
Riveter park, one of the centers, a building at Florida and Harbor
streets that has been closed for a decade, will be restored to its World
War II condition.
"People think kids in child care suffered," Fischer said. "But without
child care, this artwork would not have existed, simple as that."
Exhibition and lecture on kids' wartime art
The exhibition of 50 children's paintings, "Children's Art: Childcare
and the Home Front, 1943-1966," runs through June 3 at the Museum of
Children's Art, 538 Ninth St., Oakland. It moves later to the Richmond
Museum of History to coincide with a home-front reunion planned for the
fall.
Curator Joe Fischer will give a lecture on the exhibit at 3 p.m. May 6,
at Moe's Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley.
Some of the works will be on permanent display at Rosie the Riveter
National Historic Park in Richmond.
E-mail Carolyn Jones at
carolynjones@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/23/MNGEQPDITN1.DTL
This article appeared on page
A - 1 of
the San Francisco Chronicle
A school
helping kids take a step toward hope
The
crime-plagued Iron Triangle neighborhood in Richmond has a new neighbor
-- a rigorous college prep school. The students love it.
Jason B. Johnson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, April 2, 2007
    More...
The sounds of gunshots often send children
fleeing for cover in Richmond's Iron Triangle neighborhood. But a
charter school, founded by a lawyer using some of a multimillion-dollar
settlement from a chemical disaster, is nurturing hope for a brighter
future in one of the Bay Area's poorest and toughest neighborhoods.
Richmond College Preparatory school is applying such extra resources as
an in-house licensed psychologist to counsel families touched by gun
violence and operates with an extended school day and year.
[Podcast:
College "a must" for students at Richmond charter school .]
"These kids are shell-shocked. They've had parents killed in front of
their eyes," said David Rosenthal, chairman of the board of the Richmond
Children's Foundation, which opened the pre-kindergarten and elementary
school two years ago using money that Rosenthal and other lawyers
obtained in the out-of-court settlement over a large sulfuric acid
release at the General Chemical plant in Richmond in 1993.
The accident spewed tons of sulfuric acid into the air and sent 24,000
people to hospitals with irritated eyes and lungs. In 1995, the company
agreed to settle injury claims with an $180 million settlement, of which
$13 million was used to establish the Children's Foundation in 1997.
The foundation won school district approval for Richmond College Prep in
2005, following controversy over whether the foundation's funds should
be spent on a charter school or on more kids in public school.
The walls of the school are dotted with pennants from colleges like UC
Berkeley, motivational slogans and children's drawings. Kids gather in
groups to sing songs and read. Several kindergarten students are reading
at first- and second-grade levels.
"It's a great place for children to be," said Cheryl Vaughn, whose son
was gunned down on a neighborhood street in May 2005, leaving her the
sole caretaker for her 6-year-old grandson, Jovon Green. "They're
breaking down the old way of how children are being taught."
Richmond College Prep is in a part of town where residents, frustrated
by street violence, erected a series of "tent cities" last year to
prevent shootings. The city had 42 homicides in 2006, a 12-year high,
and seven more than in 2004, when it was named the most violent city in
California.
The neighborhood is a mix of single-family homes and apartments. It has
the highest poverty rate of any area in the West Contra Costa Unified
School District, which stretches from upscale Kensington to suburban
Hercules.
Most children in the neighborhood qualify for free and reduced-price
lunches, and almost 40 percent are English learners, according to data
compiled by the Children's Foundation.
The school received a federal charter school startup grant worth up to
$225,000. The foundation, which has an $11.5 million endowment, pledged
$2 million for the school's first three years.
"The idea was if we could get these kids young -- 3, 4 years old -- and
get them in a healthy environment for eight, nine hours a day, then we
could really make a difference," said Rosenthal, 68, who has three
children.
Many of the students have siblings in gangs and parents or other
relatives in prison. Several have seen violence up close.
For Jovon, that trauma was the slaying of his father, Jovon Green Sr.,
28, just before the child's fifth birthday. No arrests have been made in
the case.
Jovon misses his dad and often dreams about him. But today he's an
outgoing, engaging youth, and his grandmother is optimistic that his
father's death won't haunt Jovon's life.
"That's what I want him to do, is live a good life in the face of
tragedy," said Vaughn, 49. "The nurturing experience will give him the
foundation of being confident so that he can be a complete person."
On-site child psychologist Natasha McMurray meets with students and
conducts home visits. While in her office, children role-play with dolls
to act out their feelings. Her goal is to raise their self-esteem and
deal with any emotional problems.
McMurray said several children show signs of post-traumatic stress and
are at risk of developing depression if they don't confront those
feelings.
"On top of seeing things in the community, they deal with things in the
home," she said. "If you see violence in the streets or at home, then
you're going to repeat it and lash out."
McMurray said one child used to be aggressive, but now will stop before
yelling or pushing a classmate. Others who used to cry often are more
outgoing, participating in group activities. Parents have even warmed to
the idea of McMurray showing up at their front door.
"Parents are guarded initially," she said. "One parent now comes and
receives therapy for herself because she wants to help her daughter."
College Prep began in the fall of 2005 with 20 preschool students, then
added a second preschool class. The elementary school opened with
kindergarten and first-grade classes last year, and plans to add another
class each year. It now has 80 students.
The extended school day lasts from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the school year
runs for 47 weeks, longer than the norm. The school spends about $15,000
annually per pupil -- nearly twice that of public school spending.
"Our goal is to show these kids can make it, can thrive if they have the
same kind of opportunities as white kids in middle-class communities,"
said Rosenthal. "This is expensive. (But) would you rather pay $12,000 a
year to keep these kids in prison -- or be able to drive down the street
without an AK-47 going off?"
Rosenthal, who grew up in Detroit and worked as a criminal and civil
rights lawyer before starting the Children's Foundation, said the
school's goal is to save the neighborhood by directly helping its
youngest, most vulnerable residents.
Critics say the school and other charters don't help the entire
community, just a handful of high-performing students with motivated
parents.
West Contra Costa School Board President Karen Pfeifer said charter
schools don't have to deal with unions and have the option of sending
hard-to-teach students back to public schools. She questions whether
this is the way the Children's Foundation should be spending money from
the General Chemical settlement.
"This (lawsuit) grant was supposed to benefit the children of Richmond,
not 300 of the children. It was to benefit the entire Iron Triangle
neighborhood," said Pfeifer. "In my view of the big picture, charter
schools do more harm than good."
Rosenthal says the school, which is the foundation's primary initiative,
not only helps its own students but also provides an example for others
seeking improved education.
Parent Tara Monteiro, 38, said her son Kahlil, 5, benefited from the
school's small class size -- a 10-1 elementary student-teacher ratio and
a 5-1 preschool ratio -- the kind of private-school focus she could
never afford.
"My son has a lot of energy. His pre-K teacher at another school wrote
that he was hyperactive and might have" attention deficit disorder,
Monteiro said. "Within a week of him being here, everything about his
personality changed. He sits down. He's doing the work."
Cynthia Cagler, 52, said her grandson Jason, 5, enjoys the school: "He
feels like this is his world, and he's very proud of it." She hopes the
school will prepare him for college and for the challenges her children
saw growing up.
"We seen people getting shot at," Cagler said. "To see stuff like that
is devastating to teenagers."
The school urges parents to help in class and tend the school's garden.
One volunteer teaches the kids traditional Mexican dances, which they
perform for cheering family members at assemblies. Latrice Reed, 26,
said her 6-year-old daughter Ruby Hasan is flourishing in her
kindergarten class.
"She also loves Mexican dancing," said Reed. "If I was to take her out
of this school, she'd be very upset."
The school is also spreading beyond its modular campus to the community
by providing jobs in an area with high unemployment and annual
per-capita incomes below the $20,000 mark. Sixteen of the school's 20
employees live in Richmond, including three from the Iron Triangle
neighborhood.
"When I was hired, I was told to hire people from the community," said
Principal Peppina Chang. "That's because we are trying to transform
them, too."
About a month ago Vaughn, Jovon's grandmother, became the school's
office manager. She had worked as an executive secretary at a biotech
company, but left the job when she took charge of Jovon.
"It's a great opportunity for me to plug back into the community," said
Vaughn, whose former employer wanted her to commute to Pleasanton.
Rosenthal hopes Richmond Prep will be replicated in other urban areas
across the nation.
"This is what Richmond can be and this is what this neighborhood can
be," said Rosenthal. "If this works and these kids do go to college,
then this will be a model, a template, for what you can do in other
cities."
E-mail Jason B. Johnson at
jbjohnson@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/02/MNGQ4OVRVM1.DTL |
