I can't even find the words to comment on this outrageous story! I'm just fuming!

North Hills 4th-graders get to know day laborers

By Dennis McCarthy, Columnist
06/02/2008


It wasn't your typical field trip that Danielle Quinto took her fourth-grade class at Our Community School in North Hills on last week.

Her 25 students - all from lower- to middle-class working families - didn't go to the Los Angeles Zoo or Travel Town.

Instead, they went to see men whom they said scared them, men they thought were dangerous and stole things.

Quinto took her class of 9-year-old children on a field trip to a city-funded, day-labor work site in North Hollywood near a Home Depot.

"It was a little weird taking the kids on a field trip like this, but it turned out to be a teacher's dream," the young, charter school teacher said Monday.

In one hour, she changed misconceptions and eased the fears of 25 children who thought all day laborers were "bad men."
"It was the first time a group of schoolchildren ever took the time to stop and talk with our men, find out why they're here and what they do to make a living," said Rene Vasquez, site coordinator of the North Hollywood day-labor program where 80 to 110 men look for work every day.

"I'll tell you this, the men I talked to after those kids left really appreciated it. I think they saw a little of their own kids in them."

The idea for Quinto's unique field trip began when she looked at a "what do we think we know" chart her students filled out on day laborers after a lesson on the impact of immigrant and migrant workers on California.

"They thought the men were scary, and that they were stealing things," Quinto said. "I knew this was something we needed to explore."

She contacted their parents and asked if it was OK if she took the kids on a field trip to one of the sites to talk with the men.

They all said yes, and a half-dozen parents wanted to go along.

"We broke up into small groups, each one with a Spanish-speaking child and parent for the kids who didn't speak Spanish. They had prepared questions to ask beforehand."

Bailey Olivas and Amaris Vasquez, both 9, asked the men why they were on the street corner every day.

"I was a little scared because I never went up and talked to a person like that before," Olivas said Monday. "They were really nice, though, and I wasn't scared anymore.

"They told us how really hard they had to work to feed their families, and that they had children our age they missed very much."

Quinto said she watched one man start to cry as he talked about missing his family and trying to earn the money to feed and house them.

"She (the student questioner) didn't know a word of Spanish, but she had this incredible empathy on her face I'd never seen before. It was beautiful," said Quinto.

"She had no idea what he was saying, but she knew it was important."

Amaris Vasquez said she came away from the field trip realizing how wrong she had been about these men.
"It was cool talking to them, not scary," the 9-year-old said. "We all left wanting to tell their story to other kids so we can help them."

And that's Part 2 of Danielle Quinto's magical field trip.

When they got back to school, the kids began working on a news release they sent to every media outlet in Los Angeles.

It asked for help getting the message out about learning about people before judging them.

The kids also want to raise some money to help the day laborers improve their job-site center and buy the tools they need to do their jobs as masons, painters, carpenters, landscapers and a host of other manual labor jobs.

"How's it going so far?" I asked Quinto on Monday.

"You're the only call we've gotten," she said.

Dennis McCarthy's column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. dennis.mccarthy@dailynews.com, 818-713-3749






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