QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

2005 California Peace Prize Award Honorees

Otilio “O.T.” Quintero

Q: How did you first become involved in this work?

A: One of the turning points in my life was when I wound up living in a housing project outside of Fresno County. We were very isolated — surrounded just by labor camps and crops. We had nothing out there, so we turned to whatever we could find: alcohol, drugs, and two forms of speed—both the drug and driving. We lived self-destructive lives. I saw many of my friends pass over, to the point where we’d go to funerals, look around and wonder who was going to be next. In 1975, my father moved me out because he knew that he was probably going to lose me. I looked back and wondered why I was one of the few that got out alive. I felt this sense of duty.

Q: Do you have a sense of how many people have been affected by Barrios Unidos?

A: It's hard to measure the impact of Barrios Unidos, but once I was in San Diego at a taqueria and I had on my Barrios Unidos T-shirt. An elderly woman who reminded me of my mother (I think she was the proprietor) turned to me and goes, "Oh, you know Barrios Unidos?" And I say, "No, tell me about it." She proceeded to tell me that Barrios Unidos is a great organization. She told me about our services and programs, and about lives that our organization had touched. I sat there listening to her for 20 minutes. At the end, she goes, "You keep supporting Barrios Unidos," and I said, "I will." I realized then that we have not only touched the lives of those directly in our program, but also those who live in the community.

Q: What has inspired you to pursue this work?

A: At an early age, I was able to meet one of my spiritual leaders, Cesar Chavez. Cesar fought for the voices of the unheard. I have also lived the life of the oppressed and was able to see first-hand how the United Farm Workers Movement worked to undo injustice. One of the last things Cesar left us with was the idea of land ownership. He advocated that we develop land cooperatives and advised us that it was no longer good enough to have the right to pick the crop, but that we also need to own the land. At Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos, we talked early on about Cesar's dreams and how we were going to realize them. When we acquired this site, it honored our spiritual leaders, especially Cesar, and helped build a foundation for the next generation.

Maria Velasquez

Q: How did you first become involved in this work?

A: Domestic violence was a part of my childhood in the 1960s. It wasn’t until I was 10 years old that my mother found the courage to leave with her five children. My mother truly is one of my heroes. At a very young age, I decided that violence was not going to be part of my life and I broke the cycle. My grown children have never witnessed domestic violence in our home. I can say with all my heart that they will not follow that path of destruction. When I was growing up, there were no school programs that said, “Wow, you do have choices,” or “You don’t have to live this way when you grow up.” I can spot hurt in a child’s eyes when they are living in a violent home, not knowing if they will ever get out of that environment. Part of our movement is to empower children with the skills and tools that let them know they have rights and choices that no one can take away.

Q: What kind of resistance and criticism did you get when Second Step was introduced?

A: In the last five years, schools and teachers have been hit hard with state mandates that require more work in their classrooms. When a program is introduced, teachers say, “I can’t do this. I don’t have time for this.” I had to convince everyone that Second Step was not just another new program. Instead, I believe we are providing tools to use every day in the classroom and a structure that allows the entire school community to speak the same language. Once staff understood our purpose, teachers and administrators agreed that they were constantly dealing with violence prevention and discipline, and that they could use the support. I have also dealt with parents who are not comfortable with the school teaching their children certain skills. Some parents felt it was their place to discuss these issues with their children at home, and I totally respect that.

Q: What are some of the biggest challenges you have encountered?

A: Money is always an obstacle to realizing our dreams. We struggle to get grants, because we compete with the larger organizations in the bigger cities. Rural areas are often skipped over. Another challenge is transportation, which is a big concern in many rural areas. Without bus service, rural families struggle to get their kids to dental or medical appointments, exacerbating tensions at home and at school. And community awareness is always a challenging and endless job. We find it difficult to get folks to become active in local social issues or to participate in something as simple as a mentoring program.

Sayre Weaver

Q: To what do you attribute the success of local gun control ordinances?

A: The momentum generated within local communities. Women Against Gun Violence, the Violence Prevention Coalition, Teens on Target, Youth Alive and other organizations let their local legislators know that they wanted something to be done about this tremendous neighborhood problem. Then, word got around among the groups that a particular city was considering enactment of an ordinance to regulate gun dealers, to move them out of residential neighborhoods and into commercial districts. The ideas spread. People who serve on city councils and boards of supervisors heard local voices saying, "We need to start addressing this issue at the local level," and the representatives responded.

Q: What are some of the most compelling arguments you use with critics of gun control?

A: Many people, I think, are ignorant about the problem of guns and how guns lead to violence, how different sectors of the population are differently affected by gun violence. It has always seemed to me that people respond well when you explain the public health consequences of gun violence. What we really have is an industry profiting from a consumer product without being subject to consumer safety regulation, without having to pay any of the consequences for business decisions they make on how to market, design and distribute that product. Those costs are being borne by the public, including the taxpayers, because many gun victims have no health insurance. When people understand these associated costs, they realize society pays a tremendous price for the relatively few people who want to have firearms regularly available to them.

Q: Do you believe that violence is preventable?

A: If I focus on the dark parts of human nature, it is very difficult to imagine a world in which there is no violence. Still, I certainly think that it is something we should strive for. We know that there are many things we could be doing to address violence that we are not. Guns make situations very unpredictable. You can't predict the outcomes of disputes when you bring guns into the picture, because somebody's going to get killed and somebody's going to feel that revenge is necessary. We have to intervene in that cycle, and part of the intervention is addressing the ready availability of guns to people who are prohibited by law from having them. We have to deal directly with the firearms industry, which is something that the federal government has been completely unwilling to do.