Pubdate: Fri, 24 Nov 2006
Source: Modesto Bee, The (CA)
Copyright: 2006 The Modesto Bee
Contact:  http://www.modbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/271
Author: Garance Burke
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

ANTI-METH STORY NOW POWERFUL DOCUDRAMA

Made For Latinos, Movie Springs From A Fotonovela

Fotonovelas -- pocket-sized picture books popular in Mexico -- have 
gotten a California makeover that authorities hope persuades 
immigrant laborers to resist the easy-money temptation of the 
methamphetamine trade.

Thousands in the meth-plagued Central Valley have read the bilingual 
story of Jose, a farmworker who creates tragedy for his family by 
working for a drug ring. "No Vale La Pena," or "It's Not Worth It," 
has inspired a Spanish-language docudrama. Police from Tennessee to 
Colorado have requested copies of both projects.

In Mexico, fotonovelas often illustrate life's struggles through 
recurring characters, such as the trucker with a heart of gold or the 
secretary trying to get ahead. Community leaders in and around Merced 
saw them as an effective way to reach immigrant workers.

"We were trying to get that message across to a population that has a 
very low literacy level and that's really isolated," said the 
booklet's creator, Virginia Madueno, who owns public relations firm 
Imagen. "So we thought, 'Aha! A fotonovela.'"

The Central Valley remains a primary distribution point for meth, 
according to a U.S. Department of Justice report released last month.

Mexican drug cartels have begun to dominate the trade in the area: 
Merced County Sheriff Mark Pazin said they accounted for more than 80 
percent of meth-production arrests in 2003. The federal report 
suggested the cartels are looking to expand into other areas with 
large populations of illegal immigrants.

'I've seen what it has done'

Immigrant laborers can see setting up a meth lab as a lucrative 
alternative to backbreaking work in the fields, but they end up 
exposing their families to the dangerous work. It's so common for 
meth cooks to be arrested at home in front of spouses and children 
that Madera County has assigned a social worker to accompany police 
on busts, Pazin said.

"No Vale La Pena" ends even more tragically. Jose, recruited by a 
drug lord to cook meth, hides his backyard lab from his pregnant 
wife, Maria, only to expose their young daughter, Raquel, to a fatal 
dose of chemicals.

"I've known people related to family members who thought cooking meth 
was an opportunity to get ahead and get a piece of the American 
dream," said Madueno, who's also a Riverbank councilwoman. "I've seen 
what it has done."

The first run of 15,000 copies of "No Vale La Pena" was soon 
exhausted, said Ben Duran, president of Merced College, who helped 
create the storybook using private-sector donations. More were 
printed, and it's available at Latino supermarkets across California.

"Then we thought, 'What if we make the book come alive?'" Duran said.

Last year, Duran started working on a film based on the same story, 
styled to look like a telenovela, or Mexican soap opera. He played 
the drug kingpin in the project, made with help from the sheriff and 
$100,000 in federal funding.

The film has been shown in classrooms, at nurses' conventions and at 
theaters in several states.

When it was shown in the cafeteria of Merced's Margaret Sheehy 
Elementary School last month, children sat entranced. As the narrator 
delivered somber anti-drug declarations in Spanish, a few 
third-graders wiped away tears.

"Kids, I'm here to tell you we don't make any of this up," Pazin 
said. "It is happening here in the Central Valley, in California and 
the U.S. People are getting sick and passing away."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman