October 11, 1995 Contact: Francine Tyler (408/459-2495)

TWO SOCIAL ACTIVISTS TO SPEAK AT UC SANTA CRUZ AS PART OF DIVERSITY LECTURE SERIES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CRUZ--Two women, who half a century ago were caught up in events that indelibly changed their lives and the world around them, will speak about their experiences this month at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Alice McGrath, now 78, was a member of the defense team for a 1940s murder case that inspired Luis Valdez's movie and musical Zoot Suit. Renee Firestone, now 71, was imprisoned at Auschwitz at age 18.

These experiences imbued both women with a commitment to speak out against racism and hatred and inspired them to become social activists. McGrath will speak at UC Santa Cruz on Tuesday, October 24, and Firestone on Tuesday, October 31. Both lectures will start at 8 p.m. in Porter College Dining Hall.

The lectures are free and open to the public. They are cosponsored by Porter College and the Chancellor's Distinguished Seminar Series on Mission, Quality, and Diversity.

McGrath was 24 years old when she became involved in the "Sleepy Lagoon" trial in Los Angeles. Twenty-two young Mexican American men were charged with conspiracy to commit murder after a young man was found dead at a party they had crashed near Sleepy Lagoon. "It was one of the most racist trials in the history of jurisprudence," McGrath told Studs Terkel in his book, A Coming of Age. The defendants were labeled "zoot suiters" because of their style of dress.

After twelve of the defendants were found guilty of murder and sent to San Quentin, McGrath became executive secretary of their defense committee. The convictions were overturned on appeal in 1944.

McGrath went on to be an activist in a variety of ways, including speaking at colleges and schools about the case. In 1984, she started leading tour groups to Nicaragua to show people life under the Sandinista government. McGrath made her 71st trip to the country last month, bringing donated pharmaceuticals to several hospitals.

In her lecture, McGrath will discuss the Sleepy Lagoon trial and the social, political, and journalistic climate in which it took place. She hopes to encourage her audience to become active in their communities.

"We need to have an activist society--activism interpreted not as people devoting their lives to issues, but devoting some part of their lives," McGrath said. "Without neglecting lives, families, and jobs, there should be some space left for people to be involved in their community's and country's life."

Renee Firestone, who was born in Czechoslovakia, has been a tireless advocate on the topics of holocaust education and world hunger. Best known for her work with the Simon Wiesenthal Center Educational Outreach Program, where she has volunteered for almost two decades, she has spoken to schools, community groups, and other organizations, and done interviews for television, the print media, and radio.

At UCSC, Firestone will tell her personal story of the holocaust to remind the audience of what can happen if people continue to harbor racism, hatred, and violence, she said. "I try to connect the past with what is happening today--ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia; genocide in Cambodia, South America, Africa," she explained. "The lessons should have been long learned, and these things should have never occurred if we learned the proper lessons of the holocaust."

Firestone, her fourteen-year-old sister, and parents were imprisoned at Auschwitz after the Germans invaded Hungary. Her sister and mother were murdered, and her father died from tuberculosis soon after liberation. Firestone spent thirteen months in the camp.

After emigrating to the United States with her husband and infant daughter in 1948 and rebuilding her life, Firestone began to speak about the holocaust. In 1991, she started to work for the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, interviewing other holocaust survivors. Founded by the producer Steven Spielberg, the foundation aims to record the stories of tens of thousands of holocaust survivors.

In addition to her 8 p.m. lecture, Firestone will join UCSC alumna Susan Hersh to discuss the Spielberg project. The talk will take place at 4:30 p.m. on October 31 at the Porter Provost's House.

The Chancellor's Distinguished Seminar Series was established in the fall of 1993 by Chancellor Karl S. Pister and the Academic Senate. The seminars are the public part of a program in which prominent women and minorities spend a day with faculty and students to discuss how to improve the quality of higher education in the United States.

Editor's note: Alice McGrath may be reached at (805) 648-4560. Renee Firestone may be reached at the Simon Wiesenthal Center at (310) 553-9036 or the Shoah Foundation at (818) 777-7821.

Press Releases Home | Search Press Releases | Press Release Archive | Services for Journalists

Maintained by:pioweb@cats.ucsc.edu