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  • HEFFNER: I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

  • New York values.

  • Bernie Sanders, the Brooklynite.

  • Queens native Donald Trump,

  • and of course, Hillary Clinton,

  • who adopted Westchester as her New York residence.

  • Our Presidential contenders this year hail

  • from the Big Apple and the Empire State,

  • so naturally, what about the Bronx,

  • we ask our guest today.

  • A professional clarinetist turned award-winning

  • writer and photographer, Arlene Alda is the author

  • of Just Kids from the Bronx: Telling it the Way it Was.

  • A chronicler of Bronx tales from the Mayflower

  • to the New York Yankees, Alda collects oral

  • histories of Bronx heritage,

  • from Hollywood legends to dignitaries,

  • among them Al Pacino, Colin Powell,

  • and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

  • Alda dedicates her testimony to the future

  • leaders of the Borough and to the memory of her

  • parents, who she says had the good sense to move to

  • the Bronx in the first place.

  • Arlene, a pleasure to meet you.

  • ALDA: Oh, thank you.

  • Pleasure to be here, Alexander.

  • HEFFNER: Let's start from that.

  • New York values.

  • ALDA: You know, and one of things that I learned in

  • interviewing 64 different people who hailed from the

  • Bronx who, who kind of made names for themselves

  • is that, um, everyone agreed that there's

  • something about the Bronx where you're down to

  • Earth, that there areYou,

  • you are who you are, you say it like it is.

  • So, I would say that was, that's one of the Bronx

  • values, truth, honesty, down to the Earth-ness.

  • HEFFNER: Authenticity.

  • ALDA: Authenticity. Yeah.

  • HEFFNER: And what spoke to you most in compiling

  • these anecdotes, thesethis treasure trove

  • of oral history.

  • ALDA: I started in a very random fashion.

  • I started interviewing people I knew,

  • basically, just to see what there was that might

  • be interesting to others.

  • So, I interviewed Regis Philbin,

  • um, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Carl Reiner,

  • um, Martin Bregman, producer of Al Pacino's

  • movies, Al Pacino, uh, someone called

  • David Yarnell, also a producer, documentarian.

  • These are the people I feel very comfortable

  • talking to initially, and when they told me,

  • in conversation, stories about growing up,

  • I felt there was a treasure trove,

  • treasure trove here of, of what it's like to grow up

  • in what is called an outer Borough,

  • uh, at a particular time.

  • HEFFNER: What was the time?

  • ALDA: …After, after that particular time,

  • which wasWould have been in the 30s and 40s and 50s,

  • uh, I also knew that there was a whole part

  • the Bronx story that wasn't told,

  • and that had to do with the people who grew up in

  • the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s.

  • So, the book expanded from people in their,

  • now in their 80s, 70s, 60s,

  • 50s, to people in their 40s,

  • 30s, and 20s, and that shift really created,

  • for me, a very interesting kind of a mosaic,

  • a kaleidoscope of, of what,

  • what the people were like and what the borough was

  • like when they were, when these people were growing up.

  • So, for instance, Carl Reiner,

  • who is now 94, just turned 94,

  • grew up at a very innocent time,

  • in an ethnic community that was both,

  • uh, Jewish and Italian.

  • Very, very similar to, to my background,

  • in a way, 'cause I grew up in a neighborhood that

  • was Jewish and Italian.

  • At one point, the Borough of the Bronx was

  • 60 percent Jewish, with the other e… Ethnic groups

  • being Italian, Irish, German,

  • Polish, a little bit of Asian,

  • a little bit of African American,

  • a little bit of Hispanic, and over the years,

  • that has shifted, but what hasn't shifted,

  • in my opinion, is the fact that the Bronx has always

  • been a borough welcoming immigrants,

  • and a borough where the working class person was

  • striving, is striving to make a better life for

  • themselves and their kids.

  • HEFFNER: How you see it now really depends on

  • where you are in the Bronx,

  • but I wonder if you reflect on then and now,

  • the Bronx as a pioneering borough of educators,

  • what was it like then?

  • ALDA: The school was the place where the lofty

  • ideals were set forth, where the mix of ethnic

  • groups happened, where the mix of economic groups

  • happened, so thatYou couldYou might say that

  • that's really the democratic cauldron

  • right in the schools.

  • Um, the, the tragedy of what has happened

  • with the public school system is that it,

  • it, for whatever reasons, and you could name,

  • I guess, a, a lot of different factors,

  • but whatever those reasons and factors are,

  • the, the, that, the tragedy of schools being

  • dysfunctional hasThat has repercussions beyond

  • what it seems to have, because that sense of,

  • uh, being prepared for the world,

  • that sense of meeting others and understanding,

  • um, that it's not just you and your ethnic group,

  • the, theLearning as, as a goal in life,

  • um, not just as a way of passing time,

  • all those, all the wonderful things we were

  • taught, um, somehow got tossed out,

  • but the hope is, and it's, I,

  • I see it now, the school system certainly is much,

  • much better, in many ways now,

  • than it certainly was in the 80s and 90s,

  • and, uh, I see tremendous teaching going on in the schools.

  • I like to visit

  • HEFFNER: Do you see a rebirth?

  • ALDA: Well, yes.

  • I absolutely do, and I think, um,

  • the competition of the charter schools is a good competition.

  • Uh, at first I was kind of on the fence about it,

  • and having seen a number of charter schools in

  • action, um, I'm all for the good ones.

  • Um, and the goodThere are great teachers out

  • there, teachers who devote their lives to,

  • uh, bringing out the fullest potential of each kid. So

  • HEFFNER: I think you evoked the portrait of a

  • failing school system by describing the virtue of a

  • successful one, and what I mean by that is diversity

  • was the great promise.

  • It's what fertilized the American Dream,

  • and I wonder how this feeds into the narratives

  • and oral histories of some of the people we've talked

  • about, because the… I think the failure,

  • at least in part, can be attributed to the very

  • methodical self-segregation of

  • communities, the lack of diversity and the lack

  • for wanting a kind of great American story,

  • uh, for every ethnic stripe.

  • ALDA: I grew up at the time of the so-called

  • melting pot, and that melting pot meant that,

  • uh, you come from whatever country you come from,

  • when you come to America, you're in this big

  • cauldron, and you come out American,

  • because you speak English, you go to a school where

  • English is, uh, is, uh, predom… [LAUGHS] the,

  • the language and you learn the American way.

  • Well, that had failures as well.

  • HEFFNER: Mm-hmm.

  • ALDA: But, uh, the issues today are quite

  • They're very challenging.

  • You know, uh, the economic issues are very challenging.

  • In my family, we were, I would say,

  • working class, but not poor.

  • Uh, as a whole neighborhood,

  • I don't know anyone who was,

  • you could categorize as being poor.

  • Uh, uh, Luis Ubinas, who, just to cite one of the

  • people I interviewed, um, Puerto Rican descent,

  • grew up in the Bronx in the 80s and 90s.

  • He describes poverty in a way that wasbrought

  • tears to my eyes.

  • I had never either experienced it firsthand

  • or heard about it with a, a kind of a dispassionate

  • detail that he was able to,

  • to describe.

  • Talking about the insufficiency that was

  • always there, that if one day you had heat in your

  • apartment or, or food on the table,

  • the specter of that insufficiency was always

  • there, and oddly enough, and wonderfully enough,

  • this young boy was saved by a wonderful teacher

  • who recognized that this kid, in the fourth grade,

  • read on the twelfth grade level and that the

  • schools, the school was not doing him any,

  • any big favors by keeping him there.

  • Uh, so they wanted to skip him to the sixth grade

  • from the fourth grade, and,

  • you know, from a nine-year-old to a,

  • uh, to a class where there are twelve-year-olds or

  • whatever and some kids who were left back

  • who are thirteen and fourteen, that,

  • that was totally, uh, awful,

  • but that's the way it was handled.

  • The teacher took him by the hand,

  • went down the subway, took him to interview at,

  • uh, three private schools in Manhattan and he got

  • into all three and, and the kid chose one,

  • the Allen-Stevenson school,

  • and then he went on scholarship,

  • also at the Allen-Stevenson school,

  • to Cathedral High, uh, Harvard University.

  • Harvard Business School.

  • Became a very successful businessman,

  • and then the, the topper of it,

  • which I love more than anything else,

  • is he became head of the Ford Foundation,

  • which is a foundation that gives out millions

  • of dollars to, uh, worthy organizations for their,

  • uh, for the, the good deeds that they do.

  • So, here's this very, very poor boy,

  • who but for the, the attention of a caring

  • teacher, we don't know what that trajectory would be,

  • but in his own words, he describes how the

  • horizon for a kid in a good school is limitless,

  • whereas the horizon for a kid in a dysfunctional

  • school stops at the school door.

  • Uh, it's, it's quite different view of life

  • and, um, we can only hope that the horizon for the

  • kids in the Bronx is now that distant one where you

  • can see that you can go on to,

  • to fulfill your potential.

  • HEFFNER: We were talking a bit off camera.

  • The objective of gentrification,

  • uh, sometimes gets in the way of learning English.

  • You know, that we… I think,

  • in some sense, the progressive teaching of

  • diversity in 2016, uh, lacks that connection to

  • the American Dream, that, like you said,

  • you learn English.

  • How do you see gentrification today in the Bronx?

  • Um, do you see an inclusiveness that is

  • still together a unified Bronx story?

  • And let's get back to those Bronx values,

  • you, you said they're gonna,

  • they're, they're gonna tell you straightand

  • I know people who will testify to that,

  • if you're from the Bronx.

  • ALDA: [LAUGHS]

  • HEFFNER: But in the context of this

  • political season, I do want you to weigh in on

  • the disparate values systems,

  • or lack thereof, in some of our New Yorker candidates.

  • ALDA: Oh wow. [LAUGHS]

  • HEFFNER: Let's, let's start with the gentrification

  • ALDA: Big, big question.

  • HEFFNER: Let's, let's start with

  • ALDA: Gentrification. Okay.

  • HEFFNER: How do you see gentrification

  • in the Bronx today?

  • ALDA: Okay.

  • Uh, now, I'm a total amateur when it comes to

  • uh, this, but this is,

  • uh, what I glean: there are wonderful things that

  • are being done in various neighborhoods to be able

  • to bring more business in, to make more affordable

  • housing, and to, uh, make it a comfortable place

  • for families to live, for artists to come and work.

  • Um, there's also such a thing as,

  • uh, the Bronx River, which,

  • uh, is, you don't often think of a river,

  • in terms of gentrification,

  • but the river, when I was a kid,

  • was not this idyllic, beautiful that went,

  • uh, you know, north-south.

  • It was a muddy mess with garbage in it,

  • so things have, and in many ways,

  • have gotten better.

  • The Bronx River Alliance, for instance,

  • has gentrified the river.

  • Itpeople go there to, to relax.

  • There's kayaking.

  • There's fishing.

  • I, I don't think there's swimming,

  • but, um, it's a different river than when I was a kid.

  • The South Bronx has a lot of old factories

  • that are on waterfront.

  • There's a lot of waterfront in the Bronx

  • that is undeveloped.

  • Uh, it's derelict.

  • There's, there's, um, and I know that

  • in the South Bronx, there is a big development,

  • uh, in place for, uh, both market value housing

  • and affordable housing, and I think they,

  • the community now has a voice,

  • whereas in the past, for instance,

  • when the Cross Bronx Expressway was,

  • uh, uh, put through in the 60s,

  • and it split parts of the Bronx into two pieces,

  • there was no community

  • HEFFNER: You say

  • ALDA: Involvement.

  • HEFFNER: They have a voice because

  • of the rise of progressive populism today?

  • ALDA: Well, I think they've all

  • Always tried to have a voice,

  • but I think the reception for the voice is there now.

  • Um, uh, the populism that we see in terms of this,

  • the current, um, primary season is extraordinary,

  • from my point of view, because it's,

  • it's one day it's this, the next day it's that,

  • and, um, I'm reeling from the,

  • um, what has happened, um

  • HEFFNER: This will

  • ALDA: And of course as a Bronxite

  • HEFFNER: Yes.

  • ALDA: I was brought up as a liberal democrat,

  • I'm proud to say, and I still,

  • to this day, am a liberal democrat,

  • although, uh, I listen to reason,

  • uh, very clearly and I choose,

  • uh, very carefully, but I'm very proud to use

  • the wordliberal,” although they've changed

  • it toprogressive now.”

  • HEFFNER: [LAUGHS]

  • ALDA: [LAUGHS]

  • HEFFNER: We recently had on our program Michael Lynch,

  • the author of a book The Internet of Us,

  • and I think he encapsulated in his theory about Donald Trump

  • and by the time this airs he may wholly

  • be irrelevant with the implosion that has long doomed himUh,

  • supposedly, right?

  • But we, we discuss the peril of having a,

  • a political officeholder, someone seeking a highest

  • office in the land, who lacks a values system,

  • because really you think for someone with

  • conviction, well they have a set of values.

  • You think of someone with humility,

  • they are willing to learn.

  • When you lack conviction and humility,

  • that means you really have no value system and it,

  • it, it was growing up in the Bronx that

  • I think instilled a certain core values

  • system in you and a lot of the people you write about in the book,

  • so I, I, I throw this question back to you

  • and because I'm eager to hear your thoughts on the,

  • the nature of, of, of New Yorkers,

  • uh, and New York's primary is actually coveted this cycle.

  • Uh, we don't know who will win but,

  • how do you explain the New Yorker,

  • uh, the carpet-bagging New Yorker of Hilary Clinton,

  • right, but the, the, the genuine New Yorkers,

  • the folks who grew up here,

  • Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders,

  • what say you, Arlene, about their,

  • their youth, and, and the way they speak to values?

  • Do they comport with the Bronx or no?

  • ALDA: Well, you're talking about two different

  • people, one from Queens and one from Brooklyn

  • HEFFNER: And what does that say?

  • [LAUGHS] ALDA: And, and, uh

  • HEFFNER: What's the difference?

  • ALDA: But, butBrooklyn is very similar,

  • or was very similar to the Bronx,

  • so, I can understand where Bernie Sanders

  • is coming from, uh, clearly.

  • I, I would disagree with you about Donald Trump

  • not having values.

  • I don't think that's so.

  • I think, um, he's a businessman,

  • and he, he values the, the talk of, uh, deals.

  • HEFFNER: [LAUGHS]

  • ALDA: I mean, he constantly talks about deals.

  • Whether or not that's appropriate or training for being

  • HEFFNER: [LAUGHS]

  • ALDA: President of the United States is up for argument,

  • but, but I, I think he does have a values system.

  • I don't happen to agree with it,

  • uh, I don't happen to agree with his style,

  • nor do I agree with Bernie Sanders' style,

  • who says a lot of things, and I agree with Hilary:

  • tell me how you're going to implement these things.

  • We agree that banks did egregious things,

  • uh, during the last recession,

  • and they're still doing them.

  • How are you going to deal with that?

  • It's one thing to, to identify the problem.

  • It's another thing to promise people things you

  • cannotYou're, that are not in your control.

  • So, um, in, in many ways, I,

  • umIt, it's a political season,

  • and from my taste, Hilary is the one who's the

  • Not only the most, uh, um, uh, the most,

  • um, uh, qualified for the job,

  • but the one who's telling the most down to Earth things.

  • She, you, you mention any issue,

  • she knows that issue, and she knows it from a very

  • practical point of view.

  • HEFFNER: Let's talk a little bit more in the

  • time we have remaining about this,

  • because we willWe'll have to agree to disagree

  • on that Trump point.

  • ALDA: Of course.

  • HEFFNER: But in the same way that

  • we talk about the Bronx's revival, I think the people the Bronx

  • probably associate with, the Brooklynite,

  • as you said, there's some commonality in origin,

  • but the fact that Park Avenue and Wall Street

  • haven't touched the lives of the great preponderance

  • of people in the Bronx, at least not yet,

  • and I think Bernie Sanders and his,

  • and, and Donald Trump too, in his own way,

  • has channeled this populism,

  • they're wondering, in our lifetimes,

  • or in our children's grandchildren's lifetimes,

  • will the support system that exists in Park Avenue

  • and Wall Street, will that ever trickle into

  • the Bronx, so that the Bronx is the golden age

  • of everything we, everything we aspire for?

  • ALDA: UmTrickle downYou useIt's interesting

  • HEFFNER: I use the term.

  • ALDA: That you use the term, because that was

  • HEFFNER: Because it never worked.

  • It never worked.

  • ALDA: It never worked.

  • HEFFNER: We, we've been

  • ALDA: We, Ronald Reagan

  • HEFFNER: It's, it's… ALDA: I became aware of that

  • mostly through Ronald Reagan, because I'm not an economist.

  • HEFFNER: Right.

  • ALDA: But he did use, you know,

  • that administration did use those terms

  • and it did not work. Uh, the trickle down, uh, if you make it good for

  • the guy on top, it's not gonna come down to the

  • working guy on the bottom.

  • It just doesn't work that way.

  • Um, why it doesn't work that way,

  • I don't really know, but it,

  • in practical terms, I've seen that it doesn't work

  • that way, and I've seen bubbles

  • HEFFNER: But, uhYeah. ALDA: Arise.

  • HEFFNER: But goGoing back to this idea of

  • having a level playing field

  • ALDA: Yes.

  • HEFFNER: Like you said.

  • A chance, right?

  • Do you think the people of the Bronx have a chance today?

  • ALDA: Well, I think, you know,

  • the job, jobs are what, uh,

  • we're talking about.

  • Work, so that, um, one can put food on the table, and, um

  • HEFFNER: …Because contrary to what you

  • describe as the climate then,

  • you can't be middle class, you can't be working,

  • without being poor today.

  • ALDA: Yeah.

  • HEFFNER: …In so many instances.

  • ALDA: Yeah.

  • It's, it's a very complex problem,

  • and I'm, I'm afraid that I'm really not qualified.

  • [LAUGHS] To, uh, to answer it.

  • My hope is that the, the poorest borough now,

  • the Bronx, uh, will have enough economic

  • development so that, uh, it will bring,

  • somehow, bring the, the basic level standard of

  • living up, that the schools will be as good as

  • they can be, and we see good,

  • good evidence of that now.

  • Um, uh, beyond that, I, you know,

  • I really don't know.

  • HEFFNER: And I have to ask you before,

  • uh, photography is being employed in a way to lift

  • up the livelihoods of communities.

  • How do you foresee the art,

  • um, the art that you produce,

  • the art that hangs in museums,

  • how do you foresee that having the maximum impact

  • on youngsters today?

  • ALDA: You know, art has, has always been,

  • uh, a way of, um, not just communicating,

  • but specifically telling stories.

  • You know, when you think, think of the medieval

  • times, when everyone was, um,

  • most everyone was illiterate,

  • before the printing press, the,

  • the works of art were, that were shown,

  • were stories, Biblical stories.

  • People learned the Bible from looking at art,

  • and as the centuries have, have,

  • uh, uh, moved on, art has always been a way of,

  • of, telling stories.

  • It, it also has the wonderful,

  • um, power to inspire, and, um,

  • I think that when kids are involved in art,

  • it is a way of, of touching a part of them

  • that no, uh, amount of reading or writing can

  • ever, ever touch.

  • Reading and writing are fundamental, but

  • HEFFNER: …That's right.

  • ALDA: …Art is for the soul,

  • and when a kid gets involved with art,

  • there's an uplifting, uh, quality to it that you

  • can't describe, and I can only describe it because

  • I've been fortunate to, to have been involved

  • and be involved in art.

  • HEFFNER: My alma mater high school,

  • Andover, has the Addison Gallery of Art,

  • which is quite spectacular.

  • I thank my teachers, I thank,

  • thank Ansel Adams for all the photos that hang there.

  • ALDA: Oh. Oh great.

  • HEFFNER: And I thank you, Arlene Alda

  • for joining us today on the show.

  • ALDA: Thank you so much, Alexander.

  • HEFFNER: And thanks to you in the audience.

  • I hope you join us again next time for a thoughtful

  • excursion in to the world of the ideas.

  • Until then, keep an open mind.

  • Please visit The Open Mind website at

  • thirteen.org/openmind to view this program online

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HEFFNER: I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

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