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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 27, 2013)
Street roots Sept. 27, 2013 INOCENTE, fro m page 10 Since Carmela was undocumented, she couldn’t work legally. Having little money made it tough to pay for an apartment. With no place to live, the family began what Inocente calls “their journey into homelessness.” Some nights, when Inocente and her brothers slept outside, Carmela stayed awake so no one would bother the family. In the film, the 15-year-old Inocente admits she feels responsible for her family’s plight: After all, if she had remembered to tell her mother to fix dinner, there might not have been a fight. If there hadn’t been a fight, her father wouldn’t have been deported and the family wouldn’t have gone to a shelter. Nothing, she says in the movie, would change her feelings. The young artist came to learn that the passage of time can shift a fixed perspective. Inocente is now 19, and she said as she’s grown up, “I realized it wasn’t my fault.” Like daughter, like mother Perhaps Inocente inherited her propensity to dream from her mother. In the film, Carmela, speaking Spanish, says that she imagined the U.S. was a paradise, a place with no dirt, only grass and flowers. She dreamed that her children would have a place to live, so they could say, “Esta es mi casa.” This is my home. Instead, they lived in shelters or on the streets. Feeling she had failed her children, Carmela admits that once, when Inocente was 11, she took her daughter to a bridge. She told her they would both jump into the sea. Inocente begged her not to. She pulled her mother back. “Ella me dejo,” Carmela says. “She stopped me.” Carmela wanted to tell Inocente she loved her, that she would never harm her. But because of the suicide attempt, Carmela believed her daughter hated her. And in the film, the tension in their relationship comes into focus. At one point, Inocente became involved in a San Diego-based nonprofit called A Reason to Survive (ARTS), which uses art to create P H O T O B Y S E A N FIN E positive transformation for young people facing adversity. ARTS staff members selected her to create a solo show of 30 works. The family was living illegally in a garage, and Inocente and her mother got into a fight. On the eve of the show, Inocente told her mother she wanted to move into a group home for teens. But there was a hitch: She needed her mother’s permission. Carmela refused. A representative from ARTS contacted a lawyer to mediate. On camera, mother and daughter sit quietly in a room as the adults discuss the benefits of Inocente entering the group home. The mother weeps. “Adelante, Inocente,” Carmela says. “Go ahead.” Scenes like that, Inocente said by phone, are hard to watch. When the documentary was made, she didn’t see many of Carmela’s scenes being filmed. Watching the movie, Inocente learned how much her mother cared for her, the pride she felt. Inocente only lived in the group home for six months, then stayed with her mother again before an ARTS staff member co-signed for Inocente to get an apartment. She’s been there two years but plans to move into another apartment — with her mother. “About the time kids are moving out,” Inocente said, “I’ll be moving back in.” And the Oscar goes to... When Inocente heard the film was nominated for an Academy Award, she didn’t know what to think. After all, she’d never seen an Oscars telecast. Filmmakers Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine had. Their previous film, “War Dance,” had been nominated in 2008 for Best Documentary. Inocente said the filmmakers passed their excitement about the nomination on to her. They even provided her a ticket to sit with movie stars on the main floor of the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. Inocente said she was nervous that night, particularly because of her shoes. “I don’t wear heels, and I had these big heels on,” she said. Then actor Kerry Washington announced “Inocente” as the documentary short winner. Inocente followed the filmmakers on the stage. On the off chance the film might win, they had discussed what to say during their few seconds. (Winners get 30 seconds from the time their name is called until the stage microphone turns off and the music swells.) Sean Fine motioned to Inocente and said, “She was homeless just a year ago, and she’s an artist.” He looked at the star- studded crowd. “All of you are artists.” He asked them to support arts education. Keeping her balance in her heels, Inocente said she attended the Vanity Fair post-Oscar Party. Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis gave her a kiss. When she saw Adrian Brody, a Best Actor winner in 2002 for “The Pianist,” she told him she liked his nose. “I think he was a little creeped out,” she said. Still, the formerly homeless teen enjoyed Tinseltown’s glamour and glitz. Accustomed to wearing jeans and casual shirts, Inocente dressed up in an off-white evening gown, on loan from an LA stylist. She spilled chocolate on it, “But it’s Oscar chocolate,” she said, “so hopefully they don’t mind too much.” Since the win, she said she’s continued to paint. She supports herself by selling her artwork on her website, inocenteart.com. The walls in her current apartment have close to 40 paintings, half of which are unfinished. When she moves in with her mother and brothers later this year, she said they’ll have to find space for her art. Along with painting, Inocente said she loves traveling and meeting people at screenings. After a recent guest stint as a circus clown, she said she wants to travel with a circus for a year. Even though she rarely paints her face anymore, she liked the idea of colored hair, so she bought a purple wig. She plans to wear it in Seattle. When she was homeless, Inocente said she never predicted her life would experience such a turnaround: “So this is definitely a dream.” Rosette Royale is the assistant editor o f Real Change, Street Roots’ sister paper in Seattle, Wash. Reprinted from Real Change. Waiting by Michelle Grant K □ Dignity Poverty In the darkness, an oppressive heat That only my consciousness seems to bend Where I barely exhale and each Anticipatory flutter of future touches down Within my solar plexus from my questioning Sending synaptic tendrils of ghost-wind Through my arms and over my scalp While the radio fizzes and buzzes and pops Snaps of clarity The ceiling fan is a movement flashing Itself across its own pale shadow And though I am still, still, still I wonder what my own will do Can it pick up the slack and who would Know it had if it was ten hundred years Into the anticipation of one Molecular hope? Over 6 million people worldwide vote for dignity over poverty w h e n th e y b u y s tre e t p re ss. By doing so. th e y help vendors in 40 co u n tries, sellin g over 1OO different titles, to change th e ir lives. In re tu rn , re a d e rs enjoy q u a lity in d ep en d en t jo u rn a lis m , in th e know ledge th a t th ey ve m ad e a difference. Vote for Dignity. International Network of Street Papers *» « ,< ■ 1 H
