(guitar playing) - When people look at me, they probably, if their vision is anywhere decent, they see me, they see me, but I don't think it's a detriment that I'm older.

I think they're kind of amazed that I'm still doing it.

- Well, I'm 80, so I anticipate I probably won't be here 20 years from now.

I think I pretty much more live in the present, but the work I do is for the future.

Not my future necessarily, but for maybe a small contribution to the future of others.

And so in that sense, I work for the future, but I live in the present.

(gentle piano music) - That one, right there.

- I don't need to look young.

I only need to be responsible, valuable, and engaged.

(gentle instrumental music) (engine idling) - Fish filet.

- You want the meal?

- Yes.

I want to add lettuce and tomato.

I'm 86 now, but I don't feel or see myself 86.

Because America has so much opportunity, so much excitement.

Not just for me, my dreams, but for young generations who will continue to come to America years to come.

- [Narrator] CC Yin, after losing his job as a civil engineer at the age of 48, gambled his family's economic future on a McDonald's franchise in a challenging Oakland, California neighborhood.

- It was very dangerous because there's so many bullet holes in the building and the outside bathroom, the old McDonald's had outside bathroom, with metal door, but all bullet holes.

(laughs) - [Narrator] Despite its location and rundown condition, McDonald's was not eager to welcome CC as one of its owners.

- When I first applied to Oakland's first McDonald's, McDonald Corporation didn't wanted me to be the franchisee because I was Asian and no experience, business experience, no cash, and no language skill and management skill.

And I had to go to court, and the court asked McDonald's say, "Hey, you want the best franchisee?"

"Yes, right."

"How do you know this man who is an engineer "doesn't understand American culture, "no cash, no skill, you know, language skill.

"But please take him into a system and try it out."

- [Narrator] McDonald's reneged on its opposition, figuring it had little to lose by giving CC a chance.

- McDonald Corporation say, you know, "CC will be either killed or be bankrupt in three months."

Which almost comes true.

(chuckles) I was shot at and chased many times, including that, of course, the McDonald's being robbed almost daily.

- [Narrator] CC felt his early experience growing up during World War II in China gave him the confidence to confront the problems his new business faced.

- I was able to talk because I grew up in China before World War II and during the World War, very poor and dangerous situation, and learned about it.

So I deal with those people very naturally.

I told 'em, I say, "You come here, you can take money, "you want to take food, anything you want to.

"Don't shoot, don't kill people.

- [Narrator] CC's survival skills did not include a history of doing well in formal educational settings.

- They always told me, I was the dumbest kids because I can't do well in school.

That is my biggest challenge in my life.

I was the bottom in my class.

So I graduated college four years after all the same age people.

They were 22, I graduated 26.

I had to go back, retake many classes in high school and colleges.

- [Narrator] Despite facing educational hurdles, CC's upbringing taught him other important lessons that would serve him well in developing his McDonald's chain.

- I learned so much about the survival and importance of family and friends.

- [Narrator] CC's wife Regina, who had quit her social worker job to help her husband succeed, realized they had to reach out to the Black community to enable their franchise effort to survive.

- Immediately we joined NAACP, and immediately we work together with the school, church, and whatever we can in terms of energy and time and the money and working together.

And I remember many, many Black managers, we were able to develop them working together and I think it built mutual understanding and we organized many sports activities and it became very much a community restaurant.

- After three years, we were able to turn around and not only making profit, be able to actually become one of the best restaurant in the country.

- And so later on we were able to expand however many other stores also equally broken.

But now, by that time we were experts - Because of the success of a first store in Oakland, we were able to grow into 14 cities in northern California, including San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, about 36 McDonald's.

(gentle piano music) - [Narrator] CC's success in the San Francisco Bay area led to his helping McDonald's expand into China.

- 30 some years ago, McDonald Corporation come to me and wanted me to help them to start first McDonald's in China.

I helped, yes, opened up first McDonald's in Beijing.

- [Narrator] As his first McDonald's had been successful by reaching out to and working to help solve problems in the larger community, CC felt he needed to help other Asian Americans realize the importance of civic engagement.

- I want to continue to give back to America by helping the community, helping my family, and also helping the relationship America to the world.

- We have over 180 partners now, and with the 49 chapters that are growing, over 65 organizations and then during the Unity Against Hate rallies, over 180 organizations that partnered with us, including the NAACP.

- American and Muslim organizations.

- Yes, The Council of Arab and Islamic Relations.

The next generation with an internship program that's growing, I think is a huge priority for us.

- We start a foundation together called APAPA, APA Public Affairs Association.

It's a education foundation to educate and train and provide programs and to build to help the Asian Americans to actively engage in the public civic matters, serve education, leaderships, voter organizations.

One of biggest challenge, also opportunity in America is to how we can help the younger generations.

So what can you do for your family, the community, the country and the world?

(acoustic guitar music) - Typically, I work on rigging.

I replace rigging on boats, and I do a lot of inspections on boats.

I get my gear and I climb up that mast and feel and measure and observe.

- [Narrator] Ken Gardner fixes sail rigging on a wide range of boats.

- I've been using the same arrangement for about 40 years.

That way it leaves me to be independent, walk down at my own pace, don't have to worry about anybody else.

When I get called down to boats for problems, I mean people having an opinion, you know, how this should be and that should be.

And sometimes it's difficult to explain to people how these things ought to be done.

And safety is one of our biggest concerns, 'cause we don't want anything to break down on people and stuff like that.

And we want it to work easy.

I hold on to this, and I test it.

See where it's heading.

We've fixed a lot of boats that have come in here that are heading south.

They come down from Washington and Oregon, and to get this far, of course they've got problems by the time they get down here.

I mean, I get calls in the middle of the night to come down 'cause everybody's on a schedule.

They got to get here and there.

And we have gotten cards, thank you cards, for years.

I mean, it is very grateful.

I mean, I appreciate it and I'm happy to do this.

- [Narrator] Despite his long years in helping people maintain their boats, his occupation is not without risks.

- A couple years ago we were up in north of here and I brought my wife with me 'cause we were going to have lunch when I was done working, and I went over on this vessel that I was hesitant to go work on because the lady said this had been wrong and that had been wrong.

So anyway, we got most of the rigging down and everything and I'm looking at this mast and it's a wooden mast.

And I looked and I just went, wow.

I said, that's kind of different.

And she goes, "I just had that repaired."

So then I got up the mast and was doing my thing up there and releasing the cables and everything and my wife was standing up there in the parking lot.

I looked at her and all of a sudden, this about a 30 foot mast I'm at the top of, down it comes, and it's attached to my chest because I'm up there on it and my feet just caught the corner of the dock, broke my legs, and I ended up in the water with the mast.

This good friend of mine was with me, Larry.

He come running over, pulled me up out of the water, you know, so I could breathe.

(chuckles) Pulled me up on the dock, and they ended up taking me over to Stanford Hospital.

(indistinct chatter) Doug, come over here.

- I think I'm being photographed- - Doug.

- But I don't want the FBI to have their photos.

(people laugh) - Come on.

- I'm an illegal.

- [Woman] He's on the run.

- A lot of people say to me, "Why do you keep doing that?

"You know, I can't believe it."

And I went, "Have you ever been in a car accident?"

They went, "Yeah."

I said, "Did you quit driving?"

"No."

And I said, "Well, that's my attitude also."

I am about the only one available here in Monterey.

And I mean, I go up the coast and down the coast trying to help people out.

Age has got nothing to do with it, you know?

I mean, if you can do it, then that's what I do.

I just keep hunkering on.

(gentle instrumental music) ♪ Alone, we'll know all about it (guitar plays) ♪ Father alone will understand why ♪ ♪ Cheer up, my brother ♪ Live in the sunshine ♪ We'll understand it all by and by ♪ I think when people look at me, they probably, if their vision is anywhere decent, they see me, they see me, but I don't think it's a detriment that I'm older.

I think they're kind of amazed that I'm still doing it.

That's usually what I get from people.

♪ This old rodeo ♪ The sun goes down, this old boy ♪ - [Narrator] Patti Maxine has been playing steel guitar for over 70 years, and still often performs several times a week in a wide range of venues.

- At the age of 14, I was introduced to the Hawaiian lap steel guitar and for a number of years, took lessons in Roanoke, Virginia, where I'm from, and at age 17 I was part of an international steel guitar contest in Ohio, and I won first place.

So it definitely was the correct instrument for me, and I've been playing it pretty much ever since with all kinds of groups, all kinds of music.

And I just love to sit in and challenge myself.

(guitar playing) I try to choose songs that I really like when I play a song.

It usually has a pretty deep meaning for me.

And I do it over and over.

I can do a song many, many different times and it still has a different way of being expressed.

So in the moment it's right there for me.

It means something to me then when I sing it.

(guitar plays) - [Narrator] Despite her long career, she still feels there are new things to learn.

- I think the biggest challenge with my music is motivating myself to maybe grow a little bit more just in terms of the technical aspect of music.

Just in terms of playing, I was taught that way.

I was taught just to ad lib and play, which I think I do pretty well.

And just to learn more, just to keep learning about the instrument that I play and just about music in general.

(instruments playing) ♪ You know, baby, I just can't stay now ♪ ♪ I just can't stay in one place ♪ - [Narrator] For Patti and hundreds of other local musicians, it's difficult to make a living playing music.

- Often it's pretty minimal what the house will give you.

And then you'll get tips, hopefully.

Sometimes if it's a wine bar, they'll give you a bottle of wine or two, food maybe.

But it's just, there's not much, there's not much compensation.

They just can't afford it.

I would think, especially in Santa Cruz County, it would probably extremely challenging to survive as a musician.

Because there are less and less venues and there are more and more musicians who come into this area, really good ones.

I would say most of them have day jobs of some kind, yeah.

- [Narrator] There are, however other rewards that make playing music worthwhile.

- So really the the biggest and best compensation is the audience response and what they bring to us, the musicians.

(instruments playing) (indistinct chatter) - [Narrator] Looking back and reflecting on her music career, Patti has few regrets.

Though one stands out.

- I do remember, and I don't think I really regret it, but I do think about it from time to time.

I had an opportunity from a person named Janis Martin, who was touring and was a pretty well known musician.

She was referred to as the female Elvis, and she invited me to go on tour with her and I declined.

So who knows what my life would've been like had I gone with that.

So here I am doing my local music.

♪ Taught the weeping willow to cry, cry, cry ♪ When I look at the world's situation, problems, I think I really just feel very blessed that I have this gift of music to share with people because it is a healer, a comforter, a peacemaker.

And I just feel very blessed to be able to share that.

♪ Hey, hey, sweet baby ♪ We could go steady ♪ How's about us saving just a little bit of time ♪ I look out and see people tearing up or choking up, and sometimes when I'm trying to sing and can barely get through a song, because the same thing happens to me, I know that there's been a connection made there and it's a very heartfelt one.

It's heartfelt.

That's about as far as it goes, and that's far enough for me.

♪ karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon ♪ ♪ You come and go, you come and go ♪ Performing enriches my life.

It is like just a direct visual heart connection with people.

(audience applauds) There's really nothing like it for me.

I get so much joy from it, and hopefully I give as much back to people.

So, yeah, it's good for me.

(gentle instrumental music) - I am today 88 years old.

I feel like I'm 15.

I work every day.

And people always ask me, "How old are you?"

I say, "You don't ask women how old they are," but I'll tell 'em and they laugh at me.

But, you know, I just feel wonderful because I feel good because I keep doing.

You know, if you sit on it all day, you're not going to last long.

(gentle instrumental music) - [Narrator] Nita Gizdich grew up on a farm and married into a farm family almost 70 years ago.

She continues to remain active in the business today.

- And you know how you say never when you were a young girl?

I lived on a ranch all my life and I said I'd never marry a farmer.

And what happened?

I met a wonderful young man and would you believe he is a farmer right here with his dad on the ranch.

It's about a 60 year old apple tree, Newtown Pippin.

- [Narrator] Nita and her husband came up with different ways to expand their apple farm, including growing a greater variety of apples.

- When I first moved on the ranch, it was only five acres of apples.

And then my father-in-Law and mother-in-law, living on the other side of the ranch, bought another ranch across the street that had apples on it.

And that added, and pretty soon we got up to about 45 acres of apples, and beautiful, we'd have maybe four or five different varieties because people didn't want to just have pippin.

(indistinct chatter) We have a press in there, and then we'll press it.

Wait, don't go away.

(indistinct) Where'd she go?

(indistinct chatter) - [Narrator] Nita created a pie shop, which became one of the key mainstays of supporting their farm.

- My husband says to me, "I think it's time for you to be a baker."

"What are you talking about?"

"I want to build a bakery shop, and you could be a baker."

I said, "I don't like to cook, I don't want to be in there."

Would you believe I was in the bakery shop for 20 years, and then I finally was able to get a manager.

But we keep so busy, people come in every day.

A lot of them come just to buy a pie.

And it's fun to watch 'em walk out of the pie shop sometime they have two, three pies, not one pie.

Boy, I tell you that pie shop, if it wasn't for that pie shop, I don't know what we do today.

(woman laughs) (indistinct chatter) - The berries are 4.15 a pound.

The containers are free and the boxes are $2.

And so then with the flag, wherever you finish off, just poke it in the ground so we know where you've been.

- Okay.

- [Narrator] As the farm expanded from apples to growing different types of berries, Nita and her husband thought others might want to share in the farming experience with their families by picking their own berries, including the rarely heard of olallieberry.

- We started pick yourself and that pick yourself has been 69 years.

And that's what we started with, olallieberries.

A lot of people never knew what an olallieberry was.

Well, when I was a little girl, we'd pick a blackberry, and I don't even know the name of it, but one day somebody said, "Hey, you want to go down the street "and see this guy's berries?

"Let's go."

So we went down about a mile down the road and they were just hanging black off there.

I said, "What kind of berry is this?

"It's an olallieberry."

I said, "What's an olallieberry?"

"Well, it's a cross between a black Logan and a youngberry," and says, "You know what, let's start a pick yourself.

"Just make signs on the highway "that says, 'Pick yourself olallies.'"

(gentle instrumental music) - Have a wonderful day.

- Very excited.

- Take care.

(laughs) (indistinct chatter) - [Narrator] Despite the Gizdich Ranch success, small farmers are a dying agricultural model, not just because of competition from larger agribusinesses, but because younger people don't want to go into farming.

- What's happening today, a lot of young farmers aren't farming.

They're selling the property.

And we see it all the time.

We have friends down the road over there, it's a beautiful, daddy is in his 70, he's 71, and he has two boys went off to college.

And they came back, and he says, "Well, are you boys going to start farming?"

"No, Dad, sell the ranch.

"We don't want it.

"We're going back."

- [Narrator] The demand for housing in nearby communities has also led to the transformation of farmland.

- Come through Watsonville, and you see all those hoop houses.

Just think about it, that used to be all apple trees.

When I was a young girl, there was 17,000 acres of apples in Watsonville.

Today we're down to 3000 acres.

- [Narrator] Despite the challenges facing other farmers, Nita continues to thrive in the daily rhythms of her farm life and the diverse people she meets.

- I don't think about the future, I just want to keep living.

You know, when people ask you how old you are, and I tell 'em how old they are, they think I should be dying tomorrow.

No, I just keep going.

My father died at 99 point 10, my mother at 98.

(gentle instrumental music) (dramatic music) - Well, I'm 80, so I anticipate I probably won't be here 20 years from now.

So in that sense, I am much more, yeah, I think I pretty much more live in the present.

But the work I do is for the future.

Not my future necessarily, but for maybe a small contribution to the future of others.

And so in that sense, I work for the future, but I live in the present.

- [Narrator] John Brown Childs, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of California Santa Cruz, has been teaching courses on what he calls transcommunality for 18 years to prison inmates at Soledad Correctional Facility.

- The transcommunality, which is essentially the idea of mutual respect, mutual cooperation, and the ability to agree and disagree and still work together.

- [Narrator] As a result of his efforts, the prisoners started a peacemaking group, which meets regularly to discuss how they can change their own orientation toward the use of violence, which led to incarceration as well as defuse tensions in the prison.

- They started a group called Cemanahuac, which in the Nahuatl language means one world and one world, meaning in this case, Black, brown, Asian, white, Native American, all working together in this organization and in the classes that they teach.

- Far too long, I have carried bitterness and resentment.

In return, I have abused myself and others.

- Being a peace warrior to me means that I will no longer work towards wrong, evil, violence, and hate.

- Today I am able to call the man who took my best friend's life, my friend.

(somber music) (indistinct chatter) - [Narrator] The transcommunal group is also a rare place at the prison where the ethnically diverse range of inmates can come together and talk, which in itself helps break down animosities.

- The very act of coming together, having Blacks, and whites, and brown, and Asian, and Native American, and Latino, whatever, in these classes is itself a transcommunal success story of working together.

(somber music) (indistinct chatter) Now, a few years ago, I was in one of those class meetings and a young man there asked me, "Well, what about bringing in some UCSC students "to be part of the class?"

And we worked to get the university to set up a course that would have UCSC students get course credit for going to Soledad and joining the transcommunal peacemaking cooperation class sessions for one quarter.

What did you think of the last class session that we had in Soledad Prison last week?

- I've talked with a lot of people and read a lot of books about incarceration and people who are incarcerated, but I've never talked to people who were actually incarcerated before.

So it's incredible to be able to go in and talk to these guys and see what their perspective is, their perspective on life, nonviolence.

Just things that really take you out of your own perspective coming from the outside, I think it's changed the way I see the world, honestly.

- The biggest moments or biggest revelations I've had at the prison is just how much compassion these men show, not only for us, not only for each other, but also the administration, the guards, the correctional officers, you know, the architects of their experience of confinement and how even, in spite of that, they are still constantly seeking the humanity in them and how this work of non-violence truly can transcend every boundary that we think we understand about society.

- What I got out of it was the fact of actually being able to directly humanize folks who have been incarcerated and just learning about how they live, as well as learning their hopes, their dreams, their hobbies, and being able to really see folks for who they are.

- Transcommunality is all about how do we remember to be human?

And I think that's just one of the most important lessons that have come out of these sessions.

How do we remember to be human?

- [Narrator] John sees many benefits, both the University of California Santa Cruz students, as well as the Soledad inmate students, take away from their interactions.

- And when you consider the fact that you have UCSC students working with men who are incarcerated in Soledad, that from both of these dimensions, being able to work together cooperatively, to develop positive, constructive relationships, and to reach mutual understanding is an amazing development in a time of great division and partisanship in the broader society.

Being able to do that puts them all, the students from inside Soledad, the students from inside UCSC, puts them all in a position, potentially, of being leaders in American US society for peace, for cooperation, for social justice, for harmony rather than disharmony and non-violence rather than violence.

- [Narrator] Though now 80, John sees his teaching improving with age and traces his life's trajectory to his ancestral roots.

- I'm doing what I've done for many decades.

I think I do it a little bit better.

I'm on my path, and this path is the path of my ancestors, my Native American ancestors from Massachusetts, who on my mother's side of the family and my father's ancestors from Alabama, who actually a long time ago came from Madagascar back in the 17 hundreds.

They came not by their own free will, but they did come from Madagascar.

And both sets of families, ancestral families, created places of refuge and for people to develop themselves.

One was a school in Alabama created by my father's family and seven other Black families in Marion, Alabama, called Lincoln Normal School.

It was designed to teach Black people to be teachers.

This was created right after the Civil War.

Mother's side of the family are Native American people from Massachusetts.

I'm an enrolled member of the Massachusett Tribe.

They created a community there called Brother Town.

In their own language it was called, (speaking native language) which means the place of equal people.

And that, like Lincoln Normal School, was designed to offer a place of refuge from the oppressions of colonialism.

So both Lincoln Normal School and Brother Town were places of creativity, of freedom, and development.

And that's the path I've been trying to follow over many years.

And the work I'm doing at Soledad Prison is another form of Lincoln Normal School and Brother Town for me.

- [Narrator] John, who was recently selected as the University of California's emeritus faculty member of the year, also incorporates his own early experiences of racial discrimination in classroom settings into his philosophy of teaching.

- To be told by the school systems that I was in in Massachusetts that I was not worthwhile.

My guidance counselor in one school told me flat out, she said, "You're not college material.

"Don't even think about going to college."

So if I had listened to that, I mean, (laughs) I wouldn't be where I am now.

And that also taught me a lesson about being supportive of younger people and being supportive of people who are struggling to move up and forward.

Because I know what that can feel like if you're being told that you can't do it, that you're not capable of doing it.

- [Narrator] John's heritage not only impacts his teaching, but how he sees growing older, where he finds he gets the most respect from the incarcerated men he works with at Soledad Prison.

- I tell you that the the men inside Soledad say, "Hey, we're glad to have you here.

"You are one of the elders.

"We listen to you.

"We're glad to talk with you and learn from you."

And I say, "Hey, I'm glad to learn from you, too."

So Soledad actually is probably one of the most elder friendly places I've been in, in that sense, because they are interested in what someone has to say, how someone treats them when speaking.

So I speak with respect, I speak with love, I speak with enthusiasm about what I think they are capable of doing.

And so that's what I can offer.

- I'm largely known for these rather comprehensive installations, and they often deal with stories, narratives.

And because I was born into a Mexican descended family and came of age in the Chicano movement of the sixties and seventies, I have been most concerned, actually almost my entire adult life, with missing histories, narratives of family and moments within our cultural life that I feel have not been understood by the larger public.

(gentle piano music) - [Narrator] Artist Amalia Mesa-Bains, primarily known for her large installations, focuses her work around issues of social justice.

- I make art about issues and the issues often have to do with justice.

So the issues I've taken on have always been broader than just my community.

And I think that we're facing that right now.

If you see what happens at the border, it's no longer Mexicans or Central Americans.

It's Black Haitians, it's Black Venezuelans.

It's people from all over the world who are struggling.

They're willing to walk through jungles, they're willing to forge rivers, they're willing to leave their families behind or carry their baby on their back with not even a suitcase.

They're so desperate for a better life.

And I feel like those issues are the ones that we need to tackle.

And why art matters is because often you cannot convince people of these ideas, these concerns, unless they see images.

- [Narrator] Amalia feels art plays a vital role in enabling the larger public to feel and understand the depth of a problem.

- Whether or not it's work that I make of a 14 foot river filled with glass rocks covered with the names of the people that made the first crossings, whatever it is, any issue is made more understandable by the visibility of art.

Art breaks boundaries.

It allows people to experience the emotion of something before they think about the political meaning of it, which may stop them.

I think artists, and I include writers and musicians, all of these people are instrumental in creating an openness and understanding of how the United States is changing and why that change is not a problem or an obstacle or a crime.

That change is the future of America as it has been in the past.

(gentle piano music) - [Narrator] Amalia engages in a rigorous process to create her work.

- In my work with ideas, so I'm not a traditional visual artist, usually something is either irritating me or making me question it, and I start from that point.

I do a lot of writing first, and I do research, I interview people, and then when I get enough of a sense of the narrative and the elements to it, then they begin to turn into visual material.

And then I keep going, and it usually takes me two, three years.

And in that time I develop notebooks and workbooks and then from that I begin to make a few things.

And then from that I begin to determine what it will be.

- [Narrator] Amalia's husband of 60 years, Richard Bains, has been a long time supporter of her work.

- [Richard] The one in the front or on the side?

- That one, there.

- [Richard] The one on the side?

- [Amalia] Yeah, it's kind of right next to the gold.

- [Richard] Yeah, that's fine.

- [Narrator] Though now 80 years old, her age and health issues, while slowing her down, have not been a significant impediment to continuing her work, as well as the role her legacy may play.

- The age is a factor sometimes, but many times my imagination and my zest for it, my my love of work supersedes those kinds of concerns that occasionally I have when I have orthopedic problems.

But it really doesn't stop me, and that's what's important.

I know that I can keep working and I know that there is a new generation that values what I do, and they're helping me to do shows.

They're writing about me.

And in that way I feel like even when I do leave and I do die, I'll still be here.

And that's part of my community's heritage.

I talk about my ancestors and then I realize I'm soon to be one myself and I want to be a good ancestor.

I want to give back and leave for those coming after me, a sense of what our world was like when we were young.

- [Narrator] Amalia feels, while we all age, women in particular have a right to take pride in their aging.

- I think it's foolish for people to pretend they haven't aged.

And that's one of the dilemmas of life in the United States, especially for older women.

But I also believe that we have a right to get old.

I don't need to look young.

I only need to be responsible, valuable, and engaged.

- I still think young.

I still work daily, I still pursue, and the Lord willing, I will until the very end.

There's no reason to sit back and watch the world go by.

I want to be the guy pedaling the bike that moves the world.

So everything is looking right.

So we're going to run a test now and see if the printer will print properly.

- [Narrator] Frank Ardezzone, despite being in his eighties, continues his long history of groundbreaking inventions.

Frank's latest invention, a hydrogen powered car engine, once put into production, he feels will have a major impact on not only the fuel we use to power our cars, but ultimately on how much energy we use.

- This is the engine developed to run without polluting the atmosphere.

The uniqueness is it not only runs on hydrogen, it produces the hydrogen on demand.

What does that mean?

It means that there is no hydrogen tank which you would fill as you fill the fuel in your current car.

There is no need for a service station to buy your hydrogen.

Simply put, the engine makes the hydrogen that is used to propel the engine, and in so doing, a portion of the power is used to move the vehicle, and a portion of the power is used to make the hydrogen on which the engine is running.

Unique among all engines, thus far.

- [Narrator] Frank traces his love of invention to how he grew up.

- I lost my mom at age 12, and that gave me responsibilities in the home.

So I didn't have as much time to play, and I wound up tinkering with fixing the iron and the washing machine and the cars of my uncles and became intrigued with mechanical mechanisms.

- [Narrator] Though Frank got an early start helping the semiconductor industry improve its testing technology, as well as products for handling wafers, his interest soon shifted to airplane engines, where he created innovations which resulted in a number of patents.

He's currently working on an aircraft engine, which will have a significant impact on reducing pollution in the atmosphere.

- I worked on automobiles and was trained as an aircraft mechanic, which allowed me to work on aircraft and make improvements that were eventually covered by patents, ultimately culminating in the development and manufacture of a new type of aircraft engine.

That was followed by a new engine that is designed to operate without any contamination.

Now I say any, I mean zero pollution of the atmosphere.

That includes the oil which currently contaminates the atmosphere as well as the exhaust gases which contaminate the atmosphere.

Why did we build this engine?

Number one, to eliminate accidents upon takeoff of propeller driven aircraft.

That was number one.

Number two was to reduce the amount of fuel being used in the aircraft.

And number three, to replace that fuel with a non hydrocarbon fuel so that we do not pollute the atmosphere.

(gentle instrumental music) - [Narrator] Frank feels there are a number of challenges facing inventors.

- There are many frustrations in inventing things.

Obviously the problem of overcoming unknown circumstances, but in addition to that is the frustrating issue when dealing with people who do not understand what you're doing.

Understanding and communication turns out to be at the root of the cause in selling and convincing people that there is something of value for them to buy.

- [Narrator] Frank feels money should not be a driving force for inventors.

- We all look to financial wealth and success, but the fact of the matter is wealth doesn't make you a good person.

Following the moral compass I believe we all have is what determines who you are.

Not the money in the bank.

- What are they going to do to me?

I'm 80 years old.

If they didn't do anything to me when I was 70, 60, 50, 40, and 20 and 30, I could care less.

What are they going to do?

Like I tell people, we go do a protest at ICE, I said, "Let me stand in the front."

You know why?

Because they can't do anything to me.

I was born in the United States.

- [Narrator] Sally Armendariz, a longtime political activist, still helps the Chicano Latinx community through CARAS, the Community Agency for Resources, Advocacy and Services, particularly youth who face challenges in their lives.

- We cannot ignore kids because of their social background, because they don't live in a fancy house 'cause they live in a homeless car.

You know, they're still children and they're still the future of America.

- We get a lot of youth that are high risk, meaning they come from traumatizing backgrounds or from low income areas.

And a way that I'm able to get some of these kids to come to the groups is through Sally Armendariz.

She's able to help their parents out and tell 'em, "Yeah, we have a couple of our youth programs."

And so Sally's able to let their parents know and then the parents let their kids know and then they come over to our programs.

- Growing up, I didn't have much of a stable home, as you could say.

And once I hit middle school, I was getting into a lot of trouble.

I was just not in a good place and I thought nobody was there for me.

- Aren't you glad the school year's over?

But you're still in school, right?

- Yeah, I am.

- What grade are you going to be in?

- I'm going to be a junior this year.

- Nice.

And remember, you got to stay in school because you know you're the future.

- I know.

- [Narrator] Sally encourages the CARAS Youth Group to not only stay in school, but to become civically engaged.

- Okay, you guys, as you guys all know, we're going to go to the city council today because I'm sick, and you guys know it, we're sick and tired of them refusing to do a youth center in the East Side of Gilroy.

When you're going to go to the city council, what are you going to tell them?

- I'm going to tell 'em that a youth center is needed and that the children on the East Side have no place to go after school or no place to go when they're not in school.

- I think that youth on the East Side need proactive activities to do after school and not be at risk in the streets.

They risk their lives every day, and that's what people don't get, is we don't have the resources or the activities to keep these kids safe.

- We have a youth council where they come and they talk about what they see at their age they is lacking in the schools or in the community and how they can make changes.

A couple of weeks ago, we took them to Sacramento to talk to the assemblymen, you know, which is part of our advocate, teaching them to advocate for their rights about talk to the assembly people about what they needed as youth, as their generation, and teaching them that they are valuable human beings that have rights.

(chanting in Spanish) - [Narrator] Sally gained early notoriety in the 1970s by suing the state of California for discrimination against women because it did not offer disability coverage to women who lost a pregnancy due to an accident.

- So I sued the state of California and I won, but the state of California, the governor appealed it to the Supreme Court of the United States.

And I went to the Supreme Court of the United States and I won.

And that's why women in California receive disability based on pregnancy.

(gentle piano music) People see me, I think they see me with respect because they know if they have a problem and they come to us, one way or another, we'll try to help 'em solve that problem.

- We are El Teatro Campesino, The Farmworkers Theater of Delano, of the Grape Strike of the Chicano movement, of La Raza.

The Farm Workers Theater of Aztlan, of the Southwest, of America, of the Earth.

The Farm Workers Theater of the Universe.

- Teatro Campesino set out at the beginning, 58 years ago, to denounce the brutalization that is farm labor.

Because what farm labor does to human beings as cogs in the machine is that it turns them into beasts of burden.

And while it is great to get that work done so that we can all eat, society exposes people to that work without giving them any compensation, not enough money, not enough respect, not enough hope and progress.

- [Narrator] Luis Valdez gained early prominence as a playwright and actor by forming El Teatro Campesino, a theatrical company that performed plays in farm fields in California's Central Valley as a way of drawing support for farm worker labor organizing efforts led by Cesar Chavez.

Some of the farm workers joined Teatro Campesino in their performances, helping transform how the workers saw themselves.

- Drawing them out of the fields and getting them involved in the strike, and then eventually in the Teatro, as expressions of the ideals and the ideas of the Grape Strike, of the movement, really refuted the idea that these would be a burden.

They're men and women and children that are just as capable and just as full of potential as any other human beings.

- [Narrator] Since his early start in performing plays in the fields and despite success away from home in Hollywood, Luis still sees the importance of connecting El Teatro Campesino to issues facing the local community.

- We are constantly connecting the grassroots with the professional world and then coming back again.

It's a big cycle.

We go to Hollywood, but we don't stay in Hollywood.

We come back to the grassroots because it is from here that we draw our inspiration.

And it is from here that we draw our ideas and our perspective on reality.

- [Narrator] Luis feels acting as a skill that can propel people to play other important roles in the larger society.

- The idea of actors performing before other people is a very important and basic skill.

Out of that comes the capacity of people to become politicians.

In a democracy, that absolutely essential that you have people that can express themselves, and not just express themselves, but also reflect what the communal value is.

What is the communal hope and the desire and the dream?

Actors can do that if they learn how to expose their feelings in public to other people without any trepidation that they're going to overexpose themselves.

The theater must be a safe place where we can express our communal unity and our sense of individuality at the same time that we express our communality.

The theater helps a human being to define themselves in relation to others.

Teatro Campesino strives to survive for that purpose, as an example to other communities that it doesn't matter how much money you have.

If you have the people that have the desire to re-emphasize their communal aspect to, as human beings, their communal nature as human beings, then you will have a theater that is functional and that is real and that will last into the future for as long as every generation can pass the torch to the next.

- What's happening?

(speaking Spanish) - I happen to have a profession in which it's all right to play, in which we put on plays because they're our form of work.

And I'm a playwright, I'm a play-maker, because I put together scripts that allow people to play with each other.

And when we have our theater games and we do exercises teaching people how to act, really just reintroducing them to their own natural creative abilities, what we do is reinvoke that natural ability to play that children have.

If you can retain that, you can retain your youth, you can retain your native power over yourself and, and you can influence your own state of mind and your own state of emotional equilibrium.

It is really important to stay happy with what you do.

I don't mean slap happy, I mean just contented with what you do.

And to take it easy day by day to achieve what you want to do.

Eventually you'll get to a goal if you take it a step at a time.

But you got to enjoy each step as you go.

- [Narrator] Luis finds writing a particular play often takes decades to fully develop.

- The whole process of writing plays is something that can take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of years, to a couple of decades.

I have plays that I have been carrying now for 30, 40 years.

These are ideas that I develop over time.

Sometimes it's a bundle of ideas that are all wrapped up into like a seed pod.

And out of that come various pieces.

What I thought was one idea turns out to be the seed pod of four or five or six different pieces.

- [Narrator] Louis sees the process of aging as one of continuing to live out the lives of previous generations.

- My parents have been gone now for 30 years or so.

My mom has been gone for 30 years, my dad, almost 30 years.

Caesar Chavez has been gone for 30 years.

But one of the things that I started to do with my folks, with my mother and dad is that I realized that I was enjoying things that they enjoyed or maybe I learned to enjoy certain things in life because I saw them enjoying it and I knew they enjoyed it, so I began to enjoy it.

So now when I'm having a meal that I know was particularly tasteful and enjoyable for my dad or my mom, I eat it for them.

You know what I'm saying?

It is a way of acknowledging that your parents live inside of you in your genes and that all of your ancestors live inside of you and that you give them life again by being yourself.

And my hope is that in the future we will exist in other generations that may not even know that we existed, but we will be there in them.

- [Narrator] Luis sees his legacy as based on the moral principles which guided his life.

- Like everybody else, I don't want to be forgotten or the things that I believe in, not personally so much, I don't care if people don't know my name after I'm gone, that's okay.

What we stand for, what we are at this very moment is something that needs to be recreated with every new generation.

(dramatic instrumental music) (light instrumental music)