- hey i'm valerie june. ming up on reel south . - [henrietta] the southern way of life was something sacred. do not question. do not doubt. close your mind, and believe what you're supposed to believe. - [valerie] in 1940, a young woman left sweet home alabama for the porta vida of costa rica. - [henrietta] i would be out there experiencing all kis of wonderful new things. ybody strange, anyby different. - [valerie] in a tale of romance and revolution. one woman on a quest for adventure finds herself in a true awakening.

- [henrietta] it was an enormous uproar throughout the whole country. with a sense that we're facing a crisis and something has to be done. - he said marriage to me would never be boring. - [verie] she is "first lady of the revolution" on reel south . - [narrator] major funding for reel south was provided by: etv endowment, the national endowment for the arts, center for asian-american media, and by south arts. additional funding for "first lady of the revolution" was provided by alabama humanities foundation. [laid-back blues music] ["man done wrong" by valerie june] [sizzle sound] - she's the only person who can convince you that she came over on the mayflower and is a great, great granddaughter of the romanovs.

and she landed at elis island. she is an adventurer she likes the unexpected and she likes the unpredictable. [man talking over loudspeaker] [flight attendant talking] [gentlmusic]

- [message machine] one new message and 13 old messages. - [message machine] end of messages. [typing] - in your golden years, you reach a stage where you don't really care very much about what other people think. it's very liberating. you don't have to conform to anybody's ideas or what anybody else thinks. you know that by th time next year, in all probability, you'll be dead anyway, and so, if they don't like it,

they can come to your funeral. [typing] - [henrietta] i grew up in alabama in a religious family of presbyterians. where the basic idea was do not question, do not doubt, close your mind and believe what you're supposed to believe. the southern way of life was something sacred. - so too may the spirit of god co to you and to me. so too... - [henrietta] the church was the center of our lives. we went three times on sunday: sunday school, then church, and then back in the evening to what was called young peoples' meeting.

so when the family would go as a herd to church, just before the sermon began, i would say, "i've got to go to the bathroom." and so i would creep out and there was a drug store on the corner. and i would orr a coca-cola and i had some hidden cigarettes. and instead of listening to that boring sermon repeating the same things over and over and over. i would sit there puffing and puffing and puffing and drinking a coke and then just before the seon would end, i would run back and sit down in the back seat. and as we all came out i would say, "what a fascinating sermon that was. do you remember when he said--" - [minister] so too may the spirit of god come to you and to me. so too may the spirit of god enter into your hearts - i would make up something that of course he said because he always said it. and i would stand around smiling my crocodile smile.

itas a tightly controlled world. little by little everything was closed in and closed in and closed in. complete segregation meant that there were literally no contacts with black people, expt when they came in to serve or to clean. you just accepted that and lived with it. i went to a college called birmingham southern. i can remember it suddenly occurred to me walking across the campus, maybe everything my father had been telling me about race and religion, maybe all of this is to be questioned. as soon as i could get away from home, i would be out there experiencing all kinds of wonderful, new things. anybody strange, ybody diffent, anybody who was not white southern presbyterian,

let me have them. my mother had three brothers, all of whom had moved to latin america and so periodically she would receive letters with strange exotic foreign stamps and so i was used to the idea that outside of presbyterianism there existed a big wide wonderful world. ♪ hearts are gay in costa rica ♪ there's music night and day in costa rica ♪ an aunt and uncle invited me to come down and spend a summer. he had been a banker. ♪ all the cares you know and when it was time to retire, he deced that the best place would be costa rica. ♪ if you're looking for a thing we call amore ♪ ♪ you'll find it here si si senor. ♪ ♪ in costa rica ♪ in costa rica?

♪ well certainly ♪ in costa rica! in those days the trip took almost ten days. we would stop at havana and then in a place called blue fields in nicaragua and then we arrived at the port in costa rica which is called limon, and that was my first touch in a foreign land. all the postcards and all of the propaganda that i had heard about costa rica, it was called always, "the land of eternal spring," but limon turned out to be a dirty, blazing hot, tropical port. flies everywhere, dogs dying of starvation, garbage thrown everywhere, half the population went barefoot. the country at that time was not only poor,

but for many of its people hopeless. it was not exactly the land of eternal spring as i had imagined it. my aunt and uncle bought a slightly decrepit coffee farm. so they had a coffee crop, more or less, and they needed some place to send it to be cleaned and dried. they had heard about him and they wrote an official little note. "we would feel honored if you would come to lunch on trsday at one o'clock." we could hear across the mountains this put put put put put put put and the put put put came closer and clos and closer and closer. and there he got off the motorcycle and came towards the house. well i was frankly disappointed because

i'd expected somebody that looked like rhett butler and instead he had, he was not very tall, he was not handsome, but he had these weird spectacular, electric blue eyes. it was like being, when he looked at you it was like being hit by an electric bolt. my aunt introduced him as, jose figueres. [speaking spanish] i happened to have been horseback riding that day

and i was weing horrible old scuffy boots and an old leather jacket of my uncle full of holes. and so he took out his pocket an ad, which was almost life-size. it showed a beautifublonde girl and she was wearing shiny boots and a leather jacket. he said, "you look exactly like her." well i looked about as much like that girl as i looked like adolf hitler. a woman could not be alone in a car with a man, buif you were on a motorcycle we were permitted to flash around the neighborhood up and down the volcanoes and back and forth,

and that's the way we got to know each other. onday we decided to go up to the volcano, irazu. you wind back and forth and back and forth and go up and up and up twelve thousand feet and about half way up suddenly with no preamble he said, "i think we ought to get married." and so i kind of sucked in my breath and hsaid, "youan think about it on the way up to the volcano." so we got on the motorcycle. [jovial music] is was a huge, big harley davidson motorcycle, which had come, advertised by the beautiful blonde girl. and in the case of the irazu, you can walk right over and look down into t crater.

trying to stall a minute i said, "i have just read in macbeth where the witches say 'bubble bubble toil and trouble"'. - [witches] bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, fire burn and caldron bubble. and i said, "will it be like that?" and he said marriage to me will be worse than that but it will never be boring." [spanish music] i left to go back to birmingham and told my parents. they were shocked. my father believed that the only people who we really worthwhile in life

were white, protestant, southerners. on the other hand, since figueres was quite wealthy and a big land owner somehow that covered a t of defects and so they began to decide, well she has to marry somebody, so maybe this man will finally rn out to be acceptable. we had wedding in front of the mayor of san jose. and the mayor just did [gibberish] and since i didn't understand a word, i couldn't speak espanol, and for the rest of my life he would say, "but you promised during the wedding ceremony, you have to do that." - [munita] and then so you walked out as a married woman. - [henrietta] yeah that was it. - and then what he would hold your hand, he'd give you a kiss? give me gossip. - well, in the office of the mayor

how can you be romantic and give each other kisses and so on? - have you kissed before? - i beg your pardon. - [newsman] elected by the largest majority in costa rican history, president rafael calderon guardia is making waves in this small central american republic. - [muni] calderon guardia put together bills that were hugely progressive. but he lost control over the guiding principles of his political movement and he ended up being his own enemy. [speaking spanish] - there was an enormous emotional response

on the part of a great many people, the political situation had become so volatile and so full of potential violence. figueres decided that something had to be done and he began slowly slowly to interest himself in the political situation. talking to me more and more about politics. he reached a stage when he decided that the president should resign. i suggested that rather then write something r the newspapers, which is what he was going to do, i said, "why don't you make a speechver the radio and in that way you'll reach a wider audience." peaking spanish]

- [henrietta] about halfway through the speech, the police broke into the radio station. [speaking spanish] - [henrietta] i was alone in the farm, the phone rang and it was my uncle. he said, "pepe has been put in prison." he was held incommunicado for three days and then i was taken to the prison

and as i was walking down the long hall i could hear this huge iron gate clanging together. a metal door opened. they had hit h in the head and the wound had leaked blood on his shirt and he stood there holding to the bars in order to keep himself from falling down is what it looked like to me. he was almost shaking he was so weak and so we stood there confronting each other. he with the bars between us and the guard here right beside me. i kept trying to think of something that i could say to him to comfort him. he looked so alone and he said, "if i'm sent away will you follow me?" and i said, "of course i will. i will be there." and then the guard grabbed me by the arm and turned me away.

as i looked back, i could see for the first time that i ever seen that, that hwas crying. the next morning, we were woken very early by a call from his lawyer who said, "pepe has been sent into exile." so i slowly began to to pack, thinking what in the world do you pack for exile? how long will you be away? where will you go? i was shaking with fear and i think crying. my aunt and uncle kissed me. and i was wondering if i would ever see them again. i was going to a country i'd never even heard of. and so the plane took off and that was it. i was gone.

el salvador had a very repressive government. most of latin america had dictatorships, or at least militaristic governments. the democratic movements were broken up and crushed. we were invited to the home of a very wealthy coffee producer. pepe said to the owner, "what about my going out and speaking to the workers?" the owner who stood there with a guard on one side with a machine gun and a guard on the other side looked at us as though we were insane. "you mean you're goingut and being near the workers?" he said, "i wouldn't go near them without my guards. i wouldn't go near them for a million dollars. pepe said, "i want to talk to them." he shook hands with everybody.

we came back, and the owner, not coming closer than 50 yards to the workers, said, "they will attack me. they will kill me." and they should. they should have. here were people who were exploited right down to their toenails. the rich owned and literally controlled everything, and the rest of the population had nothing. we drew closer to each other in exile. we talked a great deal about what kind of conditions we were experiencing. it solidified a determination that costa rica was going to advance beyond any and all of that. and ey were not going to remain anywhere near that level of desperation.

since we couldn't go back to costa rica, we decided to work our way up through central america. in mexico the less attention you call to yourself under these circumstances the better. i was pregnant with my first child and we just lived on the surface, another one of those middle class existences with secret meetings going on late at night all the time. every night he went around checking all the windows, locking the doors, turning out the lights. and then he would explain what his ideas were. he would talk about something and say, "well, what do you think?" and that was exciting to me. and that was when it dawned on me.

that this was something bigger than just our personal lives. pepe decided that the only solution to costa rica's political problems was a revolution. so he devised a plan that the way to ship arms from mexico to costa rica would be in large crates with a double flooring which would be full of mexican ceramics. plates and bowls, handmade things hand painted. on several occasions i would go to pick up the shipment of arms. one of the places that we would meet would be in xochimilco, in this huge huge lake. and you can re boats, anso you would take aicnic lunch.

the arms dealers would come with their picnic and so the two boats would approach each other and the arms dealer would say, "are you interested in roses?" and roses would be the term for machine guns. "yes, a good many roses we would like, large large bunches of roses. how about lilies? lilies too would be good." and that was a way for the arms to be aanged for. since i didn't have any travel resictions i went back to costa rica and the child was born there. if you had been and exile and you're a revolutionary, the perfect name is jo marti. named after the leader of the cuban revolution against spain.

he was glad and of course it's a boy and has a right name. but then let's get on with the revolution. that was his attitude more than anything else. with a phone call, pepe's brother said, "a new president has just been elected and you have the right to come ho." two years of ele were over. [upbeat music] [singing in spanish]

we looked out and as far as you could see there were people. that expression a sea of people that's what it was. and as soon as pepe appeared they began to scream this roar of welcome. - [crowd] viva pepe, viva pepe. [speaking spanish] it seemed to me, he had a profound sense of destiny. there's a biblical quotation "who knows but what thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this" and i had the feeling that he really did come at the right moment in the right country.

- [victor] otilio ulate blanco, the prominent newspaper publisher, mounted a strong campaign against former president calderon guardia, winning the close election. but calderon immediately contested the results and has urged congress to annul it. [speaking spanish] - [henrietta] there was an enormous uproar throughout the whole country. with a sense that we are facing a crisis

and something has to be done. - my father said many times, i do not believe in violence as a permanent solution to social problems. i do however believe that there are moments in history when it's the only way to get tngs done. - [henrietta] during this period, pepe had been gathering people out in his huge farm called la lucha, which means "endless struggle." they were young men who were willing to put their lives on the line and involve themselves in a revolution. [speaking spanish]

[henrietta] after a while there were almost 600 men living in la lucha. they just put down blankets or whatever they could find and were sleeping there. they were not at all the kind of people who engaged in any kind of military behavior, most of them did not know how to shoot, nobody had a gun. it was the worst possible way to start a revolution, when you have people who have no concept of evewhich end of the gun the bullet comes out of. [speaking spanish]

- it was a quixotic move on the part of this increasing numbers of young men who would make their way out to la lucha all the time with sense of impending eruption. [speaking spanish] the government wanted to know what was going on. they sent a jeep up the pan american highway, first just to find out what was happening, and then if possible to arrest don pepe. pepe knew ahead of time they were coming and he had stationed on either side of the highway two groupsf his soldie who finally had learned how to shoot. they waited and waited and waited

and up the highway out of the fog came this jeep. the two groups opened fire. [gunshots] and that was the start of the revolution. [speaking spanish] - the farm and all the buildings were down at the bottom of a little valley and so it was impossible to defend that. the children and i could not stay in the farm, sooner or later the government forces would come, and we would have been held as hostages in order to force pepe to surrender. so, that night an oxcart was brought and bags of black beans, rice,

any kind of food that we could get together, was loaded into this big oxcart. and the oxcart took off. i couldn't move too fast carrying a two year old child and marti couldn't walk fast enough. he began to complain, "it's cold mommy, i'm cold". and i kept saying, "i know you're cold, but come. we have to keep walking." i knowhat if we didn't keep moving, our lives were in danger. so we kept going up and up and up. the oxcart drew farther and farther ahead of us. and we were left slowly, slowly falling behind. what am i doing here in this insane situation, running through the mountains, dragging my two children behind me, i don't know where my husband is. i should be back in alabama living the life of a college student,

but there was nothing i could do. we just had to keep going. it went on for three days and three nights. we finally reached a big camp where the americ engineers were building part of the pan american highway on the way to panama. and they had agreed to let us stay there during the fighting. the whole thing became so intimate. the army turned out to have mainly people that wpersonally knew. and to send th out, to give them an order, go and attack a certain int, and it was heartbreaking. every time somebody was killed it was a national tragedy.

the engineerwho was in control of the camp, said, "pepe is going to send a truck and you'll go into santa maria to see him." when i arrived in this town, which had been taken over by the 600 intrepid fighters. and his headquarters were a little schoolhouse and so i walked in and he looked up and for a second i had the feeling he didn't even recognize me. and then he said, "oh well how are you and how are things going?" but of course he was obsessed with all the things, all the decisions he had to make, and to have wife turn up, his attitude was what goowas she? why is she her she's going to create problems for me. and so we had this strange kind of

almost mechanical conversation. and then one of hi ldiers came in and he and the soldiers became involved in a long conversation. and so i just got back into the truck and left. he communicated this air of disapproval. there was nothing i can do that would ever quite measure up to what he wanted. - [newsreel voiceover] figueres establishes a neheadquarters at santa maria de dota. government forces are advancing deep into opposition territory. - [henrietta] the revolutionary forces attacked the town called cartago where the government forces were dug in. many of the government army had just been workers brought up from the banana fields, who had never been u into the mountains. they were used to very warm weather and to flat countryside.

and here they were confronted by huge mountains and the motain cold. and so there will to fight was quickly set. and that's why a determined force, even small could overcome them. and so a cease-fire was arranged. and that was the beginning ofhe end of the revolution. we had reached a water shed that from then on our lives we going to change. everything will be better now. [upbeat band music]

i became first lady immediately after the revolution. there was a whole ritual, rules you had to follow the rules. - [muni] how did you learn the rules? - [henriettai just had to find out for myself [laughing] [speing spanish] - [henrietta] instead of having a legislative assembly or having a congress, the junta ruled by decree. his attitude was you simply have to establish order and wait until a period goes by and then begin to have the democratic forces function again. [speaking spanish]

- pepe didn't want to be wasting government resources on an enmous build up of arms. plus he didn't want any of these people with their arms to rebel against him. [speaking spanish] - pepe dissolved the armed forces of the country. that a leader in power would dissolve all the armaments which could be his support. that was a major fundamental step. a sparkling newly minted day glittered around the fort. the weather was worthy of the occasion. pepe took up a sledgehammer

and swung it as hard as he could against a section of the wall, just above the platform. there s a grinding of stone on stone, a moment of suspse as one by one, teetering rocks toppled down wood, and crashed into an en field below the high wall. it was an unexpected and dramatic gesture. only a few of us knew that he had sent a ew of men the day before to loosen the stones so that ey would be sure to fall and not ruin his theatrical performance. [speaking spanis in a way he was above what was going on and so they found it easier to deal with mand say,

"tell him so and so or you could mention that to him." i became a kind of transit for information. i'm not sure that he liked that so much, he would say, "who told you that? why didn't they come directly to me? womeshouldn't be involved in this kind of tivity." it was a man's world, men were supposed to do everything they had to do. wives were supposekeep the domestic wheels turning. - [narrator] the homemaker walks miles every day, from sink to icebox, from cupboard to stove, even an efficiency expert would be staggard by the amount of chasing around and indoor roadwork that the little woman takes as a matter of course. who said weaker sex? - [henrietta] women were defined by the men in their lives. they're the daughter of,

then they are the wife of, the sister of, the mother of. they're never who she is just as she is. [speaking spanish] - [henrietta] how is it possible that ithe 20th century women in costa rica don't have the right to vote, it's absolutely insane! he became kind of on the defensive, but i kept saying how can you possibly live in a country where women can't vote and i was a re pain in the neck. of coursnot rely, i s just an angel as always. - an angelic pain in the neck? - yeah an angelic pain in the neck!

- every time i go and vote, i just think about this is linked to my grandmother, it's in my skin, look at my hairs. i am voting today because you whispered into his ear. i just love that idea. that i have it in my skin. it's amazing. if you're going to bring about change as fundamental as that, you have to keep on insisting and that's what i did. [singing in spanish] the junta went on for a year and a half. and then he and the junta decided that it was time for them to turn over power to ulate who had been legally elected and so they went home. everybody went back to his day job.

his was to keep the flame alive, simply preparing the country for fundamental changes in the way costa rica's government operate he was away a great deal. even when he was there in the house, there was always too much to do and to many people to phone anmeetingso atnd and so much going on. he was always somewhere else. increasingly i felthat i was being marginalized and that no matter what happened, nothing was going to absorb him at all which did not involve politics. one day i went to the doctor

and the first words out of his mouth were, "you need an operation and it has to be done right away." so i went home and pepe was there and i said i he to have an operation. my mother had died of cancer and there was a strange kind of silence. then he said "you go ahead, i have to leave tomorrow morning, but i'll be back and i'll see how everything is going." i went to the hospital alone and had the operation. the next morning, he came into the room and pretty soon, the door opened and two of his political friends came in.

and they came over to me and took my hand and patted me d so o and pepe said, "she's okay leave her alone. she just needs to sleep. come over here i have something to talk to you about." so the three of them got up and walked out of the room. and as they were going down the hall, one of them told some kind of vulgar joke and they all roared with laughter. and then their footsteps died away going down the hall. i think it must have been at that moment that i decided to leave. i was able to screw up the courage to tell him, "i'm leaving and i'm taking the children and i have already made the reservations." to my surprise for the first time anything in weeks and weeks that i had said seemed to penetrate.

he sat down on the edg of the bed without moving, not even looking at me. and suddenly i noticed there were tears running down his face and afr awhile he spoke and he said, "you have dealt me a blow from which i will never ever recover." but that's all he said. he could not bring himself ever to say "ll change, i'll try to make thgs different." never ever would he ever he admittedhat. [speaking spanish] the day we left, it was a beautiful sun-shiny day.

and i remember thinking as we drove along, "how is it possible that nature doesn't know that this terrible thing is hapning? why isn't there a storm? why isn't there some raging thunder and lightning? there may have been something to say there should have been. but neither one of us could tnk of it. we just drove in silence. and i realized it really was the end. - [henrietta] with a luxury which nearly half a century of perspective permits,

i offer this story as a journey because of that desire we all have for things to be again as they never quite were. going back to alabama was not exactly returning to paradise. i felt smothered. i had the feeling that time had stopped. that's what constantly haunted me. - [munita] look what we found. - [mavi] do you remember this article? - [henrietta] yes. - [munita] so is it true that you can handle a rifle? - [henrietta] i could if i had to... - when did you realize that you are part of the new costa rica? - after the fighting had stopped and we were coming into san jose

and i watched the army marching down the street, everybody out of step, nobody knew how... nobody even knew how to march, all of them amateurs. somehow that was a golden moment when i realized this is what it was all about. all of them had made the ultimate sacrifice. and that's something you don't often see. oh how weird why should i start crying over this? - she was not able to enjoy what she later saw were his lighter qualities. in this picture which is in the late 70s it's after he's been president for the last time, the ceremony is finished where they went

and they find themselves looking at each other and wonding, what would it have been like if we had met later in life than we did. [car engine starting] - satisfaction comes in the struggle itself rather than achieving it. it's like the journey is half the fun. and the journey's still going on. no i'm here from montgomery, i work on a magazine. oh, oh is this a men's magazine or women or? this is pornography! [laughing]

- [woman] i love her already! - [henrietta] one day it occurred to me, why don't we start a magazine? besides at my age, how many jobs are there available, right? - well i've been in politics a pretty good while. - i see. when youhink about it, why do you think there's this lack of civility that people behave with a greater animosity towards each other? - that is true in alabama, back when i was a member we'd differ out here on t floor but we could socialize together and go to dinner together. - yeah, yeah, you've been in politics longer thaanybody in the state of alabama, is that true? - well lets see, in 1948 so-- - i see, 48, 58, 68, 78, 88, 98, that's over 50 years, right? - that's right - so i'm going to write about you...

- pe it isn't all bad if you're very nice to me i'll say nice things okay? - i'll try to be. - alrighty well thank you a lot. - yes ma'am. it's not bad being 85 years old. - no, no it's fun, isn't it? - yes it is. - bye bye. [gentle music] - [grandchild] isn't this an amazing technology grandma? 95 and you have 5 countriearound the world connecting with you. - [man] texas, alabama, switzerland, chile and capital of the world, costa rica. - no no i'm ecstatically happy. - okay, your great grandchildren are going to sing you happy birthday! [singing happy birthday]

- you all belong in the metropolitan opera. - [grandchildren] grima! grima! grima! grima! grima! grima! [clapping] - bye bye. alright i want some cake, are we ready? [water splashing] [speaking spanish]

- [henrietta] see i believe that people are divided into two different groups. there's this one group, which grows up, and nothing much happens to them. and then over here is this other group, and they're the kind who see there's an opportunity over there. let's go and see what's on the other side of the hill. and so my advice is always go. [piano music] [singing in spanish]

♪ [laid-back blues music] ["man done wrong" by valerie june] ♪ - [narrator] major funding for reel south was provided by: etv endowment, the national endowment for the arts, center for asian-american media, and by south arts. additional funding for "first lady of the revolution" was provided by alabama humanities foundation. ♪♪ you' watchinpbs.

♪♪

announcer: funding for this program was provided by the minerva nolte estate. [music playing] woman: people are getting water in their home. [man speaking spanish] woman 2: we need gender equality, and we need this reflecd in national priorities. narrator: in india, millions of city residents don't have runninte