COMMUNITY PROFILES
THIRD STREET — Oprah Winfrey is known for her deep generosity, often treating her guests and devoted fans to lavish gifts like luxury cars or shopping sprees to exclusive boutiques.
Towards Alice Ollstein, she was no different. When the 18-year-old senior at Santa Monica High School was flown to Chicago last week for a taping of the television show, and to meet with the queen of daytime talk, a limo picked her and her mother up from the airport and whisked away to a luxury hotel, where the two were treated to gourmet meals and professional makeup artists.
It was all top notch, though none of it could compare to what came next.
Upon arriving at Oprah’s studio, Ollstein and 49 other students from across the country learned they each would receive a $10,000 college scholarship — a reward for winning an essay contest sponsored by the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” in which students discussed Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s memoir “Night,” and how his vivid testimony to the consequences of evil impacted their lives.
That’s not all. The students, who beat out 50,000 others, will also be featured in an upcoming episode of the show, to air May 25, and had the chance to meet Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
“It was just so amazing having the opportunity to fly to Chicago, meet Oprah, Elie Wiesel and all of these other wonderful people from such different backgrounds, each with the most inspiring stories,” said Ollstein, who wants to follow in Wiesel’s footsteps by becoming a journalist reporting on the struggles of South America.
“I’m always trying to enter into as many essay contests as I can,” Ollstein added. “One, for the money for college, and two, so I can get as much as my writing out there as possible. It’s been a lot of work. Finally, one came through, and what’s better than Oprah?”
The scholarship will come in handy for Ollstein, who is off to Oberlin College in Ohio this fall. But what was worth more to her, she says, was the experience of it all. Not only did she have the chance to meet Oprah and some “amazing” students whose stories of survival touched her deeply, but Ollstein also shook hands with Weisel, a man she deeply admirers.
In an interview with the Daily Press a day after her trip to Chicago, Ollstein spoke about her experiences on the show, the focus of her essay, tension at Samohi, and what it’s like to go to the same school where her mother teaches English.
What was the focus of your essay? “I have a lot of feelings about the Holocaust and mistreatment of humanity in general … I found my essay talking about my experiences teaching Sunday school and how Jewish kids today have a hard time relating to our own history of the Holocaust, because we mostly get the information about it from history books, you know, ‘this many people died on this date.’ Kids, especially, can’t relate. I can’t relate to those numbers. It’s really important to have this incredibly personal memoir (’Night’) telling this one boy’s true story, this one boy who is now an 80-year old God of humanitarianism. We are also the last generation that could actually speak to a survivor. They will all eventually be gone, but the memoir will live on forever, and that’s very important.
“I also talked about some recent anti- Semitic events at my own high school. And then I talked about injustice in the world, genocide in Africa.
After the Holocaust we all said ‘Never again’ — that was the phrase. But it is happening again … So I was talking about that as a reason why this memoir is relevant right now.”
What anti-Semitic events? “This year, somebody spray-painted a Swastika on a Jewish teacher’s door. And it was reported as a hate crime by the school, which is good, but the school wouldn’t discuss it. A lot of people didn’t even know it happened. It was just a shock. It happened on Yom Kippur, which is awful. Actually, a lot of people were angry how it wasn’t discussed and then, recently, just before spring break, there was another anti-Semitic graffiti, and this one teacher — his student told him about it — so immediately he took the whole class to where it was and talked about it and why it was a hate crime. They all went down to the main office to report it. I’m really happy about the progress and that people were upset the first time about how there wasn’t a discussion. I’m happy about my school and the direction it’s now taking.”
Do you feel is it just teen stupidity, or is there real hatred going on?
“Well, I think all misunderstanding comes from ignorance. Again, that’s why this book should be read. If Oprah says to read it, millions of people are going to read it, so that’s good. But, also it’s already being assigned at school.”
What about conditions on campus? Is there tension? Are parents concerned for no reason?
“I think it’s exaggerated. I’ve never felt unsafe on campus —never. Even as I’ve witnessed fights going on, I’ve always felt safe, because it’s the thing where you’re only putting yourself in danger if you are in it. If you say ‘I don’t want to be a part of this,’ then nothing will happen to you.”
Weren’t you frightened by the Swastikas?
“I never saw them, but the fact that they were there freaked me out. But I didn’t feel unsafe. The school is doing a lot.”
Well, let’s get to the important stuff — the “Oprah” show. How did you find out you won the contest?
“They called my house. I was alone. I just kept going ‘Really? Really?’ and they were like ‘Yeah, really.’ I tried to call a lot of people, but somehow all of their lines were busy, so I just sat at home, trying to contain my excitement until everyone got home, and when they did, I jumped on them (laughing).”
Are you a big fan of Oprah? “Actually, I had never watched a show before. We don’t have a TV in our house. We pretty much are huge bookworms. We have bookshelves all over the place. My poor grandpa. He’s always having to build me more book shelves because I read constantly.”
With no TV, how are you going to watch the show?
“A bunch of my friends are going to get together and watch it at one of their houses.”
How does it feel to win something like this?
“Well, it makes me feel honored … well, at first it just made me feel cocky. But after meeting the other winners, I feel so honored to be among them. I felt almost unworthy, because I was with just such an amazing group of people … Gosh, they were these people who had fled from other countries during war, others who had previously been homeless. They had so much struggle in their lives and that’s what they wrote their essays on, about how the book helped them go on and about how the book inspired them to better their life. There were these two girls who actually fled the Rwandan genocide as children. I just felt unworthy to be there, because the content of their essays was just so powerful. Whereas mine was personal, but more like my ideas about the book, not my personal relationships. I was just so happy that I got to meet them and be there.”
How was Oprah? Notice anything interesting about her?
“What was strange was we couldn’t wear anything that was white or beige because it didn’t show up on camera. Guess what Oprah was wearing, white and beige. It was funny because she was kind of dressed the same color as her coach. I was like ‘OK, who’s bright idea was that?’ She was a lot funnier than I thought she would be. I thought she was going to be all about business, but at the commercial breaks she would break out a joke every once in a while. She was funny, kind of sarcastic and witty.”
Was it first class or coach? “I’ll have to say it was coach (laughing). But that’s OK, whatever. We flew there, a limo picked us up to take us to our hotel, which was the fanciest hotel I’ll probably ever stay in my life. Dinner in the hotel was snazzy, fancy restaurant. She gave us vouchers to eat while at the hotel and it’s supposed to be enough for you and your guardian, but we have cousins in Chicago and it was enough to pay for the four of us to have dinner. I was real happy to see them. Backstage, they had our hair and makeup done professionally. My hair’s not really like this. It was really, really incredible … I wish I had more time to spend with the other winners those. I really enjoyed getting to meet them. I plan to keep in touch with them.”
Talk about the taping. Were you nervous of the crowd?
“I didn’t do anything really. The students I was telling you about had their own stories to tell. I’m lucky not to have these incredible, harrowing stories to tell. I’m grateful for that, not jealous of them for getting airtime. So they played pre-recorded tapes of them. Oprah was on the couch with Elie Wiesel, showing clips of him taking a trip to Auschwitz. That’s a whole show that is going to air before this show … ”
Did you cry? “My mother cried the entire time. At the start of the show, all the winners stand on stage for the cameras to pan and I saw her in the audience and she was crying then, and didn’t stop for the entire show (laughing). I only cried, well I’m not really allowed to tell you about it, but this very touching thing happened, and I cried. I didn’t realize how much makeup I was wearing until I grabbed a tissue — and there’s tissues planted everywhere on set — and dabbed my tears and it was like pure beige on the tissue. But it’s TV, I guess. Even the boys got makeup.”
What do you make of the fact that there weren’t that many guys who were there?
“Well, I’m in a creative writing class and we have only one boy out of all of us, and I don’t think creative writing is socially acceptable for boys right now, which is weird because men have dominated literature for, like, ever, but in the here and now, I think it’s cool for a girl to do creative writing and it’s not for a boy, who is supposed to be focused on science and math. Obviously, there are probably a million exceptions, but just in terms of what’s promoted, I think there is more of a push for girls to express themselves in writing. The guys that were on the show were really awesome, I’ll have to say.”
How do you enjoy living in Santa Monica?
“I love it. Actually, we used to live on Mar Vista because we couldn’t afford to live here. But when I started high school, we moved here and it’s so much better for us. My friends all live here. My mom teaches at Samohi.”
What’s it like to go to a school where your mom’s a teacher?
“Actually, I’m totally fine with it. For one, I’ve never been in one of her classes. We made sure that didn’t happen. Samohi is it’s own city. It’s so big that, basically, I get to use her fridge and refrigerator at lunch time and tell her news when it happens. I only say good things. No conflicts. It helps that she’s one of the best English teachers. All of my friends are like, ‘Oh, she’s so nice.’”
What does an 18-year-old like to do in Santa Monica?
“Well, I wish it was warm enough to go to the beach. But it’s cold and cloudy. I didn’t get to go over spring break because of the weather and I was traveling around. I love Gilbert’s. It’s a few blocks from my house. They make fun of me when I speak bad Spanish, but I never make the same mistake again. I’m really into Spanish. I’m hoping to use it in my career. I’m hoping to do some reporting in the States and then I can do some in Latin America as a correspondent. It’s really important for me to learn Spanish to travel later in life.”
Where do you plan to go to college next year? “I was accepted to Oberlin. It’s in Ohio. I love it because it attracts so many different people from different places. It’s big on creative writing, it’s big on science, it’s big on music, all kinds of people want to go there. It’s not like one of those places where only the (political science) people go there. They don’t have a journalism school though. I did get into the Northwestern school of journalism, but they gave me no financial aid and I don’t have $50,000 a year. I don’t know who does.”
How many schools did you apply to? “I applied to nine schools. That’s not even a lot nowadays. People apply to 15. That’s suicidal. The common application is a farce. For everyone you have to do a fair amount of essays. It’s not what it advertises itself to be.”
You used to work for the Santa Monica Mirror. When did that start?
“I started writing book reviews when I was 8. I wrote on different stuff, not the typical 8th grade novel. I’ve always been the biggest bookworm ever. I’ll read anything, so I jumped at the idea. It was fiction, except I did a few memoirs.”
What has attracted you to journalism? “Originally, I wanted to be a famous author. I’d still like to do that, but I feel that is so helping yourself only. It’s fun, but you do it alone mostly, whereas in journalism you’re interacting with the world and influencing the world. I know with novels you can influence the world also, but here you are contributing to the change. That really excites me. And the thing about journalism, studying any subject can help you be a better journalist because you never know what your next beat is going to be … I love travel, learning new languages and interacting with people. I’m OK with being a starving journalist as long as I get to travel.”
What can the city of Santa Monica do to address the needs of the youth?
“I think that if you are motivated, the city already provides enough to meet your needs. You just can’t sit back and wait for it to come to you. There are job opportunities, athletics, the arts — it’s all there if you just go out and grab it. I know a lot who complain about not finding a good job, but you know, it’s sort of up to you. I think the city provides a lot of great programs.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 1, 2006. Read the original PDF.