Poto and Cabengo (1980) - full transcript

You can only be a foreigner...

in a language other
than your own.

And I wish I could show you
the comic strips which ran...

in the Daily Press at the
time of Ellis Island...

like The Katzenjammer Kids,
for instance, Hans and Fritz...

and let you hear them run away with
the English language under their arm.

Vot vould happen...

if a elephant checked his
trunk und lost der check?

Vot vould happen if we had
trunks, or if elephants could fly?

Vot vould happen if fishes could sing,
or if der whole ocean vould dry up?

Dot iss a easy vun!



As Shakespeare says, "Der fatter der
head, der dumber der ox.

Vare dere iss a vill there
iss always a Vilhelmina."

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

San Diego Union, July 5, 1977.

"Do Grace and Virginia Kennedy really
talk over life's complexities...

in a secret language of
their own invention...

or is their mysterious speech
an almost meaningless babble...

that only sounds
sophisticated to others?

The subject triggered widespread
speculation last week...

as the world found itself intrigued
with the pretty six-year-old twins...

who lived on food
stamps and welfare...

with their parents and
grandmother in Linda Vista.



The case could be something like that
of the so-called Wild Child of Aveyron."

San Diego Union, July 10, 1977.

"Grace and Virginia Kennedy...

identical twins who had been mistakenly
sentenced to live out their lives...

as mental cripples,
have been reprieved.

The Linda Vista girls throughout their lives
have been thought to be severely retarded...

and they were treated as such.

This idea grew mainly because the girls
never learned to speak English or German...

the two languages
spoken in their home."

New York Times,
September 11, 1977.

"Scientists have been
baffled in recent weeks...

by the conversations of the
pretty black-haired twins...

who understand English, German, sign
language and a smattering of Spanish...

but who for five years have spoken only in
what appears to be a language of their own.

Their conversations are unintelligible
even to their parents...

Thomas Kennedy and his German-born
wife Christine of San Diego.

Alexa Romain, the principal therapist
working with the Kennedy twins...

believes that further observations and
testing may disclose that, quote...

'Their jabberwocky may really be a
comprehensive private language...

with a structured
syntax, ' unquote."

Ow!

Los Angeles Times,
April 2, 1978.

"Studies indicate that twins begin
to speak later than single children.

Since twins are in another child's
company more than single children...

they are constantly being exposed to a
mutually poor linguistic environment.

Frequently they develop
special words...

idioglossia or gestures
which serve adequately...

as instruments for their
own communication...

but which are unlike those used
by other persons around them.

Idioglossia is not
uncommon among twins...

though it is usually
dropped by age three...

when twins begin to interact
with other family members...

in the outside environment.

Says therapist Alexa Romain in
reference to the Kennedy twins, quote...

'What's rare about this case is that
they have maintained it for so long...

that it seems to be a very
fluent type of communication...

that they are able to do
so many things with it...

and also the documentation
about this type of case...

is almost nonexistent,
' unquote."

Because it made good copy...

the press was selling Grace
and Virginia Kennedy...

as creatures of an alien planet.

But the press wasn't answering
the obvious question:

What are they saying?
What are they saying?

You can only be a foreigner in a
language other than your own...

but these two were foreigners
in their own language...

and that's where
the fascination was.

And besides, time was adding
another dimension to this story.

San Diego Union,
January 15, 1978.

"Grace and Virginia Kennedy, the twins
who invented their own language...

continue to make good progress in
their battle to join the real world."

Gracie, I'm going to
give you two things...

and I want you to listen...

and do what I ask you to do.

Okay? All right.

I want you to put the
toothbrush under the table...

and give the comb to Ann.

- Good.
- Listening.

- Good.
- Listening.

- Good.
- Listening.

- Good.
- Listening.

So when I got started,
this invented language...

quote, unquote...
which had made their fame...

most likely had disappeared.

If I was going to
make this film...

I would have to
beat the clock...

before the kids
turned English majors.

I found them in Linda Vista...

which is a back
lot of San Diego.

And the compound in which they lived
had been built after World War II...

for returning navy personnel.

A German friend of mine told me that it
also looked like West Berlin tenements.

I was about to start my film.

What would Gracie and Ginny say?

How would they sound?

How would they react
to my French accent?

Hi.

Hello.

Good.

I have to go somewhere. Bye.

Oh, you're not going anywhere. When I
tell you to stay here, you stay here.

- We to have to finish this...
- on Friday.

Finish the sentence and go home.

- You are not going home...
- Where's your microphone?

- Please stay here.
- I have the...

Where are you?
Where are you going now?

Be quiet!

I'm going to Jean-Pierre's house.

No, I'm not going
to Jean-Pierre's house.

Do you think this for the lady?
With the microphone?

Bye!
I don't want to go back there.

No, you're not.

I have to go somewhere now.

I have to go somewhere.

Where?

In my dad's new car?

No, you're not
going in my dad's...

In Alexa's car or Ann's car?

But Daddy... no Daddy.

I'm going in the...
No. I'm not...

No car for Mrs. Rose next door.

I'm not going to...

♪ Wait a minute Wait a minute ♪

- I had to...
- Where are you going?

Nowhere.

I tell you!

- All right?
- I'm going with you.

Ah, just stay where...
what I tell you.

I'm going in the house
and get something.

I tell you, I am going.

After I'm done... done shopping.

Okay, bye!

I just told you, no,
I'm not going nowhere!

Wait a minute! Stay here!

No running!

In trouble!

At the end of the first
day, it dawned on me...

that what I was hearing
was a creolized language...

and that to understand
how it had come to be...

I would have to listen to the voices
which had dominated their lives.

Gracie and Ginny had lived
with the voice of Tom...

who strangely sounded like he was at
the periphery of this whole story.

Ginny, finish your breakfast.

You've been sitting there
for about one hour...

for one bowl of cereal.

You should never have any digestive
problems, the way you eat.

It's good for you,
I guess, Ginny.

You're sure a "lau-moush."

Just a little...
Just a little slow.

He used to introduce himself...

"Tom Kennedy,
like the president"...

or, "I'm from Georgia,
like President Carter."

He was a divorcé from Atlanta...

who had decided to remarry.

He had met his second wife, Christine,
at the Oktoberfest in Munich.

At the birth of the twins,
he was told they might be retarded.

He came back home and
smashed his fist in the wall.

Soon after, he lost his job as
an accountant, and by then...

Chris's nerves were so bad
that she couldn't keep her job.

He packed his family in a car
and headed for California.

In San Diego,
he couldn't find work.

To explain his difficulties, he would say,
"It's a navy town, and I'm air force."

He finally applied for welfare,
and it's through the welfare office...

that Gracie and Ginny landed
at Children's Hospital.

The publicity
brought him hope...

and he passed the real
estate school exams...

and joined this army of California
salesmen who pay for their own gas...

and cling to the hope of
a commission on a sale.

I'm following a lead, and the way I got the
lead is from my office manager, Gail Andress...

from some prospects of a year
ago that Herbert Hawkins had.

And they live in Arcadia,
and he works in Pasadena...

and he wants to
retire in San Diego.

So I phoned him several
times last weekend...

talked with him at length
about finding him a place.

And I called him again late Saturday
night and had him come down, and, um...

he drove down about 150 miles.

He didn't know much about San
Diego, so I took him...

he and his wife...

Uh, lovely couple.

I took both he and his wife
on a trip to look at houses.

One was in Mira Mesa...

and one in Scripps Ranch
and one in Encinitas.

However, none of the houses
exactly fit their needs...

in what they were really wanting
to settle in, or retire in.

He has a boat, and he wants to get close
to the water and near the boat marina.

And I told him I would look in
the Point Loma area for him...

and he said, " Yes, do it."

Because he very much wants to retire
here, and he loves the city.

And I think he's getting a little
bit tired of L.A. And environs, so...

he, uh, would very much like to
relocate here upon his retirement.

And, uh, so I am now searching
out leads in Point Loma area...

to try to find him a house.

Now that I have
these two twins...

it's been a double expense
all the way down the line.

It was double the hospital bill.

They had to stay in there for two
weeks when they were born or more...

because of the complications
and, um...

The only bargain we
got was the doctor...

simply because he didn't know
they were gonna be twins.

He had to deliver them
for the price of one.

He was exactly what I wanted.

For one thing, American men...

say the job and the
family is the first thing.

They care more about the family.

The German men, they have...

Oh, the job, I guess, is the
first, then comes the car...

then comes their bowling team or
whatever, you know...

their pleasure on
the hobby side.

And then, you know, the family kind
of comes a little bit farther away.

The twins had grown up with
another voice... Chris's.

She had been raised on a
farm by her grandparents...

near Berlin in
the postwar years.

She had learned her English
on an American army base...

working at the P.X.

And there must have been in
the faces of these G.I. Joes...

from Iowa, Missouri,
Nevada passing in front of her...

some strong seduction which
later drew her to Tom.

She followed these
dreams to the States...

but there things turned
sour very quickly.

You know,
he wants to do a lot of things...

but then financially,
you know, he's not able to.

So, uh...

it's kind of bad, because when you
are living in small quarters...

everybody is kind of on the edge
with their nerves and so on...

because you have an...
a grandmother at 76...

and then two ding-a-lings
that are pretty much a laugh.

two ding-a-lings that
are pretty much a laugh...

living all in one room, and she sometimes,
you know, likes to get up early.

That means, you know, she likes to
go to bed earlier too at nighttime.

That's not possible if
one of the kids don't...

you know,
is too much still pepped up...

and she can't go to sleep
when she sings and so on.

So finally she used to have to leave the
room and go down to the living room...

till ever peace gonna be in the
bedroom and she can go upstairs.

So that kind of eats
on her nerves too.

Or when the kids are sick.
Then she barely gets any sleep.

Because then they'll
be up all night.

All night long she has to go with them to the
bathroom and all those things like that.

Because when they get sick
they are really bad off and...

The last few years, when they started
school, they had one cold after another.

They couldn't breathe.

And then, you know,
with the temper they got...

You can imagine they almost kind
of jump out of their skirts.

You know, can't breathe
and all those things...

so it almost has driven her a
lot of times up to the wall.

So the conditions are kind
of a little nerve-racking.

So if you don't have anything, you
know, some people probably would...

In my case, I don't know. Some of
them probably turn into alcoholics...

or something like
that, you know.

Because I have seen people turning
for a lot less into alcoholism.

Because they couldn't
take the pressure.

In my case, I have to take once in a
while, when it gets too rough...

I have to take tablets.

I'm glad I have them.

The voice they had heard
the most was Granny's.

Granny had been a cashier...

in a Berlin movie house
most of her life...

and she had joined the
New World at age 65...

to take care of the twins like her mother
before her had taken care of Chris.

And in 10 years in the States, she had only
mastered four or five words in English.

She would never go out.

She would eat by herself in
the kitchen except on holidays.

During the day,
she would keep the house spotless...

and at one point stopped to
watch her favorite show on TV...

The Price Is Right.

But most of the time she
would sew and design...

the wardrobe of Grace and Ginny.

Gracie? Gracie?

Gracie, please.

You have to cut it yourself.

You know how to do that.
You've been doing it for a while.

- Grace.
- Grace.

- Here you go.
- That's a pork chop.

What do you do now?

- Wait.
- Wait, wait, wait.

- There.
- Oh, it's right there.

- Then we always say the blessing, right?
- Right.

Bow your head. Ginny.

Lord and heavenly Father, we do thank thee
for the foods that nourish our body...

and pray that you will continue
to bless this family...

with health and
prosperity and success.

We ask it in the name of Jesus.
Amen.

It's hot?

Then blow if it's hot.

Is it too hot, girls?

Then just blow a little
bit on it without...

Let it cool a while
and eat your salad.

Is that a potato salad?

Yeah, it's kind of mixed salad.

Kartoffel salad?

Yeah,
it has pineapple in it and...

Fruit salad.

No, it also has tomato in
it and things like that.

- Gemischt.
- Yeah, it's kind of mixed.

- Gemischt.
- Yeah, it's kind of mixed.

- Gemischt.
- Leftover mixings.

- Any butter?
- Yeah.

I just didn't want to
bring the big thing out.

Schlaglecker.

Schlag, Schlag.

And a Käse knife.

- Käse knife?
- Oh, yeah.

- Thank you.
- Yeah, and I'll get you a knife...

What's a Käse knife for?

Eat your food.

- Thank you.
- Mm-hmm.

Is that a Käse knife?

- What?
- That one.

No, that's not a steak knife.
What you've got is a steak knife.

Why I got a steak knife?

Because what you're eating is a schnitzel,
and that's something like a steak.

So you're using a sharp
knife going mit it.

Oh, yeah.

- That's German style.
- Otherwise you can't cut it...

if you use a
regular knife on it.

What is... What's this knife?

That's a steak knife.

- Have you got a steak knife too?
- Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Steak fork?

That's just an ordinary fork.

The environment is probably the
biggest factor in this case...

in that it is an
unusual environment...

not only in terms of how
the children were raised...

but in the question of the
bilingualism used in the home.

These children were constantly
listening to two models...

both of them actually
being defective.

Yeah.

What are you coloring now?

You're coloring the
head, Gracie.

You're not finished.
Now you get the rest of it.

Grace, don't shake the cushion.

Ja, ist gut, Ginny.

Gracie, hold it.

I have my red pen.
You have your blue pen.

One red und one blue.

- Here.
- One red, one blue.

Ja. The whole Gans pretty.

- Hey! Ginny!
- Ginny!

From the very beginning,
when the parents were told...

that there was a good possibility
these children could be retarded...

the parents, at least from what
we have learned from them...

have raised the children with that thought
always in the back of their mind...

in that they wanted to
watch them and, um...

isolate them and essentially
keep a very close watch...

on what they were doing and
what they'd be exposed to.

These children never had an
opportunity to run and to play...

and to ride a bike
and go to the park...

and to, um, you know,
meet with other children.

They were essentially
kept in the home...

where they could be watched and had
solely one another to interact with.

I think, um...

ever since we began to
know Grace and Ginny...

Grace has always been
the dominant one.

She's always been the leader.

And the parents tell us that
this was the same situation...

in, um, their development
until we saw them.

Ginny seemed to rely
on Grace quite a bit...

to always be first
and to guide her.

Okay.

Yeah.

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

We were the initial
ones to help them.

We were constantly with them,
and they became very attached.

And also, we were exposing them to
everything that was new and exciting...

toys that they had never seen
before, books and pictures.

Everything was stimulating.
They were anxious to learn.

And consequently, you know...

we were able to provide this for them,
and we became their immediate friends.

- What's your name?
- Ginny.

- What's your name?
- Gracie.

- Very good.
- What do you call each other?

What does Gracie call you?

Ginny.

Oh, sometimes she calls you something else.
What does she call you?

- Cabengo.
- Cabengo, right.

What do you call Gracie?

- Poto.
- Poto. Right.

We're gonna look at
some things today.

I'm gonna ask one of you what it
is that I'm gonna show you, okay?

- Yes.
- Maybe I'll even let you pick one.

- Wanna do that?
- Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. First of all,
you can't peek, okay?

Can you hide your eyes?

- How do you hide your eyes?
- Who should be first?

- Cabengo.
- Who... Cabengo?

Yeah.

Okay, Virginia will be first.
Okay, can you hide your eyes?

How do you hide you eyes?
Close your eyes.

Don't peek.

I'll help you. I'll help you put your hand
in there and pick something out, okay?

You close your eyes.
Real tightly.

Can you do it without
covering them with your hands?

How do you close your eyes?

Good girl. Okay.

Now pick something out.

Cup.

What did she get?

- What is that?
- Cup.

Good. She knew what that was.
Whose turn is it?

- Poto.
- Right.

Can you close your eyes?

Close your eyes.

Shut'em. Got it?

Ah, they're not closed.

What are you gonna find?
What'd you find?

Comb.

- What did you find?
- Comb.

Aha. Virginia, what'd she find?

Comb.

Good. Whose turn is it?

Whose turn?

- Right. Can you...
- It's Ginny's turn.

Close your eyes? Good girl.

Pick something out.

What is she gonna get?

What'd she find?
What'd you find?

What is it called?

Do you know what this is?

It wasn't just their speech and
language skills that were delayed.

They were delayed in
overall development.

Their gross motor skills, such as
running and jumping and climbing...

their fine motor control, like how
they manipulated even puzzle pieces...

or a pencil or a crayon,
was very rudimentary.

And it's taken them this year...

with a lot of extra stimulation
and a lot of help...

to bring up their
level of functioning.

They show a steady increase in their
level of functioning right now.

I believe Grace is functioning
within the normal range...

and Ginny is just slightly below
that in the borderline range.

However, mental retardation
cannot be ruled out yet.

The girls are now able
to interact more...

with other people...

that they've grown
a great deal...

in their cognitive
achievements...

that they can deal with
their surroundings...

and understand
situations much more.

They think more
abstractly now...

and not so concretely...

and can use their language
very abstractly...

rather than just in
concrete labeling.

Um, I want to put... in the van.

Who?

- Jean-Pierre?
- Jean-Pierre...

A lot of things in the van.

You can sit in the
front with now.

- Okay.
- Orange.

So that's how we had come
to talk to each other.

Because someone at lunch break at the
cafeteria of Children's Hospital...

had said that there
might be a big case...

in the speech,
hearing and neurosensory center...

the P.R. Department of the hospital
leaked word to the press...

and news traveled fast.

And that's how Gracie
and Ginny got their fame.

And ultimately,
that's how I came.

They had been swamped
by reporters...

and, most likely, the kids didn't
know why everyone was so interested.

They couldn't care less about
my fascination for their past.

They saw me as an avenue to the
world, and they wanted to go out...

so we went out.

But in San Diego,
"going out" means the zoo.

- I want to go to the zoo today.
- I want to go to the zoo now.

I thought about the
together-together monkeys...

who were raised together in complete
isolation, fed by machines...

then one day are thrown in a
cage where other monkeys...

have developed...
quote, unquote... "normally."

And they are so mortified that
they cling to each other...

and that sometimes they die.

And here I was,
showing them the world...

realizing but a little late that
I had never dealt with kids...

and not knowing if I was going to
be able to handle the excitement.

And...
ride around there, and it was...

I don't want to ride around.
I want to stay...

I want to go back home,
have the library...

But if we take the...
the bus to go around the animals...

Take the train, not a bus!

We're not going out of the bus.

There is no...
There is no train. It's a bus.

It's a bus that runs...

I'm not going out of the bus.

- You don't want to go out of the bus?
- No.

Why?

Because then we wouldn't
be next to the animals.

What are you crying...

- And then we wouldn't be next to the animals.
- Okay. Okay.

So we don't go to the animals.
We gotta go away.

I want to go to the
animals, ride around.

We gotta go away.
We gotta go to the library.

Yes.

- And ride around! I want to ride around!
- No!

- You don't want to ride around?
- No.

I want to ride around.

No, you're not going.
You're going to the library.

No,
I'm not going to the library.

- I am. You stay...
- I don't want to go to the library.

If Gracie doesn't want to come to the library,
you want to go to the library alone?

Yes.

Um, I want to go with you.

In this pair of
Alices in reverse...

the one I was getting
the closest to was Ginny.

Ginny was terrified
of showers...

because she had been told once
that she had water in her brain.

Um, I want to go with you.

Okay. But you don't
want to go with Gracie?

Gracie want to ride around.
I go to the library. Gracie go to the zoo.

- Really?
- Go ride around!

What about this one, huh?

Wait. This one has a home.

A big book!

I take this book home, Erica.

Erica, I take this book home.

Heavy.

I take this book home.

It was Ginny who had the strange
request to go to the library.

But these weren't books. They were
things to feel, to touch, to bang...

and most of all,
to want to take home.

They were acting like
four years old...

and I had to explain to them that
they couldn't keep these books.

So we went to a bookstore,
and Gracie, always practical...

bought the Volkswagen
Repair Manual...

and Ginny,
a treatise on astrophysics.

I can take home.

Little books.

I take this book and...

You can read while I...

I want to go to the
zoo today again.

No, not...

the bus.

- I want to go to the zoo today.
- On the bus again?

But yesterday you didn't
want to be in the zoo.

I want... I want...
I want to ride around in the bus again.

You want to ride
around in the bus?

Today!

Yes.
I want to go to the zoo today.

I say hello to the animals.

With my book.
I read a book in the bus.

Let's see what animals...

Laying down in the...

I want to go to the zoo today.

I take my book, and I...
I go to zoo with this.

What was overwhelming was
how slow I was for them...

lumbering around with
my film equipment.

I tried to make them
stay for one more shot.

I offered to show them the
music department of the library.

When we arrived in the
music department...

the tape recorders on the wall must
have triggered memories of therapy...

and they started playing Ann and Alexa
and to involve my name in the game.

I tried to follow them,
but they were too fast...

and suddenly I really felt
like I should give up my job.

Um, where Alexa?

- You come back here, Alexa.
- Hey.

Hey, guys.

Hey, stop.

- Alexa!
- Hey, guys.

Jean-Pierre calling you.
Well, anyway...

Please.
I'll take you to the bookstore.

You come here.

It's only going to
last five minutes.

Two minutes. Two minutes.
Only two minutes.

Back here...

Put up here.
Where are your glasses?

Could you stay here, please?

And on 17 too. And 18.

Please, guys.
Please, could you stop?

One second. One second.

What?

Where's Melanie then?

Melanie...

Hmm.
Our teacher's gone, Melanie.

You don't want to
listen to music?

No, no music. I'm sorry.

Mozart. You don't want
to listen to Mozart?

The next day we had
planned a picnic...

but when I came to pick them up,
there was a surprise in store for me.

Granny had invited herself.

It would be the first time that she
would see the sea in four years.

And Tom and Chris could
have a day to themselves.

We went to the house I was
renting for the summer.

Keep it goin'.

But when Granny saw the
state of my backyard...

she immediately started weeding.

Gracie and Ginny and I went
on to prepare the picnic.

You can put your fingers now...

Okay. Look at that.
Look at that.

- You see that?
- Yeah.

See inside?

You see that?

What is...
What is in the inside?

Inside?

It's the seeds.

See? How beautiful that is?

Okay, Ginny. Put the...
Put the egg in the pot.

Okay, Ginny. Put the...
Put the egg in the pot.

Slowly.

Slowly. Good. Okay.

There we go.

You take every little
piece like that. Okay?

Okay.

And do it here.

What you doing?

Oh!

See?
Gets cut into little pieces.

So you have to do it now.

I'll give you...

So you have to do it now.

So you have to do it now.

Over there. Here. Here. Here.

- Hey.
- What?

Here. Here.

Over there. Here.
Here. Here. Hey.

Here? What?

Here. Here.

I go now.

I go now.

I go now.

Ginny, stop!

There was no way
I could escape it.

Their story wasn't with me,
but back home with their family.

At the end of the day, I took them
back to Linda Vista and went home.

It was a complicated story,
the story of Gracie and Ginny.

Because the Kennedys had been
told they might be retarded...

they had been kept
protected in the home.

And the closest presence in
the home had been Granny.

And through Granny they
had been given Germany.

An inheritance that August Sander had
photographed in the faces of German women.

It had to do with sternness...

posture...

constraint, authority...

discipline, distance...

respect...

and pride.

But if Granny was their inheritance,
Chris was their present and their future.

Chris,
who had always wanted to move...

and had followed her
dreams to the U.S.

Listening to her talk brought to
mind the image of the mother...

in the Katzenjammer
Kids cartoon.

Ship ahoy, everybody.

What seems to be the good word?

Dere ain't fun!
Everything is befritzed...

und their finger is pinched...

und their wash is coo-coo und
I got to see der nerve doctor.

I knew what this way
of butchering English meant.

The pathetic, tough,
desperately funny fight...

of the immigrant landing in
a culture which is not his.

There was a ring of Ellis
Island to their story...

Ellis Island revisited
50 years later.

It was Chris's energy which
had kept things moving.

Chris, who seemed to be so
central to this story...

and most likely had been behind
their move to California...

when creditors had come
knocking at their door.

This trip cross-country
that they had taken...

sleeping in parking lots at night
because there was no money...

to end up in San Diego.

And that's the only place we could
get when we came back from Phoenix...

because all the rest
of'em, uh...

either they wanted
that you be employed...

or they want a
huge, big deposit...

first month, last month and
maybe, uh, on top of that...

another deposit, you know, for drapery
and carpet cleaning and all that.

So this was the only
thing we could get.

We had to sleep four nights in the
car just to get this place here.

And we still had to sleep... Without
furniture, we had to sleep on the floor.

On top of that,
cause we had to buy new furniture.

What makes it work is
five years of hardship.

Makes it, you know,
keep it together.

For one thing,
I know if I would leave my family...

I don't think the rest of my
family would be able to survive.

Because only we all
together as a unit...

be able to survive whatever,
you know, we've been tossed into.

And we have been in
pretty rough times.

It's a lot of tension because, see,
the owner is Mexican-American...

and the manager has
immigrated from Mexico.

So, uh, just recently...

about at the end of last year...

when people move out,
they have gotten their own people in.

And the last three families
that are left in here...

they have unluckily
all dogs too...

which they no longer allow.

And so they're trying all...

every trick in the book to
get those three families out.

And we have liaisons in here...

that already have given
a 60-day notice...

because they say it's too
many Mexicans around here.

So they are leaving in two months.
They're already looking for something else.

Do you want to leave this place?

Oh, I sure do. As soon as I get the money.
I would move tomorrow...

if I have the money
to go someplace else.

"You gotta move the car because
the trashman is coming."

And he was not coming.
He was coming the next day.

And I had to move the car just
because his royal highness said so.

You know, it seems like
he's moved in every...

all the Mexicans...
all his relatives, he's moved in...

every single one of them.

But when it comes to us... I come and
visit. I'm from up the street, right?

I come visit her.
I have my little dog to bring for a walk.

He comes in there
and kicks my dog out.

- He comes in...
- But he's got a cat.

- Yeah.
- He's got a cat.

The owner's in Maryland.

Well, look at me. I have... I had...
The owners were before...

- they... uh, new owners, right?
- Yeah.

And he's trying to make me get rid of
my dog, and what am I supposed to do?

My daughter...

My daughter put two
ads in the paper...

and no one wants him
because he's too old.

- So what am I supposed to do? Put him to sleep?
- Yeah.

- Then they'll probably raise your rent next.
- They already did.

But he, you know,
with this Proposition 13 and all...

You know what he did?
He thinks he's slick.

He raised the rent. He said...

"Due to the recent tax
increases and repairs."

See, now we can't get a...

And you know something? Her toilet up
there... I was sitting on the pot...

and the damn water come
flushing up my butt.

Were they having
Anglo-German dreams...

like Hans and Fritz,
the Katzenjammer Kids?

Ven the cat is away,
der mice love to play.

But maybe the cat is
having a good time too.

Where vould ve be if Columbus
didn't discover America?

Vould ve be Eskimos
or just Chinks?

What vould happen if the
Indians had vent to Europe...

and discovered Columbus?

The world is full mit riddles.

They want us to get rid of it.
He carried the thing to the court.

We have to react
within five days...

cause he's probably in the... in the...
in the institution for leukemia...

because he's in Maryland.

So... So, I imagine that, uh,
he's in some sanitarium or something.

So what they're trying to do is they're
trying to get the rest of the people out.

- Since we all have a dog...
- He doesn't want us here anyway.

- That's right.
- He wants the Chicanos here.

He don't mind,
are we paid or not...

but he'd rather have his own kind
even if they don't pay the rent...

when they got no incomes.

So...

The only way you ever
get rich in this life...

if you help other people become
rich, and I believe it.

If you ever read Napoleon Hill's
How to Become a Millionaire...

or The Master-Key to Riches,
he tells you all about that.

And most of your great successful men have
become wealthy by helping other people.

So if you help other people,
you in turn will be helped.

And I feel that way about
the real estate business.

You're trying to meet
people's needs...

and helping them acquire what they
need to meet their own specific needs.

And it's a challenge.
And I enjoy it.

I fully enjoy the work.

Much more than I
ever did accounting.

- Hmm.
- Hmm.

- Shake your...
- Shake my what off?

Or I'll shake your hat off.

I want to shake... No?

What did you just say?

Nothing.

What?

Why do you want the...

We had a training session at Herbert
Hawkins's training class today.

- Mm-hmm?
- And, uh, it was real good.

I think I learned a lot.
Uh, I want to practice on you.

- Oh, you want me for a guinea pig?
- Yeah, will you play the client...

- and I'll play the salesman?
- Okay.

- You're the salesman, all right.
- All right. Uh, let's see.

Let's think about a situation.

Okay. We're looking at this
house, and it's a big house.

Mm-hmm. How big?

And, uh, well...

You're gonna love this house
because it has seven bathrooms.

And with your, uh...
I mean four bathrooms.

Yeah, because I don't
need seven bathrooms.

You have four bathrooms in this house.
You're gonna love it...

- Okay. How many...
- because you have four bathrooms in this house.

- How many bedrooms?
- And with your seven kids...

this'll give all your kids time to
use the bathroom in the morning...

and also you and your husband
time to get ready for work.

Okay. And how many
bedrooms does it have?

- Four.
- Four. Four bedrooms.

- In your opinion...
- Seven kids. It's a little small.

- In your opinion, would it be too small?
- It sure would.

I mean, seven kids in four bedrooms?
Uh-uh. It gotta be bigger.

I have another one we could look
at, and it has five bedrooms.

Because price is no problem.

- Price is no problem?
- No.

And it has to have a swimming pool
because my kids are nuts about swimming.

Well, this house...
this house has a pool.

- Good, because I won't settle without one.
- And it's only 150,000.

- Hmm. Sounds good. How about a...
- It is a bargain.

- How about a gourmet kitchen?
- Beautiful kitchen. All electric. Total electric.

I also go for a sunken...
sunken tub in the master bedroom.

- Sunken tub in the master bedroom?
- Mm-hmm.

- It has this.
- It has?

- Yeah.
- How about a walk-in closet?

Walk-in closets, you have that.

Extra powder room?

You know,
separate for the master suite?

Extra powder room? Well...

Or a dressing area, you know,
separate from the, uh... from the bedroom?

This could be arranged at a little additional
cost. I'm sure you wouldn't mind that.

Mm-hmm. Okay.
What about landscaping?

- Landscaping is excellent.
- It's excellent?

The prior owner had a landscaper,
and it's just beautiful, well-kept grounds.

Have you tested
all the plumbing?

Plumbing has to be tested by real estate
law. It has to be in working condition.

- It's in working condition.
- At the close of escrow.

Because I don't want to move in and later on
I have... end up with a stuffed-up toilet.

Well, I say the value of publicity
always helps in any production...

or any type of
sale of any kind...

because, uh, it's what the country was
founded on: Advertising and publicity.

I feel good about it because, uh,
I know the value of publicity.

It can only mean good.

Well, not always,
because look what happened to Lindbergh.

Oh, I act as my own agent.

And I have this one.

- You have this one.
- Well, they come to me.

Like I say,
the publicity's laid, so...

naturally, they come to me,
they know the value of the property.

They're not dumb.

They come around.

Two weeks ago we had reporters
here from BBC in London.

An this started in July of 77.

And it hasn't died down.

But on that mystery which
had brought us together...

I knew that science had
already given its verdict.

Together Elissa and
I spent many hours...

just listening to
the videotapes...

trying to translate
them into English.

In the first weeks we had a very
hard time understanding anything...

but as we listened to it
again and again and again...

we gradually could
understand their speech.

In part we were aided because
the twins tend to be...

rather repetitive in the
things that they talk about.

The bulk of the language
that they're using...

appears to be English.

What they seem to be doing...

is producing a lot of distortions in
the normal sound patterns of English.

Once you, uh, ignore the sound
changes that they're producing...

um, the syntax is English...

with some kinds of constructions that
they don't seem to have mastered.

Their output, it varies tremendously
from one time to the next...

and that variation...
it's not really systematic...

uh, in the sense that
they'll always make...

the same changes from the
appropriate English word.

All of these phonological
distortions or transformations...

which are characteristic
of their speech...

are of a probabilistic nature.

It's the fact that these transformations
are very probabilistic...

which makes their speech
so densely unintelligible.

So, in this one example,
for instance, of "potato"...

they have enormous amount of
variation in the way they say that.

I don't think, uh,
there's good reason to say...

that the variation which I find in doing
phonetic transcriptions of their speech...

necessarily indicates invention.

It may be that their phonological
system hasn't crystallized...

to the extent that they're capable
of producing a consistent output...

or they...

We don't know.
They may not hear things...

and their processing of auditory
information may not be perfect.

We don't know really
about these things yet.

But I have no reason to say that...
right now at least...

no reason to say that they are being
purposefully inventive in the speech.

It doesn't appear to be,
uh, an invented language.

Oh, I see a great
future for the girls.

Uh, maybe not Shirley
Temple status...

but in the long run it'll
be beneficial to'em...

and I think it already has been
beneficial in a lot of aspects...

because it's brought 'em out
of a lot of their shyness...

a lot of their introvertedness.

They're more extroverted now.

Uh, they're more
open with people.

Uh, at one time they were even a
little bit leery of all strangers...

but now when they have so many people
around constantly, most of the time...

uh, they accept people,
and this is good...

because it can only help
them when they, uh...

go into the business
world as adults.

So the mystery was solved...

but I knew that the
story wasn't finished...

and I was left with a question:

What was going to
happen to them?

Six months later,
the Kennedys had left Linda Vista.

They had moved to a bigger house in
Mira Mesa, near Miramar air force base.

It was one of these new tract housing districts
popping up in the wastelands of San Diego.

With the money of the film,
they had bought a used Cadillac...

and I remember how my
European values were shaken...

when I discovered that Cadillacs were now
the cars of the ghettos... black and white.

I knew the look that
Tom had on his face.

He looked battered.

Well, we moved
in, uh, September.

September the 1st we moved,
uh, to the house here.

- The 4th.
- Oh, the 4th? Was it the 4th?

The Labor weekend.

Well,
first part of September then.

We decided we would like
to get a bigger place...

uh, one that would be more
accommodating to the whole family.

Uh, this way the girls have a...
each have a bedroom of their own...

and their grandmother has a
room, and we have our bedroom...

so we're not so congested
as we were in the old place.

And, uh, I think it's much
better for the family.

We've got a bigger yard
for the girls to play in.

Oh, I think it's been...
been much better.

Um, we, uh... we enjoy living up here much
better than we did in the old place, and so...

- Oh, yeah.
- We, uh...

The girls are making wonderful progress
in, uh... in school.

We just had a teacher with a...

a conference with their
teachers last month...

and they both say they're making
wonderful progress, splendid.

So we're... we're well pleased with the way
things have been going recently for us...

for the family, for the girls.

Real estate is a little bit slow
right now because of the holidays...

and high interest rates...

uh, priced a lot of people
out of the market...

but hopefully it'll pick
up again around January...

or the first part of next year.

Chris was clinging to a dream
that my filming had reinforced.

So far we have managed.
Then we also hope that, uh...

since the movie people...

that they are negotiating with...
they have a 90-day option.

So the 90 days are almost over.

I think by the end of this... this month
they have to make a final decision on it.

And since it already has been
mentioned on national television...

on the America Alive show...

the next day they had forgotten that
the day when we were interviewed...

that there was a negotiation
about a movie in the making...

and so they have...
they mentioned it the next day...

so we're pretty certain that, uh, it's
only a matter of maybe a few weeks or so...

that anything gonna
come out of that.

So there would be financial
help also in it...

that kind of gets us over a slack time
mit the real estate business and so on.

So, so far we have managed pretty
good, and I think we will too.

Gracie and Ginny
had their own rooms.

Their chatter seemed
lost in this big house.

Tom and Chris had
made their move...

because more than anyone they
had bought the media fairy tale.

But Gracie and Ginny were
not front-page news anymore.

The media did not care to
follow up on this story...

that they had distorted so
much in the first place.

The twins had lost
their language...

and were each day more in
tune with the real world.

I got the sense that at
the end of this story...

everybody in this family
would be left high and dry.

Now come do your job.

Please stand up.

Hey!

That's okay.
He's not hurting anybody.

Really?

Okay.

Put your right hand
over your heart.

I pledge allegiance
to the flag...

of the United
States of America...

and to the republic
for which it stands...

one nation under God...

indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.

♪ My country, 'tis of thee ♪

♪ Sweet land of liberty ♪

♪ Of thee I sing ♪

♪ Land where my fathers died ♪

♪ Land of the pilgrims' pride ♪

♪ From every mountainside ♪

♪ Let freedom ring ♪

Please sit down.

Gracie and Aaron
were not singing.

Okay? Make you a deal,
when we come back, you better sing...

on Monday after vacation,
or you'll be singing by yourself.

Two blocks away,
Ginny was going to another school.

Therapists and educators had
decided to separate them.

They would rely less on each other,
and it would help their progress.

Okay, talk, Ginny. Okay?

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick...

Jack jump over the candlestick.

He jumped high, he jumped low.

He jumped over and
burned his toe.

My hopes for the future is
that, uh...

we'll, uh...

improve, and the girls will
improve, and, uh...

we, uh, just want to stay
together and be... be a family.

We're a real close-knit family.

And, uh, I can see a wonderful
future for the girls...

if, well, they continue making the
rapid progress that they are doing now.

And I think they'll
develop wonderfully.

Three months later,
the Kennedys couldn't meet their rent.

In all this time,
Tom had only sold one house...

and had to split the commission
with three other salesmen.

There was no money for gas.

He couldn't make
the rounds anymore.

The twins stopped
going to therapy.

Chris told me that she wished
miracles would grow on trees.