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MOTEL DAD

Kari René Hall was working for the Los Angeles Times

when she began investigating photo projects to pursue.

On her first visit to the roach-infested Ha’ Penny Inn, the

photographer was seeking a methamphetamine addict for a

possible story. She found something quite different.

“As I was leaving, a little girl named Cailee, dressed in

pink, dashes through the motel parking lot yelling ‘Daddy!

Daddy!’ A scraggly, tattooed little man, Henry Guiliante,

wearing a greasy mechanic’s uniform, kneels down to kiss

her. This moment seemed out of place in such a harsh

environment,” says Hall. “I didn’t know it at the time, but

the photo was the beginning of a five-year documentary

project.”

The original subject of Hall’s project was to become

Michelle Harig, the mother of the little girl in pink. Because

editors at the Times weren’t interested in pursuing the story,

Hall began visiting the Guiliante family at the motel after her

shift ended. The photographer anticipated that through Michelle and her family, the pictures

would tell the story of the ongoing struggles of a mother who had become pregnant as a

teenager. A 26-year-old former heroin addict, Michelle had given birth to the first of her four

children at 16.

“I wanted to build a relationship, for them to trust me and to allow me into their life,”

Hall told Photo District News (May 2001). “I didn’t come in with cameras blazing.” Hall told

the family she didn’t want any posing, just life as normal. Michelle, Henry, and the kids dis-

cussed it and agreed.

All went smoothly until Michelle was convicted of welfare fraud and sent to jail. Henry

already had fathered six other children with three other women and abandoned them all.

This time, Henry himself had been abandoned with children needing care. At first Hall

thought her story was gone. After all, Michelle was gone, and Henry was likely to leave, as

he always had. Or would he somehow become a responsible father?

Michelle Harig first

became pregnant at 16.

Ten years later, in 1996,

she shares a soda with

Cailee, the youngest of her

four children. In the door-

way is the children’s

father, Henry Guiliante, a

mechanic who works only

sporadically.

Though Henry is sweet

with his children, Michelle

is the one who handles all

the family responsibilities,

including looking after the

children, preparing them

for school, cooking, and

cleaning the one room they

all share at the roach-

infested Ha’ Penny Inn as

they struggle to get by on

welfare and food stamps.

Henry, who has aban-

doned three other women

and six other children,

thinks of child care and

housework as woman’s

work. These four children

know he has left the others

and fear he will leave

them, too.

f Charged with welfare fraud for not disclosing that

Henry lives with her, Michelle pleads “no contest”

in hopes that she will get little or no jail time.

Instead, the judge sentences her to six months in

jail and orders her to pay $25,000 in restitution. She

must surrender in one week to serve her sentence.

a Without Michelle, Henry manages to feed

his kids and get them off to school, but he is

overwhelmed by all his other parental duties.

How long can a man who had disparaged

“woman’s work” put up with this? Will he

leave these four children as he has left his

six others?

a (BOTH) Michelle and Henry do not allow the children to leave the motel

room without supervision for fear of exposing them to the unsavory lifestyles

at the Ha’ Penny Inn.

a “Are you going home, Mommy?” asks Cailee, seated in her father’s lap. Michelle answers,

“No. No, sweetie.” After Michelle’s release, the children’s mother returns briefly but then

leaves for good.

STRUGGLINGWELFAREFAMILYPhotos by

Kari René Hall, Los Angeles

continued on page 256 s

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To Hall’s surprise, the ex-biker, former addict,

ex-con, stayed on.

“That’s the difficulty and joy of documentary

work,” Hall says. “You have no idea what’s going to

happen. You just hold on for the ride.”

Hall’s story is a good example of a true narrative.

Starting out, the photographer did not know which

way the story would evolve. When the lives of her

subjects shifted, with mom going to jail, Hall shifted,

too, to a story about the dad. She searched through

earlier negatives to find pictures of Henry, who often

had been in the background of pictures tracking the

mom’s life. Hall stayed the course, and over five years

recorded the fateful changes in the life of one family.

As the story evolves, it is evident that life as a sin-

gle dad isn’t easy for Henry. “I want to spend prime

time with the kids,” he laments. “But I can’t do that

’cause I gotta be mom and dad. If I’m not givin’ ’em

a bath, I’m washin’ clothes. If I ain’t washin’ clothes,

I’m cookin’ dinner. If I ain’t cookin’ dinner, I’m

cleanin’ house. When you’re doing it completely on

your own, it’s really, really hard. No matter how

many times I clean it, it never stays clean. But I’ll

eventually figure that one out.”

Another twist occurs when Michelle is released

from jail, and she, not Henry, abandons her family.

Henry seeks and receives custody of his four chil-

dren. He continues to work occasionally on cars in

the motel parking lot, but the family just scrapes by

on Aid to Families with Dependent Children and food

stamps. Henry tries to help the children with their

homework, but he is a high-school dropout himself.

He tries to guide his teenage daughter away from the

path her mother had taken.

f At 12, Cassie is a straight-A student

but wants to wear a clingy dress with

spaghetti straps that her aunt gave her

for her birthday. Henry disapproves. He

worries about his girls.

“I don’t want them to end up at 16,

pregnant, like their mother, and rely-

ing on a man. If they stay in school,

get a good education, they’re not

going to end up like that.”

MOTEL DAD

a After a week, Henry realizes he’s going to have to deal with the

family’s filthy quarters. He begins to take charge. In the past, he had

left all house-cleaning and parental responsibilities to Michelle.

“When Michelle was here,” he admits, “when I came home, the

house was clean.”

a To save money, Henry cuts

the children’s hair as well as his

own. Cailee wanted her head

shaved, too.

a With her mother in jail and the housework piling up,

Cailee, the youngest, pitches in to wash dishes.

ABANDONED DAD & KIDS

continued on page 258 s

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Henry even organizes his

motel neighbors to protest

their living conditions and

to take the owners to

court. He buys an $11 pin-

stripe suit to go to court.

Though the group loses the court case, Henry

and his kids stay together as they move from

that motel to another.

With his kids in school, Henry’s next priority

becomes finding a decent job. He joins a job

program. He prepares a résumés, performs an

Internet job search.

“God’s gave me a second chance,” he says.

“He’s gave me a second chance with a family.

He taught me how to love and be loved.”

With any great movie or book, the viewer or

reader does not know the outcome at the begin-

ning. The complication in Henry’s story

occurred when, alone, he faced whether or not

to take responsibility for his family. In this type

of saga, the photographer must keep shooting

while waiting and seeing what develops.

For the reader, the story lasts beyond the

final picture. The story is gripping, its final out-

come unknown. The story’s theme is about tak-

ing advantage of a second chance in life.

As Hall says, “This is a story of somebody

realizing what it means to be a father. It is a story

of somebody finding a purpose in life and possi-

ble redemption through being needed.”

Hall shot the story on her own time, after

work, and on weekends, often sitting in a corner

waiting and watching the lives of the family

unfold. She processed more than 350 rolls of

film and made 4"x6" prints at her local grocery

store for editing. She paid for everything out of

her own pocket.

Henry’s story went on to win the Canon

Photo Essay award in the Pictures of the Year

Contest, as well as to appear on MSNBC.com,

www.msnbc.com/modules/ps/henry/splash.asp.

The Los Angeles Times Magazine also

published it.

Following the publication of Henry’s story on

the Web and in the Los Angeles Times

Magazine, estranged family members, including

his brother, two of his older sons, and his first

wife, contacted him. Strangers have donated

money, gift certificates, mechanics’ tools,

clothes, and food. A reader paid Henry’s driver’s

license fees. Credit bureaus cleared his record.

Job offers rolled in.

“I now have a fresh start at life,” he says.n

d (TOP) Henry decides to take on poor living condi-

tions at the motel. He gathers other Ha’ Penny resi-

dents to discuss their rights as outlined in sections

in the Landlord’s and Tenant’s Rights Book. He also

calls authorities to inspect the motel, which is cited

with more than 300 infractions.

d (BOTTOM) The management responds with eviction

notices, which spurs Henry to paint placards and

lead a protest.

a After years of only sporadic work as a part-time mechanic,

Henry begins to search for employment that will adequately sup-

port his children. “If I don’t find a job today, I’ll find one tomor-

row, but I will succeed. Because I’ve got four little ones depend-

ing on me.”

a On the day Henry and the children must move, Henry puts on his suit and a clean

white shirt, packs a change of clothes in a plastic bag, and heads out to search

for a new home for his family. The move is a setback not a failure.

MOTEL DAD

FATHER IN MORETHANNAME

d Henry challenges the evictions in court, but loses the case when the management claims the evictions are necessary to

renovate the building into a tourist motel. He and the children must leave the the Ha’ Penny Inn, where they have lived for

five years. Cailee tries to cheer up her dad by playing the saxophone when she catches him looking sad.

a Seeing the misery of his four children when their mother left

makes Henry realize how much his six others had suffered. “I

seen the abandonment they felt. I’ve left my wives with the

children, and I never got to see that part of it. . . . It’s really

nice to be able to feel your child cuddling up to you and know

that they feel safe in your arms. And if my drinking and my

rowdiness kept on or I would’ve blew my brains out, I never

would’ve got to know these feelings or these emotions. I would

never have got to hear a child saying, “I love you, Daddy.”

Here, he comforts Cailee, sick with a fever.

FIND MULTIMEDIA PIECES DISCUSSED IN THIS CHAPTERhttp://kenkobre.blogspot.com/2007/10/multimedia.html