Two Boyle Heights bars -- two very different scenes

Customers stand at the bar on a Saturday night at Las Palomas in Boyle Heights. It opened on 1st Street near Boyle Avenue in 1963, when the multicultural area was becoming the center of Los Angeles’ Mexican American culture.  (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Doorman John Carlos De Luna stands outside the Eastside Luv wine bar in Boyle Heights. De Luna, born and raised in the neighborhood, says he believes the bar creates a space for people to feel proud to be Chicano.  (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Juan Garcia and Susie Cuencaon enjoy drinks on a Saturday night at the Eastside Luv wine bar in Boyle Heights. “We’re not a Mexican bar and we’re not an American bar. We really are a Mexican American bar,” says owner Guillermo Uribe.   (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

A few customers relax on a Saturday night at the Las Palomas bar in Boyle Heights. Jose Morales, owner of Las Palomas for the last nine years, says young men and women occasionally come slumming from Eastside Luv next door. Tellingly, though, the migration is a one-way street.   (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Eddie Hernandez, left, and bar owner Jose Morales stand outside on a Saturday night at the Las Palomas bar in Boyle Heights. It and Eastside Luv sit side-by-side like an immigrant father and his Americanized son, springing from the same root but not quite always getting each other.   (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)