Gang Truce: Hopeful Sign from Eastside

Christmas parties are being held all over town this holiday season, but I doubt if any of them will be as unusual, and potentially as important for Los Angeles, as the festive luncheon held last week in a small church basement near downtown.

The guests were not office workers, government types or even regular churchgoers. They were 125 young men and women from some of this city’s toughest neighborhoods--places that we know as East Los Angeles, Pacoima and Watts but that these kids refer to as El Hoyo, Hellside, Barrio Trese and Dogtown. They use the same nicknames for cliques that they hang out with-- clikas , in Chicano street slang--gangs, to outsiders like police officers and reporters.

The gathering at Our Lady Queen of Angels Church was held to celebrate the decision by 52 local gangs to declare a Christmas-season truce. They did so by breaking bread--symbolically, at first, in a simple but touching ceremony presided over by several clergymen, then literally by sharing lunch. Small gestures, to be sure, but remarkable considering the deadly rivalries that exist between youth gangs--especially the Latino gangs on the Eastside and other barrios.

Their wars have claimed hundreds of young lives over the years, so many that no one even kept an exact count until a few years ago. But everyone agrees that the number of casualties has been climbing steadily since the 1970s, largely because of the pervasive influence of cheap illicit drugs like crack cocaine and PCP. So far this year, for example, Los Angeles police have counted 178 gang-related homicides in the city--the highest number since 1981.

Local authorities have tried every approach imaginable to deal with gangs, from police crackdowns to liberal self-help programs during the War on Poverty. In 1981, during an upsurge of youth-gang homicides, the city and county, prodded by Eastside civic groups, tried a radical experiment: Community Youth Gang Services, modeled after an effort that had reduced gang killings in Philadelphia. The program hired former gang members, trained them in crisis intervention and put them onto the streets in radio cars--not to help the police, mind you, but to use their experience to find out when trouble was brewing and, if they could, intervene to stop it.

To say that CYGS has been controversial is an understatement. The agency’s first two directors were removed after being accused of mismanagement. Some street workers were arrested in the early going, too. Although there have been no such embarrassments in the last couple of years, there are still politicians in this city who would just as soon scrap the whole thing and use the program’s $3 million a year to hire more cops.

But CYGS works, as the gangs’ Christmas party proved in a small but important way. The gang members who attended were mostly Latinos from the Eastside. In many cases they have been at war with rivals who sat nearby during the meal. The tension at the start of the gathering was palpable, but there were no incidents.

CYGS executive director Steve Valdivia held the party to celebrate the completion of a campaign by gang workers to have as many local gangs as possible agree to the Christmas truce. He wants gang members to see that their declaration of a “season of peace” is big news. It is. The media were out in force for the meeting, and even Mayor Tom Bradley showed up.

But nobody there made more of an impression on the kids than “Miami Vice” star Edward James Olmos did. A veteran of the Eastside himself, Olmos became a star playing a street tough named El Pachuco in a hit play called “Zoot Suit” several years ago. He tried using that character’s tough mannerisms and street slang when he spoke to the youngsters. But then he began to cry. He told them that he had been waiting 40 years for a day when the gangs of his old barrio would come together in peace.

Olmos’ words reminded me of a conversation that I had with one of the first street workers hired by CYGS, a gang veterano known as Smiley. In December, 1981, Smiley told me that the hardest task faced by the new program was penetrating the tight network of old gangs on the Eastside, some of which have existed since the 1930s. “It’ll take us years,” he warned.

Five years later, it looks like Smiley and his colleagues are making progress. Maybe not fast enough to satisfy people who wish that there were no gangs at all, but enough to impress me and long-time Eastside residents like Olmos and Mike Duran.

Duran also has worked with gang kids for a generation, currently with the county Probation Department’s special gang unit. He said that “in the old days” it was routine to count 20 or more gang killings a year in Maravilla, one of the oldest neighborhoods in East Los Angeles and home to dozens of rival gangs. This year, by Duran’s count, there were only four gang-related homicides in Maravilla.

“I always said if we could make an impact on Maravilla, then we can make an impact on the whole Eastside,” Duran said.

And if CYGS can help calm gang violence on the Eastside, then it’s worth keeping alive and pushing forward in other parts of town, where authorities estimate that as many as 450 other gangs exist. There are already a few CYGS street workers out there, trying to establish the relationships and trust that got 52 clikas to break bread and declare Christmas a “season of peace.” With more support and patience, maybe the season of peace can last the whole year.