Homes Feel Quakes’ Bitter Cost : Nights Outdoors Are Cold for 19 Latinos Who Sleep in Fear

The ground got too cold, and the nerve endings got too short.

And that is why Juan Luna and the 18 people who used to sleep in the three bedrooms of his old Whittier home will finally--and with great reluctance--split up and go their separate ways.

It was a traumatic week for him and the four families, who spent a few nights sleeping inside the battered house, but most of the week under a fragile, makeshift tent in the front yard. Like perhaps 10,000 others in the Los Angeles Basin, they lived outdoors. Embarrassed by his plight, Luna took the tent down every morning and started from scratch again in the evening.

The Luna house, about a block from the earthquake-ravaged Whittier Uptown business district, was left cracked and unstable by the temblors. Most of the people who live there are Spanish-speaking immigrants who distrust the home and will not sleep inside until the damage inflicted by los terremotos can be repaired.

Early last week, Luna worked diligently, improvising a tent. He made the ceiling from a couple of floral-print bedspreads and walls from sheets and a pair of worn red velvet curtains. The floor was carpet scraps, blankets and pillows and it was all held up by clothesline strung to the house and a towering avocado tree.

On the other side of the sidewalk, Patricia Ruiz built a smaller tent out of a blue velvet bedspread and broom handles. She and her husband, Rojelio, would sleep there with a radio by their side.

Later, Luna and the others curled up for the night on the cold ground with not enough blankets to go around. After the 6.1 temblor of Oct. 1, temperatures soared above 100 degrees and the nights were tolerable. But the heat wave broke, and the five children and 14 adults shivered as their blankets grew moist in the morning dew.

Most of those who share the house are not related. Luna, 33, a native of Mexico who has lived in Whittier for 11 years, is half-owner of the home and rents space to the others.

Luna, who works as a night cashier at a local gas station, is the spark plug of the household, always making light of their situation.

“Sure, I worry about the house and about property values. But that’s secondary,” he said in a reflective moment in his chaotic week. “Why put more suffering upon ourselves by worrying about it? We still have our lives.”

He plans to apply for federal loans and grants to rebuild the house. He does not know how much that will cost. “I’m happy here in Whittier. I don’t want to leave,” he said with his characteristic wide smile.

Among his tenants are Maria Celia Fuentes, 50, and her 23-year-old son, Juan Ernesto, who lived outside for two months after the 7.5 earthquake that struck Guatemala in 1976.

“On the radio, they’re saying there will be one more strong one,” Celia Fuentes said. “As long as there’s even a chance of another one, I’d rather stay outside.”

Not Ready to Give Up Job

But the outdoors was starting to get to the Ruizes. After two years in California, Patricia, 24, wants to return to Mexico and to their two daughters, but Rojelio, 26, will not go. His job as a worker in a Whittier garment factory pays $3.50 an hour, and he is not ready to give that up.

During the day, they wandered in and out of the house to use the bathroom and cook. They felt safer inside while it was light because everyone was alert and ready to run in case the earth started shaking again.

But by Wednesday night, Patricia Ruiz, known as Patti around the house, became worried that someone would catch cold. Told of a Red Cross shelter several blocks away at the Whittier Community Center, she and a couple of others walked there to ask for more blankets.

A smiling Red Cross worker at the front desk spoke no Spanish, and they became discouraged. They were directed to another volunteer, whom they also asked for blankets. The shelter manager was incredulous upon learning that so many people were sleeping outside, and tried to persuade them to move to the shelter. But he said the Red Cross could not give them blankets unless they stayed there.

Patti Ruiz looked suspiciously at the rows of more than 100 green cots, then at the ceiling where tiles had fallen after Sunday’s 5.5 aftershock. “There’s so many people and only two doors,” she said.

They left, promising the manager that they would try to talk the others into moving away from the house. “They’ll never leave,” Patti Ruiz said. “I know they won’t.”

The next day, Luna went to the shelter and, after talking to another worker, returned with 14 blankets. A worker from Catholic Social Services dropped by with two bags of groceries, telling them that food vouchers would be available in the morning.

In the meantime, city inspectors checked out the single-level, three-bedroom house, with its big porch and white pillars, and told Luna it is unsafe. He told the others they would sleep outside again that night, but everyone would have to leave in the morning.

“It won’t cost you a nickel,” he said of the shelter, promising that they could return after the house is repaired. “It will only be for a few weeks. We’ll all stick together.”

The Ruizes resigned themselves to going. “What else can we do?” Patti said, adding that they had paid the rent for October and were not going to get a refund.

Celia Fuentes was unconvinced and upset. “I’m so tired of moving, of living out of a bag,” she said, sitting on her bed while sorting through scattered possessions. “Where am I going to put all my clothes? I don’t even have any boxes.”

Celia Fuentes works as a housekeeper in Pico Rivera, and her employer has offered her a room there for the time being. “I appreciate it, but I’d rather have my own place,” she said.

Outside on the porch, Luna nervously smoked a cigarette, his usual good humor absent. It was after dark, and he had not started building the tent.

“I don’t feel like doing it tonight. We’re going to leave anyway,” he said. In the end he built a less-elaborate shelter.

Juan Ernesto, Celia Fuentes’ son, has an uneasy feeling about the Red Cross. On Sunday, some of the others had gone across the street to get a meal from a Red Cross van. He said the food looked good, so he joined the line.

“When I got to the front, the man asked me if I was hungry. I didn’t know what to say. I said yes, but it made me feel bad,” Juan Ernesto Fuentes said. “Then he hands me a plate and says, ‘This is from the Red Cross and the Seventh-day Adventist Church.’ I was offended. The Catholic Church wouldn’t do that.”

Luna tried to ease the tension by telling stories.

Favorite Story

After Thursday’s quake, he ran out of the house in his underwear, and he loves to tell a story about a man stuck in a similar situation after another temblor.

“He was taking a bath, and when the earthquake struck, he ran out of the bathroom naked and grabbed a portrait of Jesus from the wall to shield himself. After the shaking stopped, he started pointing to the portrait and yelling, “Everyone on your knees! This is our salvation!

“But when the man looked down, he found that he was only carrying a picture frame that had been hanging around a picture taped to the wall,” Luna said, breaking into laughter himself each time he retold the story. Keeping a sense of humor is important, he said.

“I admire the calm that the Americans have compared to Hispanic people,” he said. “The Americans, disaster happens to them and they accept it.”

He wishes his reaction had been calmer.

At 7:42 a.m. when the 6.1 earthquake struck, he was sound asleep. A dresser mirror fell on him, and his path to the door was blocked by lamps that had crashed to the floor. Luna limps, having had polio when he was a child, “but I became an Olympic sprinter that morning,” he said.

Juan Ernesto Fuentes was in the bathroom, his face and hands covered with soap when the earthquake hit. His mother stood in the bedroom doorway, hearing things crash from within the bathroom and screaming for him to get out.

Blinded by the soap and with hands too slippery to turn the knob, he yelled at her to run. She refused. He emerged a few seconds later, and she followed him out a side door.

“Nothing is stronger than the bond between a mother and her children. I wouldn’t go without Ernesto,” said Celia Fuentes.

Orders From Police

Everyone made it safely into the street, where they stood together through the aftershocks. Moments later, a police car drove by and officers ordered them and their neighbors back in the house. This angered Luna.

“They shouldn’t be doing that. That house was still shaking,” he said. “Even our American neighbors got mad.”

As soon as the police car turned the corner, they were back in the street.

That night, 13 of them spent the night on the lawn. The next day, six more people were added to the nervous household.

Luna is an active member of St. Mary’s Catholic Church a few blocks away and was asked if he could take someone in for a few days. It was a woman from Los Angeles and her five children, the youngest 4 years old. The woman left because she said her husband drinks a lot and abuses her.

“I couldn’t turn her away,” Luna said. “When you’re an immigrant, you’ve got to stick together. It’s important to be with your own people, to maintain a sense of community.”

In fact, he sees some good coming from the pain and discomfort. When he returns to Bright Avenue--he hopes that it will be in several weeks, once the home’s cracked foundation is reinforced--he said he can look forward to friendlier relations with his neighbors.

“Before, you know, we just used to say hello once in a while,” he said. “But when this happened, we became united. They were coming over and asking us for aspirin.”

Luna had badly wanted to keep the household united.

But Friday, all the stress and anxieties culminated in an argument. Some said the earthquakes appeared to have ended and why should they leave the home? Others said they would rather look for a new place. All agreed that money was a problem.

In the end, Luna abandoned his plan for household unity. “I can’t reason with them,” he said.

So he and the Funeteses decided to move into an apartment in Pico Rivera until the house is fixed. The Ruizes are looking for their own apartment. The rest, Luna says, can stay until the house’s utilities are shut off this week: