‘A Tender Love’ : Mother Teresa Brings a Message of Hope to Homeless Latino Youths in Los Angeles

The disheveled teen-agers, who moments earlier had been slouching on sofas, talking loudly over the blaring television set, suddenly shot up, as if electricity had coursed through the room.

“Shhhhhh! She’s coming,” someone yelled in Spanish.

“Turn off the TV!” another shouted.

“The flowers!” said another. “Where are the flowers?”

The 30 or so homeless teen-age immigrants who dropped by a Missionaries of Charity shelter in the Pico-Union district scurried about the small living room, some running to find the bouquet of roses that someone had brought for the occasion, others straightening their clothes and positioning themselves in the crowded room.

Then Mother Teresa walked in. First there was applause, then awed silence.

The world-renowned champion of the poor, who began her work nearly 40 years ago by gathering in abandoned children on the streets of Calcutta, came to Los Angeles on Tuesday to visit the homeless children here.

“Jesus had great love for the children,” Mother Teresa, 78, told the boys, who had rushed to gather around the small, stooped nun in white cotton sari and leather sandals, after she took a seat on a corner sofa. “And he has a tender love especially for the poor.”

The modest Victorian home in Pico-Union, just north of downtown Los Angeles, is one of two small shelters operated in the area by the Roman Catholic order that Mother Teresa founded. It has room for only eight beds. They are among only a handful of small shelters in the city specifically geared to help a growing population of homeless young immigrants, which some say has doubled over the last few years.

With work harder than ever to get under the immigration law that bans the employment of illegal immigrants, the young men are often forced to sleep in parks, abandoned buildings or church pews.

Paying Attention

The boys seemed to hang on every word, which Los Angeles Archbishop Roger M. Mahony, who sat beside her, translated from Indian-accented English into Spanish. She urged the young men to love one another and to give of themselves--even if just a smile--to those around them.

“You have the love of the archbishop, of the brothers and of each other,” said the charismatic figure with the sparkling, penetrating eyes as she scanned the young faces that surrounded her. “It is important to give others what you are receiving.”

Mother Teresa later told a reporter that if the plight of the young immigrants has only recently been brought to public attention, it is because “nobody took the trouble to find them before.” Their situation has been desperate for some time, she said.

She urged people in the community to “share with them . . . to try to find little jobs and clothes for them . . . to help put them back on their feet.”

Different Set of Laws

Asked her thoughts about the immigration law that makes it a crime to hire them or offer them shelter, Mother Teresa said: “Is it not breaking the law of God to keep them on the street?

“They were created by the same loving hand of God.”

Mother Teresa’s quiet one-day visit to Los Angeles was part of a two-week swing through the West, which she makes periodically to meet with members of the Missionaries of Charity in the region. A sister who traveled with her said that the trip also included stops in Tijuana, San Francisco and Phoenix.

Besides her visit with the 20 or so Missionaries of Charity brothers in the area, Mother Teresa also met with more than 200 lay supporters of the order at Immaculate Conception Church near downtown.

Mother Teresa, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her work among the poor of Calcutta, began her work in India about 40 years ago. She founded the missionaries’ order in 1950, with the stated purpose of helping the poor while living among them. The brothers operate nearly 400 homes around the world, including shelters for the poor, the sick and the dying.

Lending Moral Support

Before her arrival at the Los Angeles shelter, several young men spoke of their admiration for her and the hope that she would bring them moral support.

“She will lift our spirits to continue the struggle with renewed strength,” said the oldest one in the group, Jesus Arriage, 23, who left Mexico several months ago. “Hope is eternal among the young. We are not defeated. But we need help.”

“We sense in her a great desire to help us--the ‘illegals’--who have nothing, who have no work and no papers (work documents),” said Jose Estuardo, 16, who said he has been sleeping at the Dolores Mission downtown since arriving in Los Angeles two weeks ago from Guatemala. “It will be a joy to see her.”

“It’s good to know someone cares about us,” said Oscar Ruiz, 21, who said he has been living on the streets and at downtown missions since arriving in Los Angeles four months ago from Mexico. “Her visit will give us strength.”

The young men were not disappointed.