THE ARTS

A standing-room-only crowd of 300 Latino artists assembled in East Los Angeles on Monday night to voice their hopes for how money from the new $20-million Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts is spent. The throng, like recent gatherings of musicians and Skid Row and black artists, expressed a variety of needs for the municipal cultural plan whose spending guidelines are still being developed. Latino artists have been shut out from major Latino arts institutions, said Jose Armand, director of Latino Ensemble, and need spaces to rehearse, perform and exhibit their art. “It’s time to open some doors, heal some wounds and move forward as part of the multicultural expression of L.A.,” he said.