A Taste of Home : L.A.’s Central American businesses bustling, but amnesty threatens a pinch.

Carolina Gutierres, a native of Guatemala, was buying a fresh mango on a stick from a street vendor last week at the corner of Pico and Vermont in Los Angeles. Gutierres, who is pregnant, said she bought the fruit because it reminded her of home and she had a craving for mangoes.

Down the street, at Adelita Food Co., customers filled the restaurant and bakery, seeking familiar tastes. The cafeteria-style restaurant features a wide variety of Latin meat and vegetable dishes eaten in countries ranging from Mexico to Honduras. In the bakery, two women were patting thick tortillas by hand, while another worker sent hundreds of thin tortillas traveling along a conveyor belt.

A Cuban businessman opened Adelita seven years ago to serve the neighborhood, according to Maria Elena Sanchez, who has worked at Adelita for three years. Sanchez said business has been good, but people mention to her that they are trying to save money for legal bills or other expenses related to obtaining amnesty.

Here in the Pico-Union district and in a scattering of neighborhoods all over Los Angeles County, homesick Central Americans can buy fried bananas, mangoes on sticks, greeting cards in Spanish and table-top arrangements of roses handcrafted from ribbons. The signs are in Spanish and the music in the shops is Latino.

Home to thousands of Central American immigrants, the Pico-Union area just southwest of downtown Los Angeles has become a bustling center for ethnic small businesses serving the tastes of residents.

In fact, a new study paints a rich picture of Central American businesses that have opened in the past few years to provide residents with courier services to send money home, food and beverages from their native countries, notary services and a plethora of restaurants. But the shops and services located mostly along Pico Boulevard between Union Street and Vermont Avenue are facing a threat to their prosperity.

The study suggests that businesses and services may be threatened because people struggling to pay legal fees and other expenses relating to their quest for amnesty are buying fewer things.

Although thousands of Central Americans will qualify for amnesty, immigrants who arrived here after Jan. 1, 1982, are in danger of being deported under provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

The amnesty provisions have been a boon for those who can prove their residency, but have set off a kind of panic as people try to prove that they have lived continuously in the United States, according to neighborhood business owners and the professors who conducted the study.

“The business owners told us the clientele and the consumption (of goods) are way down,” said Norma Chincilla, a sociology professor at California State University, Long Beach. “I don’t think people have gone back home in large numbers, but there is a feeling that they need to save money for amnesty.”

Chincilla and Nora Hamilton, a political science professor at the University of Southern California, spent several months last year studying the Central American business community for the Inter-University Program for Latino Research, headquartered at the University of Texas at Austin.

Their research was based on interviews with about 85 small business owners. More than half of the businesses opened after 1980, following the huge wave of immigration from war-torn El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

About half of the owners questioned said they waited at least six years after arriving here to open their business. Nearly 30% waited 11 years and 15% of the business owners had lived in America 15 years or more.

“Even people who came here in the 1960s, didn’t open businesses until the 1980s,” said Hamilton. She said it appeared that the businesses were opened to serve the new residents, rather than being opened by the immigrants looking for a way to make a living. Many of the owners worked for years at other occupations and more than half of those surveyed had parents or families who ran businesses in their homelands.

Although there are no exact figures on the total number of Central Americans living in Los Angeles, one 1985 study quoted by Hamilton and Chinchilla estimates that are 750,000 to 1.3 million Central Americans in the United States and about 40% live in the Los Angeles area.

Needs of Countrymen

In an attempt to meet the needs of their countrymen, the Central American business owners “have created a whole part of the economy that never would have been created otherwise,” according to Chinchilla.

The study revealed that most small businesses were started with an initial investment of about $10,000, although some street and swap meet vendors began with only $50. The major source of money was personal savings or family contributions.

Many owners complained that they had difficultly obtaining bank loans. The earnings reported in the study ranged from losses or bankruptcies to millions of dollars in profits, but the study said most owners were reluctant to provide detailed financial information.

Hamilton said when the interviews were conducted last year, many business owners were thinking of closing down. They cited rising rents and a lack of customers as the main reasons. The business owners who participated could not be reached for comment, but their remarks are sprinkled throughout the study.

“I realized the area had a lot of Central Americans who like to adhere to their customs,” said the owner of an import business. “I saw an opportunity to serve them.”

A Guatemalan market owner said he opened his store because Central Americans have special needs and want to buy familiar foods.

Amada Simbala, who has owned the Challenger Furniture store on Pico for the past 17 years, said many people are postponing their purchases because they are spending $600, $1,000 or more on legal fees in an attempt to stay in this country.

“A lot of people are not making too much money and then they start needing so much money for their papers,” said Simbala, who emigrated from Ecuador 34 years ago. Simbala said she tries to help people with the paperwork, but most are turning to lawyers and others who charge for their help.

The professors noted that courier services that send letters, packages and money to Mexico and Central America have flourished in the neighborhood. These companies not only send funds back home, but serve as a gathering place for families to exchange news and socialize.

Racial Tensions Examined

On a recent afternoon, the “Pipil Express” office at the corner of Pico and Vermont was busy serving customers, while a half dozen vendors outside the door sold clothing, hairbrushes, insecticide and mangoes. The manager declined to be interviewed, but a flyer for the company advertised four other locations, including a toll-free number to the Vermont office.

The study also explored issues relating to racial tensions in the Central American community. It found that some business owners were concerned about Asians buying real estate in the neighborhood and raising rents to force them out.

“Several people commented that Latinos buy from Asians, but Asians do not buy from Latinos,” the study said. “Others, however, including some who rent from Asians, stated there are no tensions, that Latinos and Asians get along well together.”

Jae Cho, owner of the Kangaroo Gift store on Pico, said he bought his store three years ago. About two years ago, he added an instant photography studio to provide photos for the passports and legal documents needed by his customers. He said he doesn’t speak Spanish, but manages to communicate about prices and basic shopping information.

“My business is much better this year than last year,” said Cho, struggling to be heard over the Latin music blaring throughout his store. When asked if he liked the music, he smiled. “My customers like it.”

Hamilton and Chinchilla said they come up with ways the city and other governmental agencies can help the Central American business owners prosper.

In the next few weeks, they plan to meet with city officials to suggest that the city hire a Central American ombudsman to help immigrants deal with the rules and regulations related to owning a business.

They also recommend that the city license rather than outlaw street vending because so many people depend on it to survive.

Currently it is illegal to sell merchandise on the streets of Los Angeles, although there are an estimated 2,000 vendors working here.

A spokeswoman for Deputy Mayor Grace Davis, said the City Council is working on an ordinance to regulate street vendors, stemming from a public hearing on the issue.