Pacoima, Arleta Families Rewarded With Nominations for State Hispanic Honor

Samuel Perez, like many fathers, gets a kiss on the cheek when he comes home from work. Then another and another. In all, 11 kisses from 11 children.

“We’re very close,” said Samuel Jr., 19, the second oldest. “A lot of other kids when they get older seem to be ashamed of their family. But we grew up caring a lot for each other.”

Closeness may be inevitable for the 13-member Perez family, who share two cars and five bedrooms in their Arleta home. But the family’s apparent success is not. It has come from hard work and a loyalty to their church and community, Samuel Jr. said.

Those virtues, which have guided the two oldest children into college and have kept the younger ones out of trouble, have prompted the Perezes’ nomination for California Hispanic-American Family of the Year. The Perezes are one of two San Fernando Valley families nominated for the title, to be announced on Friday.

“We are looking for community service and family togetherness and unity,” said Bernie Kemp, a member of the Hispanic Family of the Year Foundation, a 4-year-old organization established to honor outstanding Latino achievements.

Past winners include the families of Los Angeles radio reporter and television commentator Pete Moraga and South Bay Municipal Judge Benjamin Aranda. Seven families are competing for theaward.

Also nominated from the Valley is the Efren Olvera family, which has earned the respect of their Pacoima neighbors through their efforts to keep drug dealers out of their neighborhood. Family members helped to organize the Haddon-Mercer Homeowners Assn.’s Neighborhood Watch program.

“We’ve learned you have to talk to your neighbors, talk to police and keep track of cars going in and out of your neighborhood,” said Efren Olvera, who will be 63 on Sunday. He and his wife Sylvia have raised nine children, from ages 21 to 35, who live on their own.

“These awards are a beautiful honor for my family and the other Latin families,” Olvera said.

The seven families nominated for this year’s award will receive $1,000 in scholarship money. The funds will come in handy for Samuel Perez Sr., who has two children attending USC and hopes the rest will follow. Samuel Sr. has supported the family for 30 years with his assembly line job at the General Motors plant in Van Nuys.

“The family story is that before any of us were around, my dad and mom were passing through Los Angeles and passed by USC,” said Samuel Jr., who is studying mechanical engineering and is a member of the school’s marching band. “My dad said that someday his children were going to go there, and my mom said she couldn’t imagine it.”

But those dreams are coming true for the Perez parents, who had to quit school by the sixth grade to work in their native home of Morelia, Mexico. Still, their goal of sending all their children to USC is still a long way off, said Samuel Jr. The family’s youngest future Trojan is only 6.