Lover left you? Need a job? A botanica may have the perfect powder or potion. : Dreams in Bottles

The young woman leaning over the glass countertop at Botanica Cristo Rey in East Los Angeles is distraught. With her baby at her feet, she explains that her philandering husband finds her unattractive. He hits her when she confronts him about his cheating--and she is in desperate need of a remedy for her deteriorating marriage.

“This is war,” shop owner Juanita Alvarez whispers as she beckons the customer to come closer. There is a store full of ammunition to consider.

Will it be the Separar (“Breakup”) candle, reputed to have the power to put the kibosh on the extramarital affair? Or Destruir Todo (“Destroy Everything”), a body lotion that, if used by the husband, is supposed to repel the other woman? Or Ven Ami (“Come to Me”), a liquid bath soap and aphrodisiac that doubles as a floor wash?

“Whatever you decide,” Alvarez cautions in Spanish, “remember, first God. Always with God. Always.”

The customer buys the breakup candle on which she will write her husband’s name. If it is burned for five consecutive days, Alvarez says, the cheating husband will cheat no more.

Then Alvarez adds an extra bit of free advice: “If this doesn’t work, then do what I tell every woman with man problems: Grab a hammer and bust his lips.”

For 20 years Latinos have been coming to Alvarez’s botanica, one of the several hundred believed to be in business in Los Angeles County. These spiritual pharmacies are crammed with candles, herbs, amulets, necklaces, charms, feathers, oils, powders, lotions, soaps, sprays, incense and statues of saints that are said to bring good luck, success and money to believers, as well as cure everything from earaches to broken hearts.

The products sold at botanicas are linked to a variety of Latino religious, folkloric and medicinal traditions that range from praying to a statue of Santa Barbara for protection against earthquakes to drinking a cup of steeped zaragatona (psyllium) seeds for relief from indigestion.

Some health-care professionals caution that the purveyors of such products exploit Latinos--especially newly arrived immigrants--by selling products that produce nothing more than pleasant aromas. And they warn that herbal remedies are no substitute for modern medicine. But many doctors, nurses and psychotherapists who work in the Latino community contend these products--and the rituals associated with them--fill psychological and physiological needs that, because of language and cultural barriers, go unmet.

In many cases, health-care experts say that newly arrived Spanish-speaking immigrants don’t know that public health and counseling centers for the needy are available. Others simply refuse to go to a hospital or clinic, because of a lack of transportation, communication skills, and money--or the fear they will be deported. Instead, they have come to rely on botanicas and curanderos (folk healers), hierberias (herb shops) and hierberos (herb sellers) who pass out business cards in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods advertising their products and services, which also include limpias or spiritual cleansings or exorcisms.

“I am providing a community service,” Alvarez says, adding that many times she feels like a psychologist as she listens to customers’ problems and suggests remedies.

Adds Robert Cervilla, who operates an East Los Angeles herb emporium with his brother Alven: “Our customers remember back when their grandmother would give them a cup of manzanilla (chamomile leaves that are steeped for a tea) to cure a stomachache. They are familiar with the traditions. This is what they were brought up with, and for many this is all they can afford because they are from a lower income.”

For 18 years, Abel Martinez, a health education coordinator with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, has studied botanicas and curanderos, which, he says, “are a part of a Latino’s cultural diet.”

Martinez conducts workshops for health care practitioners on Latino folk medicine and beliefs related to products sold at botanicas.

He tells medical professionals unfamiliar with the Latino culture that the products sold at botanicas can have a positive effect on a person’s health because treating the spirit “can go a long way toward healing” a physical ailment. And he emphasizes the uncertainty and fear that many immigrants feel about mainstream health care. The atmosphere of botanicas, he says--with their scent of incense, flickering candles and statues of revered saints--reminds many customers of a church.

The Roman Catholic Church has a different perspective. Father Gregory Coiro, a special assistant with the public affairs office of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, says botanica patrons “should put their faith in the power of prayer” and not buy religious goods sold at a botanica “because they are not really intended for Catholic purposes, but for the practice of santeria and the occult.

“The church does not ascribe any magical power to those items. We don’t believe in magic. However, you will find that people not well-educated in their faith will come from a cultural experience where the Catholic faith is mixed with superstition . . . .”

Dr. Hector Flores, president of the Chicano/Latino Medical Assn. of California, says he and the group’s 500 members are sensitive to Latinos who place faith in curanderos and botanicas.

“It is extremely important to validate a person’s belief system. In order to provide good care, one has to understand not only the socioeconomic background and immediate environment of the patient, but also that patient’s cultural concept of disease and approaches to self-treatment. And where feasible we need to encourage that. If it doesn’t interfere with the treatment we deem necessary, then it’s OK,” Flores says.

Flores, who has a private practice in Montebello, says about 20% of his Latino patients practice home remedies and have faith in items such as candles and amulets. “The number is probably greater, but not too many people will admit to it,” he says.

While many of his patients comply “with traditional Western medical treatment” and counseling for mental-health problems, they still want to be able to mix their herbs and wear their milagros (charms which are shaped like the parts of the body and are worn, for example, to help relieve a backache or a bruised ankle) and light candles “because those are customs handed down from generation to generation.”

“In a sense, those things have a placebo effect, which is a great benefit,” Flores says. “The danger occurs when a curandero or hierbero delays a person from getting necessary treatment,” he adds, recalling a patient with a shoulder injury that would not heal because she was getting massages from a curandero.

Elena Alvarado, executive director of Avance Human Services, Inc., a Latino social service agency based in East Los Angeles, says customs such as lighting candles to alleviate medical and psychological problems help on a spiritual level, but “in so many cases, what is needed is professional, medical treatment or counseling for emotional problems.”

And the challenge for health care providers, she says “is not compromising the Latino community’s value system” and instead “seeing the value, for instance, in combining a candle with counseling. That’s the bottom line, integrating the value of botanicas with modern medicine.”

Maria P. Aranda, a licensed clinical social worker with 12 years of experience in gerontology, treats the elderly mentally ill at San Antonio Mental Health Center in Bell Gardens. For the last three years she has conducted psychotherapy group sessions for Latinas 65 and older who have problems ranging from severe depression to psychotic disorders.

“These are women who all were born outside of the United States. They come from Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador and they grew up with the custom of using botanicas and hierberias because formal health care as we know it was not available to them until they accessed this center.”

Aranda says during group therapy sessions some women pray and hug each other. And often, herbs, such as pasi flora (passion flower) are brought to the sessions and shared. When steeped as a tea, pasi flora purportedly helps calm nerves, Aranda says.

“It is not inconceivable that part of the treatment plan is for a patient to light candles, say certain prayers, make the sign of the cross before taking a pill or keep medication on top of an altar,” she says. “It’s not wrong, it’s positive. It’s part of the healing process.”

It’s also big business.

Marty Mayer and Bill Gershon are co-owners of the Skippy Corp., one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of religious and spiritual items sold to more than 200 botanicas in Los Angeles. Mayer estimates that industrywide sales of candles and other religious products bring $25 million a year. They also manage a mail-order catalogue business that features 9,000 products.

“I’ve been in this business for 23 years,” says Mayer, whose plant is in East Los Angeles. “And the largest growth has been with the Latino customer.” His biggest sellers are candles, which are said to have powers such as bringing good luck for those who bet on horse races. Each month the company sells 30,000 candles, and that figure hasn’t declined even with two price increases because of the petroleum crisis abroad, he says.

Gil Gonzalez, who handles the botanica sales at Skippy, says, “Most people are looking for love and money or how to solve love and money problems.” Gonzalez himself often keeps a religious candle lighted at his home “because it’s part of my culture and tradition. The candle makes you feel safe from evil.”

At Hierbas de Mexico, the Cervillas’ herb shop, customers have their pick of more than 300 types of dried roots, flowers, leaves, grass and herbs stored in stacked rows of metal bins. In a back room, another hundred or so 20-gallon drums contain more herbs that are supplied to botanicas as well as customers. The herbs, which the brothers package themselves, sell from 50 cents for an ounce of estrella (anise), which is reported to settle a queasy stomach, to $6.50 for an ounce of ginseng, a multipurpose herb that when boiled with water “becomes a rejuvenator tonic,” says Robert.

The brothers tell customers they make no medical claims and encourage patrons--most all of whom know what they want when they enter the store--to read the store’s literature about the uses of the herbs the Cervillas import from Mexico.

Trini Alvarado, a Montebello resident, comes to Hierbas de Mexico religiously. On a recent day she is looking for a remedy to cure a cough. She says she also has been feeling tired and run-down.

“I need an energy booster,” she tells Robert Cervilla, adding that her beautician suggested she try bee pollen, a mass of fine grains produced in the sacs of seed plants, for a quick pick-me-up.

“I go to doctors too,” Alvarado says while holding a bag containing $4.80 in purchases, “and my physician knows that I come here. But whether it’s in my mind or not, the teas and the other items I get help.”

Bookkeeper Yolanda Baker visits the shop “every time I feel bad or sick.” Her hand aches, she says, because a door was slammed on it. After a five-minute consultation with the Cervilla brothers, Baker decides on trying arnica, a flower. Robert says she should pour boiling water over the flower, liquid which should then be cooled and strained before she soaks her hand in it.

“My doctor doesn’t believe in this stuff, but my family does,” Baker says. “I’ve seen it work. And it’s affordable,” she adds while exiting the shop with her $1.80 purchase.

On the same day, at Botanica Christo Rey, a woman approaches owner Juanita Alvarez and asks for the “Lucky Lottery” candle that is decorated with numbers and tumbling dice.

Another customer asks her for tips on what he can do to get a raise. Alvarez reaches under a counter and produces a tiny paper cup filled with pulverized eggshells.

“You’ll also need unsalted peanuts, sugar and ashes from a fireplace,” she advises.

Alvarez instructs the man to do the following: Mix the eggshell powder, peanuts, sugar and ashes. The more peanuts, the better the raise, she suggests, “but don’t overdo it.” Then he must write his boss’ name on nine small strips of paper and burn them in a candle flame (preferably a candle with the likeness of a favorite saint). While praying for the raise, Alvarez says, try to save as much of the ashes as possible. Add the ashes to the eggshell concoction and when no one is looking sprinkle it on the floor where the boss is likely to walk and absorb the mixture through the shoes.

Of course, Alvarez says, “You also have to pray to God and to your saints for the raise. It won’t work without God. Remember, always God. Always.”