UNDERSTANDING THE RIOTS / PART 3 : WITNESS TO RAGE : ‘I put all my pictures and papers close.’

On Wednesday, I went to pick up a friend to go to a meeting and we were getting ready when we saw on TV. what was going on at Florence and Normandie. I was going to go to prayer night and my husband said “Don’t go because there’s something going on on the streets.”

The liquor stores started burning. Kwon’s market started to burn. People started going up there to loot cases of beer, you could see them, you know running on the streets doing that.

George Kwon was a good friend. I felt sad for him and his store. He helped us a lot. If you needed something he was there, you didn’t have enough change, he would give it to you. He was one of those kind of persons. We care for him. We’re really sorry what happened to his store. We passed by there the other day and cried because it’s now out of our lives. I don’t know if he is coming back but it is not going to be the same. He is not going to be the same.

The Laundromat burned down. Our fish market is gone. Everything close to us, now we don’t have. It’s sad. We were thinking of moving but not right now. How can you move and sell? They’re not going to give you the money that you ask for.

I have changed since the riots.

Everything is burned down. You see it and you can’t believe it. Why did it happen? Why did they do it? I couldn’t keep on walking. I’ve been feeling bad, I’ve been feeling like vomiting. I feel a pain in my chest. And everybody is saying it’s nerves, it’s stress.

On Wednesday night I got all my papers together and my pictures. I put them close to me and I told my husband “If we have to get out of here, we have to get out of here.I’m just taking this. I didn’t think about anything, you know? No TV. no nothing, I just thought about the house papers, you know? And pictures that you’re never going to recover. That’s it that I have in that bag and I said “If we have to get out, we have to get out of here” because it was very close to us, very close.

On Wednesday around 8:45 p.m., the lights went out and they never came back on until Sunday about one o’clock in the afternoon.

I put candles all over the house. And the flashlights we used them to go outside. But when it started getting dark, I didn’t let my kids go outside or use the car or anything. Nobody was going out. Nobody, we had to stay inside. And I was looking out the window and I told them you know, go to sleep, go to sleep, my husband too. I said “Go to sleep because maybe they call you and you have to go to work.” I stayed by the window.

He was very concerned about his job because he works at San Pedro and Pico. And he thought that they were going to do something over there. But, as it happened, he couldn’t go out to work that night because he goes to work at 2 o’clock in the morning. And then there was all this fire around and he couldn’t get out. So he called his boss and told him what was going on. He couldn’t go out to work that night.

My meat in the freezer went bad. But that’s OK. I’m not angry for that, not even for the lights. I’m just feeling sad and sorry for the others who really suffered more.

You work hard for what you have. People out there with businesses, they work hard to get where they are.

I see families walking down the street with Clorox. The Clorox is not going to do anything, you know. Kids, like I said you go to jail for a bottle of Clorox, its not right you know. You don’t have a right mind. To take your daughter or your son to steal Clorox. It was families, families, you could see them walking down the street. And I just closed my windows and go inside cause I don’t want to see it, you know. I told my kids, I don’t want to see that. I feel ashamed of my people. The Latino people that they do it. They see an opportunity they did it. Why? Because they just want to be part of it. And probably to feel proud of it, you know, I did it, with his friends, talk about it. And it’s not right. So maybe, if they feel a little guilty, to take it to the nearest church, or somewhere, you know, bring them back. ‘Cause I don’t know how they could be sitting down the couch that its not theirs.

You feel proud when you buy something that you worked for. I am very proud of what I have, you know, because I work, we work hard for it, very hard. My husband works hard. And when he goes every morning at 2 o’clock in the morning, I pray for him cause I know it is dangerous on the streets at that time. But he has to work and I work.

These days, I just want to come to work because it makes me feel better. And being around people. But when I go home and I don’t, you know, we don’t talk, we talk but we don’t talk about what happenned. It’s too sad.

I going to stay and I’m going to help my neighborhood because this is my neighborhood. I’ve been living here for 21 years.

Nobody is going to throw me out of my neighborhood.

Yes, I’ve lost a part of my life here. I used to walk to K mart, to Sav-On to Newberrys and I can’t now. They’re all gone. We were talking the other day. I said, “Do you remember when we use to go walking down Newberrys?” Newberrys use to have a restaurant, and I use to sit my kids there to eat ice cream and I use to shop and then pick them up and the ladies already knew me.

And now it’s gone.