Fair Unites Latino, Gay Communities : Lifestyles: Organizers try to involve all segments of the neighborhood in the annual Sunset Junction celebration. Gang members work alongside gay-rights activists.

In 1980, 15-year-old gang member David (Cricket) De La Riva was skeptical when he heard about a street fair that was supposed to bring together Latino youths and gay and lesbian residents of Silver Lake.

But he couldn’t help being curious, so he volunteered as a security monitor.

This summer,the 27-year-old De La Riva is one of the head security guards for the Sunset Junction Street Fair on Saturday and Sunday.

“Before, I wouldn’t speak to a gay person, you know, if he looked gay or if his actions seemed feminine,” said De La Riva, a lifelong Silver Lake resident who is taking part in his 12th Sunset Junction fair. “That first year, I was very hesitant, always looking over my shoulder to see if they were watching me.”

Today, the father of four says he’s changed.

“I can tell from my own experience and the experience of the other people I’ve worked with in the fair that their attitude toward the gay community is at least 80% different than that first year.”

De La Riva exemplifies the spirit of the fair, which organizers say is an attempt to bring a multicultural neighborhood closer together in an increasingly Balkanized city.

“Other fairs are centered around one theme, like the Cinco de Mayo fair in Lincoln Park or the Gay Pride Fair in West Hollywood,” said Louis Jacinto of El Centro del Pueblo, a community group that works with youth in Echo Park. “This one is centered around the theme of diversity.”

The Sunset Junction fair--named after the old Red Car stop where Santa Monica Boulevard intersects Sunset Boulevard--is practically a community institution today, but it wasn’t always as popular.

That first year, many people didn’t think the idea of bringing together gang members and gays was possible. City officials were alarmed and the police were predicting a blood bath, Jacinto recalled.

Gay leaders say that in the early ‘80s, they were harassed and physically attacked, sometimes by their young, tough-acting Latino neighbors.

In this atmosphere of distrust between the two groups, the fair was conceived as a way “to tear down the walls that separated us,” said fair coordinator Micheal McKinley. “We didn’t have some sort of master plan or anything. It just evolved because we believed in each other.”

This year’s fair will feature carnival rides, a petting zoo, and vendors selling arts and crafts and food. KPWR-FM “Power 106” disc jockeys will spin tunes at the dance pavilion, and more than 30 local bands will perform from noon until 10 p.m. both days. The fair opens at 10 a.m. both days.

Twelve years of building a sense of community through efforts such as Sunset Junction helped keep the area fairly calm during the Los Angeles riots, Jacinto said.

“I think this is really a model for the rest of the city, for the rest of the country,” he said. “Communities are getting more and more diverse. We’ve got to live together, or it’s not going to work.”

In part, fair organizers attribute their success in bringing together disparate groups to recognizing that youths, from gang members to honor students, have something to offer.

“When kids get involved in a gang, they learn some very good skills--commitment, loyalty, responsibility,” Jacinto said. “The street fair is an excellent way to use those skills in a positive, alternative way.

“If you don’t get the kids involved, they will come and shut it down anyway.”

Supervised by a security core of about 20, Jacinto said, more than 200 youths volunteer as security monitors every year along with their lesbian and gay neighbors. They also distribute leaflets throughout the neighborhood before the fair, put up barricades and clean the streets.

“Being one of the people in charge is fun,” says 14-year-old Carmen Gomez, who came to the Central City Youth Action Program in Echo Park last week to be trained as a security monitor.

“People should be together once in a while, not just think that other people are wrong or be afraid of them because they’re different,” said the Echo Park teen, who wants to be an anthropologist.

Oscar Gutierrez, 13, said that for many youths, the fair is a way to forget about some of the problems at home or at school.

“You might just meet new people that you like that are from other cultures,” said Gutierrez, who will perform with an Aztec dance group at this year’s fair. “You can’t just judge people by their color or the way they look.”

To be sure, no one claims that the Sunset Junction fair has eliminated gay bashing in the area. But David Smith of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center said the fair “provides an atmosphere where understanding flourishes.”