Latinos Shortchanged in Riot Aid, Group Says

Echoing a complaint that has colored Los Angeles politics for years, a group of Latino business and social leaders rallied outside City Hall on Monday to complain that Latino riot victims have been shortchanged in riot aid and media coverage, despite their standing as the city’s largest ethnic group.

Members of the newly formed Latino Coalition for a New Los Angeles, which includes the city’s two Latino City Council members, called on Mayor Tom Bradley to release a racial breakdown of riot aid administered by city departments. They also asked President Bush to establish a presidential commission to perform the same study on a federal level.

In addition, the demonstrators called on business and industry leaders to create more job opportunities for Latinos, particularly in South-Central Los Angeles, where Latinos now outnumber blacks. Some hinted they might try to organize a boycott by the massive Latino consumer market against corporations they felt were unsympathetic.

In the wake of the riot, leaders of the city’s minority groups have complained about the slow pace of recovery, particularly the difficulty of securing government loans. Members of each group routinely voice suspicion that other ethnic groups are being treated more favorably.

One African-American activist, Danny Bakewell, is leading a highly publicized campaign to close down South Los Angeles construction sites that do not employ black workers--an effort that has angered some Latino leaders. Hundreds of Korean-American and Chinese-American merchants spent two weeks earlier this summer demonstrating outside City Hall to demand reparations for riot damage.

Historically, Latinos have been slow to mobilize in such forms of public protest, acknowledged Fernando Oaxaca, the owner of a public relations company and one of the organizers of Monday’s rally.

“We’re the last to burn,” Oaxaca said in an interview. “When you abuse a Mexican he leaves the room because he doesn’t want to be where he’s not wanted. We’ve got to wake up the system. We don’t expect a solution tomorrow morning. It’s going to take a while but somehow we’re going to bug everybody. We’re here, and that ain’t going to change.”

While government damage statistics do not include race, Latino business leaders estimate that more than 40% of the property and businesses destroyed in the riots were owned by Latinos. A new survey, released Friday by Dun & Bradstreet, found that 44% of all businesses damaged or looted by rioters in South-Central Los Angeles and Koreatown--the areas hit hardest by three days of riots--are no longer in operation.

Joe Sanchez, president of the Mexican-American Grocers Assn., said he remains convinced that African-American organizations have received disproportionate attention and post-riot aid because they have stronger ties to City Hall, and because the news media too often paint the riots as a black-versus-white or black-versus-Korean conflict, in which Latinos were primarily looters instead of victims.

Added Oaxaca, “There’s been very little (news media coverage) about the poverty and hunger that Latinos face, the hundreds of Latino-owned businesses that were destroyed, and way too much attention to the Rodney King cops being retried.”

Lucrecia Garcia, president of a Latino business group, said more attention ought to be focused on problems like hers. Garcia said she skipped mortgage payments on a second home she owns in order to restore her riot-damaged perfume business. Because she has yet to receive a Small Business Administration loan, she was forced to declare bankruptcy Friday in order to prevent the home from being foreclosed, she said.

“We want justice!” she told reporters in Spanish. “Please! Help us!”

Deputy Mayor Linda Griego denied that Latinos are receiving less post-riot assistance than other groups.

“For everyone, it’s been difficult,” she said. Griego said that some small Latino businesses may have particular difficulty qualifying for loans because, on paper, they do not appear profitable.

There has long been a huge gap in Los Angeles between the swelling numbers of Latinos and the kind of political power that can grease a bureaucracy. Because immigration accounted for so much of the population increase, Latinos have lagged behind other groups in voter registration and turnout, political contributions and the establishment of a network of allies at City Hall.

In the post-riot era, however, the disparity between Latino population growth and government attention “is beginning to hit crisis proportion,” said David Hayes-Bautista, a UCLA sociologist.

Hayes-Bautista co-authored a report earlier this year which noted that despite a higher “labor participation” rate, Latinos in California earn about the same as blacks and have an even higher rate of poverty.

Hayes-Bautista and Sanchez said more job opportunities would be created if Latino business owners, many of whom wish to expand, had less difficulty obtaining loans in today’s tight credit market.

“Our little guys (small businessmen) don’t have double or triple co-signers. A lot of them have just begun to move from being an immigrant on the street corner to owning a little store. Many of them don’t have track records. Only 40% of Hispanics have checking accounts. It takes time,” Oaxaca said.

Councilman Mike Hernandez, whose district includes the Pico-Union district, one of the city’s poorest and most densely populated Latino neighborhoods, said he is frustrated that more affluent communities remain oblivious to the social conditions that exacerbated the riots, in which Pico-Union suffered some of the worst damage.