Frustrated Gang Members Yet to Reap Benefits of Truce : Youth: Wilmington’s Wilmas say they’re keeping the peace, so why, they want to know, aren’t officials keeping their promises.

Gato is a study in frustration.

Tense and earnest, his speech is sprinkled with Spanish phrases for emphasis as he explains why the youths in the gangs on the east and west sides of Wilmington are getting impatient waiting to see the concrete benefits of their truce.

“These are kids we’re dealing with--they’re just kids--and it’s like when a kid gets a shiny pair of shoes or a new pair of pants for school, they’re thrilled--not cause it’s anything big, but it’s a symbol,” said Gato, a former gang member.

The East Side and West Side Wilmas, once warring factions, have stopped fighting each other, mainly because former gang members like Gato--Spanish for “Cat”--convinced them that the community would reward them.

But there has been no reward so far, he says. Sitting in a local restaurant Wednesday, Gato, Ralph Cruz and David Gonzalez--all former gang members--explain why rewards are necessary. At issue immediately is a set of weights for the Mahar House, an east side recreation center.

The United Wilmington Youth, a group formed by the Wilmas after their truce, told City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores during the course of several discussions that they would see a new weight set as a sign of appreciation for their good behavior. Flores, in turn, sought--and obtained--$500 from the City Council. But as of Wednesday--about three months after the request was made to Flores--the equipment still had not been purchased. Although the weights are expected to be purchased any day, according to Wilmington Teen Center director Connie Calderon, the young men still are angry.

“We have an almost complete solution to the problems of gang violence in our community--a problem which our community leaders and police have many times tried to solve but have only met with failure,” said Gonzalez, who wears the initials of the East Side Wilmas tattooed to his hand.

“Now that the kids have complied with us, it is now the community’s turn to help out with alternative recreation and education programs to help occupy their time. If not, their only option is to turn back to the streets,” Gonzalez said.

Flores could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but many community leaders rushed to her defense, pointing out that she had followed through as promised. The problem, they say, is that Wilmington’s new youth activists do not understand the slow processes of government.

“This is a learning process for them and sometimes they’re impatient,” said Connie Calderon, director of the Wilmington Teen Center. “But just because they don’t understand the system doesn’t mean nothing’s being done. Joan Flores went out on a limb for them and she got that money.”

Fueling the debate over weights is a more general sentiment among gang members that after organizing their truce, the community has failed to meet them halfway.

Throughout Los Angeles, community leaders and neighborhood organizations, merchants and police task forces have tried to stop gang warfare. And while rivalries between gangs from Wilmington and other communities persist, the truce between the Wilmas has held.

Since summer, United Wilmington Youth has organized car washes, a car show, a bone marrow donor drive, a field trip to the Los Angeles Museum of Science for children and a menudo breakfast, to be held Sunday.

In a written statement issued Wednesday, the group outlined its grievances:

“Without any outside funding, the group has already proven themselves capable of good, honest community work. During these events, the kids worked very hard. At times, they battled the heat, other times it was scrounging rags to dry washed cars. Menudo was served and blood was taken.

“The young people of this community feel let down by our city council member, who through community youth counselors and city representatives made a commitment, a promise, a good faith gesture to see that all the work and positive interaction would be rewarded. The youth feel ripped off, lied to, let down--dogged in the vernacular of the streets.”

A key problem is that the youths have become de facto leaders of a fluid group of kids who have a dizzying array of problems to solve.

Armed with three-ring notebooks that still bear price tags and new black appointment books, Gato, Cruz, Gonzalez and others have put a past of street life and police run-ins behind them and jumped into a world of community meetings and activism. But it is an almost overwhelming job, trying to keep the peace, trying to give the youths incentives to keep the truce, trying to learn the workings of government.

“I can see both sides of it, but basically they don’t understand the bureaucracy,” said Wilmington community activist Eleanor Montano. “But I can also see their discouragement. They’re trying to calm the other kids down and calm down the frustration.

“Here, everyone is harping on stopping gangs and stopping the warfare and they did it, and they’re reaching out to the community, and I don’t see that many extended hands reaching out to them,” she said.

The youths complain that merchants and restaurant owners look at them strangely when they walk into stores and eateries--and stare at them until they leave. Selling tickets for the menudo breakfast Sunday has been slow going, and the youths don’t understand why. If people really want gang violence to stop, they ask, why doesn’t the breakfast get more support?

It seems obvious to them, for example, that the east side of town needs a new teen center--Calderon’s is on the west side. They need job counseling and drug counseling programs. Teen pregnancy programs and tutoring, among other programs. Why haven’t these programs happened already? Why do they have to wait months for any progress?

The money should come from Rebuild L.A. and from businesses in the community, they say.

Montano, who has been newly appointed to Rebuild L.A.’s governing board, said she is willing to bring the youths’ proposals to the Rebuild L.A., which was set up after last spring’s riots to organize reconstruction projects in the city.

“I understand. These guys are fighting stereotypes. They’re going through a transition--but they’re trying to do good things for the community,” she said, and then makes an analogy that would set them squirming:

“See, they’re going through the same transition the police are going through. People now paint all police as bullies, and that’s what’s happening to them--as gang members they are being painted all the same and now that they’re trying to change. It’s not fair.”

“They’re discovering their leadership,” Calderon says. “They’re all good kids and they’re all doing the best they can for their people. But it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s taken me 26 years to get here, and I’m still learning.”