From ‘Chicano Beverly Hills’ to Street Vendor

You see them at busy intersections and freeway off-ramps. They’re selling oranges, peanuts and sometimes candy apples. I usually give the vendors, who implore you with begging eyes to buy a $2 sack of oranges, a negative shake of the head. I never give much thought to these brief encounters.

Until I recognized one of them.

It was “CT Andy.”

In that brief moment, and the conversation that followed, it became clear how middle-class Southern Californians can find themselves in such a predicament. Andy became the human face of a recession that toppled a President.

I call him “CT Andy” because Andres grew up in the City Terrace part of East Los Angeles, practically next to the San Bernardino Freeway. We were raised about 1 1/2 miles apart but we never met until 1971 when we had a chance encounter on a helicopter pad in Vietnam.

I hesitate to say more about him because of his reaction when I recognized him near Atlantic and Pomona boulevards. Obviously embarrassed, he took off running, leaving a shopping cart full of oranges.

It took me nearly a mile in my Nikes to chase Andy down. When I did catch up with him it didn’t take me long to realize that this 40-something Chicano was no longer the wisecracking radio-telephone operator who used to punctuate his conversations with the same observation, “There it is.”

He is now angry and sullen.

His rapid-fire delivery includes words you can’t print. What printable things he does spit out paint a grim picture.

A thriving electronics-related career in the defense industry soured. He tried to find work in similar fields but he couldn’t catch on at several places. He said he scanned the newspaper want ads and drove by some new mini-malls for jobs, but for one reason or another things didn’t work out.

With a wife who works part time and two growing kids in a comfortable home in Hacienda Heights, the “Chicano Beverly Hills,” he knew he had to find work to pay the bills.

So, among other things, he’s pushing oranges and peanuts.

After reminding him of our chaotic lives near Chu Lai, he agreed to go over to Belvedere Park to talk about oranges, the economy and the Chicano Beverly Hills.

“Life had been pretty good,” he began. “I got a pretty good job after the Army and I was making decent money. You know how it is, my folks worked hard and lived in East L.A. They wanted us kids to have more. You worked hard to have some success for yourself and also to make them feel proud. To let them know that the sacrifice they put in for us was paying off, that it was worthwhile.

“When my wife and I bought the house in Hacienda Heights, I wanted to show it off to my folks. We had a big party. Everything’s cool when my mom goes, ‘ Mijo , it’s such a big house. Can you afford it?’ And I go, ‘Sure, Ma. You think the bank would give us a loan if they thought we couldn’t make the payments?’

“I never thought I’d lose a job. Business went down. Everybody said it would be temporary but things got worse. Next thing I know, I was out of the door after 13 years. It hurt my pride. I mean, it wasn’t just any job. It was my job.

“And what was I going to say to my parents? That I messed up? That I failed them? I felt like I no longer deserved that house. I thought about moving to Pico Rivera, or Montebello or even East L.A. Then, I decided, ‘Screw it. I’m staying. . . .’

“Selling oranges? It’s pretty tough. People don’t want to acknowledge you because they think you’re dirty or homeless or whatever. They’re too busy (to) be bothered with you. Some (vendors) just mumble something or don’t say anything. I try saying naranjas softly and oranges loudly. Then, I reverse it. It works sometimes.

“I try and sell over by the Long Beach Freeway or on Olympic Boulevard (near Montebello). There is no perfect spot to sell oranges in this city.”

I asked Andy if he had heard about President Clinton’s proposed remedies of tax increases, spending cuts and new programs to fix the economy.

“Yeah,” he said. But he had more pressing concerns, like finding a decent job, putting food on the table and keeping that dream house.

“Maybe I got too much pride to want to hang on to that house,” he said. “But it’s mine and I worked to get it. I want to work to keep it.”

There it is.