Latino Merchants Stage Protest Over Lack of Riot Recovery Aid

Condemning a paucity of post-riot emergency aid, angry Latino immigrant merchants who saw their livelihoods devastated in last year’s civil unrest called on government officials Wednesday to reach out to small shop owners and others still struggling to recoup their losses.

“We’ve suffered a lot, and the government has hardly done anything for us,” said Juan Zamora, an El Salvadoran shoe salesman whose MacArthur Park-area store was sacked in the riots, costing him $85,000 in inventory. “I lost eight years of work in one day.”

Said Margarito Juarez, whose South-Central Los Angeles electronic store and adjoining home went up in flames: “Where is the help that was promised us?”

The two were among a dozen small-business owners, all longtime U.S. residents, who held a news conference downtown to publicize their plight. They are members of Union of Latino and Affiliated Merchants, a confederation of about 200 businesses.

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in riot-related government grants and loans issued since last April, the merchants complained that they were turned down for assistance or provided too little to make up for their losses. Many lack insurance.

“I don’t know where the money went, but I know we didn’t get it,” said Guillermo de Leon, who owned a Pico-Union clothing store but now sells items from his home.

Angela Jimenez, a mother of 10 who lost her family clothing emporium, was near tears as she told how a lack of funds prevented her from visiting an ill teen-age daughter back home in Honduras. “I can’t help my family anymore,” she said.

The merchants staged their protest outside the federal courthouse where four Los Angeles police officers are on trial for violating the civil rights of Rodney G. King. Many expressed a common fear: that more acquittals could trigger another round of disturbances.

“We can sense the possibility of new troubles on the streets,” said Zamora, a 44-year-old father of three who has relocated his business from the heavily damaged Pico-Union district to East Los Angeles--an area largely spared riot damage. “We love our city, and we don’t want to see the same thing happening again.”

“We’ve helped this community, and we shouldn’t have to suffer because administrators failed to provide protection,” said Raul Lopez, a 34-year-old Mexican immigrant whose Compton restaurant was burned down, costing him $125,000. “If we were big businesses, we could pick up and leave for another state. But we can’t. We want to stay here.”

Despite the protests, it appears little new help is on the horizon. Representatives of the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said deadlines for applying for riot-related assistance have passed.