Turning an Ear to Silent Latino Constituency

Lost in the media frenzy surrounding the Rodney G. King civil rights trial was an agreement that the two rival camps in L.A.’s Latino politics would try to put aside differences and get along. Assembled outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building--named for the man who was a mentor to many of them--Gloria Molina stood side by side with Art Torres, Richard Alatorre and others in the name of unity.

On the day before the verdicts were announced, they urged fellow Latinos to keep the peace and promised to hold a summit meeting to find a common strategy to aid needy Hispanics.

“It’s about time” was the reaction of many Latinos, who have become disenchanted by the increasingly petty bickering between Molina supporters and those of Torres and Alatorre.

But the truce’s likelihood of success may hinge on whether Latinos such as Guillermo Meza can be won over by Molina et al.

Meza hasn’t been to East L.A. He doesn’t care if Molina can’t stand Richard Polanco or if Xavier Becerra beat Leticia Quezada in a race for Congress. He’s too busy trying to eke out a living selling fruits and vegetables in the Pico-Union area of L.A.

Meza, 27, is part of L.A. that the Latino elected officials have had little success in reaching. It’s one thing to speak out on behalf of Mexican or Chicano constituents on the Eastside.

But it’s a different and trickier matter to act as a representative for people like Meza, who arrived here three years ago from his native El Salvador.

They are a powerless yet growing populace within the city, which is 40% Latino. Like Meza, most of them are here illegally and are ineligible to vote in elections. They live mostly in poor inner-city neighborhoods that were once home to Mexican immigrants who came to this country in the 1920s and 1930s.

There is also a powerful potential in their numbers. An estimated 65% of the Los Angeles school district’s 650,000 students are Latinos, many of them like Meza’s two young daughters. One day they, too, will become voting U.S. citizens like other Latino immigrants before them.

It was clear last year that the Latino elected officials had little influence with many Central Americans in the inner city. City Councilman Mike Hernandez, who represents Pico-Union, admitted that many of the politicos have little in common with them.

So, the search for unity should perhaps begin with new arrivals like Meza.

Last Thursday, Meza took no notice of the fact that 35,000 mourners went that morning to Delano to pay homage to Cesar Chavez. It was a few minutes before 11 a.m., and the peaches he was pushing weren’t selling.

“Come over and try la fruta ,” he implored one passerby at the intersection of Vermont Avenue and Pico Boulevard. The woman kept on walking but Meza persisted.

“Por favor ,” he pleaded.

No luck.

Meza offered his fruits and vegetables near Alvarado Street and Pico, in full view of a corner mini-mall. Its stores, including a meat market and a shoe repair shop, were destroyed in the riots.

Since then, Meza said, he has had little luck in matching the $60 he averaged in daily sales before the rioting. These days, $35 is doing pretty good.

Meza knows little of the Latino elected officials who have vowed to put aside their political differences. But what he does know about them doesn’t make him very happy.

“I see them on TV, but I never see them around here,” Meza said in Spanish. “I haven’t heard them say they are going to help the merchants who lost their businesses where I used to sell.

“I haven’t heard them say they’re going to help people like me. They may be Mexican and they may speak Spanish but I don’t think they know anything about people like us. They need to understand people like me. . . . We need help after what happened last year. We need people to speak out for us.”

Meza, however, can’t spare the time to confront Molina et al. with his concerns. He has to sell his mangoes and peaches.

There are some issues on which the rival camps can unite: the proposed breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District; UCLA Chancellor Charles Young’s decision not to create a full-fledged Chicano studies department, and the slowness of government reinvestment in Latino neighborhoods devastated by last year’s unrest, where reconstruction has been minimal.

But the real test of unity may rest with Meza and others like him.

“These politicians need to be reminded that all Latinos, not just Chicanos, need help,” Meza said.