Group Battles for Latino Businessmen : Commerce: Post-riot merchants association has gained attention of politicians and federal officials. It has helped members get disaster relief and set up a food bank.

In a church on Alvarado Street, two weeks after their small businesses went up in flames last spring, 50 merchants huddled for a strategy session. Their goal: to fight for disaster relief and focus attention on the Latino businesses destroyed in the riots.

Today, more than a year after that first meeting, La Union de Comerciantes Latinos y Afiliados has emerged as a force representing Latino merchants whose businesses in swap meets and strip malls from Westlake to South-Central Los Angeles burned. The organization has made politicians aware of its members’ plight, persuaded federal officials to approve relief loans that were originally denied, and set up a food bank for the many Latino merchants who received no disaster aid.

But perhaps most important, some community leaders say, is that the organization is the first to represent the thousands of predominantly immigrant Latino merchants in the inner city.

“They represent the seed of empowerment for our community,” said Oscar Andrade, executive director of El Rescate, a Pico-Union social service agency that has worked closely with the union’s members. “Some people may not like it when they scream their hearts out, but they lost everything they had.”

The organization, which in English means the Union of Latino Merchants and Affiliates, claims to represent about 250 merchants. It hopes to one day unite inner-city Latino merchants, said the group’s president, Juan Zamora.

Zamora, 44, who emigrated to Los Angeles 13 years ago, is a typical member. A former university economics professor in El Salvador, he started as a street vendor eight years ago with $53. Several years later, he opened a shoe store in Pico-Union, only to watch on television as his $85,000 investment burned to the ground.

“My life savings disappeared before my eyes,” Zamora recalled.

Latinos owned 30% to 40% of the 4,000 businesses destroyed in the riots, according to a recent report by the Tomas Rivera Center, a Claremont-based Latino think tank.

For the merchants, organizing a united group has not been easy. They had to overcome a bitter division, during which one of the original leaders left after she was accused of wielding too much authority. At times, members said, the group nearly collapsed.

But members said the group survived with support from the Latino rights organization, Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, which allowed it to meet weekly at its South-Central facility, and from UCLA assistant professor Jorge Mancillas, who served as an adviser.

“We were determined to get justice and not give up,” said Maria Eva Mejia, who sells children’s clothing from a booth at the Westlake Swap Meet.

The organization, which includes former union organizers, professors and cooperative administrators, eventually held elections in January to select a 21-member board of directors. And members wrote 10 pages of bylaws defining the organization’s mission and declaring it a nonpartisan group.

“We’re a blend of Mexican and Central-American trade unions, cooperatives and community organizations,” Mancillas said.

About 100 or more members regularly attend the spirited weekly meetings. The predominantly immigrant membership is about half Mexican and half Central American.

About 90% of the 120 members who applied for disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration were turned down for reasons ranging from bad credit to inadequate bookkeeping, Mancillas said.

Not to be deterred, the group arranged about half a dozen meetings with the SBA, during which members met with Robert Belloni, area director of the agency’s disaster loan program. He reviewed each case with the help of an SBA Spanish-speaking loan officer.

The members refiled their applications, and about 80% of the original 120 loan requests were approved. Zamora was among the recipients, getting $40,000 that he used to open a shoe store in Boyle Heights.

“After all our contacts, we became more sympathetic and understanding,” Belloni said. “We heard some pretty heart-rending stories.”

The stories included that of Margarito Juarez, who opened a video store near Florence and Normandie avenues two days before the rioting--only to have it burn the first night of the violence. Broke and hungry, he and his wife and five children sleep in a garage while they wait for their $40,000 SBA loan. In the meantime, he is working as an electronics repairman to support his family.

The SBA also reconsidered the case of Trinidad Dumas, who watched from his apartment in South-Central as his clothing manufacturing company across the street was looted and burned. With help from his family and friends, who loaned him clothing material and sewing machines, Dumas opened a new business in the area last June. He received a $75,000 SBA loan in January and now employs six workers.

The merchants were not so lucky when it came to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Only a handful of the more than 100 who applied received disaster-assistance grants, Mancillas said. The merchants said they were told their losses were not directly riot-related because they had small bank accounts, which indicated their businesses were not profitable.

City Councilman Mike Hernandez said the organization received the runaround from FEMA officials. “I believe the comerciantes are the classic example of how the system failed Angelenos after the riots,” said Hernandez, whose 1st District is home to many of the merchants.

FEMA spokesman Eugene Brezany declined to discuss specific cases but said the agency met its loan obligations as required by federal law.

The merchants have captured the attention of other politicians. They recently met with representatives of local members of Congress, including Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles).