Groups Try to Foster Unity, Block by Block : Communities: For years, neighborhood clubs have been an organizing force for blacks in South-Central. Now these organizations are struggling to enlist Latinos.

The frustration in 70-year-old Layvonia Miller’s voice resonated throughout the Friday night block club meeting. Eleven African-Americans showed up for the meeting in South-Central, but only three homeowners lived on Miller’s street.

Most of Miller’s neighbors are Mexican- and Central American, and they repeatedly turn down her invitations. “I got a little bit discouraged trying to get people to come. They don’t show up, so I give up,” she said. “They say they don’t know anything about a block club.”

For more than 20 years, block clubs have been a primary organizing force in many black neighborhoods. There are about 20 active block clubs out of 55 in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Newton Division, which is roughly bounded by the Harbor Freeway to the west, Slauson Avenue to the south, Alameda Street to the east and 7th Street to the north. Residents form block clubs to combat nagging community problems such as drug dealing, gangbanging and illegal dumping. The clubs also function as forums for mediating disputes between neighbors.

Older blacks, many in their 70s, continue to lead block clubs. But African-Americans, no longer the majority in many parts of South-Central, are feeling the effects of sweeping demographic changes.

Their challenge is to come up with strategies to mobilize the majority group in their neighborhoods. Extending personal invitations and handing out flyers in Spanish that outline the importance of block clubs have not worked for Miller, but they are the only strategies she knows.

Similarly, Sang Brown, 70, president of the Jefferson (High School) Community Block Club, said that he has tried everything, flyers included, but met with little success.

“It takes cultural understanding of the Latino community to integrate them into block clubs, and just handing out flyers won’t get it,” said Reginald Chapple, program manager for Dunbar Economic Development Corp. Dunbar is a 5-year-old nonprofit agency based in South-Central. For the past three years, Chapple has been working to get area Latinos more involved in their community.

Flyers do not work, Chapple said, because block club captains often hand them to the wrong party: “In order to get the Latino community involved, you must go to the head of the household and get his permission. Many blacks are not aware of that.”

Chapple cited other reasons: Some may be undocumented immigrants and fearful of being found out. And many think the home is not an acceptable meeting place; they prefer to meet in a school or church building.

Hector Barrios, 43, emigrated from Guatemala 15 years ago. Barrios attends block club meetings at All Peoples Christian Center on 20th Street. Though Barrios said black and Latino neighbors should work together, he listed several reasons why Latinos are reluctant to join block groups led by African-Americans.

“We have a different culture. We are coming from another country and maybe we have a different religion,” Barrios said.

Margarita Jackson, 37, a Mexican-American, boils the problem down to communication.

“(Older) blacks and Hispanics don’t speak the same language,” Jackson said. “They can just say hi and bye and that’s it. The young people can communicate and they get along very well.”

One year ago, Chapple began working with CARECEN, the Central American Refugee Center, to form a resource-exchange program between the Latino and African-American communities.

Four students from Pico-Union, from 14 to college age, knocked on doors in South-Central in the summer of 1992, persuading every resident on 42nd Street and 42nd Place to sign a petition to close a nearby alley that was used for illegal dumping. Most of those residents spoke only Spanish. In January, Dunbar will send students from South-Central to Pico-Union to help CARECEN with its community service projects.

“I think you’ve got to present different options to (Latino residents), because they come over with cultural norms and their own biases,” Chapple said.