A Tribute to a Native Son--and Rock Icon : Pacoima: Recreation center is renamed for Ritchie Valens, ‘50s music idol and hero to many in this largely Latino community.

For years, the Paxton Park & Recreation Center has perched precariously on the borderline between two competing gangs, playing stage to their sometimes violent rivalries, its cinder-block walls plastered with turf graffiti.

Now a peace has been delivered in an unlikely form: large metallic block letters spelling the name Ritchie Valens. Saturday, the center’s official name was changed to honor the late Valens, the 1950s rock ‘n’ roll idol and native son to this largely Latino community.

Los Angeles city park officials in September erected the new sign on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Since then, gang tempers at the center have cooled and the graffiti has vanished.

“Look at those walls! Just like that, the graffiti was gone--it was dead, disappeared,” said Francisco Flores, a local junior high school teacher who spearheaded the drive to rename the recreation center. “With Ritchie’s name hanging up there, this place has become like a shrine. The kids won’t touch it.

“Even 35 years after his death, the name Ritchie Valens still means something to young people here,” Flores said. “He was the James Dean of the Latino community, who once went to school right here. . . . For these young Chicanos, it’s a badge of honor to protect our legends.”

On Saturday, gang members--many of whom circulated petitions that helped make the day possible--were among the crowd who celebrated the center’s dedication, along with about 30 relatives of the late musician, all on hand to revel in the spirit of Valens’ achievement.

For Ernestine Reyes, 56, the ceremony is part of a newfound recognition of her nephew that she hopes will signal the celebration of other Latino icons. Six years ago, the Pacoima homemaker led the drive to have Valens’ name installed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. More recently, she has seen his name and image minted on a new postage stamp.

“There aren’t enough Latinos up there with their names in lights for young people to emulate,” she said. “Sure, we have rocker Carlos Santana and the actor James Edward Olmos, but we need more, many more, to show that we are a people of talent and courage.”

The weekend crowd, many of them mothers and fathers pushing baby strollers, came to honor one of their own who made it.

Valens, whose brief 16-month rise to stardom was fueled by the hits “La Bamba,” “Donna” and “Come On, Let’s Go,” died in an Iowa plane crash Feb. 3, 1959 along with fellow teen-age heartthrob Buddy Holly and J. P. (The Big Bopper) Richardson.

In the center’s gym, friends and family members sold Valens T-shirts and buttons. They displayed concert posters--including one advertising his last performance in Clear Lake, Iowa, the day before his death.

There was a pair of roller skates he once wore and even the guitar his mother once bought him at a local Sears store, the one he took to shop class to sand down and repaint, and the same instrument that helped launch him to stardom.

But for Reyes, the piece of memorabilia that struck close to her heart was displayed on the stage--the silk maroon shirt and black gabardine pants with the fake diamond studs--the outfit Valens wore on his first appearance on the Dick Clark show.

“I can’t look at this suit without all the memories flooding back about Ritchie,” said Reyes, who was three years older than Valens when he died. “He was such a talented young man, so full of confidence! Gosh, I miss him.”

She recalled the day she and her husband drove the 16-year-old Valens to pick up the suit at the old Nudie’s Western Wear in North Hollywood. “As soon as we got home, he tried it on for us,” she said. “He was so nervous he smoked a cigarette, and he never smoked. This was the first suit he ever bought. Before that, my husband had lent him most of his clothes.

“He just stood there with a big smile across his face, strumming his guitar,” she said. “He looked beautiful! I told him, ‘Ritchie, you should be in Hollywood with all that glitter,’ and he just looked at me and said, ‘Tia, we’re gonna make it big. We’re gonna be bigger than Elvis!’ ”

For many teen-agers at the dedication, Valens and his music still mean something. “The stuff I listen to today,” said 17-year-old Rigoberto Paz, “most of it is based in some way on the music he played.”

Added Gloria Balcorta, a 14-year-old niece of the late singer: “Our uncle was the first Latino of rock. He was a kid who didn’t have anything, but he had a dream about being a singer and he went for it. He’s still an inspiration to all of us.”

At a nearby table, Gil Rocha, who first hired Valens, recalled his first impressions of the teen-ager who auditioned for a part in his band, the Silhouettes. “Actually, I was looking for a saxophone player, but I listened to him anyway,” he said. “When he took out his little guitar, I almost laughed. But as soon as I heard him play, I knew he had talent.”

Months later, Rocha said, hundreds of local teen-agers jammed the tiny drive-in theater that once stood on the same spot where the park and recreation center is today. They had come to see Valens’ new movie, “Go, Johnny, Go.”

When the film was finished, something strange happened, Rocha recalled: People started honking their horns. “It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen,” he said. “The horn blaring went on for minutes, shaking the earth.

“Looking back, I think it was just a bunch of poor Latino kids saying thanks to Ritchie for achieving his dream and giving them some hope as well.”