Locke High Mirrors Changes in Population

No one was seriously injured in a fight between African American and Latino students at Locke High School two weeks ago.

But the melee, which turned into a media spectacle complete with hovering television news helicopters, dealt a hard blow to efforts by students, teachers and staff members to build a sense of togetherness among a rapidly changing population.

“Until the fight happened, this had been our best year yet,” said E.C. Robinson, Locke’s football coach and head dean. “The kids were getting along better than ever.”

Occasional outbursts have been a problem at Locke since large numbers of Latinos began moving into the once predominantly black school and its surrounding south Los Angeles neighborhood in the early 1990s.

Teachers and staff members have eased tensions between African Americans (long the majority) and Latinos (now just under half the school’s enrollment) through discussion groups, clubs and even mixing the types of music played at dances.

In addition to shattering that shaky peace, the fight underscored the challenge faced by Locke and other inner-city Los Angeles institutions trying to bridge the gap between an overwhelmingly African American power structure and an increasing Latino population.

“What’s going on there is a symptom of what happens across the city and even throughout California as demographic shifts occur,” said Romulus Johnson, who graduated from Locke four years ago, recently finished college and has been admitted to an English doctoral program at Princeton University. “It’s not racial animosity as much as territory-marking. It’s not the visceral, Bull Connor-type racism but pent-up anxiety over economics and shifting resources.”

Off campus, the territorial fight is played out between black and Latino youth gangs battling for control over turf.

At higher levels of society as well, political and social conflicts are likely to escalate as Latino majorities emerge in areas led by African Americans. Already, African American Los Angeles City Council members Rita Walters and Nate Holden represent districts with more Latino than black residents.

With Latinos making up 48% of South-Central Los Angeles, according to the U.S. Census, even venerable African American groups such as the Urban League have been transformed. Latinos make up a majority of the clients in the Urban League’s Head Start program, though the group’s administration remains predominantly black.

Ironically, African Americans in Los Angeles were for decades in a situation much like the one faced by Latinos today, said J. Eugene Grigsby III, director of UCLA’s African American Studies Center and author of the Urban League’s strategic plan. In parts of the inner city, whites continued to lead government and social service organizations long after blacks became a majority.

“The paradox is it took African Americans three generations to get administrative positions and in one generation the population’s changed,” Grigsby said.

At Locke, 49% of the 1,684 students are Latinos and 51% are African American. Yet just 5% of the teachers and administrators at the school are Latinos.

The school’s heritage is solidly African American. Founded in 1967, Locke is named after Alain Leroy Locke, the first African American Rhodes Scholar. Its office is filled with pictures of prominent black alumni as well as notable African Americans such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Maya Angelou.

“There’s a lot of pride among some black students, whose parents or aunts and uncles went to Locke. They don’t like seeing it change. Meanwhile, the Hispanic kids feel ignored,” said Johnson, who is black.

Just as their parents live and work in communities in which they have little representation among the leadership, many Latino students feel cut off from the school’s faculty and administration.

Latino students praised the efforts of Principal Annie Webb and teachers to meet their needs. Webb, who is African American, is trying to start a conversation course in which English-speaking and Spanish-speaking students will tutor each other. Today, actor Edward James Olmos is scheduled to visit the campus to talk with students about race relations.

Despite those efforts, many at Locke believe that Latino teachers are sorely needed for students to feel enfranchised as well as to draw more Latino students into clubs and sports teams.

“The school definitely needs more Latino representation and role models for the students,” said Alberto Hananel, administrative assistant to Principal Webb. “Sometimes just knowing where they come from and being able to get over the language barriers makes it easier to relate. They also look up to you just as African American students look up to African American teachers.”

Adds senior Erica Carvajal, 18: “Even if the fight didn’t happen, we should have more [Latino teachers]. A lot of Hispanics don’t feel comfortable.”

That lack of comfort has hampered many traditional school programs. Coach Robinson, for instance, said that having only four Latino players has strained the football team.

Though the team finished last season with a 10-2 record, Robinson said the dearth of Latino players kept his roster down to about 30 players.

Robinson believes that he could draw more Latinos were he able to find a Latino assistant coach. Most of his assistants, however, are volunteers, and unlike many Eastside schools where second- or third-generation Latino parents who had played football help out, most parents in Locke’s area are recent immigrants who favor soccer and baseball.

Compounding the rifts between groups, according to teachers, are the tremendous burdens that students bring with them to school. Poverty, crime, unemployment and drug abuse are present in the homes and neighborhoods of many students.

This school year, a Locke student was shot and killed while heading out to roller-skate with friends. The school also was locked down for three hours when a group of bank robbers entered the school to escape police.

With open enrollment in Los Angeles schools and busing, many top students who live in the area choose to attend schools in the South Bay or San Fernando Valley.

“One of the biggest problems is the brain drain,” said music teacher Reggie Andrews, an instructor at Locke since 1968. The flight of top students takes away many who would be student leaders and help invigorate the academic environment, he said.

Students who remain are often discouraged and defensive, Johnson said: “A lot of these kids are alienated from the economy and larger culture. Their race and culture is all that’s binding them. When that’s all you have and someone threatens that, you’re going to protect it.”

Even with those obstacles, students at Locke persevere. Race relations are improving, many say. Some Latino students who took part in the fight two weeks ago said that they had enjoyed many of the Black History Month events at school and were looking forward to a March dance intended to unite both groups.

Amid the conflicts, college counselor John Mandell marvels at the more than 20 students in last year’s graduating class who made it to four-year colleges despite being wards of the court. He proudly lists students who’ve left Locke just a few years ago and are finishing college, including a Stanford graduate who will attend Harvard Medical School.

Danielle McDaniels, a senior and student body president, is confident that students are working out their differences, and says that the news media and public officials fretting over the fight at Locke should focus their energy elsewhere.

“They should pay attention to actual problems like jobs and housing instead of irrelevant stuff like this,” she said.