March Is a Testament to Victim’s Recovery

Sometimes the bullet does not kill.

Sometimes it becomes a cruel artist, molding lives, reshaping futures.

“The first thing you lose is yourself,” said Ruben Hernandez, who was left permanently blind after a drive-by shooting in 1974. “When I became disabled I was 25% of Ruben. I recovered Ruben little by little.”

Having recovered himself, Hernandez set out on a path that has allowed him to help others do the same. He founded Unification of Disabled Latin Americans, an organization in the Westlake area that assists people with disabilities.

But when a family friend was left paralyzed in a random freeway shooting, Hernandez turned his attention to the violence itself.

“I have to do something,” said Hernandez, who has organized a series of marches against drugs and crime. “More and more young people are becoming disabled because of this nonsense.”

Now Hernandez is part of a network of people whose lives have been forever changed by violence and who see a value in others knowing just what it takes to recover after losing so much.

At a march held Saturday morning in Whittier, the special guest was Hernandez’s friend, Richard Bautista, the teenager who was shot while returning home from a Dodger game in 1995. Next to Richard was Alfredo Perez, the elementary school teacher who was wounded by a stray bullet while teaching in a South L.A. classroom in 1996. Marching too were the parents and sister of Richard Michael Rodriguez, a 17-year-old who was killed in a drive-by shooting in Whittier in 1995.

“Somehow we want to wake the community up and say, ‘This is affecting us all,’ ” Hernandez said. “The worst enemy of us all is not the crime, it’s not the drugs, it’s not the gangs, it’s the apathy.”

By all accounts, Hernandez is anything but apathetic.

At the march, he was all energy and passion, keeping the more than 75 people in line, delegating responsibilities to the volunteers.

With a cane in his hand and a guide at his side, he walked and ran up and down the march route, encouraging the participants and imploring onlookers to join.

“March! March! March! against crime,” he shouted into a megaphone. “If you love your familia you will join us. Come join us!”

A blind man leading a march is not a strange phenomenon to the people who know Hernandez. He founded the organization and runs it with no governmental support.

The center operates on private donations and corporate sponsorship, he said, so it will not be constrained by anyone else’s rules. It provides an array of services, job search assistance, counseling, theater groups and wheelchair basketball.

“Sometimes I forget he’s blind,” said Gloria Hutson, of Hollywood, who works with the group. “There are people who are alive, not just alive, but alive and living fruitful lives because of Ruben and UDLA.”

After he was shot, Hernandez eventually reached a realization: He would not spend his life lamenting his blindness and what it meant--that he, an avid dancer, could no longer see the new dance moves, or the faces of women, or work his old job.

He learned Braille, graduated from UCLA with a master’s degree in psychology and learned to find joy in helping others “learn to fly.”

“My blindness has been wonderful to me,” he said. “My blindness pushed me to the question, “What are you doing with your life?’ ”

For years Hernandez, who is married and has two children, and the Bautista family have been friends. Each year they take a camping trip together to Yosemite. The Bautistas never knew the cause of his blindness because they never talked about it, said Hector Bautista. It was easy not to because Hernandez was like everyone else, there to enjoy, have a good time.

“This man, he’s done so much and he can’t see,” said Hector Bautista, as he pushed Richard’s wheelchair along the march route. “When this happened he told us he was shot in the head.”

Now the two are inspirations to each other, each one offering the other lessons.

“He tells me not to give up, keep trying and keep faith,” said Richard, who is now 15.

After Richard was shot, he publicly forgave the man who shot him and has prayed for him. Hernandez was 23 when he was shot in Lincoln Heights. His reaction was nothing like Richard’s.

“The first thing I told my friends was ‘kill him,’ ” he said. “With Richard, he loves God very much . . . he talks about forgiveness. He’s a wonderful example for not only disabled individuals but for many non-disabled people.”

Perez and his wife are also friends of the Bautista family and offer their support to Richard.

The families understand what many people do not: After a tragedy, life is never the same again. But Hernandez is proof that life can still have purpose and meaning.

“My life is very, very complete,” he said.