The Mothers’ Saga: How a Movement Split in Two : Activism: A plan for a prison near Boyle Heights spurred a group of women to action. Along the way, a bitter division occurred, and it endures to this day.

On the Eastside, they are revered simply as “the Mothers.”

The phrase recalls the image of hundreds of women with white scarves tied over their hair, marching through the streets of Boyle Heights in the 1980s to protest the construction of a state prison near their neighborhood.

The Mothers of East Los Angeles finally won that six-year battle against the state when the prison plan was killed in 1992. And in doing so they became legendary.

Their campaign is recounted in classes from Harvard to UCLA as an example of a powerful grass-roots movement, and routinely cited as a turning point for the Eastside. Their name evokes automatic respect; top politicians call the women national role models and clamor for their endorsement.

There’s only one confusing problem muddying the Mothers’ glory: Two groups claim the same name and the same heritage.

One is the Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA), based at Resurrection Catholic Church in Boyle Heights.

The other goes by the Spanish name for the group, calling itself Madres del Este de Los Angeles, Santa Isabel (MELASI), and is based at Santa Isabel Catholic Church, also in Boyle Heights.

The split is a sensitive, seldom-discussed case of how the noblest intentions can fall prey to pride--in this case, who should get credit for starting the movement.

Both groups were involved in the defeat of the prison, as well as successful fights to stop the construction of a toxic waste incinerator and gas-oil pipeline in the area. The leaders of both have received many prestigious awards. Both are respected organizations that continue to work in the community.

But over the years they have butted heads over who really founded the organization and gets to carry the name.

Most Eastsiders, aware of the personal animosity involved, studiously avoid the split. “Which Mothers?” they’ll ask carefully when queried about the groups, sidestepping any discussion of the discord. Most say privately that they try not to get between the two groups.

The disunity surfaced recently when the two organizations landed on opposite sides of a battle over a zoning change for a local market.

At a City Council meeting in June, Mary Lou Trevis, president of the Mothers, testified against approving a zoning change for El Mercado, an Eastside market where vendors sell wares in the parking lot. Neighbors complain that the stalls attracted traffic, noise and garbage. A raid by county health officials turned up medications such as antibiotics and steroids being sold illegally.

“The mercadito, by selling illegal pharmaceuticals, put our children’s lives at risk,” Trevis told the City Council on June 23. “This goes against what the MELA organization stands for.”

A few minutes later, Juana Gutierrez, president of Las Madres, went to the microphone.

“We’re here to support the vendors of the Mercado,” she told the council. “If [the Mothers] really care about the children, as they say, why aren’t they worried about these families, whose children will be left without nourishment?”

The conflicting testimony confused residents who live near El Mercado and infuriated some members of the Mothers.

‘We Were Tired of Injustice’

The story of the Mothers began in mid-1980s, when the state proposed building a $100-million prison across the Los Angeles River from Boyle Heights.

To Eastside residents, it was yet another undesirable project being dumped in their community. Many whose families had been forced to move by previous government projects, such as the construction of freeways and housing projects, felt that the prison was a slap in the face.

“We were tired of injustice,” said Gutierrez, a mother of nine whose family moved three times because of the freeways. “That’s why the community fought against the prison with such courage.”

In 1984, Gutierrez was an active Neighborhood Watch leader in her Boyle Heights neighborhood when then-Assemblywoman Gloria Molina asked her to host a meeting to discuss the prison proposal.

After hearing the plan, the women in the neighborhood were furious. On one Sunday, they collected 900 signatures from church members opposing the proposal. They began meeting weekly to study the issue.

Meanwhile, businesspeople and community leaders had formed a group called Coalition Against the Prison and were making regular trips to Sacramento to lobby against the project.

Father John Moretta at Resurrection Church, a member of the coalition, decided that organizing the women to protest would be a good way to bring attention to the issue while ensuring peaceful demonstrations.

He discussed strategy with Frank Villalobos, an Eastside architect and coalition leader, who suggested that they organize a march across the Olympic Boulevard bridge over the site proposed for the prison.

In the summer of 1986, Moretta invited women from his parish and others, including Gutierrez, to a meeting at the church. He told them of his plan and said he had come up with a name for the group--Mothers of East Los Angeles--as long as the acronym MELA did not have a bad meaning in Spanish. The women assured him that it did not.

He handed them white scarves cut from a bolt of fabric, and a few hours later the group was marching in the street.

For months, they marched every Monday night across the Olympic bridge, drawing statewide attention. At their height, the marches attracted about 3,000 participants.

Moretta named Lucy Ramos, a member of Resurrection and mother of five, as spokeswoman for the group. Gutierrez, an active leader, was the point person for the Spanish-language media. She and Moretta soon became accustomed to answering questions from reporters and facing the television cameras. The Mothers made bus trips to Sacramento, where they lobbied legislators and testified before Senate committees.

The prison battle dragged on for years. In 1990, in the midst of the fight, the Mothers decided that they could raise more money for their cause if they formed a nonprofit corporation.

Dispute Over How Division Began

The two groups disagree about what happened next.

According to the Mothers, Gutierrez walked out after the women voted to make Ramos president instead of her.

Gutierrez rejects that account, saying she never ran for president of the Mothers. She says she left before the election, when members told her that the women from Santa Isabel were no longer welcome at their meetings. (The Mothers group denies that charge.)

Soon afterward, Gutierrez and the women at her parish began calling themselves Madres del Este de Los Angeles, adding the name of their church to the title and eventually registering as a nonprofit organization in 1993.

Gutierrez said she has a right to the name because she considers the group’s original start the meetings she held in her living room. The women at Resurrection were resentful, she said, because she drew so much media attention.

“They were envious,” said Gutierrez, sitting on her porch recently, looking at old newspaper clippings about the Mothers in an ivory photo album. “I tried to talk to them at first, but then I gave up. I don’t care what they think about me because, God knows, I’m not doing this out of selfishness. All I care about is the community.”

But to some, Gutierrez’s decision to use the name “Mothers”--even in Spanish--was unforgivable.

“If she wanted to break away, she didn’t have to take our name,” said Henrietta Castillo, whose late sister Aurora was a prominent leader of the Mothers and often clashed with Gutierrez. “The name means everything. It means we’re together and we do what is best for the community.”

At first, the two groups continued to work together, fighting the construction of a toxic waste incinerator in Vernon and an oil pipeline through the area. But when the prison was finally killed by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1992, after intense community pressure, the two groups had separate celebrations.

Since then, each has accused the other of trying to take credit for its work. The media, including The Times, have repeatedly referred to Gutierrez as founder of the Mothers of East Los Angeles--a title the Mothers said should go to Moretta.

Moretta wrote a sharply worded letter to a local newspaper after the prison victory, criticizing an article that called Gutierrez the founder.

“We would be derelict to the name of the Mothers if we did not protect the name,” said Moretta, now a monsignor, recently. “It’s important to distinguish ourselves.”

For the most part, the two groups have worked on separate issues, both using the history of the prison fight to launch other battles.

The Mothers have fought adult businesses in the area, advocated for the Red Line subway and are now building low-income housing.

Las Madres have raised thousands of dollars for scholarships for local children, run graffiti cleanups and have government contracts to do lead screening and asthma outreach. They hold regular events for children in a community garden they created out of an abandoned lot.

Gutierrez said that the divide between the two groups is painful, but that she tries not to think about it. “What matters to me is to continue with programs for the youth and the community,” she said.

Trevis said she would welcome Gutierrez back to the Mothers, but wants it to be clear who is who.

“We’re working on a lot of issues that are going to have a big impact on the community, and we don’t want there to be any confusion,” she said. “It’s time to set the record straight.”