Turning Suburbia Into a Small Town

After work, the outside world comes to these tidy, ranch-style homes through the TV antennas and telephone wires that frame the pale night sky here above the San Gabriel Valley. The streets are silent but for a few restless dogs and the distant sigh of the Pomona Freeway. For more than 30 years, this middle-class community of North Whittier has lived in relative peace and prosperity. But like so many suburban neighborhoods in Southern California, few residents knew each other well, beyond a wave from the garage or an offhand chat.

That’s what Ruben Hernandez has been working to change, though he might seem an unlikely candidate to do so. The 50-year-old resident has been completely blind since a gang member shot him in the head on a Lincoln Heights sidewalk almost 27 years ago.

Unhindered by the disability, Hernandez founded and heads the local Neighborhood Watch, which is actually based in unincorporated Bassett, just north of Whittier. He is guided by still-vivid visions of his youth in Guadalajara, where everyone seemed to know everyone, and evenings were spent talking, eating and playing soccer in the streets.

In this spirit on a recent night, 50 or so neighbors chatted in a driveway on Dovey Street, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts and Mexican pan dulce.

Organized by Hernandez and dubbed “Night Out,” it was an evening for residents to flip on the porch light and stroll out in the warm dusk to meet each other. The event, held every three months, is something between a typical block party and the National Night Out, an anti-crime effort in which residents are also urged to meet their neighbors.

“In the past, knowing your neighbors was part of the culture,” Hernandez said. “But somewhere, instead of seeing the community as a whole, we became very private.”

As stars slowly emerged from the dull June twilight, a diverse trickle of residents--including emigrants from Mexico, Japan, Indonesia, China, India and the Philippines--walked from nearby homes.

Three Latino women sat chatting animatedly, while an Asian American man stood clutching his cane. A Canadian couple introduced themselves and their dog Tiko.

“It’s a pleasure to have you in the neighborhood,” Hernandez said to new arrivals.

Many had never met, and came after finding an announcement on their doorsteps. They hoped that, in this frenetic metropolis, knowing thy neighbor would be more than a novelty, that it would create a close, safe community.

Of course, when they moved here, many welcomed the quiet. The area, which residents call “the Island” for its seclusion, is still checkered with old ranches.

For some, the isolation was simply part of climbing the economic ladder. They had come from lively barrios and busy city streets with crime and noise and poverty. Some had left foreign countries with similar problems, but still held nostalgic memories of tight communities abroad.

Marilyn Kamimura, who is ethnic Chinese, grew up in Honolulu. “It was a courtesy that when you walked down the street, you greeted someone,” she said. “You always said hello.”

When she and her Japanese husband moved here 27 years ago, the neighborhood was a new development, overwhelmingly white and seemingly oriented inward, she recalled. “Everybody wasn’t that friendly with each other,” she said.

Now, just about every racial and ethnic group in Southern California lives here, not in clusters, but side by side. “That’s what makes this place so neat,” said Hector Guerra, who grew up in Boyle Heights.

Carlos Hernandez, 40, (not related to Ruben) moved to Bassett eight months ago and he didn’t know anyone. At the Night Out, he met Hans Dopperp, 66, an ethnic Indonesian who volunteers at the Industry sheriff’s station. The two talked about crime and raising children and the days when people left their doors open. Dopperp even offered: “If you go on vacation, call me at the sheriff’s station and I’ll check your house.”

Carlos Hernandez, who grew up in a northern Mexican town that bustled well into each night, wanted to know his neighbors so that his children would feel safer.

“If they see one of my kids in trouble, they will help them,” he said.

Having Doughnuts, Getting Involved

Ruben Hernandez started the area Neighborhood Watch about 10 years ago and the Night Out about four years ago.

At the Nights Out, residents meet in various families’ front yards, sometimes to barbecue, sometimes to sip coffee and eat doughnuts. Usually a little more than 50 people show up.

Sheriff’s Deputy Carlos Avila worked with Hernandez for several years as a crime prevention officer. “I think it’s fantastic what he’s done,” he said. “He’s a real motivator for a lot of people. When you see him doing it, there’s almost no excuse for not getting involved.”

As a child in Mexico, if Hernandez was doing something wrong, a neighbor or store owner would scold him and send him home. During hard times, neighbors would share what they had.

“When my mother was cooking something, she’d say: ‘Take this to Dona Maria or Don Paco,’ ” he said.

When he came to California as a young man in the late 1960s, Hernandez was shocked by the inwardness of its neighborhoods, where everyone seemed to stay inside at night and watch television.

“I had to go and look for friends,” he said. “I was thirsting for friendship, for being with people.”

One winter night in 1972, Hernandez was walking through Lincoln Heights. In an apparent case of mistaken identity, some “homeboys” confronted him, mentioning something about a recent shooting. In a blink, one drew a gun and shot Hernandez in the temple.

He would never see again.

But his blindness made him more determined to succeed, he said.

After that, he said, he got a degree in psychology at UCLA and founded a nonprofit service group called the Unification of Disabled Latin Americans in Los Angeles, where he volunteers full time.

Meanwhile, in North Whittier, due in part to his prodding, residents said they have started taking the time to talk to each other, and a community is slowly developing.

Guerra said his barbecues have become an eclectic mix of American, Mexican, Indian and Filipino food brought by neighbors. And Kamimura said she now knows scores of residents on her street.

“I have neighbors that bring me fruit all the time,” she said. “It’s like a small town now.”