Activists Give Tours of L.A.’s Gritty Side

Normally, tour operators in Los Angeles show visitors the city’s grand museums and sunny beaches and the opulent homes of film stars.

They are unlikely to take tourists into South-Central Los Angeles to point out neighborhood environmental damage, let alone visit Santee Alley garment-making factories to learn about poor working conditions.

But that’s exactly what some are doing.

In preparation for next week’s Democratic National Convention--and the large protests planned in response to it--organizers with the human rights group Global Exchange are taking three days to show visitors and city residents “the politics behind the protests.”

“Why are people unhappy with our democratic system? What’s going on with our political parties that people don’t feel they speak for them?” Xiomara Castro of Global Exchange asked about 30 participants early Thursday.

“It’s important to highlight the local problems in the community. . . . We’re going to talk to ordinary people who live, who work here.”

The excursions, called Reality of Los Angeles Tours, offer visitors and city residents a view of the city’s poorer, more downtrodden areas.

On Thursday, it focused on alleged environmental racism. Today, participants will explore justice issues, at a youth detention hall. On Saturday they will meet with day laborers in downtown’s garment district.

Global Exchange is paying for the bulk of the tours, which start as early at 7 a.m. and last up to 12 hours. The group also requests a $25 donation for one day’s participation or $50 for the entire tour.

On Thursday, most participants in the large luxury tour bus were activists, students and concerned citizens, and the rest were members of the press, said Dan LaBotz of Global Exchange. Though the tour was open to anyone, most were from the Los Angeles area.

The tour began with an orientation at MacArthur Park near downtown. Participants then visited an oil refinery in Santa Fe Springs.

The CENCO Refining Co. was closed in 1995 amid multiple safety violations and complaints of pollution from neighbors. New owners are trying to reopen it, according to Carlos Porras, executive director of Communities for a Better Environment.

Later, the tour went to Huntington Park to discuss a 50-foot-tall mound of freeway debris left over from the Northridge earthquake. Those who live next to the pile they call la montana, the mountain, say it spreads dust that causes breathing problems, headaches and bloody noses.

The owner has agreed to fix the problem, after a years-long campaign by residents.

“It is in minority areas that they are doing this,” said Linda Marquez, a retired retail worker whose frontyard faces the pile and who spoke to the tour Thursday.

“They wouldn’t do this in Beverly Hills or Santa Monica. They do it in places where they don’t think there will be repercussions.”

From there, the group went to New Jefferson Middle School in South-Central, the site of toxic soil contamination. Studies are underway to determine potential levels of danger.

School health room visits at New Jefferson are considerably higher than the district average, according to Juan Garcia, youth environmental organizer of Concerned Citizens of South-Central.

“The time is now for people to get involved,” he said. “The school district is just not doing enough.”

Tour participants took notes and asked questions, then headed toward USC for lunch.

Afterward, they planned to visit the Belmont Learning Complex, the embattled school construction site on which city officials spent $175 million before they realized it was contaminated with methane and hydrogen sulfide.

The tour starts tomorrow at 8 a.m. at 6th Street and Park View Street at MacArthur Park.

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Times staff writer Hector Tobar contributed to this story.