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Those Who Help a Neighborhood Glow

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Virginia Avila would like to show you the lights of her Santa Ana neighborhood, an area that only recently emerged from a pall of lawlessness.

Six years ago, police and residents ganged up on the gangs that had control of these blue-collar streets near the Civic Center. Before that, nobody dared go out at night, much less dream of holding a Christmas procession at dusk in the Mexican tradition.

Outside her window, Virginia used to hear cholos exchanging gunfire. She’d dive for cover on the floor, covered with a blanket that was far from bullet-proof.

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But you should see her neighborhood now. Residents have trimmed the frames of their humble old houses with the lights of the season of hope. Nothing too fancy or elaborate. Just enough affordable flair to display the spirit of Christmas in this small community once under siege.

This year for the first time since peace was restored, residents will celebrate Christmas with Las Posadas, reenacting the Holy Family’s search for lodging in Bethlehem. Carrying candles, some neighbors go door-to-door singing ceremonial verses that plead for shelter. Others agree to stay home to be the innkeepers who turn them away.

The pilgrims are finally welcomed at their final destination with great jubilation. Usually a home symbolically opens its doors. In this neighborhood, Las Posadas will stop for pan dulce and chocolate at the small city park liberated from gang control, now called “Angels Community Park.”

“We want to show whatever [criminal] elements who want to come back that we are still here and we’re not going to let it happen again,” she said.

Virginia is going to take us on an impromptu tour of these scruffy streets she’s called home for half a century, since she was a newlywed teenager. She will share what she knows of the hardships and happiness behind each door as we follow the route the procession will take Dec. 23.

Over the years, Virginia watched as all the whites moved out to get away from the Latinos moving in. Then, middle class Mexican Americans also left to get away from crime.

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“I didn’t move out when everybody else did,” says Virginia, who turns 68 next month.

Good thing. This mother and grandmother emerged as a local leader after police conducted high-profile sweeps through this community in the shadow of the county jail. Six years ago, she helped start the Flower Park Neighborhood Assn. and has been its only president ever since.

Hard Times, Hard Work

She was born Virginia Lopez during the Great Depression in Delhi, another of Santa Ana’s deep-rooted barrios. She was an only child and sickly. At age 8, she contracted tuberculosis and had to be placed in a county sanitarium for an extended period. It was during World War II, she remembered, because of the blackouts. She also remembered that her mother cried.

“Mom, don’t cry,” little Virginia said. “I’m not afraid.”

Virginia was two weeks shy of her 17th birthday when she married Arthur Avila, who would make a hard living as an asphalt worker. Their wedding was three days after Christmas 1949.

When tough times or stormy weather kept her husband off the job, Virginia supplemented the family income packing sweet potatoes or checking batteries at a factory. She’d also make and sell “crafty things,” like flower arrangements.

Virginia was reminiscing in her front yard on a chilly night this week when her husband stepped briefly outside. Sporting a gray beard, glasses and work boots, he waved at me politely and went back in.

Arthur is not much of a talker and doesn’t like to get involved, confided Virginia. He’s 69 now and had a quadruple heart bypass operation four years ago. Now he watches his diet and takes walks for his health.

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Arthur and Virginia had five boys and twin girls. One of the twins, Toni, was born with spina bifida, a deformity that left her severely disabled and at risk of an early death. For the Avilas, putting their daughter in an institution wasn’t an option.

“God chose us to give us this special child,” Virginia explained. “We wanted her to have a chance at life, and she’s still here.”

Toni is now 37 and still lives in the Second Street home the family has occupied since the 1950s. Her Christmas wish is a new desktop computer.

“Virginia seems to know how to balance giving back to her community and caring for her daughter,” said Belem Solis, a city parks employee. “We need people like Virginia out here in the community because she has so much to offer.”

Toni’s lifelong illness would not be the Avilas’ only challenge. Their second son, Richard, was a happy-go-lucky guy who was particularly close to Toni. He did everything he could for his disabled sister, Virginia recalled.

In 1987, Richard died of AIDS. He was 36.

It took time for Virginia to bury her grief. A few years after the loss, she went to Washington, D.C., to place a panel for her son in the AIDS Memorial Quilt. It was the first time Virginia had flown in a plane, the first time she had ever left Orange County.

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She calls it the end of her journey. But it was the beginning of big troubles for her neighborhood back in Santa Ana.

A few doors down from her, in the nice little green house, lives a woman named Carmen. She cares for her husband, Salvador, who had a stroke many years ago. And she used to do the ironing for the parish priest, pressing fabrics that cloak the altar.

As Carmen would drive by in her van on her way to church, street thugs would throw rocks at her. She was so afraid she changed her route.

“They had no respect whatsoever,” says Virginia of the street hoodlums.

The neighborhood’s latest wave of new immigrants has helped restore the area’s spirit and appearance. Look at the house next door to Virginia’s, with its fresh coat of peach paint and white trim. The new owners are from Mexico. The kids think of Virginia as grandma, and the mother brings over champurrado and other goodies.

“They’re just good neighbors,” Virginia says.

Across the street is a three-unit condo built by Habitat for Humanity, the organization that provides new homes to poor people who help build them. A deaf couple live with their children in the front unit. In the middle is a woman named Irma who learned English and became a nurse after raising two sons who served in the military.

In the rear unit lives a father of three named Salvador. It was his idea to hold the Posadas as a way of showing support for Virginia bringing all the neighbors together.

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Salvador promised to bring the choir from St. Joseph’s Church.

A few doors down, in the light green house with the dark green trim, lived a woman who was “real beautiful and real slim.” Her name was Virginia too, and she married a much older man. They had 12 children and “she really raised them good,” recalled our tour guide. Tragically, the woman died of cancer at 45.

Her husband, Genaro, still lives in the home. You can see him outside most days, sweeping his driveway or just sitting on his porch.

Nearby, in the home with the peeling paint and rickety porch, lives an elderly woman named Beatriz, but everybody calls her Bea. She worked for a department store and cared for her ailing parents, including her blind father. She’s now in her 70s herself, and still tries to make herself useful.

“She’s the one we turn to if we have a cat that we don’t want,” Virginia told me. “She’s always saving cats and finding homes for them.”

As we head toward Third Street, where the crime problem was most severe, a growling, fat-headed pit bull charges at us from behind the fence. “He’s a little fierce,” Virginia tells the owner in Spanish. “Give him something to eat.”

The man smiles.

Around the corner lives Jean, an African American woman whose niece runs the nearby center that feeds the homeless. She’s loyal to Virginia (their kids went to school together) and always backs her up at meetings: “Virginia and I know how it is. We’ve been here forever.”

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Now, see that rear apartment above the garage? That used to be the home of a nice white woman who didn’t speak Spanish, but loved the neighborhood, says Virginia. She made the manager clean up the building and she recruited kids to help weed empty lots and pick up trash.

“We have to help each other,” the nice woman would say. “I can’t do the work, because I have a bad heart. But I can bring you guys the tools.”

She brought the tools in her small red pickup, wearing a mask to protect herself from dust as the children worked.

“She befriended the kids and gave them color[ing] books, and let them watch TV,” recalled Virginia. “She’d keep the door open so they could come in. If they needed a ride to some game, she’d take them.”

The children cried some time back when they saw a hearse take the nice woman’s body away.

“She died alone in her apartment,” Virginia recalled.

Next, Virginia sees a man standing by a fence and whispers to me--He lost a son to the violence.

“Buenas tardes,” she greets him. “Are you the man of the house?”

She asks for permission to stop at his home for Las Posadas.

“You don’t have to give anything,” she says. “All you have to do is open the door.”

“Bienvenidos,” says the man. “Welcome.”

We round the park where young men are playing basketball, then pass the Santa Ana Assistance League, which runs a popular day-care center. We make a final stop at a corner in front of a two-story house with a spooky history.

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On a rainy day many years ago, a young mother was brutally killed here, Virginia remembers as night settles on the neighborhood. Her mutilated body was found in the backyard by the orange tree. Nobody heard anything except the dogs barking. The horror made the owner, a retired teacher, sell the house and move away.

“This area has stories,” Virginia says as we cross the street.

A block away, the neon glow from the Samoan church lights the night. They’re good people, the Samoans, says Virginia, who lives next door to the pastor.

Their church’s back-lit cross makes her feel safe, and she has told them so.

It makes her feel “like nothing could be that bad.”

Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com.

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