Residents Gather for Day of Dialogue

Fixing race relations will fix a community.

So said a group of two dozen people gathered Wednesday at the Pacoima Senior Citizens Services Center for a Day of Dialogue. Dialogue days are observed in Los Angeles the week before Martin Luther King Day as a means of improving race relations after the 1992 riots.

This year, the city expanded the conversation to the broader question of how to improve its communities. But in Pacoima, speakers said, building the community and improving race relations are synonymous.

“Crime is down, here,” said William Bryant, who heads a local Neighborhood Watch group. “But the quality of life is what I’m looking for. We have a terrible communication gap between the residents, and we have a problem getting things out to the masses.”

Race has been a perpetual issue, they said, in this community that was once dominated by a black working and professional class but is now increasingly Latino. Participants, nearly all African American, said language barriers and emigration of black professionals have contributed to strained relations within and across ethnic groups.

“Race relations are individual situations,” said John Hunter, president of Pacoima Beautiful. “You have to learn to make adjustments. Growing up in Cincinnati, we didn’t work well with white people, we fought with them. That’s what was going on at the time. Now I go out of my way to smile and speak to people. That’s the kind of thing we have to do in Pacoima.”

Dr. Bill Huling, a physician, believes parents should encourage their children to keep professional talent and money in the community. If the next generation of residents has no familial bond to the community, he said, it will not care to build the community with the same vitality as its forebears.

“I lost my sons to other communities,” Huling said. “We all know this: When we go, there will be no one here to replace us.”

Days of Dialogue were held this week throughout the city, with small groups gathering to discuss their community’s problems and how to solve them. Valerie Moody, who works for the city Recreation and Parks Department, said she has been disappointed by the lack of resolution and follow-up despite four years of such forums.

“I’ve seen changes, but for the most part they haven’t been positive,” she said.

Hope for positive change, according to resident Alex Martinez, lies with individuals respecting each other. Martinez, a former gang member, said Christianity helped deprogram him from racial hatred he had learned in gangs in the streets and in prison.

An irate Eugene Hernandez condemned the group of 26 for being so small and almost exclusively African American. Three of the five Latinos present were representing politicians.

“This is indicative of deteriorating race relations,” Hernandez said before abruptly leaving the room.