Learning How to Be Americans Symbolizes L.A.

New York has the Statue of Liberty.

Los Angeles has the Evans Community Adult School.

Lady Liberty lifts that lamp of hers beside the golden door, but where do you think people learn to read by its light?

At Evans.

In Moscow, in Oaxaca, in Addis Ababa, in Bangkok, they know about Evans the way other people know about Hollywood. From time to time, a new student shows up at the school doorstep, at Figueroa and Sunset, bearing baggage just retrieved from the airport conveyor belt, not even stopping to unpack.

For nearly 30 years, while City Hall has warbled and whined about finding something--a mural, a monument, a sculpture--to portray to the world what L.A. is all about, Evans has been there doing it, symbol and substance.

Ten thousand adult students a year pass through Evans--10,000--more than graduate each year from UCLA. They learn English and citizenship and the basics of life and law. And they showed a bit of what they had learned about democracy on Thursday, taking up placards and marching from Evans to the Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters to let the board know that they shall not be moved.

Because of the disaster of the Belmont Learning Complex, the Los Angeles Unified School District is considering moving the adult school to an office tower some blocks to the west and sending some of its overflow of high school students to Evans.

On Thursday, Evelyn Arias walked alongside her schoolmates to tell the district how disruptive this move would be. She lives in Culver City; there are other adult schools closer to home, but none with the classes she needs for her high school diploma. Four days a week, from 6 a.m. to noon, she works in a store, and from 1 p.m. to 9:15 at night she goes to Evans. On Fridays, classes end at 6:15 and she can catch up on her homework.

That part in her American history class when the colonists were fighting the English crown--she thought about it again Thursday as she marched toward district headquarters. “I feel that connects to my life. When I came here from El Salvador I didn’t have nothing, so I had to fight for it and I’m doing it, like the U.S.A. was fighting to become a powerful country.

“And now, with the school board, we want them to think twice on what they want to do with us. They’re gonna destroy our life, our future. I’m very pleased to have them as representatives, but they also have to see that adults need the education.”

Here she pauses to consider. Although she left El Salvador 10 years ago, when she was 18, certain habits, like keeping a cautious tongue when it comes to politics, are hard to shake off.

“Maybe it’s not right to say, but they made a mistake spending those billions of dollars [on Belmont], and they want us to pay for it, and it’s not right.”

You go right ahead and say, Evelyn. It’s called the 1st Amendment. It’ll be on the test.

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Some nights, when I’ve had to work late, I’ve driven home feeling tired and cranky and sorry for myself. Then I’ve happened to pass Sunset and Figueroa, and I reproach myself for my laziness.

Eight, nine, 10 o’clock at night, and men and women who have already put in some long, tough days are going to school. They step off the bus in jeans and work overalls and jackets, maybe getting to stop at home first and look in on the kids, maybe not.

I have taught at two universities. At one, an expensive private school, the students were young--bright, yes, but also eager to get in some fun time in their four years. At the other, a Cal State school, my students were adults. They were absolutely serious of purpose; it was their time they were committing, their money they were spending.

The kids were great, but the adults--they were something special.

I expect it’s the same at Evans. For every student who pays the $6 annual enrollment fee, there is another on the waiting list, anxious to get in.

But it takes a lot of gumption to keep going--stamina and staying power at the end of the day when the rest of the world slips so temptingly into supper and channel-surfing and sleep.

All the more reason for the district to think this over seriously. Life for Evans’ students is already hard. A school’s change of address of two miles’ distance may sound inconsequential, but to those whose lives are a fragile web of time clocks and bus schedules, for whom a dollar is a choice between going somewhere and going hungry--even that mile or two could make the difference between a graduate and a dropout.

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Patt Morrison’s column appears Fridays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com

* RALLY: Plan for Evans School protested. B3