Cultures Merge at Blood Center

They came from myriad countries, representing a spectrum of religions and classes, speaking a polyglot of languages. But those differences didn’t matter Wednesday, when thousands of people around the Southland came together united by what they shared: the desire to give their blood to victims of this week’s terrorist attacks.

At the American Red Cross blood station on Vermont Avenue, people started lining up at 7 a.m.--three hours before opening time. By 10 a.m., there was a line of about 100 people, many of whom said they were giving blood for the first time. Sure, they’d heard before that it was good to give. But they were never moved to do so--until they saw the video clips of hijacked jets tearing into the World Trade Center in New York, saw the carnage, heard the screams, felt the shock.

Maria Montes, 51, is from El Salvador. She took time off from her courier business and gamely endured the three- to four-hour wait with her husband and daughter. “There were so many innocent people and they just died and I felt I had to do something and support in some way the people there,” she said. “You can’t say this has nothing to do with us. It is our duty to help.”

Jorge Leyva, 19, is from Mexico. He took time off from his job at a hardware store, waking at 6 a.m. to take the bus from his home in South-Central Los Angeles. “I saw the people jumping from buildings and it made me cry,” he said. “That’s why I came.”

Richard Meade, 39, and Leven Johnson, 47, are home-grown Americans. They have no jobs and, until earlier this year, no home either, living in the streets on welfare. But they have blood, and on Wednesday they trundled into a cab from their downtown hotel room to donate. “It just tore your heart out watching the scenes on TV,” Meade said. “I’ll do anything to help out.”

There were more, hundreds more. Philip Kim from South Korea, a 35-year-old hairdresser who spoke in halting English: “They need blood. I’m very angry.”

Gino Burgess, 19, and Erick Gonzalez, 18, two local friends, decided Tuesday night to give blood after ruling out a volunteer trip to New York as impractical.

“If they need men,” Gonzalez added, “I’ll sign up for the Army. I wouldn’t mind fighting for my country.”

The scene was part of a national outpouring. The Red Cross said it received 1.7 million phone calls Tuesday but was able to handle only 10% of those.

The Southern California response was rare: The region is known as one of the worst in the nation for blood donations. Nationally, 5% of Americans give blood; here, only 3% donate, according to Red Cross spokeswoman Cecilia Arevalo. Fully 40% of the blood used here is imported from outside the region.

The blood shortage has escalated in the last two years, she said, as demand has soared from a growing population and medical advances requiring more blood, such as organ transplants and cancer treatments. At the same time, she said, younger people tend to give less than their older Baby Boomer counterparts, who give less than the World War II generation. On some days, Southern California is operating on just half a day’s blood supply, Arevalo said.

But the trauma of the terrorist attacks has changed all that, at least for the moment. On the day of the attack, donors began showing up at 9:30 a.m.; the last one left 15 hours later. Overall, Southern California collected 2,575 units of blood Tuesday; 405 of the units came from the Vermont Avenue headquarters. That quantity is what the station normally collects in a week.

Officials were using the surge in interest this week as a chance to press the need for continued donations. “How many are giving blood for the first time?” one staff member asked the crowd Wednesday. As most people raised their hands, he said: “I congratulate you on your first time. Don’t let it be your last time.”

Throughout the day, volunteers hauled in boxes of juice, cookies, chips and sandwiches to feed the flocks. Some people read the newspaper, watched TV or listened to headset radios. Many others, however, crossed bridges of language, culture or faith to talk to those who no longer seemed to be strangers, who now were bound by a common national experience of tragedy, grief and resolve.

Along one wall, a lively conversation engaged a Christian Syrian American, a Latino Catholic, a former Mormon, a Native American and other assorted hall mates. Talk of the terrorist attack led to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, which led to sticky differences about whether Jesus is the only way to salvation, which zigzagged to observations about learning English in this country.

Whereupon Stuart Pace, a Los Angeles substitute teacher, and Jerry Woldum, a computer artist, paired up in an intense discussion concerning airport security. They came to an agreement: Armed marshals should be aboard every flight; pilot cabins should be locked; and each piece of luggage should be hand-searched, even if it takes three hours. “Like it or not, we have to do what the Israelis do,” Pace declared.

Meanwhile, Mona Midani, a Los Angeles actress, and Jennifer Mabery, an assistant in fashion design, were rapidly jumping from topic to topic: Their feelings of vulnerability; their hope that Arab Americans won’t be targeted or, worse, put in internment camps like Japanese Americans were after the attack on Pearl Harbor; their unexpected joy that the terrorist attacks have moved Angelenos from superficial conversations about clubs and celebrities to heart-to-heart conversations about faith and fate.

“Everybody here is worried about making a buck, but when something happens like this, it turns everything around and unites people,” Midani said. “People are being real for once here. They’re being regular people.”