This is the first of a series of articles that investigate the human sides to the broadening Civil Conflict in Los Angeles, on the eve of the planned summit in Boston. Mark Walderman is the senior Foreign Correspondent for the Post-Standard, and winner of the 2042 Imperial Press Club Award for Journalist of the Year.
Part 1 - The Street
1st Mission Road has no name to its residents…it is “the street.” In 1936, this street was worse than any slum in New York – a region known as the “Flats” to distinguish it from Boyle Heights nearby. A survey conducted by the city in the 1937 deemed 20% of Los Angeles’ dwellings "unfit for human habitation," including most of The Flats. During World War II, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) razed The Flats and built housing projects in their place, resulting in Aliso Village and Pico Gardens. Like most of HACLA's 1940s projects, Aliso Village and Pico Gardens were hailed at the time of their construction as some of the finest examples of the principles espoused by the garden city movement.
The green spaces planned by HACLA are still gardened, but for subsistence not decoration and otherwise the planners of Aliso Village would be appalled by what forty five years of stagnant economy, isolation and impoverishment has done to their vision. Mission Road today may be far worse than the slum that Jacob Riis deplored in 1910.
There is no running water in the houses here. A water main broke in 1990 and it has yet to be replaced, though a large pit exists where the street was dug up. Impromptu bits of cloth and rusted metal form a barricade to keep the few vehicles from driving into it. Residents walk to a fire hydrant to fill galvanized pails with water.
Once the squat two story cinderblock flats of Aliso Village were a statement of the future for “garden cities” of urban housing. A move away from tenements. Now they don’t hold enough people. Wooden and cinderblock shacks top every flat. Temporary extensions built of wood, tin, cardboard, and other bits of trash house a swollen population. Fires are common where gas is extended pell mell, kitchens shared, and outdoor cooking done on grills made of tin cans and fired with trash. Paper and wood are scarce and expensive in LA, and petroleum-based plastics a luxury. Packaging has never been as prolific or cheap as in the “old United States” and even trash has value here.
Unemployment is almost impossible to calculate. Around the square that is called “Guara Square” are fourteen two story apartments. The population is about two hundred. About twelve people have regular jobs, corresponding to one member each of twelve key families around the square. Eight men are in the Army and have not been seen in a year. They send home pay, and when the pay runs out the store lets them buy on credit.
“They don’t fight in the army. They move mud with rakes,” says Maria Munoz. “They bring the trains in and the army moves the mud. Two feet deep. Across the Desert. They are reclaiming it. They have guns but do not know where they are. Locked up somewhere. My husband has been there for fourteen years. He has been hurt twice. We thought he might get a job driving a bulldozer. They would train him and he would get more money. But that hasn’t happened…” Munoz rolls her eyes. “but…Aguirre…”
The name of Aguirre hangs heavy on everyone’s lips. No Catholic Saint is the object of more prayers for intervention. In this community where the $62 a month salary of an Army Private E1 supports a family of 19, and the $6 a month promotion to E-2 is a fourteen year dream, everyone looks to Paul Aguirre to change things.
Maria Munoz buys groceries daily at the Mercado on the corner. A hollowed out apartment with wooden shutters and bins, and a canvas awning, the Mercado is owned by one of the few other employed men, Raoul Sanches, 37. Driving his dented `78 Studebaker Truck, Sanches drives to the “Grande Mercado” at four every Tuesday morning and waits in line for two hours. There he goes through the long tables of UFP produce, and the high priced canned goods and meats, and buys his stock for the week. Most of his customers purchase food daily, sometimes two times a day, seldom buying more than a meal ahead. He employs five or six helpers who are paid in kind and occasionally cash, as well as his three sons two daughters and four grandchildren.
Sanches has one of ten radios around the square. He keeps it tuned to KPCS, the primary Spanish Language station operated by ParaCentury communications. Others around the square try to tune to the various Movement-operated pirate stations, which change frequencies constantly to fight the powerful 1000kw ParaCentury signals.
“All the news is lies,” says Sanches. “The Movement, they lie too. And the Church. ParaCentury lies the most, but my wife, she loves Peyton Place, and A Medida Que El Mundo Gira.” Sanches refers to the Spanish Language soap operas that form the core of daytime ritual for most communities. Sanches looks down at the floor and spits. “Used to, I would say that. Now…the People’s Court. It may not be against the law but if you say there are lies they come and find an excuse sometimes. Beltran de Mora…they said he was a spy. That he took money for reporting on the movement. They took him into the street and…” Sanches makes a cutting motion across his throat.
“Taking him into the street” is a euphemism on its own here, and looking down the street one can tell why. “Those are the boys…” says Sanches. “Everybody knows you don’t mess with the boys.”
The Boys don’t live here, but Javier Bravo has an aunt who lives here and comes by. The Boys busy themselves on the corner of a nameless bar without signage up the street which is locally called “El Tanque.” Javier owns a 1969 Hudson, and it is polished and in good shape. The drunkards around the door fight for the quarters Javier throws them to keep an eye on it. He tells them not to touch it. They don’t. Javier carries a chrome plated 45 at his hip. Sanches will say no more about him.
Miguel Hernandez the cobbler is more talkative. He works from a small shop on First Mission Street, one of the only operating businesses other than the Mercado and the bar. “The boys…they are with the VPV…the Varrio Pico Viejo. They used to be a gang, it is true. But they do a lot of good. Javier…he has always had me fix his shoes…and about every six months he brings the old ones buy. He doesn’t even sell them to me, he gives them to me. A lot of people here wear Javier’s shoes. The Movement, the gangs, they keep me in business. Who else can have shoes. Everyone else is in sandals. The leather is expensive now because there are so few cows. Meat is very expensive. Few cows…means shoes are expensive. Now they have cows in Jeffersonia. So the Movement they ordered a million boots from Manhattan made of Jeffersonian Leather. But only about a tenth of them came before everything blew up there, so now there are no boots. I hope those boots come soon. They are good boots like in my grandfather’s time, but they will need repairs. Now I work on army boots. Every man in the army gets one pair of boots. That’s very valuable. They get to keep them when they leave the army and that is the only shoes that they will have for life. You can always tell a veteran because they have boots not sandals.”
Javier at first does not want to talk to me. I am a gringo. But he learns I am from Syracuse and his interest is piqued. I convince him to try one of my filters and he is more willing to talk. We have a drink at El Tanque.
“A year ago I would have charged you protection to be here. But now that is changed. There is still the money, you know. From the businesses. There has to be. Who is going to come here? The Police. The Movement has done what always needed to be done. Now we are the law. I am an officer of the People’s Court. Deputy Judge Fourth Class. I have a posse, and we keep things good here. Most of the fighting is over. Sometimes there are paseos.” Javier uses the local word for drive-by shootings. “There is a lot of hate here. VPV…we are Red. The Church…the Black. They are going to get into it with us.”
I ask Javier, who has a tattoo of the sacred heart on his shoulder why he supports the Socialists. “I love Jesus, but I love money more. The Socialists make sense. I am not some stupid superstitious. If we go the way the black want…we will all be back to being slaves in five years. Just with new masters. Nothing will change. The Nationalistas are a sham. Rich Bishops and preachers and the ones that made a living off of us before. They say “go with God.” Aguirre…the Red….they’re going to change things. The tide is coming…” Javier’s eyes look mystical as he describes it. “There will be things for everybody…” and he laughs stabbing his thumb at his chest “I will have the best….”
Across LA, the Movement has assimilated the Gangs. Javier is not only a Deputy of the Peoples Court but is a Lieutenant of Civil Guards. He has not been given weapons or training yet but he says “we have good guns. Let the ones who don’t have get guns first. I want the training though. We are not soldiers. We are tough and brave but we are not trained as soldiers. We need that training to go kill the Anglos.”
I ask about the Nationalistas. “Maybe we will have to kill them first. It is a good thing Aguirre is doing. If we kill each other the Anglos will always still be rich. But the Nationalistas. They don’t really want to move against the Anglo. They dress it up with faith, but at the top. They are rotten.”
Javier and I walk outside, and he leans against the fender of his car. “We keep this place pretty good. But nobody has anything. I give them some money. My aunt pays a lot of other people…to do her hair, to sweep. They eat on that.”
Javier decides he likes me, and takes me to the apartment where his aunt lives. Walking in it reminds me of photos from the WPA. Battered pre-event furniture, dirty linoleum. A color picture of the Bearing of John’s head hangs on the wall. Silk flowers in a milk glass vase. Javier’s aunt lives quite well. She speaks no English and her Spanish is thin and frail. He translates for me.
“Before the War it was not so hard. They talked about that as the hard times, but we had coffee and there were vegetables. There were the camps too where the men picked cotton. They thought that was hard. I picked cotton too. We all got jobs in the factories during the war and my father bought this place. I was married to a serviceman, but he never came back from Okinawa. I had his pension and his son. I had a job in a shop after that. Javier's father was in the Zoot Suit Riots. You would not believe this street. There were cars and nearly every shop was open and there were bakeries and places that sold gifts and cards and stationery. None of those things are here now. After the severing…it just got slower and slower. The factories shut down. There were the riots and the fighting and I lost my son to that. Some of the factories stayed open but the wages were low. Most men were out of work…now there is nothing. The young people say things will change, but I remember we thought things would change in 1955, and there was not even a grave. He’s in a mass grave somewhere, dug by the army with Bulldozers. Now there is nothing but the radio. The clubs where the young people go, to take drugs and dance and drink. There is nothing.”
We talk beside Javier’s car as he cleans his pistol. I ask him if he really wants to kill all the Anglos.
“Do I want to? No. Do I seem like a Devil to you? But look…here is this…I have this car, this gun, my shoes because I sell drugs. I can say that now, it’s legal. The People’s Court says it’s legal, only V is illegal. It is cheaper than liquor and it’s all most of these people can do for themselves. They get high and forget. Now the Socialistas say that sometime soon we are going to stop the drugs. Already there are cuts back. The Nationalistas they don’t like the drugs either.
I shrug. The drugs are no good. Maybe I can get by with less. But…the others…the Jarins, the 13. They want the cars, the clothes. People are being promised those things. Jackets, cars, radios.
We’re going to ask the Anglos to give us a fair share. That doesn’t mean half. There are more of us than them. That means more than half. Do you think they are going to give it up? If you have a gun and I have a gun, and I ask you for more than half of what you have in your pockets…are you going to give it to me? If they have any cojones, they are going to fight. That’s how it will be. They should be fair but they won’t be. Maybe Aguirre will say that he will take only half. But…he has to take enough to replace what is being lost. The dealers, the pimps, the heavies…they will not stay in line if they don’t get what they had before. And the people won’t put up with it if they see only the dealers like me get new things, only the People’s Court. So he has to ask for a lot…”
Javier spits…
“The Anglos won’t pay and there will be war…”
Tomorrow - "The Mission"
