Schoolhouse rock

The arson fire that destroyed the historic auditorium at Garfield High School earlier this year all but obliterated the framed portraits of illustrious alumni that had hung on a now-charred wall of fame. It was as if the blaze had tried to snuff out their identity and achievements, leaving only blackened and blistered images like specters of the success that means so much to this East L.A. campus and its blue-collar community.

Somehow, one of the images survived almost unscathed. It was a portrait of Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos, the famed East L.A. band, wearing his characteristic dark glasses and impassive expression, like a silent witness to the destruction. He's not calling it a miracle, but the musician took the sparing of his portrait as an omen for the band.

"It's a calling," said Rosas. "It means we're on a mission from God to try to help."

Los Lobos will do just that next month at a benefit concert to raise funds for the reconstruction of the classic school auditorium that was gutted in the May 20 fire, sustaining an estimated $30 million in damage.

The band, whose original four members are all Garfield graduates from the early 1970s, will headline a bill with other Chicano artists -- Tierra, Little Willie G of Thee Midniters and El Chicano -- representing the classic "Eastside sound" that marked a musical era. The Oct. 14 event at Gibson Amphitheatre also features the legendary Tex-Mex band Little Joe y La Familia as well as Upground, Garfield's hot new upstarts playing a fusion of salsa, ska, R&B and rock.

The campaign to rally around the school reflects the loyalty and pride that Garfield graduates carry with them for the rest of their lives, passed on from one generation to the next. They're not nicknamed Bulldogs for nothing. They're tough and protective of their turf. Just ask the rival Roughriders at Roosevelt High in Boyle Heights, representing a school rivalry as traditional in Southern California as the one pitting USC and UCLA.

But rivalry could have turned to warfare if the arsonist had turned out to be from another neighborhood. So school officials breathed a sigh of relief when police arrested a suspect in the case this month: a 16-year-old Garfield freshman who lived within walking distance of the school. The student was reportedly angry at a teacher, said Principal Omar Del Cueto, grateful that nobody was hurt in the early morning blaze.