The Santa Fe railroad, built in the late 1800s, divided the West Side from downtown. In the 1960s, the 215 Freeway, with offramps only heading east, "strangled the business district here, which was extremely active," said Esther Estrada, a city councilwoman who grew up in the neighborhood.
But the West Side hung in.
Santa Fe's train repair shop employed more than 1,000 people, most of them West Siders. Men also worked at Kaiser Steel's factory in Fontana, or at Norton Air Force base.
Kids "never thought we were poor," said Mercedes Agudo, the victims' mother. "We knew it, but they didn't."
While gangs were a strong presence in the neighborhood when her kids were young, Agudo said, there were other diversions too. In the early 1980s, break dancing gripped the West Side and kept many kids out of trouble.
The neighborhood's best dancers were in Breaking Crew, organized by Mercedes Agudo, and made up of her sons, Johnny and Gilbert, and numerous cousins and friends, such as Marselino and Anthony Luna.
One rival was the Mendozas' Break Force, organized by Luis Mendoza and his older brother, Issa, who came from Mexico as children. The Mexican American kids chided them for how they dressed and their immigrant ways. Rival camps of youths developed.
"They were Mexicanos. They weren't from here," said Patricia Gonzalez, mother of Marselino Luna.
Yet the neighborhood united against outside threats.
In 1983, the school district moved to close Pacific High School. The West Side loved the school. Barrio kids anchored its top-flight wrestling team.
Angel Agudo, the Agudos' elder brother, organized to save it. Mothers, grandfathers, even gang members got involved. But the district prevailed, and the school closed.
Then in 1984, Kaiser Steel closed, laying off dozens of neighborhood men. In 1992, Norton Air Force Base also closed, taking 10,000 jobs. Then, Santa Fe Railroad took its shop and a thousand jobs to Topeka, Kan.
New drugs arrived in the barrio.
In the early 1980s, said Mercedes Agudo, "the thing that really destroyed a lot of families was PCP" -- an animal tranquilizer that makes humans impervious to pain.
Crack came in the late 1980s. Kids dealing dope replaced men with union jobs.
Youths stopped dancing to form gang cliques and feud over street corners. Families fleeing the L.A. gang-and-crack nightmare brought more of it to San Bernardino.
