El Sereno

Cesar Augusto Castro Gonzalez found his calling when he went looking for a buddy to play some soccer during recess. Castro was attending middle school in the Mexican coastal city of Veracruz and was told he could find his friend, Omar, at a workshop that taught young people how to play traditional music known as el son jarocho. Castro found Omar and was immediately drawn to the sound of an eight-string rhythmic guitar, the jarana. "The happiness of the jarana really just got me," Castro said.

A girls' volleyball coach at Woodrow Wilson High School in El Sereno was fired after officials learned about a lawsuit alleging he had a sexual relationship with a student at a Catholic school, where he resigned under pressure. Wilson Principal Roberto Antonio Martinez said he terminated Renato "Ray" Lopez Jr.

Forget short, tall and venti, that strange code for ordering Starbucks. The sizes at Antigua Cultural Coffeehouse are ce, ome and yei, the Mayan words for one, two, three. Somehow, that's easier to follow. Sadly, though, today will be the final day to place an order in any lingo at the colorful cafe in El Sereno, the blue-collar barrio nestled in the hills between downtown L.A. and the San Gabriel Valley. No more Chango Mango fruit drinks or Aztlan Dream espresso brews, named for the mythic Aztec homeland but made with white chocolate, the concoction of a satirical barista.

Re "A Victim Who Never Feared for His Safety," May 13: President Bush's continuing "dog ate my homework" excuses to shirk responsibility for everything are getting old. Now the American government whines that it didn't illegally detain independent contractor Nick Berg -- the Iraqi police did. Excuse me. Didn't we invade their country and co-opt all of their institutions, including their police department? If an innocent American civilian is hauled in off the street and jailed, do we no longer have any responsibility for his welfare simply because he's not in "our department"?

What could be controversial about a new $4.3-million library for the children of a needy community northeast of downtown Los Angeles? In El Sereno, plenty. A bitter disagreement over one of El Sereno's biggest public works projects is illuminating the growing pains of a newly certified Neighborhood Council that is attempting to exercise its advisory role and unify a community historically bisected by distrust between two camps.

There's a Malayan proverb that taunts the shortsighted by observing: "He can see a louse as far away as China, but is unconscious of the elephant on his nose." I fear, by that measure, that South Pasadena can't see the elephant on its nose. I'm talking about a barrier that divides the white-majority city from the predominantly Latino community of El Sereno. In a noisy debate regarding the removal of that barrier, I emerged as the louse, but cultural isolation is the elephant. If you missed the analogy, let me explain.

A registered sex offender accused of luring boys to motel rooms in El Sereno, where he allegedly molested them and photographed them nude, has been arrested, Los Angeles police said Wednesday. Alexander Trestrail, 27, of El Sereno, was arrested March 23 after the mother of a 14-year-old runaway he allegedly befriended tracked him down at a Super 8 Motel and called police. The teenager did not report any abuse by Trestrail, authorities said.

Luz Maria Castellanos was in secondary school in El Sereno when she first heard that someone had put up walls to divide her largely Latino community from the overwhelmingly white, Anglo city of South Pasadena. She had never actually seen the barriers, and didn't know why they were there, if they were there at all, but was told that the children of El Sereno should never cross them. She buried the memory as she grew, considering it an "urban legend" of her youth. But it wasn't.

A pro-freeway group from the San Gabriel Valley filed a motion Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, asking for dismissal of a lawsuit that challenges the proposed Long Beach Freeway extension.

Sometimes all it takes is a couple of people to make a difference in a community. About seven years ago in El Sereno, two women, Mary Jaquez and Rosemarie Elizondo, looked around their neighborhood and decided it could use some sprucing up. So they formed El Sereno Sparkle Club and invited the neighborhood kids to join with them in a once-a-month cleanup detail. RITA LUTHER spoke with Mary Jaquez about the Sparkle Club.