Ethnic Groups

QUESTION: We've been living in this middle-class apartment complex for about four years. When we first moved in, we really liked the mix of races and cultures. Now, this complex is slowly being dominated by one ethnic group. Whenever a lease expires and the tenants are not part of the "in group," they receive a notice to move. Those of us on a month-to-month basis are just waiting for a 30-day termination notice. Pretty soon, this will be a one-flavor complex.

Almost everyone knows Madonna, Frankenstein and Sammy Davis Jr. But are visitors to the Movieland Wax Museum willing to pay $12.95 to see likenesses of Celia Cruz and Cristina Saralegui as well? They will if they are Latino, the museum's managers are betting. Though Cruz is a hit in the Spanish-speaking world as "the Queen of Salsa," she is practically unknown in the Anglo mainstream. The same goes for Saralegui, who is a sort of a Cuban-American Oprah Winfrey.

Minority-owned businesses in Los Angeles County overwhelmingly employ minority workers and tend to hire within their own ethnic group, a Los Angeles Times Poll has found--a trend with key implications for the region's economic growth and unemployment rates, particularly in low-income areas. Nearly three-quarters of Latinos surveyed described their work force as mostly Latino, and 41% of black business owners reported a mostly black work force.

Gov. George Deukmejian, seeking to strengthen his support among ethnic groups in Los Angeles on Saturday, played up his parents' emigration from their Armenian homeland and stressed government's duty to protect minority groups from persecution. Joined by his mother, Alice, and his wife, Gloria, the Republican governor spoke to about 500 supporters from a variety of ethnic groups who paid $10 apiece to attend a campaign festival at Lawry's California Center just north of downtown.

Saying that there "are no strangers in the community of faith," Archbishop Roger M. Mahony urged Los Angeles-area Roman Catholics to welcome immigrants as "an enrichment" to church life and said he will encourage priests to learn a second language.

California will continue to show much faster population growth than the nation through 1995 as immigrants leave home and baby boomers trade in singles bars for family cars, according to a new study by the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

After a two-year shopping spree for sophisticated arms from China, Poland and Yugoslavia, Myanmar's military is gearing up for a major offensive against ethnic insurgents based along the border with Thailand, according to Western diplomats. The military in Myanmar, formerly called Burma, is building roads, improving logistics and moving up ammunition in preparation for the offensive, which will begin in the dry season that starts late this month.

The 12 burly men solemnly twirled and twisted, arms held high, dancing the tsamiko in a circle to the plinking bouzouki music of the Markogiannakis Orchestra. Cheering onlookers showered dollar bills on the sweating dancers in traditional Greek applause. Suddenly, as the guest of honor arrived, the music at Nikos Restaurant stopped. Then came thundering cheers: "Yasu leventi mou!"--Hail, my little brave one! And over and over: "Duu-kaa-kees! Duu-kaa-kees!" Up on stage, Michael S.

After narrating the tale of yet another traveler stricken with a sudden loss but saved by his trusty credit card, the tough customer with the cauliflower nose might invoke an unfamiliar homily: "Arantz karteet toors mee yeller!" That's Armenian for "Don't leave home without it!"--and while it hasn't been selected as the advertising message for one of two new credit cards being marketed to Armenians in the United States, it might as well be.

Giving an invaluable boost to the Ukraine's drive for statehood, representatives of various ethnic groups agreed Saturday that independence from Moscow is the "only exit" from decades of want and discrimination. "To unmistakably say yes to an independent, democratic Ukraine means to emerge from the ruins to which the last empire of the world has brought us," the more than 1,000 delegates to the first All-Ukrainian Inter-Ethnic Congress declared in a resolution.