Hispanics Los Angeles

In the emancipated hours between the end of the school day and dinner time, the court of 8960 Orion Ave. turns lively. Children skitter up the stairs or roller-skate on the concrete, and the sounds blaring from open doors stake out each apartment's musical turf. Rancheras mostly, the country music of Mexico. Downstairs, Junior favored rap, while a man named George moved his speaker on the landing and, in a cowboy hat too big for his head, sat listening to 1940s swing records.

The nation's most crowded television market will get its first new station in four years when KSLD Channel 62 becomes the Los Angeles area's third Spanish-language broadcaster. The newcomer will have to compete with established Spanish-language outlets KMEX Channel 34 and KVEA Channel 52. Local leader KMEX claims about 65% of the Los Angeles area Spanish-language viewers while rival KVEA has the remaining 35%, according to industry executives.

Hoping to boost the recruitment of Latinos by the military, Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera on Friday came back to Los Angeles--home to the largest Spanish-surnamed population in the United States--to underscore his contention that Latinos are underrepresented in the Army. And he recruited two well-known Californians, Gov. Gray Davis and former Serb captive Andrew Ramirez, to help him in the effort.

The most detailed study of the growing Salvadoran and Guatemalan populations in Los Angeles County paints a portrait of a hard-working but poor community, one that aspires to learn English and relies less often than other groups on public assistance. The study, released Wednesday, shows that most of these workers are mired in low-paying jobs in the service industry, working as laborers, janitors and maids with little education and not much chance of getting better-paying positions.

Although Latinos in Los Angeles are often poorer and less educated than other groups, the community's strong family structure, vigorous work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit mark it as a source of stability and economic growth in a city undergoing rapid changes. These are among the central conclusions of a report released Thursday by the Latino Coalition for a New Los Angeles, an advocacy group formed after the spring riots.

Daniel P. Garcia, the police commissioner who resigned Tuesday, is known in City Hall as an intelligent, ambitious attorney who rose from the barrios of East Los Angeles to become one of Mayor Tom Bradley's most trusted confidants. A gruff-talking man whose knowledge of the municipal planning bureaucracy is legendary, Garcia served 12 years on the powerful city Planning Commission, including 10 years as president.

Hoping to catch God's eye, Amparo Lianez dragged her teenage sons into the middle of one of the meaner streets in Los Angeles. Pray for my boys, she begged a sidewalk gospel band sobbing into a microphone over the sins of Orion Avenue. Ask the Lord to keep Randy and Rudy safe from the gang, that they might grow up to serve him. It was a touching display of a mother's devotion. But it wasn't the whole story.

Between the idea and the Reality, 23-year-old magazine publisher Brian Solis spends bleary-eyed hours at his personal computer. From his Canoga Park apartment, Solis produces a free, black-and-white fashion publication, called Reality Magazine, the first 30,000 copies of which were distributed to restaurants and shopping centers in the Valley and other parts of Los Angeles in January. "It keeps me stressed," Solis said. "But I love to watch people picking it up to read."

Manny Reyes is 71 years old and the owner of a South Los Angeles taco stand. He also happens to be a seminal figure in Mexican American history, although not many people outside his circle of friends and family know this. On Saturday, Reyes sat on a couch in a friend's El Monte home, waiting to be reunited with the men who made history with him, more than 50 years ago, when they became targets of racial prejudice and symbols of injustice.

With an average rent of $222 a month, staying at the Ramona Gardens housing project in East Los Angeles is relatively easy. Getting out is the hard part. As residents of the 497-unit complex mourned last weekend's death of 19-year-old Arturo Jimenez at the hands of sheriff's deputies, they were remembering not just a neighbor but a member of la familia-- one of the many people who have spent most of their lives in the oldest city-run housing project.