Mexican Immigrant

Four adults and two infants were critically injured early Monday as they fled an arson fire outside the small downtown apartment that they shared with nine other members of their extended family of Mexican garment workers. Investigators said the fire, apparently the fourth arson attempt at the building within a week, was set at about 12:10 a.m. when a third-floor landing was doused with a flammable fluid and set ablaze.

THE ELECTION of a Democratic majority in Congress and the inauguration of Felipe Calderon as president of Mexico offer our two countries an opportunity to reinvigorate a deteriorating relationship and, at the same time, build confidence in the idea of a true North American community. To do so, the new leaders must change the agenda from illegal immigration to North American development and resolve to narrow the income gap between Mexico and its two northern neighbors.

Henderson Avenue is the territory of violent youth gangs and special police patrols. It is also the home of immigrant families with modest dreams who have come here to start over. Narrower than most streets, unused by through traffic, Henderson's 1400 block seems a world unto itself. It is lined by two-story walk-ups whose front stoops are crowded with Latino youngsters and whose hallways echo with mariachi music. Kids on bikes whoosh down sidewalks past toddlers left in their sisters' care.

Juan Garcia makes the same resolution every New Year's: Learn English. Despite being in the U.S. for 15 years, the Mexican immigrant knows only a few words and phrases. Too busy with work and family, he has put off enrolling in a class. "The days pass and the years pass, and I don't do it," said Garcia, 63, who lives in Los Angeles.

FORMER California Gov. Pete Wilson probably wasn't on too many peoples' minds at last weekend's massive downtown march. But that doesn't mean his presence wasn't felt. Before Wilson endorsed and legitimized Proposition 187, the anti-illegal immigrant ballot initiative in 1994, too many Mexican immigrants were content not to participate in U.S. civic life.

GREGORY Rodriguez's brilliant book on Mexican and Mexican American identity, "Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America," threatens my secret dream that I am a direct descendant of some feather-clad Aztec warrior princess who ruled over a Mexica queendom circa 1500.

Before the Santa Monica Freeway was built, before the start of World War II and even before the Los Angeles River was paved, Mateo was a closely knit neighborhood of mostly Mexican immigrants, thriving in the southeast corner of downtown Los Angeles. To outsiders, Mateo--named for the street that ran through it--was an unattractive part of Los Angeles' industrial and warehouse district.

Recent immigrants from Mexico are half as likely to use emergency rooms as U.S.-born whites and Mexican Americans, according to a study released Thursday by the University of California and the Mexican government. Fewer than 10% of recent Mexican immigrants -- whether they came in legally or not -- reported using an emergency room in 2000, according to the study, based on an analysis of the U.S. National Health Interview Survey conducted in 2000 by a unit of the U.S.

A King City man was killed and his companion injured Saturday night when they fell 80 feet into a drainage ditch while attempting to hide from the Border Patrol near the San Onofre checkpoint along Interstate 5. Gonzalo Perez, 21, was found lying dead in a pile of rocks at the bottom of the ditch, his head immersed in the creek water, according to a witness and investigator Chuck Bolton of the San Diego County coroner's office.

Like many another young Mexican, Jose Renteria journeyed to California to be a dishwasher. What the great culture-mixing machine Los Angeles made of him, however, is anything but typical. He was 15 when his father died, leaving his small auto body shop in Mexico to Jose and his brother Jesus, a year older. They couldn't keep the business going, so they left the country to support their mother and three younger sisters. Jesus found a job washing dishes at a Los Angeles restaurant.