Awakened Latinos Flex Political Muscle : Bell Gardens: Defeat of two Latina candidates and major rezoning law have stirred the ‘sleeping giant’ to action.

In a city that calls itself “The Hub of Progress,” most of the people are invisible. They don’t come to City Hall. They don’t vote. They keep to themselves.

They are the Latino majority, many of whom are angry, frustrated, alienated and tired of being governed by an Anglo minority. After 10 years as the largest ethnic group in Bell Gardens, they are just beginning to sense--and use--their own political strength.

“The sleeping giant sleeps no more,” said Marie Chacon, a Bell Gardens property owner. “We are awake, and we are going to work wonders in this town.”

It took two dramatic events to finally stir the giant from its 10-year slumber: the defeat of two Latina residents in the April, 1990, municipal election, and the City Council’s approval of a sweeping zoning plan to control population density. It is a plan many Latinos say will drive them from town, a plan they say may not have been foisted upon them had a Latino been sitting on the City Council.

Although 85% of the people who live in Bell Gardens are Latino, only a fraction are registered voters. Many are legal residents who are not citizens, others have never become legal residents and still others are in some phase of gaining their citizenship.

In the last few months, a group of Latinos aided by some Anglo supporters has launched an aggressive campaign to register voters and start legal immigrants on the road to citizenship. The group, the Bell Gardens No-Rezoning Committee, has started a Bell Gardens chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens. It has designated a corps of leaders to walk neighborhoods and urge people to attend group and City Hall meetings.

Every day for the last month, members of the group have crowded into the tiny office of Ralph Pacheco, a tool and pipe salesman who has an office in a Bell Gardens industrial neighborhood. On one wall, they have mounted a blue zoning map, divided into five districts. Members of the group are urged to walk districts every day talking to residents, letting them know what the group is doing.

On a rickety, wooden coffee table are hundreds of flyers urging people to stand up to the City Council, telling them to fight for their rights. “If you don’t,” the flyers warn, “don’t cry like a woman later on for what you did not fight (for) like a man.” The back of the door has become a bulletin board covered with stickers that read “Su voto es su voz” (Your vote is your voice) and the latest clippings from newspapers and City Hall bulletins.

This group--whose leaders include Chacon, defeated council candidate Josefina Macias and Rudy Garcia, director of the Bell office of LULAC--also has begun taking photographs of council members and city staff during meetings as an intimidation tactic. They have snapped shots of city officials’ homes, hoping to catch examples of Building Code violations. They have stormed city meetings by the hundreds, waving banners, interrupting council actions with vigorous and angry chants of “No Rezoning.”

Some of those who can speak both Spanish and English have refused to speak to the council in English, the only language all five members understand. Their children, voices laden with contempt, have lectured the council on its lack of respect for the people, and have threatened city staff members with lawsuits and, in some cases, violence.

At meeting after meeting, members of the Bell Gardens No-Rezoning Committee and the League of United Latin American Citizens, have ranted about the policies wrought by the all-Anglo council. Council members have come to view such scenes with resignation. Latinos view them with a mixture of triumph and embarrassment.

Council members consistently have argued that the leaders of the group are deliberately misinforming residents about the impact of rezoning. Some council members have been inclined to dismiss the group because, they say, it has been stirred up by outsiders and people who have private agendas.

For example, Chacon, a Downey resident who owns several apartments in Bell Gardens, has had several run-ins with the Building Department, and was prosecuted about four years ago for failing to keep her property up to city standards. Macias, who was defeated in the election last April, is a probable candidate in the April, 1992, election. Garcia, some critics of the groups say, is merely riding the zoning issue to bulk up LULAC membership.

Al and Stan Wantuch, a father and son team that has clashed several times with city officials over the years, have attached themselves to the movement, berating council members and urging group members to protest. They show up at most of the meetings, video camera in hand, taping everything the council members say and do.

Councilman Robert Cunningham says people like the Wantuchs discredit the whole movement. “As long as the activists are involved, I don’t put a lot of stock in it,” he said.

Councilwoman Letha Viles pointed out, “There are 42,000 people in Bell Gardens, and about 400 are coming to the meetings. That’s 1%. Where are the other 99% and what do they want?”

Latinos outside the committee said that the “awakening” of Latinos in Bell Gardens is healthy for their community but sounded a more moderate note.

They acknowledge that the Latino community has failed for too long to take responsibility for its future, and that they generally support what the Bell Gardens No-Rezoning Committee and LULAC are doing.

They also said the City Council must share the blame for failing to respond to the needs of the city’s growing Latino community, belatedly providing translators at council meetings, for example.

But they expressed concern over the aggressive approach of the No-Rezoning Committee and LULAC. Many complained that the groups have exaggerated the effect of rezoning, scaring residents. Others find the groups’ confrontational tactics abhorrent.

“It’s sad and it’s embarrassing,” said Rosa Hernandez, who ran with Macias for a seat on the City Council in April, 1990. “They are just making things worse. They are using the people, giving them the wrong information, making them look like fools for the City Council to laugh at all week long.”

Maria Elena Alvarez, a member of the Planning Commission and a 23-year resident of Bell Gardens, called the campaign to overturn the rezoning law a “tragedy.”

“I think what is happening is good. I think it had to happen,” she said. “But I don’t think it has to happen this way. Until that anger is gone, nothing positive will come out of this. . . . I tell them, ‘I am just as Hispanic as you are, but I am not going to act like you. You have to respect the country that we live in.’ ”

Critics also say that it is better to work within the system, rather than confront it.

“They are yelling so loud, they can’t hear what the other side is saying,” said Father Henry Gomez, pastor of St. Gertrude Catholic Church. “I see injustices, and I think we have to make the city officials aware that they are not representing the old Bell Gardens, but I think it can be done logically and reasonably.”

The warnings have been angrily brushed off by Chacon, Macias, Garcia and many group members.

“First of all, we have been working for the system all these years and look where it has gotten us,” said Garcia, a longtime Latino activist who said he can still recall the days when businesses regularly posted signs that read “No dogs or Mexicans.”

“How much longer are we supposed to wait?” Garcia said. “Martin Luther King used to preach, ‘Turn the other cheek.’ Look where it got him. Aggressive? We have not been aggressive enough.”

Garcia said he is not promoting violence, however.

Said Chacon: “We have been so submissive. We have left it all up to the council. We trusted them and they betrayed us.”

Macias argued that the group is working within the system. “I am working against the city officials. I am not working against the system,” Macias said. “We are not doing anything illegal. . . . We just got slapped in the face too many times, and now the people are saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”

As much as Chacon, Macias and Garcia would like to blame the City Council for all the city’s problems, they also acknowledge that the Latino community must share the blame.

“Everything negative has been pointed in our direction because we have not armed ourselves with the power to vote,” Garcia said. “If you don’t register to vote, I say you have to take it and lump it.”

Chacon, who has lived in the United States since she was 9 years old, is not a citizen, but is now taking citizenship classes.

“I am ashamed,” she said quietly. “Many of us come from a country where our votes don’t count. It didn’t matter who we voted for, one party always won. We learned not to bother.

“Some of this has been our fault, but all of that is history now. We are going to stand up. It might be a little late, but we have to draw a line.”

Although some Latinos and the City Council members may disagree with the methods of the committee, and others may question the motives of its leaders, nearly all agree that whatever the outcome, Latinos will have more influence at City Hall.

“So much has been said, so much hope has been generated, I don’t think that things will ever be the same,” Planning Commissioner Alvarez said.

Councilman Ron Bird said: “It’s a Hispanic community, it has to be turned over to the Hispanic leadership.”

Garcia, who has been working with groups in other Southeast cities that are seeking political representation, said the activity in Bell Gardens is just one piece of a growing movement.

“It’s coming,” he said. “We are a growing force and I wish all the critics would come and join us, because we are going to have to be reckoned with sooner or later, and I would rather it be sooner.”

ANGLO CITY COUNCIL UNDER FIRE ALLEN SHELBY Age: 52 Time in office: 10 years Term expires: April, 1992 City resident: 52 years ROBERT CUNNINGHAM Age: 68 Time in office: 7 1/2 years Term expires: April, 1992 City resident: 47 years LETHA VILES Age: 57 Time in office: 3 1/2 years Term expires: April, 1992 City resident: 27 years RON BIRD Age: 47 Time in office: 5 1/2 years Term expires: April, 1994 City resident: 26 years DOUGLAS O’LEARY Age: 32 Time in office: 10 months Term expires: April, 1994 City resident: 8 years Source: Individuals involved BELL GARDENS DEMOGRAPHICS

Population %of Spanish-surnamed residents 1970 29,308 22 1980 34,117 64 1990 42,355 85*

*estimated Source: Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning. VOTER REGISTRATION 1979: 5,327 1982: 5,682 1985: 5,894 1987: 5,197 1989: 5,299 1990: 4,919 Source: Bell Gardens City Hall