Kenmore Avenue: A Mini Melting Pot in Hollywood

Take a walk down Kenmore Avenue in East Hollywood and glimpse the future of Los Angeles:

Here, along a three-block section of Kenmore, Salvadoran women balance loads of laundry on their heads. Korean grandmothers carry infants fastened to their backs with brightly colored scarfs.

Young Mexican mothers push baby carriages past retired Asian homeowners tending their gardens.

Armenians from the Soviet Union sip strong coffee and bicker over front-stoop games of narti-- backgammon. “Hon chertar, “ a player grumbles: That piece doesn’t go there.

In the last few years, vast waves of immigrants have transformed a largely Anglo Los Angeles into a tapestry of Third World cultures--and nowhere is the weaving more intricate than on this tiny slice of Kenmore between Beverly Boulevard and Melrose Avenue.

This aging hodgepodge of cottage-style bungalows, fading stucco apartment buildings and new, upscale residential complexes, demographers say, is among the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Los Angeles County.

In a half-square-mile section that surrounds Kenmore--which the federal government designates as Census Tract 1926--live 9,100 people. About half the residents are from Latin America; another one-third are Asian and the rest represent a smattering of Anglos and blacks, but that only begins to address the diversity.

Students at the local grammar school come from 43 countries and speak 23 languages.

Demographers who have measured the dramatic changes in the county’s population since 1980 say that Tract 1926--once a white, working-class neighborhood--is a striking example of how immigration is altering Los Angeles block by block and house by house.

“This neighborhood illustrates clearly the direction California is headed, particularly Los Angeles,” said Peter Morrison, a demographer with the RAND Corp., a Santa Monica-based think tank. “These kinds of neighborhoods will be popping up all over the county in the 1990s.”

But unlike the surge of European immigration at the turn of the century that forever changed Eastern cities, Los Angeles has become a landing spot for tens of thousands of immigrants primarily from Asia and Latin America.

In the East, massive immigration occurred between 1880 and 1920. But the current influx to Los Angeles is not expected to abate after just a few decades. Each set of newcomers will draw in another, reshaping the way the city looks, talks, eats and shops.

Kenmore Avenue, like scores of other streets across Los Angeles, is a place where immigrants first settle. They are drawn by affordable housing, easy access to downtown jobs and nearby ethnic enclaves.

Here, where the four corners of the world rub shoulders, newcomers from Guatemala and Thailand live next door to more established Filipino, Chinese and Mexican immigrants. They initially eye each other with suspicion. Neighbors who speak different languages greet each other with smiles; a Latino returns the bow of an Asian newcomer. But, they seldom trade more than a few words and rarely enter each other’s homes.

Over time, however, fear slowly gives way to mutual trust, as neighbors watch each other’s children grow and trade a “good morning” over back-yard fences.

Whether such neighborhoods manage to transcend language and cultural barriers to form a community and address issues of common concern, or remain a constellation of separate worlds that seldom overlap, is an open question.

It was the rising specter of crime, for example, that recently drove Carmen Morales to meet many of her neighbors.

The middle-aged Mexican immigrant could no longer contain her fury. Drug dealers had brazenly descended on Kenmore like a plague. So, despite her fear of retaliation from the criminals, Morales (who asked that her real name not be used) took an unprecedented step. She began knocking on neighbors’ doors.

“We have to get together, do something!” she said in heavily accented English to a Chinese couple next door who speak even less English than she does.

A Filipina doctor across the street peeked through a cracked door for several minutes before Morales could persuade her to step outside to talk.

Morales also contacted the Cubans near the end of the block, the East Indian grocer at the corner, and found an interpreter to help her communicate with the Korean apartment manager down the street.

Because of her efforts, several neighbors have joined Morales in placing calls to police. Some have even been receptive to the idea of holding a meeting at a nearby church hall to find ways of pressuring authorities to do more.

Although the formation of Neighborhood Watch groups is a common topic of conversation on Kenmore and nearby streets, it has seldom gone beyond that. And the few groups that have met have been short-lived.

Still, Morales is hopeful. The problem has at least gotten neighbors talking to one another, she said. Morales said that she and the Filipina doctor, who was at first reluctant to open the door to her, are now “very good friends.”

Just south of Melrose, where Kenmore widens into a sunny boulevard of pastel four-plexes, Armenian men gather on porches nearly every day for the time-honored ritual of backgammon. Inside their homes are Persian rugs and trays of traditional pastries, rich with honey and nuts.

Harry Naldzyhan, 20, often watches the game from his porch. He grew up on this block, where he still lives with his brothers and parents. Armenians began clustering here about six years ago when one of their compatriots bought an apartment building.

“Armenians like to stick together,” Naldzyhan said. “We want to keep our culture and all that.”

But Naldzyhan’s perspective has changed since attending Cal State Northridge, where he has made friends of varied nationalities. Speaking of his elders, Naldzyhan said: “I think it’s sad that they talk only to each other. They’ll never pick up much English and get ahead.”

He tells them this, he said, and “they agree. But they don’t change.”

Communication among the various ethnic groups in the neighborhood is rare, but so is conflict.

The words “Vive y deja vivir”-- the Spanish equivalent of “Live and let live”--are Scotch-taped to a Cuban refugee’s apartment door a few blocks away. It could be the neighborhood motto.

While immigrants of all nationalities say they miss the strong sense of community they left back home, most say they are too preoccupied with work to be concerned with their neighbors. Despite the generally tolerant attitude, resentments and prejudices do exist. A couple of Nicaraguan garment factory workers complain that Korean and Armenian employers have cheated them out of fair wages. Some residents grumble that Koreans, who have built several new apartment complexes and continue to look for more properties to acquire, “are taking over.” And, many wish the Salvadorans--who they say are careless with their trash--would learn city ways.

But sometimes the improbable happens, and friendship--even love--sprouts across ethnic lines.

A Mexican apartment manager trades recipes with a Korean tenant: enchiladas de pollo for kim chee. A refugee from a Cuban prison cares for a young Chinese neighbor while his mother works. A Filipina nurse and a Bolivian student meet at the bus stop and later marry.

Still, it is often a slow process, which some enter only reluctantly.

At the United Methodist Church on Rosewood Avenue, just around the corner and down the street from the Armenian enclave, Sunday services proceed in regular shifts: first, the Cuban congregation files in; then they make way for the Filipinos; finally the Koreans take their turn.

The three congregations get little chance to mingle. Each has its own Methodist pastor, its own Bible study, its own worship service. Only a few representatives from each group meet regularly to work out the logistics of sharing the brick building.

“In most cases, you deal with (the others) when you have to, but your friends are going to be your own group,” said Ana Urda, a Cuban-born church member. “We tend to meet and gather with our own race. That’s human nature.”

A few who are fluent in English have made attempts, however tentative, to overcome the barriers.

Urda, a matronly bank administrator, is one. Her work on the parish committee has allowed her to dispel her perception that all Asians feel superior to Latinos. She has shared meals at the homes of Filipinos, who also speak English, and has enjoyed watching their folk dances. She now pays close attention to news from the Philippines.

“Ten years ago, I don’t think I would have been friends with any of them,” Urda said. “Now I can at least put up with some of them.”

South of the Armenian enclave, the next block of Kenmore narrows suddenly. A neat row of small Mediterranean and Craftsman-style homes, inhabited mostly by Asians, lines one side of the street. The other side is a mishmash of homes and fading apartment buildings where Latino newcomers dominate.

Taira Shinohara, 73, who has lived on the block for 30 years, has witnessed a dizzying array of changes.

When he first moved in, the area was virtually all white and was designed to stay that way. When Shinohara bought his blue-and-white bungalow, he noticed a clause in his title documents that restricted sale of the property to Caucasians. Shinohara, who was raised in Japan, had unwittingly broken the taboo. But no one protested.

Shinohara’s son was the first Asian to attend Alexandria Elementary School, an “uncomfortable” experience, recalled his mother, Lili.

But it was easy to spot her son in the crowd, she laughed. “He was the only boy with black hair,” she said. “Today all the children have dark hair.”

For many years, the Shinoharas remained the only Asians on the block.

Then, starting in the early 1970s, new arrivals brought a distinctly Latino cast to the neighborhood as Mexicans and Cubans, and more recently Central Americans, discovered that rents were reasonable and downtown jobs easy to reach by bus.

A few Filipinos moved in about a decade ago and, as often happens, they began attracting relatives and friends to the neighborhood. Then Koreatown began expanding from the south. And from the west, a Thai enclave spilled over. Armenians spread to the neighborhood from nearby Hollywood to the north.

Even today, the movement in and out of the neighborhood continues unabated.

Sagging sofas and tattered mattresses discarded at the curb on nearly every block are evidence of the constant flux. They signal that Central Americans have just moved out of crowded quarters in nearby apartments. When new immigrants arrive with little money, they often double up with relatives or friends from their home country. But when they get on their feet, they leave and the old couches are tossed out.

Another sign of the high turnover is the fluctuating demand for bilingual classes at Alexandria School. Korean and Armenian bilingual classes were set up four years ago, disbanded two years later, then added again this year as demand surged. A Tagalog class for Filipinos is in development.

Some of the newcomers say they find this modern-day Tower of Babel confusing, even frightening. Others, like Abraham de Jesus, 49, a Filipino immigrant who lives next door to Shinohara, says he finds the new social experiment “amazing.”

“We are creating a multi-ethnic city, a community of people driven by more or less the same aspirations and goals . . . the American dream,” he said. De Jesus works two and three jobs at a time and is pleased with the progress his family has made since immigrating to this country nearly a decade ago.

De Jesus excitedly shared his vision for the future of Los Angeles: the creation of an entirely new culture--”a cross-section of Western, Hispanic and Asian cultures blended together.”

“Isn’t that wonderful?!” he beamed.

A few doors down, at the corner of Kenmore and Oakwood, De Jesus’ cousin operates Mersil’s Nursery School. There the blending of cultures begins at a tender age.

About 30 toddlers are taught by four Filipino women who run the school. American icons, from Mickey Mouse to the Stars and Stripes, dominate the playground.

The children say they can’t remember a time when they didn’t speak two languages--English, which most learned at the school, and their parents’ native language.

Every morning, they salute the flag. Tiny hands over hearts, the children of Thailand, Guatemala, Nigeria and El Salvador parrot the words of the Pledge of Allegiance in English.

And the teachers smile. The multiple exchange of cultures is evident in the children: their accent is unmistakably Filipino.

On the next block south, approaching Beverly, Kenmore becomes a jumble of old homes, some with carefully tended gardens and a few that have fallen into disrepair. Small, well-cared-for stucco apartment buildings on the block are overshadowed by large new ones, their fresh paint already marred with graffiti.

This is where longtime Latino and Asian homeowners, as well as Filipino, Chinese and Korean apartment owners, are trying to make a stand against the drug dealers that congregate on the block.

Following a common dream of purchasing their own homes, grown children have moved to more upscale suburban neighborhoods like Silver Lake, West Los Angeles and even as far away as Riverside. But many old-timers have chosen to stay.

Newer immigrants, who are often renters and have less of a stake in the neighborhood, say they plan to move away from Kenmore as soon as they can afford to do so. Meanwhile, they tend to stick together.

One of the small apartment buildings in the middle of the block is inhabited entirely by Latinos. One resident in an all-Latino building said she moved there “porque hay mas seguridad”-- because it’s safer. “We know each other and trust each other,” she added.

Down the block, banners on an uncharacteristically fancy new apartment building with green awnings and hefty $950-and-up rents announced: “Apartment Now Rent.” For those who know Korean, there was an extra message: “Welcome, Koreans.” Apparently, the apartment owner’s compatriots have responded. The tenant directory at the front gate reads: Seung Hong Cho, Wan Byuk Cho, Seung Pyo Lim, Seung Ju Lee, Yun Ja Joon . . . .”

Still unsure of their surroundings and the multitude of foreigners in their midst, immigrants often have trouble knowing whom to trust.

“Here we have no leaders,” complained an Argentine tailor who lives around the block from Kenmore. “We’re back to the time of the cavemen, every man for himself.”

Aside from one small tenants’ cooperative, just north of the Armenian enclave on Kenmore, put together a decade ago with the help of government and church agencies, there is a virtual organizational vacuum in the area.

At Alexandria School, officials have made several attempts to get parents involved in school activities. Response has been poor. Local merchants haven’t organized. Even area churches have largely steered clear of getting involved in neighborhood issues.

While city officials acknowledge the need for community-building, there are presently no city or county-funded programs in Los Angeles aimed at helping immigrants develop leaders or break down cultural barriers.

“There’s no way this county (government) is geared to deal with the overwhelming number of immigrants and refugees that have arrived in recent years . . . and all of them going through the same problem of acculturation,” said Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission Director Eugene Mornell. “There are just more critical needs.”

So the trial and error continues.

Where Kenmore meets Beverly, the street is alive with shoppers lugging bags of groceries from the neighborhood mom-and-pop stores that line the commercial strip.

Like much of the neighborhood, the local businesses--ranging from a Cuban botanica (folk medicine shop) and a Thai market to Indonesian and Salvadoran restaurants--form an archipelago of distinct cultures.

In the Guatemalteca Bakery on Beverly, the talk over the fried plantains with cream is in Spanish. A block east, in Renoo’s Kitchen restaurant, the customers, so at home that they serve themselves when it gets busy, all speak Thai.

On nearby Vermont Avenue, a step past the threshold of Lorenzana Foods is like walking into metro Manila. There are heaping displays of mung bean pastries, jackfruit and sweet pineapple gels.

One of the few places attracting a mix of customers is Jubilee Donut Shop, in a mini-mall at the corner of Beverly and Normandie.

Kong Yip, the owner, is a 28-year-old refugee from Cambodia. His round face and ready smile give him a boyish appearance that belies his past in the war-torn nation.

Yip spent his adolescence languishing in Khmer Rouge labor camps, watched his father die of malnutrition. He escaped by walking for three months through a jungle, surviving on stolen potatoes, bamboo shoots and rats.

Coming to the United States, he said, was “like being reborn again.” Yip and several relatives, including a brother and two sisters, pooled their resources over the last several years and purchased two doughnut shops.

Yip will never forget living under the despotic rule of the Khmer Rouge, when a million or more Cambodians died. It is a memory he plans to pass on. “I really want people to know what we went through,” he said.

Unfortunately, few of his customers have had that chance. They are as uncomfortable with English as he is.

Carlos Gonzalez, a regular, would like nothing better than to share his opinions about U.S. intervention in his native El Salvador. During his university days, U.S.-backed government forces gunned down student protesters. At his parents’ urging, Gonzalez fled to Los Angeles, where he worked for several years in garment district sweatshops. He recently landed a better-paying job as a hotel dishwasher in Beverly Hills.

But instead of exchanging views with Yip, Gonzalez, who knows little English, buries himself in a copy of the Spanish-language daily La Opinion along with his morning coffee.

DIVERSE POPULATION

The following figures are a breakdown by ethnicity of the residents of Census Tract 1926. Compiled by USC Population Research Laboratory demographer David Heer and researcher Pini Herman, these 1986 estimates are the most recent available for the neighborhood. Latinos, other than Mexican U.S. born: 103 Born outside the U.S.: 3,136 Total: 3,239 Koreans U.S. born: 0 Born outside the U.S.: 2,077 Total: 2,077 Mexicans U.S. born: 144 Born outside the U.S.: 1,106 Total: 1,250 Non-Latino whites U.S. born: 959 Born outside the U.S.: 147 Total: 1,106 Other Asians and Pacific Islanders U.S. born: 0 Born outside the U.S.: 496 Total: 496 Filipinos U.S. born: 8 Born outside the U.S.: 342 Total: 350 Blacks U.S. born: 202 Born outside the U.S.: 34 Total: 236 Japanese U.S. born: 82 Born outside the U.S.: 21 Total: 103 Vietnamese U.S. born: 0 Born outside the U.S.: 101 Total: 101 Chinese U.S. born: 17 Born outside the U.S.: 63 Total: 80 American Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts: 51* * A breakdown of figures into the “U.S. born” and “Born outside U.S.” categories was unavailable.