Los Angeles – Leaders of L.A.’s African-American and Hispanic communities are concerned about what they see as rising ethnic tension between the two groups, and are putting out a call for tolerance and understanding.
“What we see in areas where African-Americans and Latinos are concentrated, such as South Central Los Angeles and the Highland Park zone, where African-Americans are arriving, is that there is much tension,” Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, told EFE.
In South Central, she said, long-time black residents see Hispanic newcomers as taking their jobs and making the community worse, perceptions Salas blames on demagogic politicians.
During the past year, Los Angeles has witnessed conflict between African-American and Hispanic students in its schools and armed clashes between black and Latino gangs on its streets.
“Much of this violence happens because there is a false sense of competition between these groups,” according to Salas, who says the real problem is that all minorities face discrimination directed at anyone who “is not considered the traditional American, white and Protestant.”
Najee Ali, a one-time L.A. gangbanger who now heads the organization Project Islamic HOPE, commented to EFE that inter-ethnic tensions are violently manifested “in fights between Latinos and African-Americans in the county jails, in the schools and in the communities where there has been growth in both groups.”
He said that while racial violence is nothing new in Los Angeles County, the arrival of Hispanic immigrants in black-majority localities such as Watts, Compton and Inglewood is creating unease.
“Now, more and more Latino immigrants are coming to live in those places and that has increased tensions,” Ali said.
The Muslim leader also pointed to school overcrowding and competition for jobs and scarce social services as sources of division.
One flashpoint of black-Latino tensions is the northeast L.A. neighborhood of Highland Park.
Earlier this month, four members of a Hispanic gang, the Avenues, were convicted under federal hate-crime statutes for the murder seven years ago of a black man in Highland Park.
Randy Jurado Ertll, a founding member of the Salvadoran American Political Action Committee and the director of Pasadena’s El Centro de Accion Social, Inc., told EFE that “racial tensions generally occur in poor communities and it’s due to the limitation of work opportunities and low expectations for (high school) graduation.”
“Because many young people fail to stay in school and get involved with gangs and they continue that vicious cycle of violence,” he said, suggesting that extracurricular community education programs represent one way to try to bridge ethnic and sectarian divides.
Education is key, Salas says, “because the Latino community doesn’t have a good understanding of the history of racism toward the African-American community in this country, which was a situation of harassment that changed barely 30 years ago.”
Ali, for his part, stressed the shared past of Hispanics and blacks in the United States.
“Maybe people don’t know that the city of Los Angeles was founded by black people and Latino people, because among its first residents were black Mexicans,” he said.
Ali, Salas and Jurado Ertll all took part in a press conference Tuesday where plans were announced for a “March Against Hate” to be held on Aug. 27 in Highland Park.
