UNDERSTANDING THE RIOTS--SIX MONTHS LATER : Money and Power/Making It in the Inner City : ‘I want success . . . for myself, my family, my community.’

For many inner-city youths, joblessness is a harsh reality. Parents are out of work. Dads have been laid off. Single moms struggle to carve out a decent life while working for meager salaries.

Urban youngsters--particularly those from deprived communities--are caught in the middle. Should they stay in school, go on to college and prepare for better futures? Or should they drop out and find a job to help out at home?

Many struggle with the decision, as these edited interviews make clear.

Kevin Irving, 18, is a senior at Manual Arts High School. He lives with his grandmother in South - Central Los Angeles and will be attending Cal State Dominguez next fall.

I didn’t think I’d be going to college until last year. In the ninth and 10th grades, I was messing around and thinking about dropping out. My mind wasn’t looking toward preparing myself for the future.

I get a lot of encouragement from my grandmother. She supports me. She had a sixth-grade education. She’s always saying to me that I need to go to college, because even with a high school diploma I won’t be able to get a job.

I have people in my family who just have a high school diploma and have settled for what they can get. They have talent, but they are stuck in a rut doing jobs that don’t pay much, jobs that are dead-end.

I don’t want that for myself. I want something higher. I want to become a singer. My goal is to get a recording contract. But more and more, college has become a priority, because one of my fears is that somehow I might end up homeless.

I’ve seen too many people become homeless because they can’t get jobs. It seems that nowadays there just aren’t jobs to get.

Elisa Padilla, 17, is a senior at Jefferson High School. She wants to study music production after she graduates.

It’s a real struggle for my parents right now, especially with my college education coming up. My mom is laid off and my dad only works three days a week, because there’s no work for him.

I would like to help them out financially by getting a job. I’ve received those kinds of pressures from home to find a job. But what about college then? I get angry at my parents. I tell them the time they aren’t working they should be using to go to school, because it will help them both to get full-time jobs.

My parents don’t approve of me going into music even though they are excited that I want to go to college. They wonder how am I going to get through life with music. But if I didn’t have my music class at school, I would have dropped out.

Xiomara Abelar, 16, is a senior at Manual Arts High School. She would like to become a high school counselor and help immigrants like herself. She has applied to several colleges.

My family and college are important to me. Especially college. When you are a senior, you just think of college. When I was in the 10th grade, I was thinking about dropping out because I didn’t think I would make it to the 11th. Now I am in the 12th, and I’m saying, “If I made it to the 12th, I can make it through college.”

The way the economy is right now tells me that you have to have education to get a good job--and not just settle for a job that only takes unskilled labor.

My younger brother told me two days ago, “I want to drop out.” I said, “I don’t think so.” I told him, “You will make it. You’re smart. You are not less than anybody else. You stay in school and become somebody with a job that pays good.”

He and I know that the future is with us. It’s a lot of pressure. It’s a big responsibility. But if we don’t rebuild Los Angeles, if we don’t care about our school, our community and jobs, who else is going to do it?

Bob Lee, 17, is a student at Metropolitan Skills Center, a Los Angeles school for at-risk students.

I want to join the Army and find a career. I’ve lived here most of my life and I’m sick of Los Angeles. I’m sick of the racism and gang stuff. I’m sick about people not being able to find jobs. I’m banking on the Army to provide me with direction.

Nancy Enllanche, 18, is a senior at Jefferson High School.

I’ll be the first one in my family to go to college. My goals are to major in biology, chemistry and geology. I’d like to become a doctor, because I want to help people--and because that’s where the jobs will be.

Most of my cousins are female, and they got pregnant and dropped out of school. Some dropped out to work because they had to. There was a time when I decided to drop out because I was tired of school. I thought I could get a job. But what job can you get when you drop out of school?

My mom always tells me to drop out. She says, why should I study because sooner or later I am going to get married and I am going to stop going to school. I tell my mom I am not going to get pregnant and get married and have kids. No way. Not with me.

I want a future with an educational foundation, because I see the struggle we have at home. Sometimes we have hard times, financially, because my dad, a welder for 18 years, is the only one who works, and there are six of us to feed. I don’t want to struggle when I’m his age.

Keegan Breedlove, 18, is a student at Metropolitan Skills Center. A gang member, he recently returned to school.

What got me back to school? I realized it was time to get my high school diploma. Now is the time, because I feel my time is running out. I’m not gonna drop out. I’m trying to stay in.

I’ve been a gang member for four years. The worst thing about being a gangbanger is thinking if you’re going to be the next person to die. But the best thing is making money with your people. It’s like a business. You trust them, and they trust you.

I won’t be a gangbanger all my life, but gangbanging will always be in me. It’s a part of my life. When you get old, you grow out of it, but you are still true to your people. You never can leave your friends.

Life is hard to a point, but I am used to it. You can look down on me and say (gangbanging) is bad. But tomorrow I’m gonna be hungry, and you’re not gonna pay for me to eat. So I have to do what I have to do.

I’m not thinking about my future. I’m thinking about now--staying out of jail, having money. It’s basically survival. That’s how it is.

Ana Vasquez, 17, is a senior at Manual Arts High School. She wants to study journalism in college.

The main reason I want to go to college is because every day I see my mom struggling to go to work. She is the one who supports me and my brother. She’s a seamstress at a tuxedo factory. It’s a low-paying job.

I see every day the hard work she goes through. She comes home very tired. I want something better for myself and for my mom. That is the reason I keep pushing myself to come to school and to go to college.

My mother says, “Why do you want to go to college for four years? Just go for two.” People say to me, “Why go to college? You already went to school for 12 years.” I tell people, “If I survived 12 years in school, I can survive four more.”

I believe the basic stereotype of South-Central kids is that we can’t even get out of high school, and if we do get out of high school, we’ll settle for low-paying jobs. I want to be able to help change that stereotype. I look at people who are successful, and I want success also. I want it for myself, my family and my community. I’ll go away to college, but I will come back and help my community.

Herbert Erazo, 17, is a student at Jefferson High School. He is an intern at a cable company, where he is learning to operate a camera.

You might laugh, but I tried to gangbang when I was in the ninth grade. But it’s not me. It’s like my mom came here so she can work for $150 a week so I can be doing this to her? No, it wasn’t right.

My mom gets home and she kicks off her shoes and sits down for awhile. I go into the kitchen and get something to eat and when I walk back into the room she’s asleep. It makes me feel like crap to know that my mother works so hard for so little, that she is so tired always.

One time she wanted me to work, and I was going to quit school and start working. She got on my case to find a job. I started looking around. But I really didn’t want to drop out. My mom and I argued about it. Then I got the internship. I’m learning how to work a camera. I want to be a motion picture director.

Claudia Vasquez, 17, is a senior at Manual Arts High School.

When I graduate, my plans are to go to college. I want to study medicine and be a doctor, because my grandmother is sickly and my family has been spending a lot of money on trying to make her well.

While I’m going to college, I want to help my parents out with a job, because life is hard--especially in L.A. I’m considered a minority, and it is harder for minorities, for those of us who are in low- to middle-class.

I’m going to get all the education that my mom and dad didn’t have. They both work, but they also want a better life for us than what they had. They want me to go to college so I can get a good job.

I believe that you can be in a bad neighborhood or in a bad school, but if you set your goals, you can become what you want.

Ervin Marroquin, 19, is a student at Metropolitan Skills Center. He wants to move away from the ghetto and go to college.

I like business management. I once thought I could get by without a high school diploma and work at a construction site. But even at those places, you need to have good math ability. I thought everywhere I go, I’m going to need a good education.

I live in the ghetto. I know the ghetto life like the back of my hand. But when it comes to helping better myself or find better jobs, the people in the ghetto aren’t going to help me. I have to help myself.

They are my people, sure. They are people I grew up with. But what are they going to do for me? It doesn’t hurt to have connections with people who can help you, who can make you a better person.

Sharmain Flores, 18, is a student at Metropolitan Skills Center.

I’m looking at what’s going on today and seeing how hard it is trying to find jobs. It is getting worse. I know people who have gotten laid off. That’s why I want to be a nurse, because in the nursing field, there is always a job. The health care industry is where the jobs will be.

I know a few people in my family who have taken low-paying jobs. They never thought about bettering themselves. I look at them and think, “Yeah, they get money every two weeks, but it doesn’t last for long.”

The Topography of Unemployment

Joblessness clusters in Los Angeles County’s core, but pockets of heavy unemployment dot the map from Pomona to the harbor to the northern San Fernando Valley. This map, based on 1960 U.S. census data, shows relative rates of joblessness, dividing census tracts into four equal groupings.

Source: 1990 U.S. census, compiled by Richard O’Reilly, Times director of computer analysis