Many Impassioned Vows of April Still Unkept

When my business of eight years burned down on April 29th along with a number of other merchants’, I felt as though every effort that I had put toward an honest life had been destroyed with it. I felt alone despite the fact that I knew that others had also suffered.

Within days, city, state and federal officials proclaimed that help was forthcoming, that there would be reparation, that we would rebuild L.A. together in a new and inspired partnership. All this as the cameras rolled.

I was encouraged.

But the process was slow and unresponsive to our community’s needs. My application for a small-business loan kept being returned because there was always some information missing. The questions from my colleagues were numerous but were based on the same premise: Why did our leaders promise us so much, and now won’t give us anything?

It seemed obvious. We were being blamed for the riots, which we had nothing to do with.

Within days, I realized that my strength would lie with other merchants who had lost everything. On May 16, a coalition of Latino merchants, Union de Comerciantes Latinoamericanos y Afiliados, was organized. Within a month, membership swelled to 300 merchants, all of whom were affected by the riots.

We demanded that the Federal Emergency Management Agency listen to us. We demanded that they provide us with someone from the Small Business Administration who spoke our language, something vital to the successful completion of the endless forms we needed to fill out.

After five months and a personal bankruptcy, I received a loan from the SBA; FEMA still remains a mystery. Strangely, I consider myself fortunate to have incurred a $67,000 debt that I didn’t have before April.

Today, despite our numbers, we are still encountering the same frustrations. Many in our organization have yet to have their applications accepted.

As the holiday season approaches, the voices filled with the promises of April have grown strangely silent. By Christmas, I fear, the voices will once again be profoundly loud with rhetoric but mute with substance.

Had this organization existed before the riots, I have no doubt our political leaders would have heeded our calls for help earlier.

Perhaps this organization will someday be one that depends on one another instead of our local leaders. But perhaps someday the reverse will be true--and a broken promise from politicians won’t hurt as much.