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More often, it seems, there is conflict and recrimination. The resentment is economic, with blacks mad at Mexicans and Mexicans sore at Asians. "They are all boat people who came into this country behind a war our kids fought," complains James Ramirez of East L.A. "The Government gives them a 3% loan. If we had it so good, we'd be owners too."
But anger is increasingly acute among L.A.'s blacks, who make up 12.6% of the county. Frank Haley runs a dry cleaners near Watts. Hispanics now make up one-third of his neighborhood. "It bothers me a lot," Haley says. "I see these Spanish coming in and buying businesses. They must be getting the money from somewhere." His theory: "This started after the [Watts] riots. I feel that the Government said, 'All right, we'll fix those blacks. We'll open up the border and move in Mexicans.' " The Asians are more roundly blamed. "We all looked up one day," says Mary Henry, a black activist, "and everybody pumping gas seemed to be Asian."
Black politicians are less fearful of inroads by the immigrants, and some are smug. Chinese seem wary of elections: last fall, among all of Monterey Park's Chinese, a mere 1,600 voted. L.A.'s blacks, by contrast, vote in throngs: in 1980, 56% of the black voting-age population went to the polls, compared with 49% of Anglos.
Still, the sheer size of the potential Mexican electorate cannot be ignored, only analyzed away. "The latino majority on the east side [of the black district]," says Maxine Waters, an assemblywoman, "is still mainly undocumented workers who don't vote." Del Olmo agrees that his people's power is all latent: "The numbers indicate potential. Too many latinos fall back on rhetoric and raw numbers to prove their validity." He thinks that Mexican political muscle may not be flexed until the next century. In the year 2000, according to a study of L.A.'s future just completed by U.S.C., Hispanics will constitute 40% of L.A. County and Anglos, 31%.
By then, construction on the $1.2 billion redevelopment of the downtown Bunker Hill area, scheduled to begin this summer, should be done. (It is as if the city had decided, belatedly, to build a there there.) But will L.A. be a pleasant place? According to the U.S.C. study, the metropolis is heading for housing that is still more expensive, traffic that is slower, and public schools abandoned entirely to the poor. Technicians will be in demand, while jobs for blue-collar workers will be scarce. Crime will spill over into fancy neighborhoods.
"Bringing out these problems now is optimistic," says Professor Selwyn Enzer, who directed the study, since doomsaying can lead to debate and thus to urban planning. The nutshell solution is in the summary of the exhaustive study. "Unplanned growth in the mature Los Angeles of 2001," the authors say, "will not be permitted to occur."
But laissez-faire habits are hard to break. Modern L.A. has known only helter-skelter growth. "There's a vacuum of leadership," says Ted Bruinsma, president of the