A Tarnished Future : ELISANDRO : ‘I Don’t Really Feel Unsafe Here’

In December, View profiled four eighth-graders at John Burroughs Junior High in the Mid-Wilshire area. They talked about growing up in Los Angeles, their joys and their fears. In the wake of the Los Angeles riots, Times staff writer Beverly Beyette revisited Branndi Johnson, 13, Ramsay Davila, 13, and Elisando Duran, 14, to find out how their lives, and their thinking, have been affected. (Jean Burtch, 14, has moved out of the area and did not wish to be part of the ongoing story.) View will continue to report on them from time to time.

Elisandro (Alex) Duran, a Little League player and baseball card collector, lives with his mother and three siblings in South-Central Los Angeles. Alex, who has had a difficult time adjusting to Burroughs, a magnet school, still prefers sports to academics. But he now says, “I like school a lot.”

I had this place where I used to buy my baseball cards, about two blocks from my house. They burned it down. I felt sad. The neighborhood looked real bad. They messed up the pawn shop on the corner, got all the guns and cleaned it out.

The grocery store right here across the street, they burned it down. Life hasn’t changed much, only we have to go far to get food--a mile, a mile and a half. During the riots, we didn’t have a car because my mom sold it about a week before, so we walked to the store. Now, we have a car again.

There was a big fire right across from us. I thought it was going to hit the trees and come to our house. That Wednesday night, my uncle, who lives in Bakersfield and has a van, came and picked us up and took us far away from here for two days. Before we left, I was helping my mom hide the TV and the important stuff.

I wanted to hide my bike, but there’s no place to hide it. I keep it inside because the kids would try to steal it. It’s a professional bike, a GT, about the best dirt bike you can find.

We hardly play outside our back yard. Too many bad kids pass by. There’s a gang over on 84th. My mom wants us to move to Culver City, but we’re too many people--six (including extended family)--and they don’t want to rent to us. My mom can’t pay over $600. I never wanted to live in the city. I’d like to live somewhere farther west, somewhere with a nice house.

I really don’t know why they beat Rodney King up. All I saw was the videotape, but I’d have just put the policemen in jail. It’s kind of hard to be a juror. . . . I think the black guys who beat up the truck driver should go to jail, too.

I hope the looters get caught. I was just happy I didn’t do it. During the riots, I saw kids getting caught and they were taken to Juvenile Hall. I think they should go to jail. At school, some kids were saying they were looting, saying the National Guard was chasing them-- then they said they were kidding. I really don’t believe that.

One teacher was saying it was mostly Hispanics. I really didn’t like that. It made me feel bad.

My Mom is still cleaning houses. When I’m on vacation, I help. My brother Ramon is working now, typing in a Social Security office.

School’s not real good. It’s like medium. I like school a lot. Physical education, that’s the only thing I really do well in. But I’m doing better in history, and I’m liking it now. I like English a lot, too. I’m not going to pass physical science, so I’m going to take it in summer school.

I’ve grown about three inches. I was way smaller. I got on a baseball team, the Dodgers. My birthday was April 16. I had a cake. It was kind of special because my sister, Martha, made it for me. She put too much chocolate on one side and on the other side she didn’t put enough. She’s 12.

I’m trying to save my money because my brother Ramon’s birthday is coming. I want to get him something nice. I like to give.

I still want to live here, not in Mexico. There are some better places around here--Beverly Hills, Santa Monica. Most of it is better.

I don’t really feel unsafe here. I feel I’m a little bit safe. We have a steel door with two locks. But sometimes when we have visitors, they see a lot of graffiti and think we live in a bad neighborhood. My mom invites them to spend the night, but they’re afraid and they go back home.

My brother and I practice how to protect ourselves: We jump on my uncle on the bed and beat him up, and then he beats us up.