CALIFORNIA COMMENTARY : Tumult Is L.A.’s Middle Name : The frontier is gone, so this is where we will rebuild. Ultimately, mutual self-interest will bind us together.

In the wake of April’s disturbances, Los Angeles mixes pain with great hope, despair with tremendous potential and real problems with real solutions. We are in a unique position to move toward closing the social gaps that divide us.

The first step is to commit to long-term solutions and to recognize that real progress will be measured in decades, not years.

The second step is to realize that Los Angeles has been through tumultuous change throughout its history. At the turn of the century, the city was full of stories of racial conflicts, social turmoil and predictions of municipal demise. The Great Depression and the mass deportations of undocumented immigrants in the 1930s, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the zoot-suit riots of the 1940s and the civil-rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s--including the Watts riots and the Chicano moratorium riots of the 1970s--were about moving forward, albeit with great difficulty.

Unlike the East Coast and the Midwest, where change is barely noticeable over a decade, Los Angeles is constantly rejuvenating and renewing itself. Many Angelenos lament the passing of the city they remember from the 1940s and 1950s, forgetting that when they and their parents arrived, the “old timers” were lamenting changes wrought by migrants from the East and Midwest. We have also forgotten that Los Angeles, which is facing an unprecedented influx of immigrants, was founded by settlers of mixed ancestry: mulatto, Spanish, Indian, black and mestizo.

In responding to change, we must focus on new and creative ideas and use our energies to debate the issues, rather than waste time assigning blame for our current travails. Abraham Lincoln aptly said: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. . . . As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”

New ideas accept the demographic trends that are changing the ethnic, racial and social profile of Los Angeles. Avoiding cultural and racial nationalism is central to any approach to solving our problem if we are to retain the social glue that binds Los Angeles and California. New ideas about change and preparing for the future stem from these approaches.

Expanding our political and economic strategies to retain and enhance the industrial belt surrounding Los Angeles (including East Los Angeles and the Los Angeles and Orange County suburbs) while addressing the needs of South-Central, is an idea crucial to the region’s economic prosperity. Moving away from a simple black-Korean-white scenario and developing a pan-ethnic analysis that encompasses the large Latino, Filipino, Armenian, Jewish and other ethnic/racial groups is sorely needed.

Acknowledging that immigrant groups become successful and middle- class within two to three generations, rather than hanging on to the mistaken perception that they remain a burden on welfare programs and taxpayers, is crucial to public acceptance of diversity.

These are a few of the ideas that respond creatively to the new conditions facing us.

New approaches and ideas will not bear fruit, however, unless we have new leadership promoting them. We must reject elitist leaders, be they white, African-American, Latino or Asian. Los Angeles is too diffuse and diverse to assume that a “power elite” of well-educated professionals and influential politicians has all the answers. The post-riot events revealed many talented grass-roots and community leaders.

Ultimately, the ideal of mutual self-interest will bind us together. Unlike the riots of 1965 and the Chicano moratorium, which were localized, the riots of 1992 demonstrated that no one is immune anymore from the direct and ripple effects of social turmoil; all classes and walks of life were affected by the riots last spring. The middle class of all races and colors, whether living in the city or its suburbs, has a great stake in the success or failure of our rebuilding. In time, problems in one area intrude on all areas.

We must renew our sense of purpose and activism, as we did during the 1930s and 1960s, and bring to bear the tremendous energies of the public and private sectors, and of the individual citizen. We must keep in mind that things are never as bad as they seem or as good as we think they should be. Realistic expectations about what can be done within the next few years must be balanced by the long-term commitment it will take to see real progress.

Progress will cost money, and eventually the taxpayers must decide what they will pay. Yet, the sooner we realize that we either pay now, or pay a greater cost over time, the sooner we may decide to sacrifice for the short term to gain over the long term.

We have little choice but to reinvest our time, energies and resources to rebuilding Los Angeles. This is the end of the line of America’s westward expansion. There’s no place to go, except back to the places left behind in the rush to the California Dream.

Los Angeles will not be rebuilt overnight, and the situation will probably get worse before it gets better. But with the right ideas, the right approaches and new types of leadership, we will move ahead.