Angelenos on the Eve: Feeling the Rush . . . and the Rain : Downtown on Broadway, It Was Christmas With a Latino Twist

Lidia Santacruz and her friends came from Hollywood to the one place where they knew they could finish their last-minute shopping and still buy all the ingredients for the 100 tamales they would serve for Christmas dinner.

“Everything I need is here,” said Santacruz, 30, a native of Guatemala, as she stood in the crowded, sawdust-covered aisles of the Grand Central Public Market.

It didn’t matter that it was raining, and that they would have to lug the cornmeal and spices and her other gifts on the long bus ride home. On Saturday, the last shopping day before Christmas, Santacruz and her friends came to shop on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.

Mostly, it was Christmas with a Latino twist, as immigrants from Central America and small rural towns in Mexico came to shop where the prices are right, the credit is easy and the salesmen speak the right language--Spanish.

“We get all kinds of people,” said Alfonso Berrios, sales manager at Victor Clothing. “People who’ve already made it in this country come because they’ve been coming here for years. And we get people who are poor and just getting to know what life in this country is like.”

Estanislao Ricalde, 29, was one of many shoppers who came to the clothing store to splurge on a new outfit for Christmas dinner. “I only do this once a year,” said Ricalde, as a saleswoman noted his $300 purchase of pants, shirts and ties on a credit ledger.

Mayra Lourdes Lanza, a 26-year-old native of Honduras, said she had worked hard at her $20-a-day job as a housekeeper so she could buy gifts for the children of a close friend. “You can just imagine, with the money I get paid, how much I had to save,” she said in Spanish as she wavered over whether to buy a $25 doll at Swaparama.

Los Angeles County’s busiest pedestrian street drew shoppers from throughout Southern California. Mario Jimenez, a 27-year-old cook, traveled from Ontario to buy a $24 blender for his wife at R & S Electronics, where a portable stereo blared out lively Latin rhythms .

“I thought the prices here would be a little cheaper, but they’re not” he said. “They’re even a little more.”

Most people, however, were finding bargains. Everything was on sale at the Capitol clothing store near 5th Street. Dresses for infants, men’s sweaters and women’s blouses all sold for the same price--$6. “ Todo sale, todo sale,” vendor Larry Ma, 42, shouted enthusiastically at passers-by.

But Ma confided that he was disappointed at the volume of sales. “Compared with last year, this year is a little slow,” he said, looking out at the rain-swept street.

Miguel Marquez, a salesman at an appliance store, said he was disappointed that Broadway hadn’t been more decorated. “There are no lights, no trees, nothing,” he said. “People are going to Huntington Park instead.”

Ramiro Salcedo, general manager of Victor Clothing, said that the only decorations on the street were green and red cloth streamers placed on lamp posts by Miracle on Broadway, a local merchants’ association. Rain forced the association’s special horse-drawn carriage off the street, he said.

All Kinds of Business

Families buying children’s clothing at discount stores mingled with the drug dealers and panhandlers, for whom Christmas Eve was just another day on the streets.

Jerry Quezada, 34, strolled through the wet streets covered by a new blanket he had been given as a Christmas present at a local shelter for the homeless. “I’m going for another wine now,” he told police officers Guadalupe Ruvalcaba and Rolando Andrade near 5th Street.

Andrade and Ruvalcaba were on foot patrol, acting as a “visible deterrence,” they said, to the numerous pickpockets and “chain snatchers” who work the crowded streets on busy shopping days.

“We have a lot of ‘crack’ dealers, too,” Andrade said. “It’s a blatant problem.”

Gonzalo Rodarti, one of the few street vendors who braved the rain, watched the drug dealers from under a plastic canopy he used to protect his wares, Spanish-language magazines and books. “Even children 12 and 13 years old are selling drugs. . . . Look, there’s one right there,” he said, pointing to a group of men surreptitiously exchanging wads of bills a few feet away.

But most of the shoppers were intent on finding a few good deals of their own.

Looking for Discounts

Juana Munoz, 32, and her daughter, Ana Maria, 14, were among the many shoppers who took advantage of bargains at the Giant Penny Discount Store at 3rd Street. “We came early because we have to make dinner,” Munoz, who came from South Los Angeles, said as she sorted through piles of children’s clothes on sale for $2.99 and $5.99.

Other immigrants lamented being separated from their families and said that Christmas in the United States isn’t as vibrant a celebration as it is in their native countries.

“In Mexico, you go out into the streets and make bonfires,” said Marisela Sixtos, 18, who took a break from shopping in the Grand Central Market. “Here, you stay inside, with the music real low because the neighbors complain.”