PERSPECTIVE ON EAST LOS ANGELES : It Started With a Trickle : A great pride flows through the community as the prison battle becomes a success for Latinos everywhere.

A great pride flowed through the East Los Angeles community with the movie “Stand and Deliver,” Edward James Olmos’ great depiction of Jaime Escalante’s work with the math students at Garfield High School.

The movie begins with what appears to be a small trickle of water. As the camera pans farther away, you see that it is the channel for the Los Angeles River. As the camera projects farther downstream, you see from the Fourth Street bridge the mixture of industrial and residential areas that hug the river side.

Had we not fought the prison proposed for East Los Angeles, that scene would have shown the newest addition to a whole litany of state prisons envisioned by George Deukmejian, our former governor.

Thank God, with Gov. Pete Wilson’s acceptance of the bill by Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), the long nightmare is over. Edward James Olmos can still use the riverbed. We hope that the banks of the river will now be used as a source of thousands of jobs and pride.

The eight-year struggle against the prison became symbolic to our community, a community with deep roots in the soil of California. It was more than just a prison. From the beginning we wanted to be treated like any other community--nothing more and nothing less.

When then-Assemblywoman Gloria Molina explained to us that never in the history of the state had the Department of Corrections sited a prison against the overwhelming opposition of the community, we were not going to let them take us for granted. We did not want to become the largest concentration of lockup facilities in the Free World, a true penal colony.

It was not just a struggle for the Latinos in East Los Angeles, but for the Latino community everywhere. This is why men such as Cesar Chavez and Cardinal Roger Mahony came to our marches, and why thousands of people marched, asking to be heard and respected.

For eight years a coalition of about 40 civic, fraternal and religious groups, led by Frank Villalobos and Steve Casten, kept the struggle alive. The Mothers of East Los Angeles captured the true sentiment of parents whose children attended the 34 schools that are within a radius of two miles from the proposed prison.

The struggle is best exemplified by one memorable incident. Several of the members of the Coalition Against the Prison in East Los Angeles had a very rare privilege early in the fight. We had been lobbying in Sacramento when suddenly we were told that Speaker Willie Brown had called the Assembly together to act as a Committee of the Whole to expedite a vote on the prison. To fast-track the bill, the Assembly as a whole would take testimony. We decided who would speak and in what areas they would concentrate.

After our testimony, Speaker Brown asked if there were any more witnesses. From the back of the room a man arose to speak. His name was Carlos Garcia. Carlos is a huge man, 6 feet tall and more than 300 pounds.

As he arrived at the podium to speak, all eyes were fixed on him. Even Speaker Brown, who had been watching Monday-night football on his small TV, seemed eager to hear what Carlos had to say.

Until then, Carlos had avoided speaking in public because he gets tongue-tied. But now it was different. One of our own elected officials had voted in favor of the proposed prison. The Assembly was also poised to vote against us. They were going through the formalities, but the vote had long been decided. To Carlos this was a do-or-die moment.

What he said and how he said it was the greatest civic lesson I have ever had. In the Assembly chamber there is a beautiful, oversize American flag. Carlos began by pointing to that flag and telling the members how much love he had for that flag. He spoke of his Mexican mother teaching him to respect the flag and what it represents. He spoke of his own Vietnam War experience when he was injured in defense of the flag.

He stated that our children’s lives were just as important as anyone’s child, no more and no less. He appealed to them to treat us like any other community. It was one of the most dramatic moments in our eight-year struggle. The Assembly voted against us and gave us another seemingly insurmountable obstacle. We had lost the vote but won a moral victory.

The purpose of these comments is not to judge the merits or demerits of our political leaders. Social historians such as our distinguished Rudy Acuna are more competent to do that.

But I hope all our politicians, those now in office and those not yet to be elected, will always respect the dignity of the people and work to bring us together.

And as for the community’s victory, “How sweet it is.”