CLINICA MONSEñOR OSCAR A. ROMERO
Story and Photos By Mary Jo McConahay

In l983 survivors of mass killings of civilians in El Salvador’s civil war arrived in west central Los Angeles with little besides their lives. Many were startled and amazed to find a clapboard house hung with a picture of San Salvador’s assassinated archbishop, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, who had spoken out for them against the violence. “This must be a safe house,” they said. Inside they found volunteer medics who treated families without regard for ability to pay, and heard they had certain rights, no matter what their immigration status. Today Clinica Monseñor Oscar A. Romero has grown to 100 providers and tens of thousands of medical and dental patient visits per year, but remains rooted in the same spirit, serving the neighborhood’s multiple poor communities while nurturing civic activism.

Fourteen years ago Myriam Maricela Villalva’s father was murdered in their Mexican hometown, sending her mother, two brothers and the 12-year old girl into a spiral of fear and exodus that ended in the bright, rough streets of west central Los Angeles. Stop anyone on Pico or Westlake and you are likely to hear a variation of the journey Myriam carries in her mind.

It seemed to take forever, she remembers, and in a border town they slept on the street. Someone lit a fire, while others surrounded the shivering girl in a circle “to keep the wind from me.” When the family made its run across the border, young Myriam’s shoes broke. “I was afraid that at any moment I would be left with no father and now no mother. I fell in the mud and as I ran the mud caked, and I felt myself becoming heavier and heavier.”

Immigrants who call this densely-packed Pico Union-Westlake area home arrive from parts of Central America or Mexico most affected by violence or natural disaster. “You know what countries are in turmoil by who comes here,” says Dr. Kendra Gorlitsky, a general practitioner at Clinica Romero in the district’s heart, and specialist in treating patients who have suffered torture. African Americans arrive too, from the east or south. Shops advertise in Spanish or English, but new signs are appearing in Korean as well. Stores and markets may describe their offerings with wall paintings of goods from clothing to tools to familiar household cleaning products, an aid to the illiterate. Walking the streets even long distances – many still find buses unfamiliar – are Guatemalan and Mexican Maya Indians, the community’s most recent arrivals, who speak only their own ancient tongues.

Sunny, polyglot, with the air of a buzzing, real neighborhood in sight of the cool silver skyscrapers of downtown L.A., it’s a community whose families are disparate but have things in common: little income, no health insurance, and a deep desire to raise their children in health and peace. That’s why Myriam Villalva, now married with a 4-year old boy, has found herself braving liquor stores suspected of selling to kids.

“The first time I was scared, but this was a store with its sign down low where it was more likely to appeal to kids and a blocked window which we knew had to be clear by law so you could see inside.” She entered as part of a team with two other women from the Clinica’s neighborhood volunteer association, wearing white t-shirts with pictures of El Salvador’s beloved assassinated Archbishop Oscar A. Romero. “The owner argued, ‘You’re not even the police, you’re nobody to tell me what to do.’ But we said ‘we can report you and you’ll get a citation.’” When the teams gathered back at the Clinica, they were happy and afraid at once. “Oh my God – I don’t have any papers – what if the immigration police come? What am I doing?,” Myriam recalls thinking. “But at the association they reminded us, ‘You are the leaders of the community.’”

From its beginnings, the Clinica developed projects aimed at organizing the neighborhood to advocate for its rights to services and safety. Today Clinica may count 50,000 annual patient visits, but the liquor store posse that Myriam Maricela went on appears as characteristic of the operation as a pre-natal check, emergency doctor’s visit, or a dental procedure. Likewise, support groups for gays and HIV-affected men, which give clients “the feeling that just because you are gay you don’t deserve to die,” are inseparable in importance from the medical track of encouraging testing and other AIDS prevention measures. Guatemala-born HIV program director Walfred Lopez uses himself as an example, noting that since he became confident enough to be open about his homosexuality, “I see myself in a totally different way.” With support, debilitating stress dissipates. “It’s better physically, and becomes even more important to be HIV-negative and keep that way.”

The Clinica’s emerging new leadership will come out of such activist client groups, said Executive director Eduardo Gonzalez. Miriam Maricela Villalva, who has learned to be an oral hygiene and diabetes educator since volunteering with Clinica groups, already sits on the Board of Directors; others are set to follow until users make up its majority. Meetings and all documents are set to become bilingual. “We have committed, smart people who don’t speak English,” said Gonzalez. In the days before Archbishop Romero was gunned down by a right-wing death squad, the cleric pleaded in a letter to U.S. President Carter to halt aid to the brutal Salvadoran army, and he delivered a famous homily counseling ordinary soldiers not to war against their Salvadoran brothers. Around the bustling Clinica today are posters of a smiling Romero with members of his flock and a line from his diary: “If they kill me I will rise again in the people.”

Miles away on the east side’s San Julian Street, where few cars venture, the homeless – including small children and the drug addicted – pass the days among their shopping carts, wheelchairs and strollers, other belongings scattered on sidewalks or stuffed into bags. Clinica Romero is not a fixed place. Clinica nurse Melinda Serrano travels to work near San Julian Street in the mornings, at a needle exchange where addicts trade old syringes for safer new ones. In an examining room she can treat walk-ins for abcesses from needle use, eczema and scabies, or detect more serious conditions. “And when addicts come in with their small children, we take advantage to give vaccinations,” said Serrano.

That’s fine with hotel desk clerk turned prostitute Deborah Worzella Roberts, 38, who has used heroin and injected cocaine for 20 years. Deborah said she wouldn’t have taken a bus ride over to the Clinica, but recently came to the more nearby needle exchange for the first time, moments before closing, and found the health service available. “I try to use a clean needle because you don’t know what you get off the streets, but they’re a dollar each, so really it’s only maybe every three times,” she said later, pausing to sit under a tree in the warm afternoon. Deborah confessed she is also worried about sexually-transmitted AIDS, although she tries to insist clients use condoms. “They pay $10 more for sex without one, but that ain’t worth dying for,” she said firmly, clearly a woman who has not given up some determination to take care of herself. Deborah glanced in the direction of the office where nurse Serrano visits in the satellite clinic. “It’s perfect right here. Next week I’ll come back because they told me I can get an AIDS test -- right here.”