Giving Goes On All Year for Casa del Mexicano

Miguel Angel Arenas still remembers the time he invited the neighborhood kids over for a little Christmas party a few years back. A total of 43,000 of them showed up over two days, trapping him inside for much of that time and backing up traffic for miles.

“But every one of them,” he says proudly, “went home with something.”

For the 62nd year, Casa del Mexicano, which Arenas directs, will hold its toy giveaway Dec. 20, the Sunday before Christmas. But while Christmas comes just once a year, the giving goes on year-round at Casa del Mexicano.

For more than 60 years, Casa del Mexicano has provided aid and comfort to Los Angeles’ huge Mexican population. Even the Mexican government has sought the group’s assistance.

“We often contact them for help,” says Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, the Mexican consul for community affairs in Los Angeles. “We are very appreciative of the work they do. (They) play a role no other organization can play.”

Casa del Mexicano was founded under the direction of Mexican Consul Rafael de la Colina in the early days of the Great Depression. Colina was troubled by the roundup and forced repatriation of Mexican nationals in Los Angeles, a tactic some U.S. citizens favored as a solution to rising unemployment.

In response, Colina pulled together a blue-ribbon committee of prominent doctors, lawyers and business people to establish a Mexican chamber of commerce; a civic-patriotic committee that still is active today in such activities as the Mexican Independence Day parade, and a relief organization that eventually became known as Casa del Mexicano.

From a modest office in downtown Los Angeles, Casa volunteers distributed food, clothing and blankets to the needy. The group eventually followed the Mexican community across the river to Boyle Heights, settling in an ornate church building.

As Casa del Mexicano has grown, its mission has also expanded. In just the last six months, its two dozen active volunteers--a secretary is the group’s only salaried employee--have shipped eight tons of food, medicine and clothing to victims of a gas explosion in Guadalajara and collected several hundred pounds of supplies for people injured and displaced by a tidal wave that struck Nicaragua’s Pacific coast.

But the group’s focus remains local. At times, that has meant giving shelter to a homeless family, finding a job for an unemployed worker, providing bus tickets for stranded travelers or giving referrals to legal and immigration experts.

Despite its name, Casa del Mexicano serves anyone in need regardless of nationality. Or regardless of immigration status. But all of those who arrive looking for help do share something other than misfortune. It seems that everyone who goes to the Casa learned of the center from someone who had been helped there before.

However, Casa del Mexicano’s resources are limited--in part because the group receives no government funds, grants or endowments. Such contributions can come with strings attached, so the Casa has not applied for them.

“We want to help the people that need it, not the people they tell us to help,” said Armida Caro, coordinator of the group’s only major fund-raiser, the Miss Mexico-Los Angeles beauty pageant. Other funds come through donations from the community and local businesses.

Resources are distributed according to guidelines approved by the 12-member Comite de Beneficencia Mexicana Inc., which acts as the Casa’s board of directors. For example, families wishing to send a body back to Mexico for burial generally receive no more than $200 from the group, although the service may cost at least $1,100.

“We help them get the proper place (funeral home) so they can get the cheapest price, but we cannot afford to pay the whole amount,” said Arenas, a disc jockey for Spanish-language radio station KWKW-AM.

“Whatever money comes to (the Casa) . . . “we do not give it to any other organization,” Arenas said. “The reason is, we believe whatever you give us, you give us because you trust us. So we’re going to give it to the people.”