CITY TIMES COVER STORY : Home Away From Home : Belizeans Bring Sights, Sounds, Smells of Their Native Country to South-Central

It is sweltering outside, and as they do on most Saturday afternoons, the Belizeans gather at the Caribbean Market with their chairs and stools, their lilting accents and their staunch opinions.

A knot of middle-aged men dressed in patterned silk and cotton shirts straddles the entrance to the small store, excitedly debating in their Creole dialect and native language of Garifuna the fall of O.J. Simpson.

An older gentleman with a thinning gray beard and an old camouflage baseball cap to shield his eyes from the sun sits placidly on one side of the entrance. His is lured by the pungent smell of a peppery homemade onion sauce that fellow Belizean Tina Lewis, a seamstress, keeps in a plastic container to top off the tuna-filled panades (fried meat patties) she sells every weekend.

Painted on the store’s outside wall behind them is a fading Caribbean scene: palm trees, mountains and fishing boats in azure water.

More than 2,000 miles away from Belize, the Caribbean Market sits in the heart of a burgeoning Belizean community in South-Central. Though their numbers are small compared to other ethnic groups in the city, Belizeans have made their presence felt in their neighborhood, infusing it with a diverse culture of pulsating African-influenced music, vibrant art and distinctive West Indian and Latino foods such as conch, cassava, garanaches, fried plantains and johnnycake.

“There’s no reason anyone can point to of why we ended up settling in this area. You follow somebody in your family and you usually stay in the community,” said Paul Warren, Belize’s first honorary consul in Los Angeles from 1984 to 1989.

“Pretty soon you have a whole group of people settled in one place. I guess that’s what happened with we Belizeans.”

More Belizeans live in Los Angeles--about 30,000--than anywhere outside Belize, a tiny Central American country the size of New Hampshire whose 229,000 citizens are squeezed between the Caribbean Sea, Mexico and Guatemala. Many have settled in a 10-square-mile area of South-Central bordered by Adams Boulevard to the north, Slauson Avenue to the south, Crenshaw Boulevard to the west and Avalon Avenue to the east.

Within this small community there are more than 30 civic organizations, half a dozen musical bands, a radio show and a string of more than 50 Belizean-owned and -operated restaurants and businesses, many of which maintain close ties to their native land.

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Walk down Western Avenue from Adams to Vernon and it’s as if you have stepped into a Little Belize. This short stretch has the city’s largest concentration of Belizean eateries and businesses and reveals the greatest sense of the country.

It starts with the Belizean Fish Market near Adams with its assortment of conch, king and jack fish, and runs past the Plum Tree nightclub near 39th Street, blaring with Belizean punta rock music. In between is a string of Belizean-owned and -operated restaurants of simple decor, each competing with an assortment of piquant Caribbean dishes.

Politics and news from and patriotism for Belize pervade almost every store and restaurant, whether in casual conversation or on the bumper stickers (I Punta Gorda or Corazol or Orange Walk), posters or T-shirts that line the walls.

Nel and John’s Belize-American restaurant near Exposition Boulevard is painted in the blue and white colors of the Belizean flag, and of owners Nel and John Wells’ political party, the People’s United Party, or PUP.

Diners at Mom’s Caribbean Restaurant down the street are prompted by a sign to buy the latest edition of Amandla, one of Belize’s three weekly newspapers that are flown in to Los Angeles every Friday night.

At a corner table, three diners huddle in front of a composite photograph of Belize’s newly elected leaders of the United Democratic Party.

“Aye, this one is Castillo, there,” a man says to no response. “How long he been in power? They need to keep on top themselves or else (PUP) can come back in power, man,” he says.

Politics wasn’t the impetus for the exodus from Belize to the United States. A 1961 hurricane that nearly leveled Belize City sent the first wave of Belizeans to Los Angeles, where they easily settled into African American neighborhoods here.

“It’s when we open our mouths that you can tell there’s a difference,” Warren said with his singsong accent.

Belizeans continue to come to the United States with the same aspirations of most immigrants: to make money and have a better life.

Beyond its dazzling coral reefs, historical Mayan ruins and wildlife sanctuaries, Belize is a poor country relying on a largely agricultural economy. Sugar cane, citrus fruit and bananas make up 73% of its exports.

“We all grew up hearing that America is the land of milk and honey. So when you get the chance to come here, you take it and try to make the best,” said Patrick Barrow, 47.

Barrow moved to Los Angeles in 1967 at age 20 to catch a piece of the American Dream. Now the owner of a furniture refinishing business, he started a recording company and heads a Belizean band, the Babylon Warriors, that will play in Soccerfest at the L.A. Convention Center on July 10.

Despite the proliferation of black Belizeans here, Belize itself is a medley of ethnic groups: Creole, Carib, Garifuna, East Indian, Mestizo (a mixture of Mayan and Spanish) and Latino.

The groups don’t always harmonize. For decades, there has been a rift between northern Belizeans, mainly Creoles, and Garifuna, an ethnic group whose members descend from Carib Indians and Africans who mainly live in the southern region of Belize. The Creoles looked down on the Garinagu (plural of Garifuna), whose language sounds distinctly African.

The schism between Garinagu and Creoles can be seen in Los Angeles. For the most part, the Garinagu have settled east of Western Avenue, while Creoles mainly live west of the street.

“At first when Garinagu came to the country we didn’t know many Belizeans who were not Garifuna because we were separated,” said James Castillo, president of the Garifuna Settlement Day Committee, a community organization.

“But then someone said: ‘We’re crazy. Here we are in a foreign country, we should act like one (people).’ So now we’re trying to organize more events together,” he said.

The Caribbean Market, which sits on the corner of 48th Street and Hoover Avenue, is one of the central gathering places for Belizeans, mainly Garinagu.

Inside, the dimly lit store is replete with Caribbean fare: hot sauces; pineapple and guava jam; coconut milk and cardboard boxes of plantains, green bananas, mangos, yams and cassava lined up near the front counter. On a rickety metal cabinet in the back is a primero drum, which sounds the African rhythms of southern Belize.

“If you want to find a Belizean, especially a Garifuna, you go to 48th and Hoover and someone will know where to find your people,” said Renick Lambey, a termite exterminator who hails from southern Belize and heads a small Belizean dance troupe in Los Angeles.

Lambey came to Los Angeles in 1986 and almost immediately sought out the Belizeans who hung around the market to hear his native music and learn from his more established countrymen how to handle life in his new city. He, in turn, has directed several newly arrived Belizeans to the market.

“Belize is such a small country that everyone knows everyone, somehow,” said Pearl Warren, the first government-appointed consul general in Los Angeles. Warren is married to Paul Warren, who volunteered in the post for years. “And if they don’t know you personally, they know your uncle or your cousin. It works the same way here (in Los Angeles).”

The influx of Belizeans into Los Angeles has been so vast that many have rediscovered neighbors and childhood friends from their hometowns at parties, in musical circles and at local churches. Belizeans make up a large percentage of the congregations of a number of denominations in South Los Angeles, including Catholic, Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian.

“There’s not a shortage of churches or religions for Belizeans,” said Alvin Slusher, one of three Belizean ushers at St. John’s Episcopal Church on Adams Boulevard and Flower Street. About one-third of St. John’s congregation is Belizean.

In music and art, the Belizean community is beginning to flourish in its adopted home.

Belizean rapper Pupa Curly said he and most of his counterparts in music and art--singer Andy Palacio, the Babylon Warriors and artists Greg Palacio and Rudolph Bent--who are popular in Belize “really got their start here in the States. Then we send our music (or art) back home and our names become real popular down there,” he said.

Curly, 32, whose real name is Curlyn Arnold, moved to Los Angeles at age 17 hoping to become a professional basketball player. Instead, the dreadlocked, 6-foot-3 Belizean picked up a microphone during his off hours working at Pioneer Chicken. He started deejaying and finally rapping and singing punta rock, a traditional music derived from the Garifuna and mixed with reggae.

Arnold’s sister, Glenda Burns, an actress and dance teacher in Los Angeles, is better known as Bella Carib in Belize, the chanteuse of punta soca music, a combination of African rhythms and a slower West Indian soca beat.

“Music is a part of our culture in Belize and it’s almost natural that we bring it here and continue to work on it,” said Barrow, leader of the Babylon Warriors, who play reggae and punta rock.

Belizean music and art are also channels to keep the culture and history of Belize fresh for second-generation Belizeans and younger immigrants, Barrow and others say.

Problems of urban life have cropped up: Some youths have gotten involved with Bloods and Crips gangs and been deported to Belize, bringing the gang lifestyle with them.

“We want our children to follow in our footsteps and in the culture so it doesn’t die here in America,” said Egzine Bennett, 64, a retired nurse who came to the United States in 1966 and has returned to Belize half a dozen times as a member of a Belize-American nurses’ association to train nurses in her country.

“If (the culture) dies here, then people won’t know about it unless they go back to Belize. By us keeping up the holidays and celebrations, people will remember,” Bennett said.

For the past several years, Belizeans have celebrated their country’s major holidays--National Holiday, Independence Day and Garifuna Settlement Day--with celebrations of up to 3,000 people. The annual CayeFest, a gathering of Belizean musicians started by Barrow and other musicians in 1987, draws an average of 2,000 Belizeans to Rancho Cienega Park each May.

Although music is an important ingredient at a Belizean fete, it is the food that is vital for party-goers. And it is the women, mainly, who have kept this tradition of good cooking alive for generations.

“We all born cooking and dancing, honey. Yes, we all born cooking and dancing,” said Enid Patton, playfully winding her hips as her sister, Leta Flowers, busily kneads dough for powder buns (sweet scones).

A smell similar to spicy vegetable soup wafts from the hefty pot of cowfoot soup (the hoof is not included) simmering on the stove in Flowers’ small kitchen. Flowers’ freezer is jampacked with three dozen aluminum foil-wrapped tamales and two dozen tart shells. Cooking is a passion for the 64-year-old housekeeper, who arrived in Los Angeles in 1968.

“Belizeans love to eat and congregate. We’re industrious and hard-working. And Belizean women, they love to cook, and if they have that gift they set up a ‘cook shop,’ ” said Pearl Warren.

Flowers has no interest in opening a cook shop, more commonly known as a restaurant. Too many restrictions, she says. She’s halfway there now, cooking enough food for about a dozen people almost every morning in her West 45th Street home. Friends and family throng her kitchen, checking out what’s cooking before settling in at Flowers’ cluttered dining room table for the latest gossip.

Like many Belizeans, most of Flowers’ extended family live nearby, sometimes down the street, at most a five-minute drive away. Easy access to the meals, admits Flowers’ niece-in-law, Mary Barrow.

Even after the food is eaten and the pots are cleaned, Flowers is still cooking. This time it’s on the dance floor. Dressed in a flowing aqua pantsuit, Flowers shimmies on the dance floor of Ashton’s Shatto on Slauson Avenue to reggae and soca music, rotating and thrusting her hips.

On this recent night, the Shatto is the reunion spot for the Skyliters, the first Belizean band formed in Los Angeles, during the 1970s. More than 100 Belizeans, mainly an older crowd, have come to see the old band and wind their bodies to the Caribbean music.

“This is Belize music, aye. This is Belize sound, aye,” sings the lead woman of the Babylon Warriors, which opens the show. As a primero drum thumps out a powerful African beat, four members of Lambey’s dance troupe, the Belizean Exquisite Dancers, file on to the dance floor, donning African-patterned outfits and twisting their hips frighteningly fast as they perform traditional Garifuna dances.

Two men tending bar dance to the music, as does a woman overseeing the tamales and beans and chicken in the back kitchen.

“The music, the art, the food, the dancing, it’s in all Belizeans,” said artist Greg Palacio. “We all get homesick for the country, but we all can’t go there. Doing these things here makes sure that we never lose what we’ve got.”