The Tattooed Soldier, written by Hector Tobar, "brings two Guatemalan adversaries
together by chance on the streets of Los Angeles, where they play out the
endgame of a deadly struggle begun in their homeland," says Kirkus Reviews.

Well you know what they say about the road to hell.

And the panel that assembled at the University of Southern California to discuss race in Los Angeles certainly seemed to have good intentions. Moreover, the discussion drew crowds. But those crowds left disappointed.

"Blacks and Latinos In Conflict and Cooperation: Writing Race in L.A." would better have been called "Fictional Literary Works by Black and Latino Authors." 

Sponsored by professors Josh Kun and Laura Pulido, USC's Center for Diversity and Democracy and co-sponsored by the Center for Black Cultural and Student Affairs and El Centro Chicano, the group worked to organize an event featuring the ethnic panelists as they explored how best to cover race in this divided city.

Los Angeles Times Journalist Erin Aubry Kaplan moderated a discussion aiming to "explore the intersections of the arts, politics and urban conflict and coalition in present-day Los Angeles."

But that discussion quickly turned into the authors' personal narratives.

Héctor Tobar (author of The Tattooed Soldier and Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States), Dana Johnson (author of Break Any Woman Down) and Helena Maria Viramontes (author of The Moths and Other Stories and Their Dogs Came with Them) presented their work and perspectives.

As the panelists began their introductions, it became evident the discussion would be based partly on their fictional work and personal lives.

Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the nation after New York, continues to be segregated by class, race, education and status.

Tobar, who took an entire uninterrupted twenty minutes to simply talk about himself, told what was, in the end, a moving story about his Latino experience being a black experience as well.

His mother, an immigrant from Guatemala, prayed to San Martin de Porra, a black Catholic saint, for prosperity and luck in her family's new home in South Los Angeles. She was pregnant with Hector and his father worked almost every hour of the day.

"So imagine her surprise when an African American neighbor offered her a ride to the hospital!" he said, followed by some laughter from the audience.

"There she was, praying to a black saint, who delivered a black man to help her."

As it turned out, this man, like the saint, was named Martin. only a few years later, another black man named Martin would come to Los Angeles -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"So, for me, the black civil rights movement was really about all of us," Tobar said.

For a writer who has often been criticized by the Latino community for his distance from the Latino experience, Tobar failed to listen to that criticism. He did not recognize the student walkouts in East Los Angeles, ones that paralleled the experiences of the Black Panthers and the Brown Barrettes mirroring the struggle of inequality with one of their own.

That struggle continues today.

A visiting African-American attendee who introduced himself as a former-gang-banger-turned at-risk-youth-mentor asked the panelists why they were not talking about the "real" issues of racial tensions and why much of their talk was based on books, not everyday life in L.A.

To her credit Moderator Aubry Kaplan said the discussion should have been taking place outside the USC campus. However, that comment only further emphasized the need to have this very dialogue at USC, a private university that seems to be largely unaware of the community surrounding its gates.

You can drive a mile outside the campus' perimeter and the glamour of L.A. Live will quickly disappear, showcasing, instead, a harsh view of low-income communities of color.

The news tends to mis- or under-represent these communities. When it chooses to highlight life there, its depicts them solely as violent or gang-infested areas.

When put on the spot, Helena Miramontes mentioned she teaches creative writing at a Southern California prison. Tobar nervously laughed his way out of the question regarding what he does to help those communities by saying he has been out of the country for the past seven years, and "that was his excuse."

It seemed the only one willing to talk more about the segregation of Latinos and blacks was English Assistant Professor Dana Johnson, who expressed her frustration on finding that the only other book recommendations through Amazon's suggestion aggregator were those by other black authors.

"If our work continues to be separated, then how are we having this discussion?" She said. "We should not only be writing about our own experiences, but those of others as well."

Kaplan answered by stating she could continue to write about the black experience until she died because there would be so much to write about. She also mentioned her own frustration that the immigrant debate be compared to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

If critical authors don't understand the very meaning of civil rights as it relates to all people who are faced with injustices and barriers, how are they to write about conflicts other than in a manner that highlights division rather than understanding?

More than 200 students attended the discussion, including 25 from Los Angeles Trade Tech College, many who waited to hear a much-needed discussion on race and conflict at USC -- one that never really took place.

Lynn Cain, a psychology professor from Trade Tech responsible for bringing the students, said it best: "They don't think it's their problem."

As the diaspora and demographics of Los Angeles change and historically black communities see an influx of Latino immigrants, who will write about the real experiences  occurring in these communities?

How are the new issues of language and culture being covered?

Too focused on selling their next fictional books, some of the panelists' personal agendas took away from an actual discussion and had little transitions into youth or community issues.

As it is, black/brown tensions taking place within Los Angeles high schools are not a new phenomenon.

Neither the increase of metal detectors on campuses nor the marked influx of police officers in many urban city schools are new either. Clearly, there's a need to tell the stories of conflict as they arise at a young age and early level.

With gangs, drugs, and low economic development plaguing black and Latino communities, we see that the issue is not really one stemming from racial tensions, but from the fundamental and complex roots of poverty and upward mobility.

Without jobs, without resources and without the access to proper schools and higher education, low-income communities of color will continue to fight for the crumbs, remain marginalized and maintain conflict-based living conditions.

At the end, it's never about race, it's about money and access. But that's a critical viewpoint that never quite made it to the panel.