They came to this neighborhood as young women, teenagers, many of them with teenage husbands, trying to find their futures.

Buenos dias.

Good morning.

They are the grandmothers and great grandmothers of the Riverside neighborhood now.

Many of them are widows.

Their futures in the past.

But every day they come here to a place they call La Puerta de Oro, the golden door.

Your hand if you want to come and eat you inside the future, the past, and sometimes even the present are forgotten.

Camino de Guanajato.

I know my mother always says this.

You know, leave your paint and eggs outside the door when you come in here, because everybody is hurting somewhere.

So no one's going to give you any sympathy if you're here, you know, crying and they do they, they come in here and it's like they forgot they're in pain.

And, and you notice that they're they're having too much fun.

Oh, yes.

We noticed they sing all the time.

Oh, man.

Him when they're making things to eat, they see it.

Your, you see it?

I'm sorry.

That sentimiento.

While they're working on crafts, they sing.

What is was in.

There este mundo no, la vida no vale nada.

And they dance and since most of their husbands have passed on, now they just dance with each other.

They don't stand up from the window.

Stand up.

The leader of this band of merry senior citizens is Anita Martinez.

She's long past retirement age herself.

Now, having led the goings on here since 1975.

Back then, a place like this in the Hispanic community was unheard of.

It was very hard at the beginning because the Hispanic women, they stay at home, they don't go out.

But after a lot of them that their husbands died, I went and invited them.

And I told them, if you don't like it, I'll bring you back that day and I'll bring you back in an hour or two.

But I want you to try la puerta.

de oro.

de oro.

And they start.

First thing was to get them out of the house.

And then after that, we didn't even have to call them.

They're ready.

One little lady told me one time that she was too old to come.

And I say, you dancing all you four walls.

Now you're going to come see our party to Del Barrio.

And that's how it happens.

They simply can't say no.

Neither can employees.

And volunteers like Luis Nieves and Carmelita Thompson.

My husband used to do this.

He used to come and help Anita, and, he had cancer and he couldn't work anymore, so he would come and help her.

And so after he died, I just started to.

And everybody here has they helped my dad and my mother when she was sick.

And, so I just thought that the tradition would just go on.

These are people that have been here since day one.

You know, some of these families are the first generation of the Mexican people in the community.

And, I know that where my dad live, you know, you could count the Mexican people, the Mexican families on both hands.

And now it's all Hispanic.

But the neighborhood has changed in more ways than that.

Just across the street from the community center and within sight of the little flower, Catholic Church, rival gangs insult each other with graffiti slogans.

They fight turf battles with pai This is must have been a pretty high risk neighborhood.

But you know, they've never bothered to score.

I've never.

I've never seen anything written out there or inside of the building.

It's almost like an island in a sea of turbulence.

The trouble swirling around it can be traced to the parents who ironically, are just trying to work hard enough to pay all the bills.

The price that can't be paid is the time lost with their children.

When I was growing up, I never came home that my mother was gone.

I came home, my mother was home.

And here now the mothers are working, the daddies are working.

When these kids come home from school, there's nothing else to do but get in trouble.

Sometime they bring other kids to their house and.

But you know, there's a party going on.

after work on the way.

But the trouble the young ones get into.

Doesn’t extend to the Riverside Community Center and La Puerta de Oro.

Here they are on their best behavior.

I think they respect this place.

A lot of them.

They're their grandparents.

And we have up here and our culture, we we respect the elderly.

That's where we learn.

That's where I learn from.

That's probably one of the reasons I'm here.

It's a a tradition that's handed down the songs, the recipes.

If you want to know how to make something, you know, you just ask the ladies.

We always sang while we're making tamales.

Did you know that every day at La Puerta de Oro bring something a little different?

On the Tuesday we visited the ladies.

We're making tamales for their annual La Fiesta celebration.

And.

Senior ay, ay, ay.

You freeze them because we sell a lot of them.

So Tuesday we start making tamales and, they enchiladas, we make them.

That's a little treat for them, for helping to make tamales.

So you tell them you want enchiladas Tuesday.

Yeah.

So, okay, we're all going to make tamales.

Very good, very good.

Oh, wow.

Everything is made from scratch.

The masa or dough and the meat mix which is roast pork and red chilies.

Then we get the ojas, which are the corn husk.

And we get them, we wash them, take them out of the water and kinda dry them out.

And then we put the, the dough we just smear them with the dough and we put meating and we fold them, okay.

We put them to cook and maybe two hours or so they're ready to be sold or give them away as gifts or eat it.

Now, Wednesday we make crafts.

We do the flowers, the pinatas, because we sell a lot of flowers at the fiesta.

We make these very simple.

You get three pieces of paper, that's a tissue.

And then we start filling a little accordion like fans.

We tie them and then we cut them different shapes.

Pinatas have been a part of Mexican tradition for generations.

They go back deep into the roots of families in Mexico.

But pinatas aren't Mexican.

They're not even Spanish.

They're Chinese.

Marco Polo introduced them to the Spanish and the French.

Centuries ago.

The Spanish brought pinatas to Mexico.

A traditional pinata has seven points representing the seven deadly sins the stick children use represents love.

The sins are destroyed when the pinata breaks open, and the candy that comes pouring out represents forgiveness.

that they believe God in.

That lesson is likely lost on children today.

But at La Puerta de Oro, the little ones from the daycare center downstairs come up to listen to the old songs of their heritage.

For some, this will be the only place they'll hear them sung by the few people left who know the word.

A lot of the songs are forgotten, you know, you ask a lot of young people about Mexican traditional songs.

They don't know them.

But a new generation is slowly learning.

Every Wednesday.

Think sombreros, sombreros.

Now Thursday’s our fun day because we started on Thursday in 1975 and we've kept it.

I always told them, Thursday is our Sunday.

So you look pretty on Thursday because you're not going to work.

You look pretty on Thursday because we're going to dance.

We're going to have a good time.

Ame hoy yo quiero saber yo que nuevo sabe It.

You would not believe some of the ladies that looks 20 years younger now than they did then, because they weren't used to putting on makeup.

They're staying at home all the time.

Who's going to put on makeup to go into work.

Now they have a place to go on Thursday.

They fix up a special place full of love and respect.

A lot of people, when they get old, they just they stay at home and they just get older, you know, here they come up here, they get younger, they there's something to be said for that in any length.

They only love it.

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