<i> Focus </i> : Roberto Lovato Chosen Refugee Center Director

Roberto Lovato, son of Salvadoran immigrants, simply wants to help immigrants to make it in the United States. He was the final choice in a three-month national search for executive director of the Central American Refugee Center in Pico-Union, better known as CARECEN. The 29-year-old UC Berkeley graduate, who grew up in San Francisco, had been the nonprofit organization’s administrative director, managing its $2-million budget. Lovato said his directorship will be affected most significantly by the recent end of the war in El Salvador and the likelihood that the majority of Los Angeles’ Central American population of about 600,000 people is here to stay. Lovato, who took over from Madeline Janis, said the new role of CARECEN will be “to help them establish themselves politically, economically, socially and even psychologically.”