The residents of three apartment buildings in a little corner of a modest-sized town south of Los Angeles often wake up coughing . They blame the fumes from one nearby plant, but no one is listening, and no one has any idea of what they might do about it. As Hillary Clinton announces administration plans to spend more than $100 million fighting childhood asthma, it may be that, for some, the key to success in that fight lies in alternative housing. PNS associate editor David Bacon writes widely on immigrant and labor issues.

HUNTINGTON PARK, CA -- The noise starts at two in the morning, sometimes even as early as midnight. With it come acrid fumes that make people cough in their sleep.

The West Coast Stainless Products foundry has started pouring molten steel into sand molds.

Vincent and Littia Flores and their five children live in a one bedroom apartment across from the foundry. But on many nights, Vincent Jr., 7, begins to get short of breath and his little brother, Daniel, begins wheezing and coughing.

Both Vincent Jr. and Daniel have asthma.

Their father, Vincent Sr., is a construction worker. Two years ago he moved his family into this little dogleg portion of Huntington Park that sticks up into the Vernon industrial belt. Some residents call it Asthmatown.

"I had reservations when we got here," Vincent Sr. says, "but we had to find a place fast, almost anywhere."

Vincent Jr. had coughing spells before they moved, but now has asthma attacks. Daniel, the youngest child, was born in Asthmatown. When he too began coughing, his parents took him to the doctor, and learned that Daniel had asthma like his brother.

"We were kind of scared when it happened to Vincent Jr., especially when he kept coughing this dry cough, and couldn't get his breath, and we couldn't find any way to stop it," his father recalls. "When we got the news from the doctor about Daniel, we just felt sad and depressed. I thought, 'what a shame he has to go through this too.' I'm used to thinking of anything as fixable, but there wasn't much we could find to do for him."

Vernon -- a city with an official population of 85 -- was created early in the century to provide a haven for industry. Huntington Park, a city of some 55,000, is just to the south, but the Asthmatown neighborhood looks more like Vernon -- three isolated apartment houses next to each other on 53rd Street, bordered by factories.

People on 53rd Street identify the stainless plant as the source of many of the fumes which plague the neighborhood, but the community is full of small, and not-so-small industrial facilities. Many have records with the Air Quality Management District as emitters of toxic substances.

In other words, residents breathe a mix of chemicals from many sources, and the cumulative impact of such exposure is potentially greater than exposure to just one substance from one source. It can weaken the body's immune system.

Children are the most susceptible.

Vincent likes the neighborhood because "it's kind of secluded" and "a lot of good people live here." Almost all the residents of the three apartment buildings have come from Mexico in recent years.

But the family is increasingly concerned about the effects of living here on their kids. Even the adults find the fumes make their throats scratchy. On two occasions they have called the fire department.

There are signs that the family is dreaming of change. The oldest child and only daughter, Sarah, makes a drawing that shows her mom and dad standing in front of a tall house flanked by neat round trees with large fruits in their branches.

Sarah, 11, has already won $50 in a school competition for her artistic work, and her parents like the Vernon school, since Sarah's teacher found a way to draw out the normally shy girl. "But I dream of a ranch with two acres," Vincent Sr. laughs. "Littia dreams of having a house, and the kids just want a place with a room of their own."

Fifty-third Street's other residents have dreams too. Delia Galvin, the manager of the largest of the three buildings, says "There are a lot of sick people here," and describes a long list of tenants who have moved out of the building after the air at night got to them. Some mornings, she says, a green liquid seeps out of the factory yard across the street. "It smells really terrible, just like the fumes."

Asthmatown isn't an organized neighborhood. Each family faces their children's illnesses alone. No one knows exactly what's making people sick, and they are reluctant to ask because, as Myrna points out, "If there was some kind of conflict, who would have to move - the factory, or us here in the apartment building?" Myrna asks.

It's not an unreasonable question. In LA County, like many other industrial areas, public officials and regulators seem to think that low income people living in industrial neighborhoods are just in the wrong place.