Arcuri Sees Self as ‘Rocky’ of Politics

After a heated exchange over development in the city, Monterey Park City Councilman G. Monty Manibog challenged English-language activist Frank J. Arcuri to a fight.

Arcuri stuck out his chin and dared Manibog to hit it, but Manibog held back.

Still fuming months later, Manibog said he never would throw a punch to start a fight, but “believe me, I wanted to.”

Arcuri recalls that he was hoping Manibog would hit him. “I thought it would end his political career.”

Nothing came of that confrontation late last year, but verbal blows between Arcuri and council members have become common as Arcuri has led a crusade against city policies that he says have converted Monterey Park into “the new West Coast Chinatown.”

Arcuri, who wants to make English the official language of Monterey Park and is seeking a seat on the council in the April elections, likes to think of himself as a combination Don Quixote and Rocky Balboa.

“I don’t like people telling me what to do,” he said. “Never did. I hear a different drummer.”

Arcuri’s wife, Nancy, explains her husband in simpler terms. “He’s a New Yorker,” she said. “New Yorkers are aggressive, loud and obnoxious, but they get a lot done.”

The man who regularly infuriates Manibog and other members of the Monterey Park City Council is a chunky, 45-year-old, self-employed photographer who began battling city officials over building regulations concerning his home two years ago.

These days Arcuri’s office in that home is cluttered with clippings, press releases, a duplicating machine, a computer and other trappings of a political operation. Although he manages to squeeze in some photography, Arcuri said much of his time is occupied by his political work. For 24 hours a day, he said, “I think about it; I dream about it.”

Every city has its gadflies, self-appointed watchdogs over city government who scrutinize spending, possible abuses of power and other follies. But observers say no one else in Monterey Park has stirred as much controversy as Arcuri.

Mayor Rudy Peralta said Arcuri’s first few appearances before the council were unremarkable. But people were quick to take notice one night when Arcuri voiced a complaint, then hoisted a video-camera on his shoulder and taped the council’s response, moving in on each council member to get close-up shots.

The mayor said Arcuri’s use of the video camera was obviously intended to cow the council. “It was intimidating,” the mayor said, “but nothing like his recent appearances.”

Arcuri said he intended to intimidate the council and that he videotaped the meeting because he didn’t trust the officials.

Now, when Arcuri appears before the council, he strides like a champion prizefighter to the podium, turns to his supporters in the audience, and raises his arms above his head. Then, after eliciting a cheer, Arcuri turns to tell the council what’s wrong with Monterey Park, reading from a speech he has written for the occasion.

What Americans don’t like about Monterey Park, he has often said, is overcrowding, traffic congestion, business signs in Chinese and the transformation of the city into a Chinatown.

The Asian population in Monterey Park has risen from less than 10% in 1970 to 40% today, a growth reflected in the number of stores that post signs in Chinese and in the remodeling of old stores in an Oriental style of architecture.

Within the past few months, Arcuri has been interviewed by most major Los Angeles news media, ABC radio in New York and newspapers in Miami, San Francisco and San Diego. He also has appeared on a radio talk show hosted by Michael Reagan, the President’s son.

Most of the media attention has centered on Arcuri’s efforts to put a measure on the city election ballot declaring English the city’s official language. Although the proposal was rejected for the ballot by the city clerk on the advice of the city attorney, more than 3,300 people signed a petition supporting the plan.

Recently, Arcuri filed legal notices to circulate two more initiative petitions: one to suspend residential and commercial construction for a year while development standards are raised, and another to require store owners to cast their signs almost entirely in English. And he has launched his campaign to unseat one of the three incumbents in the council election April 8.

Manibog said he is glad that Arcuri is running for City Council because the outcome will show whether he has solid support in the community. His own view, Manibog said, is that Arcuri “will self-destruct if he talks long enough.”

But Clifford Sharp, a 64-year-old retired utility serviceman who helped circulate the English-language initiative petition, said the City Council may be surprised to find out how much support Arcuri has.

“He speaks for a lot of people,” Sharp said, citing especially those longtime residents who feel they are being pushed out by the changes in the city.

Police Chief Jon Elder, who has been with the Monterey Park Police Department for 26 years, said he has never seen the city as polarized as it is now. But by raising issues that carry an undertone of racism, Elder said, Arcuri has drawn people into a discussion of the problems facing the city “and probably in the long run we’ll end up better off.”

Arcuri, who was born in New York City, said his parents, who were born in this country of Italian parents, separated when he was a baby. He grew up in Manhattan with his mother, while his father, a teacher and language scholar, lived in West Virginia. Arcuri said his major activity as a child was reading. “I was always a loner.”

He entered the Army at age 17 and served for three years as an enlisted man. After he got out of the Army, Arcuri worked as an apprentice with photographers before studying art in college, earning both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art at California State University, Los Angeles. His intention, Arcuri said, was to teach art at the college level.

Although he taught drawing part-time at East Los Angeles College and art in adult education classes, he has never been able to get a full-time college job. He applied for several college teaching positions, but, he said, he was never hired because he was a victim of affirmative action policies.

“I lost out because of the need to hire minorities,” he said. “A black woman was great. A crippled black woman would have gotten the job right away.”

Arcuri said he exhibited his art in both group and one-man shows. One of his art themes was the depiction of anatomical parts in plastics and metals: 10 elbows in one piece, 92 ears in another. A third piece was titled “Aluminum Bellies.” This use of repetitive patterns was an attempt to create ambiguous effects, he said.

Turned to Photography

To make a living, Arcuri turned to photography, opening a studio first in Alhambra, and later in San Gabriel. He now works out of his home, doing portraits, restoring photos and videotaping weddings. He has lived in Monterey Park since 1972.

He and his wife, who processes real estate loans for a savings and loan company in Sherman Oaks, lost their first Monterey Park house in a fire five years ago and put up a prefabricated house on the same lot, on Mooney Drive, which has a commanding view of the San Gabriel Valley. Arcuri said his first conflicts with city government arose more than two years ago over building regulations.

“The city has what I call a bunch of silly rules--a silly rules department when it comes to building a house,” he said. “There’s no reason for most of them. They pluck rules out of their pocket, out of thin air at times, just to confound you. So I battled each and every one of those rules the city tried to impose on me.”

$5,000 Sprinklers

As an example of his fight with the city over construction of his house, Arcuri said he was installing his house just before the City Council adopted an ordinance requiring fire sprinklers in new single-family homes. Arcuri said sprinklers would have raised his cost by $5,000 and he persuaded the council to repeal the requirement.

Since last summer, Arcuri, who has long since completed work on his house, has been present at council meetings almost as often as the council members.

Arcuri said he knows the council members become infuriated when he speaks to the council and plays to the audience, but he doesn’t care about their reaction. “They’re not listening to what I say,” he said. “I watch their expressions. I look for eye contact. They’re all ignoring me or trying to. I didn’t come there to talk to them. I want to talk to the people.”

He also has found time to help residents of other cities mount efforts to establish English as the official language. His efforts to get the Alhambra City Council to take action on the issue were not successful.

Pugnacious Style

Arcuri’s aggressive, pugnacious style has made him a controversial figure even among those with whom he has allied himself politically.

Barry Hatch, a teacher who co-sponsored the English language initiative in Monterey Park, said he does not plan to work with Arcuri again. “We are very different personalities,” Hatch said, noting that his own style is less confrontational. Still, he credited Arcuri with “a lot of drive and ideas,” and said Arcuri has performed a needed service in bringing issues before the public.

Hatch was already working with national and state groups seeking to promote English as an official language when Arcuri suggested this summer that they try a local initiative. The two men had not been acquainted until they read each other’s letters about Chinese language signs in a local newspaper and talked on the telephone.

Hatch said that Arcuri’s comments on Asian immigration in Monterey Park are sometimes perceived as racist, but he does not believe they are meant that way. Arcuri himself denies that he is promoting racism.

Racism Denied

“I’m not a racist,” Arcuri insists, “and I don’t think Monterey Park is particularly racist.”

In conversation Arcuri often divides people into two categories: Americans and others. “I say you’re not an American until you’re a citizen,” he said. “Once you’re a citizen call yourself an American, but until then call yourself an alien resident or something else.”

He said that although his own heritage is mainly Italian, the last immigrants in his family arrived in this country in 1910 and he thinks of himself only as an American.

Arcuri said his concern about Asian immigration has nothing to do with skin color. Instead, he said, he worries that language and cultural difference could keep immigrants isolated from the rest of society unless they learn English and try to adapt. He said he fears that immigrants are more interested in colonizing than assimilating.

“They are going to come over here, take their culture and their life style and move it intact and plant it on the West Coast and call it the New Asia and treat it like an extension of China,” he said.

Claims Many Chinese Are Rude

“If you say anything against a Chinese person, you’re accused of bigotry,” he said. Arcuri added that his claims that many Chinese immigrants drive poorly, behave rudely in stores and evince arrogance are observable facts, not racial slurs.

Michael Eng, an attorney and outspoken opponent of Arcuri’s political efforts, said blaming Asians for overcrowding and auto accidents “is the kind of scapegoating that can lead to violence.”

“He is causing Asians to pay a price to live in Monterey Park,” Eng said. He said Arcuri’s comments reinforce unfavorable portrayals of Asians in movies and that such stereotypes could cause those who embrace such ideas to physically assault a person simply because he is Asian.

Eng said some of Arcuri’s allegations have no basis in fact. “It’s one thing to say Monterey Park is overcrowded, but to say that crowding is caused by one ethnic group is irresponsible,” he said.

Complaint Called Overblown

Similarly, he said, Arcuri’s complaints about business signs in Chinese are overblown because very few businesses do not include English in their signs, even if the signs also communicate in Chinese .

Arcuri said the use of Chinese characters in signs has changed the city’s appearance, making residents who do not speak Chinese feel as if they are in a foreign land. The new initiative petition he plans to circulate would require that signs be entirely in English except for a “foreign language generic description of the business at the bottom of the sign.”

The failed initiative to declare English the official language did not prohibit signs in Chinese or otherwise limit the use of foreign language. Mayor Peralta said that in retrospect some people think the council could have saved itself a lot of trouble by quickly adopting the measure and filing it away.

Instead, four of the five council members took the proposal as a slap at immigrants, denounced racism and accused Arcuri of sowing disharmony. Cam Briglio, the only council member who is regularly praised by Arcuri, said he saw no harm in the initiative.

Counting on the Media

Arcuri is counting on the media attention from the English language controversy to help him win a council seat. He will need to oust an incumbent, because the three council members whose terms expire in April--Lily Lee Chen, David Almada and Peralta--have all said that they will seek reelection. Peralta said Arcuri’s presence will ensure an angry, emotional campaign. “I think it’ll turn into one of those nasty ones,” Peralta said. “I think it can get ugly.”