Roybal Recalls Prejudice Inside Council, Congress

With his elegant manner, his graying hair and his conservative dress, Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles) is a model of dignity. But as a Mexican-American, he has not always been treated accordingly.

It was 1949 when, as a new member of the Los Angeles City Council, he was introduced to his colleagues as “a Mexican-speaking councilman representing the Mexican people of Los Angeles.”

Roybal, now 71, recalls that he felt obliged to “lay aside a baloney speech and tell the man no Mexican could get elected to the council and there was no such thing as a ‘Mexican language.’ Remember that we (Mexican-Americans) were here to greet you (Anglos).

“That started the fight. Their main objective was to see me fail. They gave me the chairmanship of the health subcommittee. They thought I would fall flat on my face because I wouldn’t know Robert’s Rules. They felt right along that I was not their equal.”

He proved otherwise. He was elected to Congress in 1962 and has been reelected every two years since. He founded the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Roybal displays on the walls of his spacious office dozens of plaques and certificates honoring his political efforts.

Roybal, whose quiet energy belies his years, speaks with rising intensity when he remembers that social and political injustice did not disappear in 1949.

“There’s been a great improvement over the past,” he says, “but it’s still not good enough. I still see the result of prejudiced attitudes. I saw that in the immigration bill. There was an amendment on the floor that they said should be defeated because they said it was only going to take care of these Mexicans.”

Roybal found Congress only slightly more civil than the City Council. “Yes, there was discrimination when I came here,” he says. “There were instances in which invitations were extended but not to the congressman from California. There are as many bigots in Congress, percentage-wise, as you find in the community as a whole.”