MALDEF Attorney to Join Policy Group

Linda Wong, an advocate for Latino civil rights, is leaving her post as associate counsel of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund to serve as executive director of California Tomorrow, a statewide public policy group.

For the last seven years, Wong, 39, has overseen immigration issues as the first full-time attorney in MALDEF’s Los Angeles office. She said she was lured away by the opportunity to head an organization that is addressing a broad range of issues resulting from changes in California’s ethnic makeup.

“Everyone recognizes that by the turn of the century, California will be a state of minorities,” said Wong, a graduate of the USC School of Law. “As executive director of California Tomorrow, I hope to play a role in shaping some of the social and political policies that will create an environment where different minorities will be able to live side by side.”

Wong is leaving at a time of strength for MALDEF. For the most part, a bitter dispute over leadership that left the organization in turmoil last year has been resolved.

Antonia Hernandez, president of MALDEF, said Wong had become a national spokeswoman on the plight of immigrants, prodding and cajoling the Immigration and Naturalization Service during its yearlong amnesty program. That program saw more than 2 million illegal aliens apply for temporary resident status. Forty percent applied in Los Angeles County.

California Tomorrow, a San Francisco-based organization, began 25 years ago as an environmental advocacy group only to disband in 1983 when groups such as the Sierra Club grew to prominence. The organization was reconstituted in 1984 with a focus on California’s growing Latino and Asian populations and the implications of that change on the state’s social and political institutions.

The position of executive director is new, according to an agency spokeswoman. And Wong will remain in Los Angeles as a first step toward moving the organization’s headquarters here from San Francisco.