New Agenda for Asians and Latinos

The setting smacked of bureaucracy and the Establishment: To the right of the Monterey Park City Hall lobby sat the Police Department complaint desk. Scattered about the ground-floor lobby were offices of planners, building inspectors and other government enforcers.

In a neighboring room, however, insurgents were gathered Friday, and while their press conference involved the cumbersome topic of political redistricting, the real issue was the power of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and his ability to withstand nothing less than a political revolt.

The main players were Judy Chu, a Monterey Park City Council member, and Joseph Vasquez, a Rosemead school board member. They summoned the press to announce a plan that, over time, would both elect an Asian to the state Assembly and increase the number of Latinos in that house.

The proposal comes as the Legislature is busy drawing new district lines to reflect the U. S. Census population changes. For the San Gabriel Valley, census numbers document a tide of incoming Asian and Latino voters--an ethnic composition not reflected by the current slate of state representatives.

The Latino-Asian plan is likely to run into trouble from Speaker Brown, who is determined to save the jobs of the mostly non-minority incumbents.

Brown controls the Assembly redistricting process. Persuading him to change his mind will be difficult, but the insurgents are determined to make the fight.

“If they intend to protect incumbents by fragmenting our communities, we will not tolerate it,” said Stewart Kwoh of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

In their home towns, school board member Vasquez and Councilwoman Chu are considered the San Gabriel Valley’s new Establishment. That they are considered insurgents by Sacramento is an indication of how little some occupants of the state Capitol understand what is happening in places like Monterey Park.

Vasquez and Chu are among the many minority politicians who have been elected to office in an area that has become a great caldron of ethnic change. There, people of color have moved into the numerical majority in communities from Monterey Park to West Covina.

This demographic fact of life has shaped city councils and school boards, where there are increasing numbers of Latino and Asian representatives. It has also changed the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, where a federal judge ordered district lines redrawn to reflect the population change.

The Legislature has resisted this trend.

For the most part, Democratic redistricters have scattered minority populations among non-minority incumbents’ districts, nullifying the impact of the population growth. Minorities tend to be Democrats, and placing them in the districts of Anglo Democratic legislators helps the incumbents’ chances of reelection.

That’s worked in the past because ethnic minorities have been divided.

The Latino and Asian leaders at the press conference wanted a change.

They proposed consolidating a large chunk of the East San Gabriel Valley’s Asian population into one Assembly district, the 59th, now represented by Xavier Becerra of Monterey Park. Rosemead and San Gabriel would be added to his district.

That would boost the percentage of Asians in his district from 22% to 27%. By the end of the decade, the Asian population would be big enough to make the election of an Asian possible.

This is old-fashioned ethnic coalition politics, old-fashioned vote trading. Asian political support would help Becerra win reelection to the Assembly. And, presumably, a grateful Becerra and other Latinos would one day get behind an Asian candidate in the 59th.

The plan is also designed to undercut Anglo Sally Tanner, a longtime Brown ally. Her adjoining 60th District is now almost 60% Latino. It would move more Latinos into the district, making Tanner’s reelection task more difficult.

Brown’s goal is to prevent such difficulties for loyal supporters such as Tanner.

The San Gabriel Valley Latino and Asian leaders have another agenda.

They want their ethnic communities represented in Sacramento, just as they are on San Gabriel Valley city councils and school boards. Go to a school board meeting in the area, for example, and you’ll hear long discussions of the problems of educating immigrant kids whose families don’t speak English.

The San Gabriel Valley insurgents feel that those issues haven’t been given the same attention in Sacramento. That’s why they feel disenfranchised. That’s why they are taking on Speaker Brown.