Schools Battle Is Rehearsal for Latinos : Politics: Campaign for Zacarias as interim superintendent gave the city’s largest minority group experience in organizing to exert influence, observers say.

For many Latinos in Los Angeles, the past two-week period has been an exhausting exercise in political unity, a chance to measure their organizational skills, to weigh the strength of their numbers.

Literally overnight, a broad coalition of politicians, educators, business people and parents rose to wage a highly publicized and emotional campaign to promote a Latino candidate for one of the most critical leadership posts in the region--the interim superintendent of the mammoth Los Angeles Unified School District.

They lined up behind Ruben Zacarias, a deputy superintendent and one of two finalists for the job. The other was deputy superintendent Sid Thompson, an African-American who was second-in-command of district operations.

Although the expected appointment today of Thompson is sure to frustrate many Latinos, their campaign stands as the latest example of how the city’s ethnic groups are struggling to assert power first and find common ground later, observers say.

“This is the new reality of the demographic transformation we are in the middle of,” said James Johnson, director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Urban Poverty. “Blacks have had their political day in the sun and now the numbers are on the side of Latinos and they want their day to shine. . . . It’s going to be a painful experience because there is a natural skepticism to form coalitions.”

In the past, minorities often drew strength from banding together, uniting around such issues as expanding educational opportunities for African-American and Latino students and raising the state’s minimum wage for unskilled workers.

But in post-riot, recession-gripped Los Angeles, at a time when Mayor Tom Bradley’s retirement leaves no clear ethnic alliances, tensions and stakes are high as the city’s minority groups--which together account for 63% of the population--push their own agendas.

The friction has showed up on several fronts. Black groups have closed construction sites where no African-American workers were employed. In the rebuilding process, Korean-American riot victims have waged protests at City Hall demanding government reparations. In the battle over school board redistricting, Anglos in the San Fernando Valley sparred with Latinos over boundaries.

For many Latino leaders, the void created by the surprise retirement last month of Supt. Bill Anton, a Latino, opened an instant opportunity to unite over what they defined as the most critical issue to their community: the education of Latino students, who make up 65% of the district’s enrollment.

In the days after Anton’s resignation, they staged seven press conferences, barraged school board members with letters and telephone calls and threatened to keep their children home from school if their demand for a Latino replacement was not met.

For some, the movement was fueled by the perception that Latino political progress has been stalled. They cite the elimination of Los Angeles County sheriff’s division chief Lee Baca--the county’s highest-ranking Latino in law enforcement--from the list of finalists for Los Angeles police chief, as well as the lack of a strong Latino presence at the helm of city commissions and departments.

Zacarias “has this invaluable, and I stress, invaluable qualification to understand the culture and the language of two-thirds of the student body,” said Julian Nava, professor of history of Cal State Northridge and a former member of the Los Angeles Board of Education.

“All other things being roughly equal, frankly, it should have been no contest,” Nava said.

No one from the black community publicly countered the Latino campaign, and the notion of ethnicity as a prime qualification proved to be a difficult and sensitive issue for at least five of the seven school board members, who rejected it.

“What concerns me about the debate that happened in the last week is that it has really been about a person as a symbol rather than the merits of who has the qualification to do the job,” said Westside school board member Mark Slavkin.

Those who favor Thompson said they base their decision on his day-to-day operational knowledge of the school district. At a time of financial crisis and complex contract negotiations with employee unions, Thompson is the logical choice, they said.

For some on the outside of the debate, the issues raised by the Latino campaign have proved troubling.

“To say that the only type of person who can represent (Latino) children is a Latino, I find denies fundamental American principles,” said Diana Dixon-Davis, a white Chatsworth mother of three children enrolled in public schools. “If I were to say that the only type of person who could represent me is a white person, I would be considered a racist.”

In their zeal to promote Zacarias, Latinos were careful to try not to appear to be anti-black and said they highly respected Thompson.

It is a question of numbers, they say, not racial politics. If the tables were turned and the school system were two-thirds black or Asian-American, they would support a candidate from either of those ethnic groups.

“This city is going through a Latino-ization process,” said David C. Lizarraga, president and chief executive officer of the East Los Angeles Community Union and a member of the Rebuild L.A. board of directors. “This has nothing to do with racial politics. It’s dealing with community politics. We are not talking about exclusion, we are talking about inclusion.”

But this was a platform on which Latinos stood alone.

In their drive to promote one of their own, they did not try to forge a coalition among African-Americans, Asian-Americans, or parent-teacher organizations on the Westside and in the Valley--an effort that might have proved futile given the racial divisions evident in post-riot Los Angeles.

“I think this is a case where there was a need to come together, and that dialogue did not take place, unfortunately,” Lizarraga said.

Indeed, these are tumultuous times for community leaders and ethnic groups seeking to find political allies because of the swift and unparalleled racial transformation of the city and dwindling government resources. The riots have created a tinder-box environment.

“People’s guards are up more than ever now,” said Michael B. Preston, chairman of the political science department of USC. “The pie is smaller and shrinking and you get more conflict because there is not enough to go around. . . . Nobody gives up power that they worked to get for themselves.”

What is missing from the recent power plays by ethnic groups--whether it be over jobs, rebuilding or political appointments--is a shared vision for urban Los Angeles, observers say.

“When a slot comes up, people at once begin to argue. ‘The numbers are on our side’ or ‘We’re not going to give up what we earned,’ ” as opposed to what is best for the good of the city, Johnson said.

In the debate over who should run the Los Angeles school system, Johnson said, “the question should be does this person have the ability to improve education for all minority kids. What is their vision of urban education?”

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Rita Walters, who is a former school board member, said she understands the need for Latinos to support their own, but believes their campaign has the potential to inflame black-brown tensions.

“We must find ways to make diversity work for us,” said Walters, who is black. “We cannot afford to have this degenerate into a black-brown conflict. . . . The Anglo communities can’t stand off on the sidelines and make a sport of ethnic groups going at it.”

Political observers say that ethnic politics here--and across the nation--is not unusual. It was ethnic interests 20 years ago in Los Angeles that sparked a powerful coalition between blacks and Jews that helped elect the city’s first black mayor.

And ethnic interests, again, will influence the city’s political power structure as two of the most critical leadership positions--mayor and school superintendent--are up for grabs next year.

Latinos say the superintendent post will remain a critical issue for them as the school board launches a nationwide search for a permanent replacement who would assume the post in June.

Nava said the fallout of the board’s expected decision to name Thompson will be “to deliberately frustrate the aspirations of 40% of the city’s population and two-thirds of the students. In light of everything that is going on in our town . . . this simply amazes me.”

Despite their inability to sway the board to name Zacarias to the interim post, Latino leaders say they have cause to celebrate their community’s unity on the issue.

“This is about recognition of the changing reality of the city,” said City Councilman Richard Alatorre, a veteran Latino politician. He said his constituents are exasperated that the school board was not sensitive to their pleas.

“To me, this issue is bigger than Thompson and Zacarias,” he said. “In the context of today, it means times have changed.”