Eastside No Longer Sole Focus of Latino Power

The Chicano world of Los Angeles doesn’t always revolve around East L.A. Those of us from the Eastside would like to think so, but two events last week remind us that Latinos are a growing and important force in, among other places, the San Fernando Valley.

First, onetime Tom Bradley aide Richard Alarcon, born and reared in Sun Valley, was declared the winner by 234 votes in the close election for the 7th Council District seat being vacated by the retiring Ernani Bernardi.

By defeating former Los Angeles Fire Capt. Lyle Hall, Alarcon, 39, becomes the first Latino to be elected to the council from the Valley. He joins Richard Alatorre and Mike Hernandez, two Eastsiders, to become the third Chicano on the 15-member council.

And, on the day Alarcon was officially declared the winner, the pride of Pacoima--Ritchie Valens--was honored with a 29-cent postage stamp as part of the U.S. Postal Service’s salute to seven stars of rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm and blues.

Valens, whose meteoric 18-month career made him the first Chicano star of the rock era, represents a piece of L.A. history that many Angelenos of Mexican descent relate to with pride.

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On the surface, the soft-spoken Alarcon’s pending arrival at City Hall would seem to bolster the Latino agenda in Los Angeles. Many figure he will join Alatorre and Hernandez in support of issues affecting Latinos, including improved police conduct in minority neighborhoods and improved public transit.

And Alarcon, a Democrat, might frown at the initiatives of the new mayor, Richard Riordan, a Republican.

Maybe.

Alarcon is a Chicano from the Valley. And he will adhere to a different set of priorities than those pursued by an officeholder from the Eastside.

For openers, he must be protective of Valley interests. “If the San Fernando Valley isn’t getting its fair share,” he said the other day, “then my district isn’t getting its fair share.”

That reasoning extends particularly to African-Americans and others in his blue-collar district in the northeast corner of the Valley. Although Latinos make up an estimated 70% of the residents of the 7th District, they comprise only about a third of the 30,000 registered voters. But those who put him over the top against Hall were the black and white constituents who liked his theme of “being from the community.”

Thus, Alarcon said he would work to expand programs now aimed primarily at South-Central Los Angeles or the Eastside to ensure that Valley needs are addressed. “They need to start thinking of our needs,” he said.

In his mind, that means adequate and effective police protection and municipal assistance in developing the railroad corridor along San Fernando Road to create more jobs. Crime and unemployment are citywide issues, but Alarcon is determined to be a different kind of Chicano councilman--one from the Valley who may have to buck the accepted Latino conventional wisdom to get things done.

He has already taken one position that reflects the Valley reality. He supports the breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District. While virtually all other Latino officials oppose the breakup because of the harm they say it will do to Latino youngsters, Alarcon sees it as an opportunity for the Valley to have local control over its schools.

It’s a stance that won’t sit well in East L.A.

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Before meeting with Alarcon, I went to Pacoima to pay my respects to local legend Richard Valenzuela, better known as Ritchie Valens. And I wasn’t alone. As I left the Pacoima post office with my stamps of Ritchie Valens and the other rock stars, a carload of fortysomething Chicanos from, you guessed it, East L.A. pulled up.

Gary Payan had talked three friends into coming out to the Valley to pay homage to Valens, who died in a plane crash on Feb. 3, 1959. One of their stops was the post office, where the Postal Service held a ceremony to kick off the sales of the commemorative stamps. The four also planned to visit the cemetery where Valens is buried.

It was the first time any of them had been in Pacoima. “I just wanted to see the place, buy some stamps and say that I was here,” Payan said.

The four talked about what Valens meant to them. “If he could make it, anybody could,” one of them said. At one point, Payan produced an old album cover from a live performance Valens recorded at Pacoima Junior High School, where the singer went to school.

After buying their stamps, the four strangers from East L.A. left in search of the junior high school they had never seen. They knew it was an important part of Valley and L.A. history.