Have Latinos Matured Politically? : Who can best represent all the people of a district is more important than the color of a candidate’s skin.

Few Angelenos outside of the 45th Assembly district in East L.A. had heard of Bill Mabie until a couple of months ago when Democratic Assemblyman Richard Polanco, now running for the state Senate, recommended Mabie for his Assembly seat. What should have passed as merely another political green light from one incumbent to his favorite son soon became an ugly brawl between those who deem the 45th District a “Chicano” seat and those who recognize ethnicity as only one variable in determining representation. Polanco said his endorsement of Mabie over other, Latino, candidates was due to Mabie’s superior qualifications and his ability to best represent the district. But is Polanco’s endorsement an honest appraisal? Or is he grandstanding in his state Senate bid?

As Polanco’s district director for the past three years, Mabie has worked closely with the community. He has been involved in getting jobs for youth at the housing projects of Ramona Gardens and in revitalizing the Northeast Los Angeles Christmas parade. His success at this grass-roots level may very well come from his experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Central America, where he learned that greater social change can only occur when those in power listen to individual needs. Once this happens, an individual can garner the trust and commitment from the community to support needed change.

Mabie has also gone beyond the 45th District in addressing major concerns of the Latino community with regard to both immigration and citizenship issues. He worked as Polanco’s key adviser in developing the California Latino Legislative Caucus immigration policy. Mabie was also directly involved with bills that addressed the INS backlog of citizenship applications from legal permanent residents.

So why are both Mabie and Polanco viewed as traitors by many Latino political brokers? First and foremost, there are still many Latinos who buy into a cultural nationalism that blinds them from issues of competency and character. In other words, they have internalized their own oppression to such a point that they have become racists toward non-Latinos.

Second, there are those who fail to recognize that even in so-called Chicano districts, there still is diversity. About two-thirds of the 45th District is Latino, for example, but only a little over 12% of the Latinos are registered to vote. The district is about 20% Asian American, 2.5% African American and the rest white. Thus, this “Chicano” district includes other segments of society whose needs must be met by whoever is elected to the Assembly.

Third, many myopic Latino activists do not recognize that Latino elected officials are increasingly able to go beyond designated Latino districts to capture non-Latino districts as well as broader state offices. Assemblyman Joe Baca (D-San Bernardino) and Cruz Bustamante (D-Fresno) are embraced by the wider community because they are their districts’ best representatives. Crossover votes will determine the outcome in both Polanco’s race for the 24th state Senate district in Los Angeles and Sen. Art Torres’ race for insurance commissioner. Many of these crossover Latino politicians are emerging as leaders of inter-ethnic coalition building. Their statements increasingly echo the move away from narrow, ethnicity-based politics. Thus Polanco is articulating the new boundaries of Latino politics in the state when he says that “the price of leadership is not knee-jerk responses simply based on skin color or ethnicity, rather now more than ever we need to define the content of a candidate’s character and the qualities of the candidate.” Latino districts are a beginning but not an end to Latino political empowerment.

If Mabie replaces Polanco as representative of the 45th District, it will be a transition point for Latino districts that reflects the political maturation of this community. By unlocking our political borders to new people who represent our interests, we can relinquish the crudest measure of anyone’s worth--the color of their skin. We also can begin to participate in a broader political agenda that abandons reprisals for breaking ethnic ranks and celebrates individuals who share a common vision for social change.