1 Last Obstacle on the Long Road Toward the Dream

Nurtured by our families, some of us dream big, pushing to accomplish things our parents couldn’t achieve. We want to be the best, the brightest--be it President of the United States or the best teacher ever.

So, it’s in that vein that Democratic state Sen. Art Torres and I have this little running gag. Whenever I see him these days, I address him as “Gov. Torres.” That sends him into a fit of laughter.

He, in turn, calls me “publisher,” though I’m never quite sure what newspaper he imagines me in charge of.

After last Tuesday’s election, Torres is a lot closer to the dream than I am.

*

On election night, I went to Torres’ suite at the Biltmore Hotel, which served as Results Central for the Democrats, to see how things would turn out.

Torres, a fixture on the local political landscape for more than 20 years as a Sacramento lawmaker, was trying to get the Democratic nomination for the state insurance commissioner’s post. A win would mean he stands a decent chance of becoming the first Latino to hold statewide office in almost 120 years.

That’s a goal many Latinos from the Eastside have dared to try but failed to win. Just ask retired Eastside Rep. Edward Roybal, who came the closest. He still gets angry talking about that ill-fated race for lieutenant governor in 1954.

If Torres loses the insurance commissioner race against San Jose Assemblyman Charles Quackenbush, it might be the end of the line. He is forced to leave the Senate this year because of term limits and it conceivably could be difficult to whip up enthusiasm for yet another campaign. After all, this loss would follow the 1991 defeat he was dealt by Gloria Molina for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

But his supporters in Suite 708 at the Biltmore were not thinking about losing.

Chief among them were the candidate’s parents--Arturo and Julia Torres. They arrived shortly after the polls closed at 8 p.m. and deposited themselves on a couch. They beamed at each person who came by to greet them.

“He’s going to win,” said Torres’ father, a retired butcher. His mother, who stayed home to raise three kids, kept smiling.

Torres’ sister, Marina, a bilingual elementary school teacher in Northern California, was more to the point. “We’ve been waiting 20 years for this,” she said. “It’s time. We Chicanos deserve one of our own to hold high office in California.”

A cousin of Torres, Ernie Alaya, has always been in his corner but couldn’t lend a hand at times. When Torres ousted longtime Eastside lawmaker Alex P. Garcia from the Senate in ‘82, Alaya was a news reporter and decided he couldn’t be part of the campaign. He looked frustrated that he had to sit out this campaign too.

“Why?” I asked.

“I’m an insurance agent and Art won’t take any help from us,” he said.

When Torres wasn’t talking with supporters, he retreated to a back bedroom to think about the election and to nurture other dreams. A divorced father of two, he called his son Joaquin, a freshman at Stanford who couldn’t come home for the election because of his studies.

“You got an A on your final? Alright!” Torres shouted into the phone. “I’m very proud of you, mijo. “

Torres held an early lead after the polls closed at 8 o’clock. It remained steady at about 13% over his closest competitor, Westside Assemblyman Burt Margolin, but Torres refused to say he had the election locked up.

Daughter Danielle, 12, told her father to get real. “You’re ahead now,” the seventh-grader said, “and you’ll be ahead later.”

She was right. About 10:30, a grinning Torres walked over to me and asked, “Do you know who Romualdo Pacheco is?”

“No,” I replied.

“He’s the last Latino to hold statewide office in California. He was lieutenant governor in 1871 and later became governor. . . .”

He didn’t have to say anything else.

*

The dreamers know the fall campaign will be very difficult for Torres.

Detractors will surely seize upon Torres’ two drunk-driving convictions despite his acknowledgment of these problems. They’ll also brand him as a bleeding-heart advocate for immigrants, especially since the “Save Our State” initiative--which would refuse many services to illegal immigrants and their children--is on the November ballot. Some will not support him simply because he’s a Chicano or from the Eastside.

There’s also the uncertainty of how his campaign will mesh with that of Kathleen Brown, the Democrats’ nominee for governor.

The people in Suite 708 know all about obstacles. They’ve lived with them all their lives. The fall campaign is just another one to overcome.