A Contest With Implications for the Future

The scene in Hermalinda Gonzalez’s dining room last Tuesday night was chaotic and loud. Kids were careening from room to room, ranchera music was blaring in the background and laughing visitors were swapping stories. It had the makings of a victory celebration for school board candidate Gloria Barragan.

Except for one thing--Barragan, a write-in candidate against L.A. school board member Barbara Boudreaux, was crushed. With no official opposition, Boudreaux got more than 33,000 votes to win a second four-year term to represent South-Central L.A. Election officials still don’t know how many votes Barragan got.

No matter, Barragan and her supporters celebrated into the wee hours.

“It was well worth the effort,” Barragan said, “because I want to keep on the struggle for my people, for my culture. I’ll probably run again in four years.”

There was good news for Latino candidates in Tuesday’s balloting. Eastside Councilman Richard Alatorre and L.A. Community College District Trustee David Lopez-Lee won reelection, although some think Alatorre should have won by a bigger margin because he faced a little-known opponent.

Also, Latina activist and college professor Gloria Romero came in first in the balloting for a vacant seat on the L.A. community college board, as did parent-volunteer Lucia Rivera in the race to succeed Leticia Quezada, who is stepping down after eight years on the L.A. school board. Both women face a runoff opponent June 6.

But in the contest with implications for the future, in a part of town where Latinos are becoming the majority, Barragan had little chance to succeed. She needed a lot more than just a growing population to win her battle against the incumbent.

Political strategists think South-Central will be the key battlefield between African Americans and Latinos. In the neighborhood around 66th and San Pedro streets, as with the rest of South-Central L.A., what was once solidly black is now decidedly brown. At 66th Street Elementary School, where blacks made up 88% of the enrollment 15 years ago, Latinos now constitute 80% of the pupils and African Americans 19%.

Some of the school’s key administrators, who are African Americans, have tried their best to deal with the area’s changing demographics. So has Boudreaux, who is black.

That, however, has not impressed Barragan and other Latino parents at 66th Street who accused Boudreaux and other district officials of racism in their treatment of Latino students. What sparked much of the parents’ ire, and Barragan’s ill-fated candidacy, was the reported rape of a Latina kindergartner by a black teen-ager in late January.

Latino parents accused school officials of not being forthcoming about the sexual assault case. That led to other complaints about deteriorating conditions at the school and what was seen as the insensitive attitude of administrators there.

Although the filing deadline for the ballot had already passed, Barragan, 34, started a write-in campaign against Boudreaux. In quick order, Barragan raised $1,500, marshaled teams of volunteers to canvass South-Central and produced a brochure that emphasized her support for better school security, a closer district relationship with parents and an effort to evaluate school employees.

Although she emphasized her ability to work with African American parents at 66th Street, Barragan didn’t hesitate to bad-mouth Boudreaux, who is highly regarded in South-Central since her days as a principal at Marvin Avenue Elementary School.

“Boudreaux called us ignorant” at a parents meeting held in the wake of the reported assault, Barragan alleged. “She kept saying things to us and I asked, ‘Who is that lady?’ They told me she’s the school board member. . . . (But she) has never been around here to talk to the parents.”

Boudreaux, when I called her last week, replied: “I have never called anyone in my life ignorant. The parents in that meeting were calling people names. . . . I came out of that meeting and I cried for the children who were present and had to witness adults acting that way. (Barragan) is going down the wrong path. She is not serving her community well.”

Several Latino political strategists weren’t surprised that Barragan lost, because write-in efforts are difficult against a well-liked incumbent. Also, few Latinos in South-Central are registered to vote. “To have success down there, Latino candidates must have more than just a growing population,” one strategist explained. “They need votes--black, brown, whatever. Votes. Maybe in two or four years. . . .”

After her crushing defeat, Barragan was out the other day, already looking for votes for the next battle.