Common Threads

It was a coalition that started to change the face of L.A. politics, uniting two ethnic communities and electing a groundbreaking minority to citywide office.

The year was 1949, a quarter century before Tom Bradley rose to power on the strength of a now-storied cross-town alliance between Jews and blacks. The politician then was Ed Roybal, who broke the Anglo stranglehold on the City Council with the help of a progressive labor coalition, most of whose members were Eastside Jews and Latinos.

Roybal’s historic ascendancy is but one chapter in the mostly ignored relationship between L.A.’s Jewish and Latino communities. These ties will be explored in two programs being presented as part of the Yiddishkayt L.A., a weeklong citywide festival continuing through Sunday.

On Thursday, there’ll be a screening of “Salt of the Earth,” a heralded documentary about a zinc mine strike, made in 1953 by a team that included blacklisted Jewish filmmakers and Latino activists from L.A. On Saturday, a panel discussion-concert, “Latinos and Landslayt,” will delve into the common Eastside labor and folk traditions of Jews and Latinos.

“It’s clear that there are all kinds of interesting and complex relationships that happen between the two communities around politics,” says Judy Branfman, a Jewish activist and community historian who organized the events, together with Tomas Benitez, director of Self-Help Graphics, which provides gallery space to artists from the Eastside.

“There’s definitely a tradition of shared space and history,” Benitez agrees. That history is complex and sometimes murky, alternately characterized by passion and apathy, empathy and ignorance. But while often overshadowed by other inter-ethnic relationships--black-Jewish, black-Korean--the interface of Los Angeles’ Latino and Jewish communities has played an important role in everything from local Latino political empowerment to the struggle for fair housing and employment laws.

Moreover, given the increasing electoral strength of Latinos and continued Jewish political clout, it likely will be a critical factor in shaping L.A.’s future.

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To many, this spring’s racially tinged state Senate campaign between Richard Katz and Richard Alarcon in the San Fernando Valley may have seemed like the first time that Jewish-Latino relations appeared on the radar screen. But ties between the two groups go back at least to the 1920s and have been characterized largely by a common interest in progressive economic and social change.

“Both communities were usually on the same side politically on all the important issues,” says Bert Corona, an activist who began his career during the Depression and who currently serves as executive director of La Hermandad Nacional Mexicana, which conducts citizenship drives in the Latino community.

“Both had to fight against racism and discrimination. Both have fought for better housing, improvement of social conditions and more equitable political representation. Although there’s been a disparity in the income earned by two groups, on political and social issues, we have stood together.”

While both Jews and Latinos established communities on L.A’s Eastside, it was the labor movement that first brought the two groups into close contact. Jews had a heavy presence in local trade unions, particularly those in such industries as garments, painting, upholstery and textiles. When Mexicans began arriving in L.A. in large numbers in the teens and ‘20s, it was Jews who helped integrate them into the unions.

Racial Discrimination An Enemy in Common

Solidarity against economic exploitation extended into other areas as well, most notably racial discrimination. Thus during the infamous 1942 Sleepy Lagoon case, in which Mexican Americans were wrongly accused of murder, Jews were instrumental in the defense committee (along with Latinos and Irish Americans), and it was a Jewish attorney who represented the defendants.

But it was during the Roybal campaign of 1949 that a bona fide alliance emerged between the two groups. This convergence had its roots in a relationship between famed Jewish radical Saul Alinsky of Chicago and Roybal, who had attended Alinsky’s seminar on community organizing and who subsequently ran unsuccessfully for L.A. City Council in 1947.

“The day I was defeated, Alinsky sent me a telegram saying, ‘What are you going to do next?’ ” recalls Roybal, now 82. “A month later I wrote and told him that I was going to form an organization that would start the process of voter registration. I wrote what I called the five-year plan as to what I would do and ended it by saying, ‘What are you going to do to help me?’ ”

Soon after, Alinsky came to L.A. to host a fund-raiser. Out of 40 invited guests, 15 showed up--all of them Jewish. The group included Sealy mattress owner Saul Ostrow and actor Melvyn Douglas, and each donated $1,000. The money went to establish Community Service Organization (CSO), which promptly set about mobilizing the largely dormant Mexican American community.

By the time the next City Council election came around in 1949, CSO had registered some 15,000 new Latino voters in the 9th District. Meanwhile, the Jewish-led unions (including the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, which had hired Hope Mendoza, the first Latina organizer in Los Angeles) got behind CSO and Roybal. With strong backing from labor, Jews and Latinos, Roybal defeated longtime liberal incumbent Parley P. Christiansen, ushering in a new era in Los Angeles politics.

“Roybal became the civil rights champion not only for Latinos but for Jews and African Americans as well,” says Kenneth Burt, political director of the California Federation of Teachers, who is writing a book about the emergence of Latinos as a political force in Southern California. “He created a model that Bradley followed years later.”

Jewish support for CSO had even broader ramifications as the organization went on to become a powerful force both in L.A. and throughout the state, registering hundreds of thousands of Latinos, challenging housing discrimination and fighting police brutality.

CSO also was the incubator for one of the century’s great activists and the first national Latino hero: Cesar Chavez.

The ties between Chavez and L.A.’s Jewish community ran deep, reflecting his early association with Alinsky. When Chavez organized his first fieldworker strike in Oxnard in 1958, the funds came from L.A.-based Jewish labor leader Ralph Helstein’s United Packinghouse Workers of America. Later, when Chavez and the United Farm Workers launched the grape boycott, they received strong support from such L.A. labor stalwarts as Sigmund Arywitz and Max Mont, as well as many others in the Jewish community.

And it was Chavez’s friend and political ally Howard Berman--now a congressman representing a largely Latino district in the Valley--who as a member of the Assembly wrote California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act. (Chavez and Berman were so close that when Latino Assemblymen Art Torres and Richard Alatorre shifted their support from Berman to Willie Brown during the 1980 California speakership battle, a rift formed between the UFW and the two Eastside pols.)

“The ties were very, very strong with the Jewish community and have continued through the years,” says Dolores Huerta, who founded the UFW with Chavez and is now its president.

Another pivotal campaign featuring a Jewish-Latino alliance was Julian Nava’s 1967 race for the Los Angeles Board of Education. Nava, who grew up in Boyle Heights, became the first Mexican American ever elected to the board.

“The Jewish community was fundamental not only in fund-raising but in lending the support of many community groups,” says Nava, adding that he received key backing from many of his old Jewish friends from Roosevelt High, who by then had risen to prominent positions in the community.

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But while Jews and Latinos continued to work together on certain issues through the ‘60s and beyond, the coalition formed in the postwar years never exerted the influence of the later alliance between the black and Jewish communities.

“There was something that started then that didn’t really materialize the way it should have,” Roybal says.

Numerous factors militated against the evolution of a more powerful Latino-Jewish alignment. For one, the affinity that developed in the first half of the century between Jews and Latinos in Los Angeles was rooted to a great extent in the defining experience of immigration, and the discrimination that accompanied it.

“There was a sense of fellowship based on immigrant status,” says Professor Luis Arroyo, chair of the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies at Cal State Long Beach.

But though large numbers of Latinos continued to migrate to Los Angeles and to face overt bigotry, the Jewish community became more assimilated and less identified with its immigrant past.

“As time goes on, the Jewish community is losing its own history as far its immigrant roots,” Branfman says.

Economic Disparity Divisive After the War

The early immigrant bond between Latinos and Jews was strengthened by shared socioeconomic conditions. While Jews generally enjoyed a higher standard of living than Latinos, both Eastside communities were largely working class. But the income level of Jews rose dramatically in the decades following World War II, creating a class divide between the two groups.

The weakening of class and immigrant connections was underscored by the exodus of Jews from East L.A. in the postwar years. As Jews moved in large numbers first to the Fairfax area and then to the Westside and Valley, the communities grew literally more distant. And though there were exceptions, the social ties between Latinos and Jews were not strong enough to overcome these new chasms.

There were other factors that limited the potential for coalition as well. One was the advent of ethnic nationalism in the ‘60s and ‘70s, which saw the rise of a more militant Latino movement and an increasing Jewish identification with Israel. Another was the perception among some that the major battles of mutual interest had already been won, including such key civil rights struggles as the fight against discrimination in housing and education.

“What do you have in common once you have that out of the way?” asks Harvey Schecter, former Western states director of the Anti-Defamation League and husband of Latino activist Hope Mendoza. “You have two disparate communities.”

While the Jewish commitment to liberalism remained strong on many issues, some Latinos felt that the Jewish community had retreated from the cause of social justice. Others saw the Jewish alliance with blacks as taking precedence over relations with Latinos.

“The Hispanic community feels that the Jewish community generally sees only black and white, that they have favored black needs over Mexican American needs,” Nava says.

Ultimately, the early bonds between Jews and Latinos remained unconsummated.

“I wouldn’t overstate the feeling of shared history,” says Berman, who has worked as closely with the Latino community as any Jewish lawmaker of the last 25 years. “It’s not quite like the Jewish connection with the civil rights movement.”

In the early 1980s, the Jewish Community Relations Committee initiated a series of meetings with local Latino leaders that have continued periodically to the present day. More recently, the American Jewish Committee invited the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials to participate in discussion groups.

While these efforts indicate a desire by both sides to foster better ties, they also reflect the gulf that has developed between the two communities.

“We realized together with some partners in the Latino community that leadership knew each other but really didn’t have relationships that went as deep as we needed them to be,” says Gary Greenebaum, Western regional director of the Jewish committee. Arturo Vargas, executive director of the association of Latino officials, agrees.

“The perception of the relation ship was more of coexistence--two communities that shared the same city but didn’t really know each other,” Vargas says.

Though leaders have attempted to bridge the gap, the problem is far more pronounced at the grass roots level.

“Latinos shouldn’t go to the Westside only to clean homes and do gardening, and Jews shouldn’t only go to the Eastside to recruit gardeners and housecleaners,” says Miguel Contreras, executive secretary of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “There has to be a dialogue about the quality of life in Los Angeles.”

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If L.A.’s Latino and Jewish communities have largely gone their separate ways, there are enduring connections.

These are most apparent in the resurgent labor movement, where Jews and Latinos are at the forefront of a coalition that now poses a formidable counterweight to the city’s business interests.

“There’s an emergence of an alliance long thought dead: pro-labor blacks, Jews and Latinos,” says Rick Chertoff, executive director of the Western region chapter of the Jewish Labor Committee.

The committee has worked closely with such leaders as Contreras and Maria Elena Durazo, president of Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 11, to strengthen the ties between the progressive Jewish community and the burgeoning Latino labor movement. Dramatic evidence of this renewed alliance was on display earlier this year during Local 11’s campaign for improved contracts at Westside hotels. When the Jewish owner of the Summit Rodeo initially refused to negotiate, pressure was brought to bear by the Jewish Labor Committee and others in the Jewish community, including several rabbis, until a settlement was reached.

Workers vs. Owners in Garment Industry

But can the pro-labor coalition be broadened to include more than the relatively narrow sector of Jewish and Latino progressive activists? While a sizable Latino middle class has emerged in Los Angeles, there is still a formidable class division between the two communities--illustrated most vividly, perhaps, by the city’s garment industry, where Jews account for a significant percentage of ownership and Latinos make up the majority of the work force.

“I think it is going to be a very big obstacle,” says one Jewish activist, who asked to remain anonymous. “Either the middle-class Latino community will hijack the whole thing and create an alliance with the Jewish community, or the progressive Jewish community [will realize that] they can’t demand accountability from the richer members of the community without jeopardizing their funding.”

Others, however, believe a foundation exists on which to build a stronger alliance. They cite Jewish voters’ decisive rejection of three ballot measures also opposed by Latinos: Proposition 187, widely seen as a race-baiting attack on immigrants; Proposition 209, which banned affirmative action, and the unsuccessful Proposition 226, which would have crippled the ability of labor to make its voice heard in electoral politics.

“The Jewish community, while more affluent, has remained committed to a lot of issues that impact Latinos,” historian Burt says.

Of course, consensus on such issues does not guarantee cooperation in the electoral arena. Indeed, as Latinos continue to seek increased political representation, competition is certain.

“It exists between Latinos and blacks,” says Rodolfo Acun~a, professor of Chicano Studies at Cal State Northridge. “Why isn’t it going to exist between Latinos and Jews? The challenge is to keep it from becoming racist.”

Yet while future political contests inevitably will pit Jews and Latinos against each other (there’s already speculation of a mayor’s race between County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa), demographic trends suggest that the two communities will seek each other out.

“Latino voter numbers are what will bring the two together, because they need each other,” Chertoff says.

“For Latinos, the resources, the political savvy that the Jewish community has are all strengths,” says Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, which researches issues affecting Latinos.

The Past Is Key to a Future Bond

Electoral trends aside, both Jews and Latinos say that part of the challenge in building a new coalition lies in recovering the past.

“With new immigrants, we have to be thoughtful about conveying history, the coveted relationships,” notes Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, who as the head of the Service Employees International Union was mentored by the venerable Jewish organizer Henry Fiering. “In many cases people don’t even know who helped who and how important the relationships were.”

Triana Silton, a 27-year-old Jewish organizer with Local 1877, believes that Jews should also examine communal ties in the light of their own history.

“As Jews, we’ve forgotten more than we should have,” Silton says. “Now is a good time for us to identify with Latinos’ experience, to remember our history and to look for a common path forward. When you get comfortable, you want to stay in that comfort zone. But the Jewish tradition reminds us that we can’t be comfortable while other people are still oppressed and enslaved.”

Branfman and Benitez hope that the two events this week sponsored by Yiddishkayt L.A. will serve to jog the collective memory and that as Jews and Latinos look backward, they will find far more in common than they realize.

“You have a large number of immigrants and Latino leaders who are not aware of this rich history, and on the Jewish side you have a new generation without personal ties to Boyle Heights and the old inter-ethnic alliances,” Burt says. “What I think we need is people understanding this shared past, so we can envision a cooperative future.”

* “Salt of the Earth” will be shown Thursday at 7 p.m., followed by a discussion of labor and the Hollywood Blacklist, and “Latinos and Landslayt,” an evening of food, music and conversation featuring Jewish and Latino musicians, labor activists and cultural historians, will take place Saturday from 5 to 11 p.m. at Self-Help Graphics, 3802 Cesar Chavez Ave., East Los Angeles (at the corner of Cesar Chavez and Gage, about half a mile from the Downey Road exit from the Pomona Freeway). Spanish and English translation provided will be provided. Information: (310) 392-2076, (213) 881-6444.