Political Professor Has Big Plans for His Small City

Dreams lifted Jose Hernandez from his childhood as a migrant worker in south Texas, propelled him into the Chicano movement in the late ‘60s and landed him a job as a professor at Cal State Northridge 30 years ago.

Dreams still drive the tireless 69-year-old, who was selected mayor of San Fernando on Tuesday for the second time.

Cruising the streets of the 2.5-square-mile city in his white Cadillac, Hernandez lifted a hand from his steering wheel and pointed to a pile of dirt heaped at the intersection of Truman Street and San Fernando Road.

“This is going to be the entrance,” he said proudly, speaking over the lively Spanish music blaring on KLVE-FM (107.5). “See how we are already working on this.”

He pointed to the right, where a strip of garish billboards stood in a gravelly stretch of mud.

“We are going to remove all the advertisements,” he said. “This is going to be a park. There is going to be a statue of Cesar Chavez over there. . . .”

In the largely ceremonial post of mayor, the CSUN Chicano studies professor said his plans for the northeastern Valley city include expanding economic development, beautifying downtown and improving parks.

He wants to find ways to provide affordable day care and after-school programs for residents of San Fernando, half of whom are under 18, he said.

In this small city that pulses with the energy of its newest immigrants, most of them from Mexico and Central America, Hernandez in many ways represents the ultimate Latino success story.

He was born in the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, where his parents were migrant farm workers who pulled him and his three brothers and sister out of school every spring to follow the crops. They returned to school when the harvest season ended, after the new school year had already started.

Because his father had health problems, all the children had to work.

“We were trained to support our families,” he said. “You were obligated to your family first. My father was an invalid. He couldn’t bring too much money into the house.”

Hernandez was the only child in his family to continue past the eighth grade. After he finished high school, he served in Korea during and after the war, from 1950 to 1954.

With money from the GI Bill, he was able to pay for his college education, attending Saint Mary’s University in San Antonio and earning a scholarship for graduate school.

Hernandez moved to California 30 years ago because he wanted to get involved in politics. He had been living in Ohio, where he earned his master’s degree in economics at Ohio State University and taught high school for eight years.

His brother-in-law, who lived in Santa Monica, would write him about all the activities of the Chicano movement, including Cesar Chavez’s efforts to organize farm laborers.

“I asked myself, ‘What the heck are you doing here in the Midwest?’ ” Hernandez recalled. “I decided to come here and get involved. . . . it was 1969.”

Shortly after arriving, Hernandez got a job in the new Chicano studies department at Cal State Northridge.

He taught subjects ranging from Latin American history to political activism. Rudy Acuna, the head of Chicano studies at CSUN, said Hernandez’s political involvement has made him a role model for students.

Several members of the San Fernando City Council, including former Mayor Raul Godinez II and newly elected Councilman Richard Ramos, were Hernandez’s students.

“He was very unique,” said Ramos, 30, who took a class with Hernandez called “Politics of the Barrio.”

“He was not just working in academia, he was actually putting into practice what we were studying in class.”

When Ramos decided to run for office, Hernandez was one of the first people he sought out for advice.

Hernandez, a 29-year resident of San Fernando, was first elected to the City Council in 1990. He served as mayor of the predominantly Latino, working-class city for the final two years of his first four-year term, but he lost his bid for reelection in 1994.

He won again in 1997 and with Godinez and Silverio Robledo formed a majority that streamlined City Hall by merging the personnel and finance departments and reshuffling the Police Department.

Hernandez has served as the interim mayor since Godinez left to run for Richard Alarcon’s vacated 7th District seat on the Los Angeles City Council.

Hernandez now heads a five-member council that includes three new members, two of whom are under age 31.

Former colleague Godinez--who did not endorse Hernandez in 1997, but then worked closely with him to put the city on a more rigorous course of economic development--said getting a majority of council members to work together will be Hernandez’s biggest challenge.

“He has three new folks,” Godinez said. “It’s going to be a little raucous for the first eight or nine months. His challenge is to build the same type of team we had.”

But Hernandez has experience inspiring young people and encouraging them to get involved. Walking through life with one leg planted in the abstract realm of academia and the other in the nitty-gritty reality of daily politics, Hernandez seems well-prepared for what lies ahead.

“As you can see in the paper, Latinos are asserting themselves more and more, demanding control,” he said. “San Fernando is setting the stage, serving as a role model again. I’m very excited.”