Turning the Ethnic Factor on Its Head

Nearly lost amid all the attention being focused on the final weeks of Los Angeles’ mayoral campaign was a special election that was held on the Eastside last week. Yet its outcome offers as much hope for the future of ethnic politics in this city as the possibility that a Latino like Antonio Villaraigosa may be elected mayor without his ethnicity becoming a major issue.

The winner of the election to a seat in the state Assembly--Judy Chu--defied expectations by winning easily in a heavily Latino district against a well-regarded opponent, Alhambra Mayor Daniel Arguello. Chu will be the first Asian American since the 1970s to represent this district, which now runs from the city’s Eastside through East Los Angeles to the small cities of Alhambra, Monterey Park, Rosemead and San Gabriel.

Chu achieved that victory by challenging the conventional wisdom that says a district where 44% of the voters are Latino and only 25% are Asian American must inevitably elect a Latino candidate. She turned ethnic politics on its head by reaching out to her Latino neighbors and convincing them she shared their views and aspirations.

The issue that first brought Chu to the attention of voters in the area is dear to the hearts of Latino activists--the fight against English-only rules, which limit the use of languages like Spanish or Chinese in public venues.

Years before 1994’s Proposition 187 and similar “wedge issues” divided California voters, the first signs of ethnic tension in California politics surfaced in Monterey Park, a pleasant suburb of 60,000. That happened when a shrinking Anglo majority, angered by a profusion of Chinese-language signs on local businesses, prodded the Monterey Park City Council to ban them. The council complied and, for good measure, also barred the city’s library from purchasing Chinese-language books.

Chu was one of the first community activists to take a stand against such narrow-minded politics and later parlayed the notoriety into her council seat. There she not only fought English-only rules, but founded Monterey Park’s annual Harmony Week so city residents could celebrate ethnic differences rather than fight about them.

Chu went on to forge stronger links to Latino political activists even while trying to advance her own political career. She was twice defeated by Latina candidates in races for the Legislature, most recently by Gloria Romero in 1998, but worked consistently for the election of other Latinos.

That patient coalition-building paid off in Chu’s latest campaign. Romero, who was elected to the state Senate after Hilda Solis went to Congress this year, endorsed Chu even as the Legislature’s Latino Caucus, of which Romero is a member, endorsed Arguello. Chu was also backed by Solis and another Democratic Latina, Rep. Loretta Sanchez of Orange County.

So it could also be argued that Chu earned her victory with lots of long, hard work in the political trenches. Clearly at least some Latino voters in the 49th District came to that conclusion, choosing to support her despite what political analysts call “the ethnic factor.”

Many of the people pulling for Villaraigosa to be elected Los Angeles’ first Latino mayor in 130 years are hoping his long, hard work in pursuit of that goal will also overcome the ethnic factor. He’s done an impressive job so far, pulling together a coalition of supporters that reaches far beyond the Eastside base that first elected him to the Legislature and now includes supporters from all over the city. That is what outgoing Mayor Richard Riordan says prompted him to endorse Villaraigosa last week, praising him as “a unifier.”

Of course, Villaraigosa could still lose to another liberal Democrat, City Atty. James K. Hahn, when L.A. votes June 5. Public opinion polls indicate the race is still too close to reliably predict.

But no matter what happens to Villaraigosa, anyone who looks toward a time when the ethnic factor won’t matter in elections here can celebrate Judy Chu’s victory.