Feeling the Pride and Possibilities
The little man creeps to the railing at the back of the auditorium. The stage is a good 100 feet away, but Jose “Pepe” Bautista, a Biltmore Hotel banquet waiter, has found a clear angle through the columns and he can see him now. He can see Los Angeles mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa.
To take nothing away from Villaraigosa, who follows opponent Jim Hahn in speaking to a gathering of professional women, this slight man in the back of the room is the show.
The way he holds himself. The way he wears the moment, proud of the very idea that a Mexican American from the Eastside could be mayor of the second-largest city in the United States.
Bautista, 67, has stolen a minute from the task of running coffee and juice to his tables. In the shadows he stands, a gleam in his eye.
If Villaraigosa is elected June 5, he will arguably become the highest-profile Latino public official in the country. Southern California is teeming with people, Latino and otherwise, who couldn’t give a rip about this or any other election. Some even wear their ignorance like a badge.
But here at the Biltmore, Pepe Bautista alone drives apathy away. “We talk about this every night at home. My wife and my children. This is someone who will understand the working man, understand Latinos,” he says.
Bautista got so caught up in it, his wife had to remind him they can’t vote for Villaraigosa because they live just outside the city in Huntington Park.
As we talk, Bautista mentions that he worked at the Ambassador Hotel for 25 years before moving to the Biltmore. I tell him I know Juan Romero, the Ambassador busboy who cradled a dying Bobby Kennedy in his arms after Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan in 1968.
“Juanito,” Bautista says, traveling back 33 years to a moment forever frozen in black and white. “I know him too. I was there.”
With this, Bautista pulls me into the foyer of the auditorium. He wants to recreate the shooting.
“Kennedy shakes hands with Juan, and then I hear the shots. Then I go after Sirhan like this,” he says, head down like a bull.
Bautista says that as room service captain, he had gotten to know and respect Kennedy, whom he considered a friend to the Hispanic community. In the hysteria that followed the shooting, Bautista remembers little Juanito Romero kneeling at Kennedy’s side, stuffing a set of rosary beads into Kennedy’s hands.
The murmur of the Biltmore crowd pulls both of us back from the pages of history. Villaraigosa is wrapping up his remarks, and Bautista is called back to the business of clearing tables.
Off his shoulder, 15 women’s health advocates from Promotoras Comunitarias erupt in an impromptu cheer.
Se ve
Se siente
Antonio esta presente
Si se puede
(You can see it
You can feel it
Antonio is present
Yes it can be done)
Many of the women have traveled an hour or more by bus to set eyes on Villaraigosa, as if he were a star. It is his agenda for women and children they like first, says Melinda Cordero. But yes, there is ethnic pride at play too.
A young waitress named Violeta Vaqueiro, working not far from Pepe Bautista, shyly approaches Villaraigosa with a T-shirt. He signs it and silently she slips back to work, a smile on her face.
“I don’t want to die carrying too-heavy trays,” says Vaqueiro, 30, who is about to start college. For her, and for her daughter Florencia, Villaraigosa is a symbol of new possibilities, she says.
“My daughter is going to be a painter,” she says of 7-year-old Florencia. She says this without a trace of doubt, and as if clarification is needed, she adds, “She’s an artist.”
Villaraigosa has moved upstairs now for a news conference, but his presence remains in the auditorium.
Violeta Vaqueiro with her sweet smile hides her autographed T-shirt under a tablecloth as she works, so no one can walk away with it.
The women of Promotoras Comunitarias gather up their things, still riding the vapor of their collective spirit.
And Jose “Pepe” Bautista, who knew Bobby Kennedy, finishes up his work so he can hurry home and tell his wife and children that today, in the hotel, he saw Antonio Villaraigosa.
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Steve Lopez’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at his e-mail address, Steve.Lopez@Latimes.com.
