Is Lopez a Protector of Latinos or an Exploiter?

Veronica Gonzalez, a Santa Ana mother of three, is an unlikely political activist. The 23-year-old voted for the first time in November.

But in recent weeks, she has been canvassing her city of 340,000 residents, knocking on doors and logging almost 100 calls a day on her cell phone.

Gonzales is urging voters to oust from the local school board a man many consider the architect of Orange County’s emerging Latino political power.

“He doesn’t represent me,” said Gonzalez, a Santa Ana native whose parents came from Mexico and Texas.

The Feb. 4 recall election of Santa Ana Unified School District trustee Nativo V. Lopez is about many things.

It is about the needs of mostly poor, mostly immigrant children clashing with the interests of some of the city’s more affluent residents who oppose plans for an elementary school near their homes.

It is about educating those children and allegations that Lopez, a longtime immigrant rights activist, encourages instruction in Spanish, spoken by the overwhelming majority of the district’s 61,000 students. It is also about overcrowded campuses, despite the voters’ approval of a $145-million school construction bond measure.

But ultimately, it is a test of Lopez and his unwavering message that Santa Ana’s working-class Latino families need protection from the rich and powerful.

The stakes go beyond Santa Ana, one of the most Latino, Spanish-speaking cities of its size in the nation.

Hefty campaign donations have flowed to both sides of the recall campaign from across the state. Ron Unz, the Palo Alto businessman who has made a political career opposing bilingual education nationwide, so far has put $100,000 toward ousting Lopez.

Recall backers accuse Lopez of violating Proposition 227, the 1998 Unz-sponsored measure that called for most California students to be taught overwhelmingly in English.

Lopez, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has said he simply supports a parent’s right to exercise Proposition 227 and ask that his or her children be taught in their native language.

Lopez has amassed a war chest of more than $90,000 to fight the recall campaign, which began last March.

Lopez’s donors come from his traditional support base: labor unions and Latino leaders who liken him to Cesar Chavez and Chavez’s urban equivalent, Bert Corona, the late leader of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional and Lopez’s mentor.

“He is uncompromising in his commitment to working people and immigrants,” said state Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), who donated $3,000 to Lopez’s campaign and worked with him on a bill that would allow undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses. It was passed by the Legislature last year but was vetoed by Gov. Gray Davis.

To Cedillo and other Lopez supporters, the recall is a test of Latino political will and clout.

“If you cannot protect access to driver’s licenses or ... to Nativo Lopez, how can you protect anything else?” Cedillo said. “Everything is in jeopardy if we can’t win those critical battles.”

But those who aim to unseat the 51-year-old trustee midway through his second four-year term say Lopez isn’t serving Latinos and immigrants as much as he is exploiting them for political gain.

Lopez’s Hermandad Mexicana Nacional of Santa Ana, a sister organization to Corona’s Los Angeles-based group, is an immigrant rights group that offers paralegal services and educational programs. It also is a formidable political machine that has helped elect Lopez and other local Latino politicians -- including U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) in 1996 and state Assemblyman Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) in 1998 -- by campaigning furiously and registering naturalized citizens to vote.

First elected to the school board in 1996, Lopez also helped elect similarly minded allies John Palacio and Nadia Davis in 1998. Teacher Sal Tinajero followed in 2000. All three had the grass-roots organizing efforts of Santa Ana’s Hermandad, which has given English lessons, citizenship training and other assistance to thousands of people since the 1980s.

In 2000, when Lopez won reelection by only 421 votes, almost 72% of naturalized Mexican immigrants who were registered to vote in the school district cast ballots, far higher than the district’s overall 63% voter turnout that presidential election year. In the end, the electorate he helped build may have pushed him over the top.

Lopez supporters say the new board has made Santa Ana schools more responsive and reflective of the community by hiring more Latino employees and contractors.

The bottom line, they say, is that Lopez has changed the priorities in a city long criticized by labor and Latino leaders for being unresponsive to its immigrant community.

In the view of Lopez and his allies, City Hall remains a bastion of Santa Ana’s old power elite, despite the mayor and council majority being Latino.

The contrasting agendas of the two elected bodies were underscored last year when the school board voted to exercise its powers of eminent domain to buy land in one of Santa Ana’s historic north-end neighborhoods for a new elementary school.

The City Council, aware that the district was eyeing the 9-acre site near Floral Park, approved a plan to build luxury homes there.

Residents who fought the plan have said the district should build schools where they are needed, such as in the more densely populated neighborhoods to the south. Mayor Miguel A. Pulido, who lives in Floral Park, and other city leaders agreed. The school board prevailed, and on Wednesday awarded a contract to build the $23-million campus, which is slated to open by September 2004.

Lopez has dismissed his Latino critics as misguided, disgruntled or sellouts.

Art Pedroza, a former Latino outreach director for the Orange County Republican Party and now part-time political consultant, says Lopez refuses to recognize the diversity of Latino voices in a city that is mostly Latino and in a nation where Latinos are the largest minority. “We are ready to ascend to power,” he said. “And we must do it in a less-divisive and more-graceful fashion than Nativo has done.”

Four people are vying to replace Lopez if he is recalled. They are Robert L. Richardson, a former Santa Ana Unified trustee and city councilman; Vivian Martinez, a district parent and one of the recall organizers; Cindy Pettus, a community college instructor; and John Raya, a former boxer who runs a youth boxing academy in Santa Ana.

Richardson says Lopez’s message of class and race divisions distracts from the real issues, including overcrowding at existing campuses despite the 1999 bond measure. Although district officials say several projects are scheduled to begin in the next few months, Richardson and others continue to be critical of the slow pace.

“Three years and not one new school,” said Richardson, who also vowed to reconsider the new elementary campus, named for former Mayor Lorin Griset, and its location.

All four advocate improving education and speeding school construction.

Whether Lopez’s message resonates at the polls remains to be seen, but the recall battle poses a dilemma for some of those who have won office with his backing.

Correa hasn’t taken sides. “My role is to work with all my constituents,” he said.

Sanchez has “opted to stay out of the issue completely,” said her press secretary, Carrie Brooks. “It is a pretty sticky one.”

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How they vote

Voters in the Santa Ana Unified School District in 2002*.

Total registered voters: 60,880

Latino: 30,440 (50%)

Mexico-born: 13,312 (22%)

Total voter turnout: 63.2%

Mexico-born voter turnout: 71.6%

*Presidential election year

Source: Orange County Registrar of Voters