The patriarch of Latino politics in California is sick and tired but still holding forth, seated at the kitchen table of his bright Spanish stucco house in Pasadena.
Battling illness and old age, Edward R. Roybal, 84, sounds like a grandfather giving a scolding.
Sure, Roybal says, Latinos have come a long way. There are 30 times as many Latino lawmakers in California as when he first took office 50 years ago. The Assembly speaker is Mexican American. So is the lieutenant governor.
But problems remain. He ticks off a list--poor health care, high dropout rates, bad cops, dilapidated housing. Today's politicians are failing, he says. They lack community spirit. They want to be kingmakers, he adds, not policymakers. Politics is now mostly about money.
That's his humble opinion, "not that anybody gives a damn anymore about what I have to say," said Roybal. "My kind of grass-roots politics is long gone."
In 1949, Roybal became the first Mexican American this century elected to the Los Angeles City Council, facing down death threats and racism. He put in new sewers, paved over dirt roads, added traffic stop signs and parks in neglected neighborhoods on the Eastside, downtown and in Hollywood.
He later served as a congressman for 30 years, supporting civil rights, public health programs and help for the elderly before retiring in 1993.
Whether or not he approves of its evolution, Roybal is the man most responsible for Latino politics today--its role model emeritus.
Roybal's career, like a rock thrown into a pond, created the ripples of a complex political world, stretching from the liberal politics of East Los Angeles to the conservative enclaves of Pomona and the Central Valley.
"Eddie Roybal is the first person in the modern era that Latinos have had who was a hero," said Rodolfo Acuna, a Cal State Northridge Chicano studies professor.
His life's work, Roybal said, was to give minorities and other underdogs equal footing in the world. The job now belongs to new Latino leaders, he said, including Roybal's daughter, U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles).
Roybal-Allard, who represents parts of her father's old district, said Roybal "paved the way for the next generation, just like we're paving the way for the generation after us. But he was really the pioneer."
Roybal said he almost didn't start his career. "I didn't want to do it, but I had no other choice."
