A ferociously contested congressional race in the San Gabriel Valley has emerged as a classic test of the power of ethnic politics in the aftermath of Barack Obama's racial breakthrough in the presidential election.
The election Tuesday to fill the House seat vacated by U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis also spotlights the clashing political aspirations of two of California's fastest growing ethnic groups, Asians and Latinos.
The setting, California's 32nd Congressional District, is one of the state's most diverse and rapidly changing stretches of suburbs. Straddling the 10 Freeway, it includes Rosemead, El Monte, Baldwin Park, Covina and most of Monterey Park.
For a generation after World War II, it was home mainly to blue-collar whites, eclipsed later by Latinos moving from L.A. Today, boulevards lined with as many Cantonese seafood and Vietnamese pho restaurants as taquerias attest to the valley's fast transformation.
Political change has been less swift. It took until 1982 for a Latino to win the valley's core congressional seat, a belated political advance for Latinos. And it is only now that a Chinese American, Judy Chu, stands as a top contender for the House seat.
Should she win, Chu's ascent to Congress would mark a political coming-of-age for Asian Americans in the San Gabriel Valley. She would be Southern California's only Asian in Congress.
Standing in Chu's way, however, is no small barrier: The inclination of voters to cast ballots along ethnic lines. Latino voters still outnumber Asians by more than 3 to 1 in the district, a blessing for Gil Cedillo, Chu's chief rival.
"The racial and ethnic dimension of this race is going to be fascinating to watch," said political scientist Michael Alvarez of Caltech.
Ethnic tension between all manner of groups is familiar to the area. At the height of the Asian immigration wave of the 1980s, a backlash among longtime residents of Monterey Park sparked a drive to ban foreign-language signs on storefronts. That conflict was part of what spurred Chu's entry into politics.
In the House contest, the best known of a dozen candidates are Chu, now vice chairwoman of the state Board of Equalization, and Cedillo, a state senator. Much of the voting in the heavily Democratic district will no doubt break along ethnic lines. Both Chu and Cedillo are Democrats.
"It's just a natural tendency of people to stick with their own," said Eric Hacopian, a campaign strategist for Democrat Emanuel Pleitez, another Latino vying for the seat.
