Dolores Huerta

On the day last month that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa appeared at a news conference to enthusiastically back Judy Chu for the open 32nd Congressional District seat, her chief rival wasted no time trying to downplay the endorsement. "Voters, not endorsements, are going to decide the winner" of Tuesday's special election, state Sen.

Working a recent breakfast gathering of business owners in Northridge, Los Angeles mayoral contender Eric Garcetti introduced himself in Hindi when a Sikh businessman approached. A few hours later, Garcetti donned a colorful Peruvian headpiece with ear flaps as he spoke Spanish with immigrants on the steps of City Hall, part of a show of solidarity for designating a stretch of Hollywood's Vine Street as "Peru Village. " After lunch, Garcetti joined rabbis at a City Hall menorah lighting.

A poll released Thursday shows City Controller Wendy Greuel and City Councilman Eric Garcetti in a virtual dead heat in the campaign to be the next mayor of Los Angeles. The poll, by the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A., shows Greuel with 46% of likely voters, Garcetti with 45% and 9% undecided less than two weeks before the May 21 election. The finding is good news for Greuel, the city controller, who trailed in some earlier surveys, including one that showed she had struggled even to find substantial favor among women, expected to be one of her strongest constituencies as she pushes to be the first female mayor in the city's history.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will launch Latino Heritage Month at City Hall at 10 a.m. today by presenting awards to union activist Dolores Huerta, comedian George Lopez and artist Robert Graham. Guadalupe Rivera Marin, the daughter of artist Diego Rivera, will be present, and the Latino Heritage Month Calendar, with art by Magda Audifried, will be unveiled.

Civil rights and labor activist Dolores Huerta will kick off Cal State Northridge's "Phenomenal Women Distinguished Lecture" series with a talk on women's rights Friday at the university. Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, helped lead the union's grape boycott and shape labor policies for agricultural workers. Her two-hour talk, "Women's Rights as Human Rights," is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in the Grand Salon of the University Student Union.

The Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN) will honor Father Luis Olivares and the Queen of Angels Church on Olvera Street for their work on behalf of Central American refugees at a dinner at 7 p.m. on Friday at Friendship Auditorium in Griffith Park.

Santana fans are used to seeing the innovative rock guitarist and his band in the vastness of arenas and stadiums, so the musician's benefit concert at the relatively intimate Gibson Amphitheater at Universal CityWalk exerts a special lure -- especially because the second-billed act is his old friend and former bandmate Pete Escovedo, with his orchestra.

The American Civil Liberties Union, commemorating the 198th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, held its annual awards dinner Saturday night in Universal City. Receiving the ACLU's Bill of Rights Awards were Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Paula Weinstein and Mark Rosenberg. United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta received the group's Eason Monroe Courageous Advocate Award.

Feminist Gloria Steinem joined a march of more than 1,000 people to protest what she called criminal conditions in California's strawberry fields. The group marched more than a mile down Broadway past stores selling berries picked by women who the United Farm Workers say aren't paid enough to feed their families. Most of California's strawberry workers earn about $8,000 annually, with no health insurance or other benefits, said Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the union.