Latino Politics

In the maze of Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre's political and personal life, an invisible line separates people who think they are insiders from those who are really in. Alatorre will ask for a difficult favor--putting a friend on the payroll, taking care of a buddy--something that seems to strain ethical boundaries, or violate plain good sense. It's a test. Alatorre may shrug it off if you turn him down. You may remain friends. But you're out of the club's inner circle.

Gov. Pete Wilson delivered a stout defense Saturday of his role promoting Propositions 187 and 209, throwing charges of racism back at opponents by asserting that their "demagoguery . . . and massive disinformation" fostered a sense of persecution among minorities. "The saddest thing . . . is not that it is untrue and unfair to me," Wilson told a gathering of Republican Latino activists, "but that it is unfair to all.

Five years ago, at the state Republican Party convention, Ernesto Feliciano presented a proposition that seemed about as controversial as confetti. It had nothing to do with abortion, trade or any other issue likely to inflame party passions. Rather, Feliciano offered a resolution, rich in rococo language, urging the GOP to expand its outreach to California's vast Latino community. The resolution was summarily shot down.

For the 10th year, the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, a Boyle Heights nonprofit organization, is inviting Latino college students to apply for a summer legislative intern program. The five-week internships are designed to give students a behind-the-scenes look at how public policy is developed and implemented at the state and national levels.

A 3-year-old nonprofit organization aiming to combat voter apathy among Latinos raised $20,000 from a recent event, organization President Jess J. Araujo said Tuesday. The Nov. 4 fund-raiser for Latin American Voters of America at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana included guests such as actor Ricardo Montalban and was quite successful, Araujo said. "Money-wise, we're very happy." To date, the organization has registered only 170 voters.

No place in the United States will be more thoroughly transformed by the greatest rush for citizenship in this nation's history than Los Angeles. The county, which has experienced the destabilizing and invigorating effects of global migration for two decades, stands to receive a huge injection of stability. Latino immigrants, who account for nearly two-thirds of L.A.'s foreign-born population, have been the region's political missing link.

"It's why my family came to this country." The terse line, delivered by stern-faced actor Jimmy Smits, answers the unasked question: What's so important about political participation? Smits and the rest of the cast of the movie "Mi Familia" deliver the public service announcement encouraging Latinos to vote at the end of the home video version of the Gregory Nava film, released Tuesday. The movie chronicles the trials and triumphs of a Mexican American family in East Los Angeles.

Three years after being founded to boost the involvement of Latinos in politics, a local nonprofit organization has found more apathy than registered voters and has encountered more bureaucratic obstacles than money.

Just as gritos of independence echoed throughout Los Angeles to mark the 185th anniversary of Mexico's freedom from Spain, Leticia Quezada has declared her own independence after 10 years in politics. She stepped down in June after spending the last eight years on the L.A. school board, wanting to do something different. "Politics," she explains, "isn't new to me." No more late-night school meetings; no more talk about dismantling the nation's second-largest district.