Political Activism

Fifty years ago, Hispanics made up barely 15% of Santa Ana's population. Mostly farm workers and laborers, they were forced to attend "Mexican" schools, not allowed to eat in certain restaurants, and segregated into five barrios. Now, according to U.S. Census figures released Monday, they make up 65% of the population, giving Santa Ana by far the highest percentage of Hispanics of any major California city.

WASHINGTON - In spring 2010, agents in the Cincinnati office of the Internal Revenue Service, which handles applications for tax-exempt status, faced a surge of filings by new advocacy groups, with little guidance on how to treat them. Their decision to deal with the problem by singling out tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny has now triggered a criminal inquiry, congressional investigations, the departure of two top IRS officials and the naming of a new acting commissioner Thursday.

It has been a whirlwind week for Latino activist Jack Nava, one that will culminate today after a mile-long march in honor of the late labor leader Cesar Chavez. At a small park in downtown Oxnard, the Ventura resident plans to recount his part in an eight-year campaign to persuade the U.S. Postal Service to issue a commemorative stamp featuring the United Farm Workers union co-founder.

Michael Wahl is aware that he has a choice - President Obama or Mitt Romney. "It's either this guy or that guy," the Cal Poly Pomona sophomore says. But he didn't know about the candidates lower on the ballot, or the measures that could shape California's future - until volunteers came to his ethnic studies class one evening with a video aimed at convincing Asian Americans to turn out on election day. Wahl, who is half-Chinese, is among the thousands of prospective voters targeted in what is probably the most aggressive push yet to unlock the Asian vote in Southern California.

The house, a tile-roofed California ranch style on a quiet hillside street, is a cookie-cutter copy of its neighbors. But the replica of an FBI "most wanted" poster that hangs in a hallway is a portrait of the woman of the house. She is Angela Davis. At a cursory glance, the other trappings suggest a sellout, a capitulation to bourgeois values: two dogs, leather sofas, glass tables, a deck with a view. But there's that poster.

Silicon Valley insiders call it the O'Reilly Radar: Tim O'Reilly's uncanny ability to spot a technology revolution before it happens. But lately the entrepreneur, investor and book publisher has been busier trying to incite the next one. He is urging young entrepreneurs and engineers to stop making some of the sillier software that lets Facebook users throw virtual sheep at their friends or download virtual beer on iPhones, and instead start making a real difference in the world.

When the NAACP's conference ended here last week, civil rights leaders left behind a portrait of black men in crisis. Too many young black men, said the civil rights group, are underemployed, alternately feared and reviled, and living at risk. Now come the men of Sigma Pi Phi, a once-secret black fraternity that celebrates the professional and material success of black men.

One Saturday last spring, the same day that marked the kickoff of West Hollywood's annual Gay and Lesbian Pride Celebration, a small group of conservative Republican activists got together for an alfresco fund-raising brunch in a Hollywood Hills home. The setting seemed like heaven--ripe oranges and lemons on curving branches, mockingbirds burbling arias beneath an azure sky--and the dozen or so guests seemed perfectly cast for their roles as Grand Old Party stalwarts.

She spent years as an outspoken antiabortion activist, and that cause remains dear to her. But these days, Karen Swallow Prior has a new passion: animal welfare. She wasn't sure, at first, that advocating for God's four-legged creatures would go over well on the campus of Liberty University, a fundamentalist Baptist institution founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

He hurries to his limo on Sunset Boulevard. Traffic slows, horns honk and admirers yell: "Hey, Jesse!" He shoots them a thumbs-up. He is driven across town to Burbank, hoists himself out of the car, and office workers materialize on the sidewalk to greet him. Up goes the thumb. This is the evidence in the Rev. Jesse Jackson's life that all is well. And to those who claim otherwise, he is ready figuratively with his thumb at his nose.

Veteran activist supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash will team with muckraking musician Tom Morello for an Oct. 3 concert at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles to raise awareness and money to defeat Proposition 32, a campaign-finance measure on the November ballot. Morello will open for CSN in an evening that will also feature actor Edward James Olmos in rallying opposition to the measure that is opposed by the League of Women Voters, the California Alliance for Retired Americans and a consortium of teachers, firefighters, nurses and other members of organized labor.

For Angelica Salas, it was a long time coming. The Obama administration's announcement that it would stop deporting illegal immigrants who were brought here as children was the culmination of more than a decade of persistent political organizing by Salas and her fellow immigrant rights advocates. But Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, barely had time to celebrate what many activists consider their most significant victory since amnesty was offered to nearly 3 million illegal immigrants in 1986.

For decades, the Boy Scouts of America has weathered anger, petitions and lawsuits over a long-standing policy that bans gay Scouts and troop leaders. But the dissent that erupted this week is different. It's coming from a group that's exclusively its own. A group of Eagle Scouts has banded together to form Scouts for Equality, a group aimed at challenging the century-old policy. Its formation comes on the heels of an announcement from Boy Scout top brass: They will examine a recent resolution that would reverse the policy.

A New York federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that opponents contend could subject them to indefinite military detention for political activism, news reporting or other 1st Amendment activities. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan ruled Wednesday in favor of a group of writers and activists who sued President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and the Defense Department. Obama signed the bill into law Dec. 31. The complaint was filed Jan. 13 by a group including former New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges.

The allegation was serious: Someone might be playing politics with Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich's personnel file from his days as a county prosecutor. Trutanich, who is campaigning to become the next district attorney, complained to state authorities last week that his file was missing and asked for an investigation into "suspicious political activity" in the district attorney's office. In his letter to the attorney general's office, Trutanich noted that Los Angeles County Dist.

Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - In 1988, well-heeled gay activists went to Michael Dukakis' presidential campaign with an offer to raise $1 million for his election effort. The campaign said no, according to the activists. "They turned us down flat because it was gay money," said longtime gay rights advocate David Mixner. Less than a quarter-century later, the gay and lesbian community ranks as one of the most important parts of President Obama's campaign-finance operation.

Colombia's Administrative Security Department, which is comparable to the FBI, announced that it had arrested three Venezuelans, including a congressman and university rector, and was preparing to deport them for engaging in illegal political activity. Congressman Jose Luis Pirela, rector Victor Hugo Merino of Bolivarian University of Venezuela and Rafael Maria Baral, whose job was not disclosed, would be taken to the Venezuelan border by helicopter, the government said in a statement.

Asian-Americans need to do a better job of political organizing to ensure that the 1990s will be "a decade of political empowerment," authors of a heralded public policy report warned Tuesday in a round-table discussion on "The State of Asian Pacific America."

Until the mats, blankets and other comforts of Necessity Village were finally packed up at sunrise Tuesday, Jerome Clark had been sleeping soundly for the first time in years. For the last decade, the 65-year-old homeless man's on-and-off residence has been the Santa Ana Civic Center, usually the lawn. Like others who live on the streets of Orange County's second largest city, Clark said his nights were fitful, sleep always elusive as he worried about being slapped with a ticket for violating the city's no-camping ordinance.

Nancy Crop is a Palo Alto civil rights attorney. Cushon Bell is a Pasadena educational activist and former teacher. Teri Levy is a Los Angeles creative artist in fashion and photography. But even though all three high-powered women are privileged to send their children to excellent public schools, they say they are haunted by the countless California children stuck at low-performing campuses. This weekend, they are giving up free time to train with 100 other parent leaders organizing for more school funding, top-notch teachers and a high-quality education for all students.