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Latino
Victory in L.A. Race is only Semi-Multi-Ethnic
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Pacific News Service, April 12,
2001
The surprising result of the race for mayor of Los Angeles,
with a Latino candidate winning a strong plurality, has been
attributed to a strong multi-ethnic platform. But an examination
of the vote shows at least one troubling hole in the multi
ethnic fabric. PNS Contributor Earl Ofari Hutchinson is the
president of the National Alliance for Positive Action. His
e-mail address is ehutchi344@aol.com.
For six months, mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa has
barnstormed through this city promising to forge a multi-ethnic
coalition that would be a model for racial peace and progress.
Villaraigosa was the man to make this pitch. A former civil
rights and labor activist who calls himself a progressive
Democrat, he could make history by being the first Latino
mayor of America's second biggest city this century.
Villaraigosa's support from Latinos, Asians, and Jews was
strong enough to propel him to a surprising first place finish
in the April 10 primary -- beating the favorite, L.A. City
Attorney, James Hahn, a white centrist Democrat. The race
will be decided in a June 5 run-off election.
While his success seemed to prove his multi-ethnic pitch worked,
it crashed on deaf ears with black voters.
Villaraigosa got less than one in five of the votes cast by
blacks, who voted overwhelmingly for Hahn, helping propel
him into the June run-off.
Political observers assumed that Hahn got the black vote because
of fond memories of his father, Kenny Hahn, an L.A. county
supervisor for nearly four decades and staunch civil rights
fighter.
This explanation is far too simple. Black and Latino leaders
have long papered over tensions and conflicts between the
two groups by putting on the public face of marching in lock-step
to battle the twin afflictions of discrimination and poverty.
But the surge in Latino numbers and voting power may drastically
change this notion, particularly in Los Angeles, where nearly
half the city's three million residents are Latino.
Many Latinos have prospered in the professions and business,
and have deepened their influence within the Democratic and
Republican parties. Latino political leaders and activists
relentlessly demand that political and social issues no longer
be framed solely in black and white.
But poverty rates remain staggeringly high among Latinos,
and they are still heavily concentrated in poor, inner-city
neighborhoods, with underserved, failing public schools.
Inter-ethnic tremors have ignited brawls between black and
Latino students at some area high schools and deadly clashes
between black and Latino prisoners. The biggest and potentially
most troublesome areas of conflict jobs, politics, and education.
Jobs: An early warning sign of how blacks feel about the swelling
numbers of Latinos was the 1994 battle over Proposition 187
which denied public services to undocumented immigrants.
White voters voted for the measure by big margins. But a majority
of blacks also backed the measure, mortally afraid that Latinos
would bump blacks from low-skilled jobs, putting black poor
even further out on the margins, making things worse in their
neighborhoods.
Latino leaders correctly point out that racial discrimination,
lack of job skills, training, and education are the major
cause of high black unemployment. Yet a severe economic downturn
could heighten competition and tensions between blacks and
Latinos for shrinking numbers of low-end jobs.
Politics: Latinos make up about five percent of the vote nationally
and their numbers are growing. But in California, the rise
in Latino political power has been spectacular.
More than two million Latinos voters in the state, and that
number will soar to three million by 2002 Congressional elections.
In Los Angeles, Latinos leaped from eight percent of the voters
in 1993 to 21 percent today.
Some black politicians and leaders openly worry that this
could dilute their political power. Especially in California,
where the state legislature had ten black state representatives
in 1996, and now has only six while Latinos now hold one in
three of the seats in the Legislature, the Lieutenant Governor
post, and eight of California's 52 Congressional seats.
Education: Latino and black students are in the majority in
the nation's big city schools -- schools that are often saddled
with poor teachers, insensitive administrators, overcrowded
classrooms, and shortages of materials.
Some blacks and Latinos blame each other for these conditions,
and for poor student performance. Their blame is misplaced.
Inner-city schools stagnate because of the overfunding of
white middle-class- suburban schools, the underfunding of
poor, urban school districts, the lack of uniform testing
standards, and the refusal of many districts to hold teachers
and administrators accountable for student performance.
Villaraigosa promises that multi-ethnic politics is the best
way to fight urban and racial ills. He's probably right. But
it will take more than a promise to convince many blacks of
that.
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U.S.
- Latin America: Economic Ties
