LOS ANGELES NEW PRIZE IN HISPANIC EMPOWERMENT
BY DANIEL B. WOOD

M ay 19, 2005

LOS ANGELES — The election this week of Antonio Villaraigosa as
mayor of Los Angeles is the latest exclamation point in a story of
Hispanic political empowerment that has been unfolding nationwide
for more than three decades.

Villaraigosa, 52, defeated Mayor James Hahn by an unexpectedly wide
margin, 59 percent to 41 percent, in the nation’s second-largest city.

“I’ve said to people, ‘I’m an American of Mexican descent and I
intend to be a mayor for all Los Angeles,”‘ he said Wednesday. “In
this diverse city, that’s the only way it can work.”

The high-profile ascent of Villaraigosa, a high-school dropout who
once had a “Born to Raise Hell” tattoo, builds on gains by Hispanics
in municipal, county, state, and national governments over the last
25 years.

The new look

Political analysts mark those gains by comparing the political
landscapes of Henry Cisneros, who was elected mayor of San Antonio
in 1981, and that of two U.S. senators, Mel Martinez of Florida and
Ken Salazar of Colorado, elected in 2004.

Between those political bookends, the number of elected Hispanics
has grown 30 percent in the last eight years, from 3,743 in 1996 to
4,853 in 2004.

Latino political gains reflect the nation’s changing ethnic makeup —
and Hispanics’ growing ability to appeal to a range of ethnic groups.
Many such groups of newer immigrants — Koreans, Pacific Islanders,
Armenians, Iranians, Russians, Filipinos — embrace the new Hispanic
politicians because they sense fresh openness to their own struggles,
observers say.

“The new political face of America is looking South and West for its
emerging identity rather than to Eastern Europe as it did in the
country’s first big wave of immigration,” says Antonio Gonzales,
president of the William C . Velasquez Institute, a Latino-based
think tank.

National trend

“Many of the emerging immigrant populations see Hispanics as accessible
and open to them in the way more traditional American politicians
have not been,” he said.

The Hispanic gains also reflect America’s demographic evolution —
and not just in Los Angeles. While the number of Hispanic Americans
has grown nationwide (to 35 million — surpassing African Americans
as the nation’s largest minority) the number of Hispanic voters has
doubled (from 5 million to 10 million) in the last 10 years.

That has brought emerging Latino populations — and politicians — to
states outside the Southwest, including Illinois, which has seen a rise
of 95 percent in the number of statewide elected Hispanic officials.

Christian Science Monitor, with AP contributing

The Sun-Times Company