Recall Vote Seen as Birth of a Movement

The stunning ouster of four Anglo members of the Bell Gardens City Council by a group of Latinos--many of whom had never seen the inside of City Hall until last year--was heralded Wednesday as the start of a new political movement.

Latino leaders countywide said they plan to launch massive voter registration drives early next year in Bell Gardens as well as in Bell, Maywood, Cudahy and South Gate. All five cities have Latino populations that exceed 80%, but their political leaders are overwhelmingly Anglo.

“There is no going back now,” said Rudy Garcia, a director of the southeast-area League of United Latin American Citizens. “These changes had to happen. They might happen tomorrow, they might happen next month. In Bell Gardens, it happened Tuesday.”

About 60 recall supporters gathered Wednesday in front of Bell Gardens City Hall to celebrate the ouster of Mayor Robert Cunningham and council members Allen Shelby, Letha Viles and Douglas O’Leary, who were accused of trampling on the rights of Latinos in the tiny blue-collar town nine miles southeast of Los Angeles.

State Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) and other leaders predicted that history would record the recall as a pivotal step in the Latino civil rights movement.

“Like the rain from the sky that cleaned up the street, the people of Bell Gardens have cleaned out the city,” Torres said.

Latino leaders say that in southeast Los Angeles County only 45% of the Latinos are registered to vote. Voter registration drives in these cities will ensure that what was started in Bell Gardens does not fizzle, said Julian Nava, a founding member of News of America, an organization dedicated to the political and economic empowerment of Mexican-Americans.

“It’s like a brush fire,” Nava said. “I keep reminding folks that the overwhelming majority of Hispanics can’t yet vote; however, their children will be able to vote within four to six years and that will have a profound effect, even on a megalopolis like L.A.”

A major challenge facing these leaders is the fact that Latinos historically have voted in lower percentages than Anglos. That makes it difficult to grab political power even in communities with large Latino populations.

On Wednesday, some questioned whether the Latino activists can register the voters, field the candidates, hold the momentum and avoid the infighting that can come with defining new leaders.

Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Democrat whose district includes Bell Gardens, dismissed the recall as an “isolated incident.”

“They have managed to recall a City Council, but the real tests are still to come,” Martinez said. “The proof is in who finally gets elected and who holds on to their seat.”

The Bell Gardens recall movement began in a town where nearly nine of 10 residents are Latinos living at the poverty level. Few people thought it would succeed. Latinos in Bell Gardens, like those in much of the southeastern part of the county, were not involved in city politics.

An unknown number of residents are illegal immigrants and many of the legal ones have never become citizens. But when the City Council last year approved a zoning plan to limit the number of homes, anger and fear grabbed the Latino community and brought it to its feet.

In the months that followed, more than 1,000 residents were registered to vote and dozens of citizenship classes were held. Recall drive members began studying civics, and nearly every weekend they were out walking the neighborhoods, urging residents to get involved.

“This was different from what we’ve seen before,” said Arturo Vargas, a ranking official with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “This wasn’t lawyers from the Justice Department or MALDEF suing, like we did in Watsonville or against the city of Los Angeles. . . . What’s exciting is that this was at the grass-roots level where people decide they have to take responsibility.”

Nava suggested that the Bell Gardens experience could be replicated in other cities across the southwestern United States but by using the normal electoral process rather than recalls.

The next step in expanding Latino power in Los Angeles County, he said, is to focus on medium-sized cities such as Montebello and Whittier that have large middle-class populations of Latinos.

“The school boards and the city councils in medium-sized cities are now increasingly Hispanic, so now, after Bell Gardens, it will be just like (the) flip of a switch,” Nava said. “It will be easier for Hispanic communities in medium-sized cities to say ‘If Bell Gardens did it, why can’t we?’ Once you can see that you can do it on your own, an irrepressible force has been turned loose.”