Michele Siqueiros, a civic leader who is the president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, said the leaders “in their narrow ignorance” were focusing on South Los Angeles, where Black leadership has supported Black and brown coalitions and leaders.
You’re just going to create poor Latino districts with nothing?” "If you’re going to talk about Latino districts, what kind of districts are you trying to create?” she asks her colleagues in frustration. In the recording, Martinez complains about the redistricting commission's proposal to remove assets from her district. “It just goes to show how there is a difference between the interest of the community and the interest of incumbents.” “But that came at the expense of making significant changes to existing Latino majority districts in the San Fernando Valley, to which at least one incumbent there did not take well to,” Vargas said. The council members also mocked the Community Coalition, known as CoCo, which works to upend systematic racism and improve relations between Black and Latino people in South Los Angeles. He and others expressed fear that the leaders' words could sever fragile relationships crafted between racial and ethnic groups, particularly Blacks and Latinos, in the city. Latino growth in Los Angeles, as in other cities, has occurred in areas where Black populations dominated but have declined, setting up competitions between groups for political representation.Īfter decades of navigating and negotiating competing interests, “to say that everything has been a bushel of roses is not being honest, because there has been, in fact, competition between the communities for representation, for resources or the ability to have influence on public policy,” said Arturo Vargas, the executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, which called for Martinez’s resignation.īut elected officials’ behavior and actions should not be used to define the relationship between communities, Vargas said.
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