Prototype Issue
Jaime Regalado: The Face of LA Magnified and Redefined
By David Diaz
(page 1 of 2)The maestro of the Pat Brown Institute surveys an LA metropolis that’s both fusing and conflicting like no other. The outcome: “An LA the city fathers and mothers of yore never wanted.”
The Pat Brown Institute is a little regional gem that doesn’t get proper acknowledgment for its influence on public policy or for its actions. Each year the institute hosts speakers series, an annual conference and occasional public policy forums while simultaneously running street-level training programs in gang intervention, domestic abuse and the like. It is one of the few entities that actively incorporates minority analysts in its programming.
Named after the most esteemed governor in California’s past 50 years, the institute has persisted via a unique level of private sector and foundation support, with most major programs funded by regional corporate interests. This is notable given the social justice context of the institute’s presentations and its no-holds-barred selection of panelists and subjects. Its success tells a lot about the pockets of social responsibility in the local business community.
Jaime Regalado, executive director for 15 years, grew up in East LA during a period when the Chicano Student Movement of the ’60s was vigorously challenging the state in the streets, cruising Whittier Blvd. was still a weekend event and the Eastside community, while predominately Chicana/o, was in fact multiethnic, with whites, Asians and blacks in schools and neighborhoods. He taught political science at Cal State LA for 13 years before taking the institute helm.
Regalado is a keen observer of the political, social and cultural transformations of the region and the state and has an enormous range of friends and contacts. One of the people in the region most knowledgeable about the real LA County, he offers blunt opinions on several subjects.
What is happening here in LA County and in the West San Gabriel Valley in terms of cultural realities? Latino growth has been very formidable in the West San Gabriel Valley over the last two decades, so has Asian growth. Asian growth, basically starting in the late ’70s, has even outpaced Latino growth. These two populations have either become majorities or near majorities in formerly almost all-white cities, whether it’s Rosemead, El Monte or Alhambra or Monterey Park, even stretching into Arcadia and San Marino.
How is this reshaping LA? Increasingly, what used to be the suburbs is now what we call “the city.” You’re getting dynamic growth of working-class populations, primarily of color. It’s becoming a Los Angeles that the city fathers and city mothers of yore never wanted. We’re [also] seeing more elected officials of different ethnic, biracial backgrounds.
There is also some conflict between Asians and Latinos in areas in East LA like Lincoln Heights, where affordable housing struggles are emerging between two working class ethnic communities. When you have conflicts among the poor, it usually is over housing or access issues. Sometimes it’s jobs, sometimes transportation arteries, where friction occurs. Language differences are pretty severe, especially around jobs and school access. Competition within schools sometimes becomes a problem, especially among Asians and Latinos.
Anytime you have employers who look for cheap labor, there’s going to be conflict. Los Angeles has become a haven for increasing numbers of cheap [workers] primarily of color, Asian and Latino immigrants. Sometimes that bodes well for political organizing, maybe in some cases for labor organizing, but it’s going to create problems.
What are some of the best aspects of this changing cultural landscape in terms of food, music, film, cultural events, people? It’s enriched all of our lifestyles. Los Angeles is a very cosmopolitan world city. You have different strains of ethnic, religious, racial groups who create the richness of various strains of music and various fusions in the food. It would be great to see that mirrored in formal and informal associations that have some clout. This laboratory that we call Los Angeles is fascinating and it’s only going to grow from here.
A generation ago, political and economic elites were very resistant to a lot of the multiethnic changes that are now real. What’s happened to that? There’s been a recognition by many from formerly resistant families that this is a changed world. That the influx of workers needed in LA and other urban regions around the country are not going to exactly look like them. But there are still those who resist and feel this is not a good thing. They remember, perhaps, the ’50s, the ’60s and part of the ’70s as being a golden era when we could actually look at LA as a very, very segregated place. Workers of color had their sections of town. Those who held and wielded power had their section of town, and it was a much easier place for them to understand.
To be an effective employer today, and especially if you’re an elected official, you have to come to terms with Los Angeles not being the place it was that you and I grew up in the ’50s and early part of the ’60s. It’s a far different place. The world is a different place and LA is definitely part of that world.
Antonio Villaraigosa’s election as mayor is certainly a major event in LA politics. What’s your opinion of his performance to date? For the most part it’s good for the city. He is an energetic leader who has the confidence of the voting public. He is a pragmatic progressive, with a small “P.” He cannot lean too far to the left, as in the past—he has to be concerned about future political ambitions.
I would rate the beginning of his term as fine. As mayor he has credibility, partially as a salve for what ails Angelenos, in relation to the region’s ethnic and racial groups, although he has not been totally successful in this regard. He projects a picture of hope and energy in addressing a number of issues. In relation to the K-12 fight with the Board of Education, the issue was larger and more contentious than he could have foreseen. Even if he fails, the public will give him a thumbs-up for taking on the challenge.
Has running the Institute changed your perspective, your social vision? It had to. It’s been a dose of realism here for me personally. I come up out of a left-Marxist tradition as a political scientist. Corporations were the enemy and anybody in the corporations or the business sector was the enemy. I’ve become more pragmatic because I realize that I couldn’t be a flaming person on the left with my scholarship or in the way that I taught classes. I had to have a more reasoned approach. I also got some understanding of where the other sectors come from.
Aside from Pat Brown, what individuals had a strong influence on your social and cultural perspective? I have to go back to critical minds who influenced a lot us during the ’60s and ’70s, when my sense of social justice and economic values were instilled. Also, some of the more responsible people I’ve met from the business sector. That’s probably what turned out to be a real surprise for me—that there were people in business, in the corporate sector, who did have social values. Sometimes I could see them grimace at the things their corporations or industries would be doing. The fact that they were there and they were trying to fight the good fight is meaningful. People like Frank Quevedo from Southern California Edison.
In your youth, what were some of your major cultural influences? Rock ’n’ roll and all that. Hey, I’m a Boyle Heights kid. Also, biracial, multiethnic coalitions were always an easy thing to see because I grew up in Boyle Heights. My earliest memories were being around Japanese American neighbors, Irish neighbors—people have a hard time believing there were Irish in LA at one time. African Americans down the block, Jews and many forms of Latinos, but primarily Mexican Americans.
I went to Montebello High School. Again, a very multiethnic social environment that I took for granted. I always interacted in a bicultural, bi-ethnic social surrounding that included personal family friends on the eastside and adults who were my mentors. It’s a history of LA most people don’t understand about Latinos from the eastside—we did grow up in a multiethnic universe. It wasn’t until we left [the eastside] that we really started to find a different fundamental way [out in the world].
I found this out in the Navy. I was in the Navy for two years active duty on an aircraft carrier. My last year was ’65, when the Vietnam War took off. Two things became critical to the mindset I developed and took with me, pretty much to today. One was seeing the naked face of racism in the armed services. You could cut it with a knife. I really hadn’t experienced that until I left the safety of my neighborhood.
The other thing that really stayed with me and was fundamental to my outlook of life was the Vietnam War. The carrier I was on was engaged in the war in the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China Seas. I believed what I was told by the captain of the ship, that we had to be here; we’re killing communists because they were bad people. And [he said] Asians didn’t act like the majority of us. Things that were absolute falsehoods but young people like me who had not had a chance to learn from the world, didn’t know better. Very damaging, very damaging.
‘We’re in a lot of trouble here, not only because we’re the left coast. There’s so much red out there. …Increasingly there has been the feeling here in LA with respect to national politics, that we’re kind of an island unto ourselves." —Jaime Regalado
Do you still encounter resistance to who you are or to what you’re trying to achieve? It’s a different universe, but it’s not completely different. Sometimes my first and last names prevent me from getting in the door, as it does at a certain club in town. “Jaime Regalado” might, to some, sound like straight off the streets of Oaxaca. Racism has become more marginalized, but it’s here just as strongly in some people who matter just as much as it was 20, 25 years ago.
What’s happening to LA in the context of political economics? We’re in a lot of trouble here, not only because we’re the left coast. There’s so much red out there. Think about how LA was throughout its history. I’m talking about LA City and LA County. Hardly the stuff of liberals, much less progressive. Now we’re finding that the urban centers around the country are pretty much voting the same, pretty much have very similar demographic dynamics at work. They lean left, basically. I think it’s great, but increasingly there has been the feeling here in LA with respect to national politics, that we’re kind of an island unto ourselves. And we’re probably going to speed back even more with the drying up of federal funds over the next couple of years, because we’re considered, I’m sure, part of the “enemy” by the Bush administration.
Even though California is a kind of nation unto itself as a state and Southern California drives much of the rest of this great economic boom, we’ve had our own economic problems for years. The loss of an industrial base many years ago, the growth of the service sector. We’re seeing a rapid growth of low-wage and poor workers, even those working full-time in industries that will never pay a lot, even those that are unionized. And, of course, we know that most workers aren’t unionized.
What are the main changes needed for Latinos and other minorities in relation to state political power? First, making sure that they become part of the political process and that includes voting, but it’s not restricted to voting. Second, they work to elect representatives who have community interest. Also, they become part of neighborhood counsels and of regional bodies that can impact decisions being made at other levels of government. And if you’re part of an electoral coalition that is on the winning side, your job is only partially done.
Because you have to consistently remind that person who may now be in office that your issues are alive and well. It’s increasingly difficult to hold the conscience of a policy maker when the trimmings and the trappings are going to be prevalent, and those are primarily trappings of money.
What factors have led Latinas to attain more political power than Latinos in the current political universe? There have been probably different things at work here. Part of that is the women elected earlier to lesser posts. They didn’t bomb; they didn’t cause an armed revolution; they didn’t import a Moscow model of how to govern.
Especially non-Latino voters were seeing that somebody was actually a good representative. I also think that a certain type of militancy coming out of the ’60s and ’70s gave birth to a real feeling among Latinas that they could do it just as well, if not better, than Latinos—or others. So why stop at the church? Why not go for political county representative as well?
Let’s talk about youth and education. Given the nature of the education system and its impact on minorities, given the huge dropout rate, has anything really changed in the past decade? Some things for the worse. Successive budget cuts in higher education, not only under the current governor but under previous governors. Also, a kind of a nonrecognition of the issues, especially with the students who come to inner-city campuses like this one [Cal State LA]. These are the people the society has to help nurture and nourish, and it’s doing less and less of that…and it scares me. The commitment to the master plan of higher education is unraveling as fast as you’re speaking. You’re not getting the kind of researchers you need to prepare people as adequately as they need to be to go out and be successful in their careers, jobs. There’s a pretty high attrition rate at Cal State LA or Cal State Dominguez Hills.
Discussion