Óscar Morales is looking forward to retiring to return to Guatemala. He has been in Los Angeles for thirty years and, with his two children now grown up and settled, he is just waiting for the labor courts to agree with him in the lawsuit he has against the high-end car company where he worked until two years ago. The manager fired him "in bad manners" from the position, for him great, which he had held for a decade in customer service.
The letter of termination of the contract came when he was recovering from the work accident he had just suffered at the wheel of a company car, with consequences that still last. "The law says that that man could not kick me out at that time," he maintains while driving the Uber that now feeds him. “But that man – he continues – was a arrogant guy who thought he was someone as soon as he was promoted to boss. A guy who always said that Trump was his president, what a thing. And that dark-haired people were always treated worse than white people. And he knows what? He's not white... or güero or gringo, however he wants to say it! He is the son of Mexicans, but more racist than anyone! ”, He exclaims angrily, although without raising his voice.
Without realizing it or even being able to intuit it, Óscar Morales is touching on an issue of high seismic potential that a few days after our conversation, held on September 30, will explode two weeks later in the political epicenter of the alleged "city of dreams" .
The bombing exploded on Sunday, October 9. That day, the Los Angeles Times published part of the transcript of a conversation surreptitiously recorded a year earlier in which the president of the city council of the metropolis, Nury Martínez, said that the adopted black son of the also progressive mayor Mike Bonin seemed "a little monkey ” or little monkey and “he deserved a beating” for his unruly behavior. Martinez called the Oaxacans and Central Americans who populate the Koreatown neighborhood "short, dark-haired people," "ugly and horrible," "short, dark people." He also picked on Jews and Armenians, also members of the interracial melting pot that is the second largest city in the United States behind New York. And all this Martínez said despite being herself the daughter of Mexican immigrants.
The one that for nine years had been mayor Eric Garcetti's number two was dispatched in this way, against Tyrians and Trojans, in an animated chat with fellow Hispanic councilors Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo, and with the leader of the influential Federation Los Angeles County Labor, Ron Herrera: Three other prominent Democratic leaders. None of them objected to the president's racist speech.
The theme of the meeting was the redesign of the municipal districts, in which the distribution of representatives of the different communities of Los Angeles within the City Council was at stake. Almost half of the city's population is already Latino, but at the time of the conversation Hispanics held four of the 15 seats on the council: less than a quarter. And the black community, who represent less than 10% of the census, has three seats: one-fifth of the total. It was, therefore, and is, a struggle for power between Latinos and blacks. And of a form of racism to which the country is unfortunately not as accustomed as that of whites against blacks.
On Monday, Martínez resigned as president and Herrera as union leader. Dozens of voters called for more on Tuesday: with cries of "Get out, get out!", they forced to interrupt a session of the Consistory. And even Joe Biden joined them: “Everyone has to go. The language that was used and tolerated in that conversation was unacceptable and appalling," said her spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre. On Wednesday, Martínez also left the mayor's seat while De León and Cedillo resisted.
The crisis adds to a succession of corruption scandals at City Hall that have so far cost former Councilman Mitchell Englander and the head of the city's Department of Water and Power, David Wright, jail time. The distrust of citizens in their leaders is maximum. “It seems as if the city is falling apart,” says former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
The situation may affect the mid-term legislative elections on November 8 and, of course, the Los Angeles municipal elections that will face Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass and construction magnate Rick Carusso on the same day.
The political bosses of Los Angeles and all of California, with Democratic Governor Gavin Newson at the head, pride themselves on ruling a friendly territory for those who come from outside; a refuge state for immigrants and other minorities, as well as for women who want to have an abortion and cannot do so in other places as a result of the Supreme Court ruling that annulled the right in general and gave wings to the states that wanted to ban it.
The organizations of the groups concerned believe that the state deserves that title of refuge. But with nuances. “The counterpart to the protection systems in California is a very high cost of living,” says the director of the Refugee Children Center, Mayra Medina-Núñez, who arrived in Los Angeles at the age of 14 as an unaccompanied minor and after graduating from the University of California, turned to social activism to protect immigrants.
“It is true that the state is a sanctuary for certain rights, but nothing is perfect,” confirms the spokeswoman for Latinas for Reproductive Justice, Susy Chávez. “Now we are suffering a serious housing crisis here due to the dramatic increase in rents. And when people are displaced or can't find a home, defending the rest of their rights is very complicated,” she explains.
California is the third largest state in the US, after Alaska and Texas. But also the most populous of all. The fight for territory is measured in the hectares of each electoral district and in the square meters of each house, when you have one. And, in these battles, the struggle can be cruel; without truce or alliances between minorities that were supposed to be united in a common cause. The Californian shelter has cracks.
