Guest Column

Letter to Antonio Villaraigosa

(June 6, 2005 - HispanicVista.com issue)

From Hugo W. Merida

City Hall – Office of the Mayor-elect

City of Los Angeles, CA, USA

Date: sometime after The Mayoral Runoff election 2005

Recordado Antonio:

You are the first Hispanic mayor since Cristobal Aguilar in 1872 was mayor of Los Angeles when the city was with a population of no more than 6.000 souls.  Los Angeles, with its 4 million habitants, saw your obtaining the mayor post   by a bulky electoral margin of 59% against 41% obtained by your rival one. 

You gave an example of political height ness by sending away rumors that labeled you the "Hispanic candidate" by proclaiming you to be the candidate of all the Angelino electorate, expressing “we all are Angelinos, it does not matter where we come from".  This fact enlarges your triumph especially when we recall the sad days lived in Los Angeles more than a decade ago in the most alarming racial disturbances in the history of our country. 

Your victory Antonio, a son of Mexican immigrants, that with sacrifices represents the culmination of your American dream, goes nevertheless beyond superficial fixing.  Is above all the sign of the demographic transformations that the American society will experience in the coming future, where in the year 2050 the Hispanic population will multiply three times the number of the population in US estimated at 420 millions.  It is the sign of an era, where a new generation of Hispanics, leave the universities or the political work in the civil institutions like you, to make their important appearance in the national politic arenas. 

As always, you can count on us, the ones that dare to write you in the name of the 140,000 small Hispanic businesses of this area that earn their living by making tacos, pupusas and platanos fritos.  Let me say again that you sure can count on us, as it was in your bad times, and not as much in your good times.

  This note is not but to remind you that you are not Hispanic only, but American too, and that your historic triumph should not blind your vision as an Angelino and that your administration should be a model for a future multicultural society of this Great City of Los Angeles.

Your friend and fellow citizen

Hugo W. Merida

Of Los Angeles Metropolitan Hispanic Chambers of Commerce

 

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