The future of Latino political power is emerging in the heart of Black Los Angeles

“We can’t be divided,” Wilson said. “This is not the Olympics of oppression. We are both oppressed.”

The district assembly member Reggie Jones Sawyerwho is black, represented South LA for 12 years and the terms come out in December. He said he occasionally heard talk about the need to put a Latino representative in his seat, but that this was not aggressively pursued because he had a strong record of supporting Latino issues — such as bills providing overtime compensation for farmworkers and resources for undocumented immigrants. — that was even better than some Latino lawmakers.

“My vote was very important to the Latino Caucus,” he said. “I think this is what saved me in the 10-plus years I was trying to get re-elected.”

He faced a fight for his political survival in 2020 when Martinez upset him in the top two primaries. Jones-Sawyer said he organized a focus group with the district’s Latino voters, who were more concerned about accessing public services and getting food on the table amid the coronavirus pandemic than about the civil rights protests after George Floyd dominated the political discourse. the time.

“It was like a bolt of lightning,” he said. “Everything we thought was the right thing to do was wrong.”

Jones-Sawyer said he refocused his campaign on food distribution and other direct services, which helped him fend off Martinez in their nasty election campaign.

“That’s what convinced people. Not the racial politics,” he said. ‘I hope we don’t start a war. Because when Latinos and African Americans fight each other over resources in an impoverished area, we both lose.”

Does a multiracial message still resonate with voters?

It was the racist tape scandal — which suggested just such a battle would come to a head in city politics — that led to Elhawary’s Assembly bid.

Elhawary is a longtime youth organizer with the Community Coalition and worked on Bass’ mayoral campaign at the time. She said she felt compelled to speak out “as a Black person who knows this is wrong” and “as someone who understands that Latinos also need to bring our community together.” Her experience comment during a city council meeting on behalf of the Black Los Angeles Young Democrats encouraged her to lead in a different way and a few months later she decided to run for office.

Her campaign has emphasized her biracial identity so strongly in part because Elhawary said it was important to help voters understand her focus on solidarity and social justice. She believes she could play a unique role in the Legislature, providing a Latino voice to build support around Black issues, such as reparations, and vice versa.

“People see every day the ways in which we have been underinvested, underserved, and the very ways in which this particular community has been under-resourced,” she said. “And I think that means people know we’re in this together.”

But her background is also something Elhawary said she always had to justify — including to the voters whose support she now seeks.

In the March primary, Martinez ran an ad calling Elhawary “shady” for using her middle name, Sade, instead of her first name, Zeinab; allies publicly criticized that message because he is trying to “vilify” Elhawary to scare off Latino voters. Another candidate, reparations advocate Tara Perry, campaigned as the “only African American woman” in the race, implying that Elhawary was not black because she was not a descendant of slaves.

“Especially if you can’t be plugged in, you vote based on what you know,” says Elhawary. “For someone like my uncle, who grew up not far from here, he says, ‘Well, I’m going by names. Like anyone who sounds like he’s Latino, I’m voting for him because it feels good.’”

It’s unclear exactly what will sway voters in what will likely be a close race. In the top two primaries, Martinez, whose campaign emphasized public safety, took nearly 33% of the vote, and Elhawary, who advanced unapologetically, won about 31%, with three other candidates splitting the rest.

Martinez did not respond to repeated interview requests from CalMatters.

In conversations with voters, housing emerges as the most important topic. But the campaign has also been swamped in recent weeks millions of dollars in outside expenditures – from unions, trial lawyers and Uber for Elhawary, from oil companies, law enforcement groups and the DaVita dialysis clinic operator for Martinez. A significant portion funds attack ads that target Elhawary for not growing up in the District and Martinez for his connection to a abusive campaign worker.