Gil Zedillo: Why didn’t I resign?

For most people, drawing constituency lines from census data is as boring as watching paint dry on a wall. However, in Los Angeles, a conversation on the subject, illegally recorded over a year ago, caused a political storm.

In the recording, then-City Council President Nuri Martinez, Councilman Kevin de Leon, County Federation of Labor Director Ron Herrera, and I—all Hispanics—were candid about how neighborhoods based on the 2020 Census can better reflect the ethnic balance of the city.

The talk was about the disparity that exists as Hispanics make up half of the city’s population but only hold four of the 15 Council seats. They then commented on the support that some councilors could provide to get more Hispanic representation, and that councilors might see as a disadvantage to other communities, especially African-American counties.

I refused to resign before the end of my term. I did nothing to justify leaving early. All my life I have worked as a tireless advocate for the voiceless, regardless of their ethnicity.”

Balancing the interests of both communities, African Americans and Hispanics, has always been difficult, but it’s a skill I’ve developed as a local LA 660 Workers’ Union leader.

The voices of both African Americans and Hispanics have historically been ignored and hushed up, and this issue can easily escalate the situation. Conversations can escalate openly when people think they are talking in private, as they did that day. No one denies that at some points the conversation went too far, and I regret not intervening when that happened.

What was overlooked in the furor of the statements was that we were doing our job: overseeing the census-based redistricting under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Ethnicity and income level are important factors in building relatively balanced electoral maps, and we wanted to make sure that Hispanics and all communities were fairly represented.

This mission has been especially challenging this cycle because former President Trump and his lackeys deliberately intimidated immigrants into not filling out their census forms. My neighborhood has “lost” untold thousands of residents, yet no one in the media has condemned this crime against our Hispanic communities.

After this conversation, a process of redistribution of districts took place and new districts were created. Have we Hispanics received a fair share of representation based on a percentage of our population? Of course not! Census data shows that the Hispanic and Asian population has increased more than the African American population, with the same city growth rate of 3%.

There were proposals to create a new map with six Hispanic and one African American districts (two less than before), but my colleagues and I tended to keep the number of seats for African Americans above the percentage of the city’s population. We support our African American colleagues in the June elections for these polling places. We had a vision for Hispanics to win more seats in future elections and that would be a win for the entire city of Los Angeles.

Soon after the scandalous audio snippets were made public, voices across the country were calling for us. Nuri Martinez resigned from the Council and Ron Herrera resigned from the Workers’ Federation. Kevin De Leon has two more years in office and is ready to serve them.

There were proposals to create a new map with six Hispanic neighborhoods and one African American (two less than before), but my colleagues and I were inclined to ensure that the number of seats for African Americans remained above the percentage of the city’s population.

I refused to resign before the end of my term. I did nothing to justify leaving early. All my life I have worked as a tireless champion of the voiceless, regardless of ethnicity.

My family has Tarahumara roots in the Mexican states of Durango, Chihuahua and Sonora. My parents were born in Barstow, and my siblings and I grew up in East Los Angeles. Postwar Boyle Heights was a multiethnic community in which Hispanic, African American, Japanese, Chinese, Jewish, Italian, and Armenian families respected each other.

I have had African American friends and mentors all my life, in sports, in school and in politics. I am forever grateful to Dr. Winston Doby for guidance from UCLA.

In the 1970s, I was active in the Center for Autonomous Social Action (CASA), a community group founded by American labor giant Bert Corona. This organization fought primarily for immigration reform and other Latin American causes, but we also fought for African American causes, such as the Soledad brothers, Nelson Mandela, and Jesse Jackson’s first presidential campaign.

I worked for Mayor Tom Bradley in 1980, I was a delegate for Jesse Jackson in 1988 and for Barack Obama in 2008 to the Democratic National Convention.

In the 1990s, I ran the Los Angeles County workers’ union, Local 660, which had 40,000 workers, including African Americans, more than any other union in Los Angeles. When county leaders planned to close General Hospital and Martin Luther King Hospital, we fought to keep them open and serve African Americans and Hispanics. This double victory was an important milestone for a successful labor movement and for the unity of both communities.

I publicly apologized for my silence in that shameful leaked conversation, not looking at who said what in that room. But to give up and ignore my social, work and political trajectory? No, this is not acceptable.

In this case, the media is exaggerating compared to how they cover other racial conversations. For example, a week before news of a leaked more than a year old conversation, then-mayor candidate Karen Bass made inappropriate comments during a debate but apologized and the public, including myself, accepted her explanation.

And in San Francisco, Mayor London Breed, also black, has a long history of casual comments about Hispanics and Asians. But it is obvious that the interpretation in public opinion is very different from the one given to us.

The zeal of my detractors is not a sign of the racial justice movement. It is a question of criticism for the sake of criticism. Comedian Trevor Noah recently defended singer-songwriter Lizzo, who used the term “crazy” in a song, and when told the term was offensive to people with disabilities, re-recorded the song with new lyrics. However, his critics did not like it.

“We live in a world,” Noah said, “where people go through life as the most godly or the most righteous people. They go so far as to make language nuanced and contextless and claim that people have some intention even if they don’t.”

In answering all my detractors who ask me to “do the right thing”, I say straight out that it is right NOT to leave.

Elections are held to decide who will hold public office. We also have courts that decide whether to remove an official. However, no one believes that I have broken any law. On the other hand, there is no doubt that it is illegal to record someone without their consent. An investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department will determine who the real perpetrators are.

Until then, I will never turn my back on the communities I represented or the people I fought for. This modern version of McCarthyism is a danger to democracy. But this Boyle Heights boy who became a man and a leader fighting for his community never gave up.