Judge Finds Anti-Latino History

When a federal judge ruled that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors violated the civil rights of Latinos in drawing district boundaries in 1981, he also found that there had been a “long and painful” history of official discrimination against Latinos.

“The court finds that Hispanic residents in Los Angeles County have suffered and continue to suffer from the lingering effects of discrimination,” U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon wrote in his 131-page decision.

He noted that Latinos in the early part of the century could not use public swimming pools, except the day before the pools were cleaned; in the 1920s Latinos had separate high school graduation ceremonies from Anglos, and into the 1960s Latinos were subjected to English literacy requirements for voting.

An attorney for one of the plaintiffs--the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund--said the effects of past discrimination are reflected today in disparities that exist between Latinos and other groups in such areas as education, employment and housing. The disparities exist in part because of the exclusion of Latinos from the political process, the very thing the lawsuit sought to remedy, said MALDEF lawyer Richard Fajardo.

Kenyon last month ruled that county supervisors divided Latino neighborhoods among three districts, thereby diluting their voting strength in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Latinos account for about one-third of the county’s 8 1/2 million residents. But no Latino has ever served on the powerful five-member county board, which controls a $10-billion budget, larger than that of 42 states.

The county is appealing the ruling. The supervisors have denied that they discriminated against Latinos. And, county attorneys have contended that it was not possible for the supervisors to create a district in which a majority of the voters are Latino, because many Latinos are not citizens or old enough to vote.

The case has been as much a history lesson as a legal and political dispute.

The plaintiffs--the U.S. Justice Department, MALDEF and the American Civil Liberties Union--had to prove that the 1981 redistricting denied Latinos an equal opportunity to participate in the political process.

A history of discrimination is one of the factors that can be used to prove a violation of the voting rights law, the attorneys said. The law was passed in 1965 after anti-black gerrymandering in the Deep South.

An amendment to the Voting Rights Act allowed courts to consider “the extent to which members of the minority group bear the effects of discrimination in such areas as education, employment and health, which hinder their ability to participate effectively in the political process.”

Plaintiffs’ attorneys Fajardo and Mark Rosenbaum of the ACLU said the history of discrimination also showed that the 1981 redistricting was not made in a vacuum.

After filing suit in 1988, the plaintiffs hired three history professors: Albert Camarillo of Stanford University, Ricardo Romo of the University of Texas at Austin and Morgan Kousser of Caltech.

Camarillo and Romo pored through books, newspaper clippings and county documents to gather examples of discrimination dating back to 1848, when California came under U.S. control.

Kousser submitted to Kenyon a 95-page report examining county redistrictings dating to the 1950s. Kousser concluded that, as the Latino population exploded east of downtown during the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, the 3rd Supervisorial District--now represented by Ed Edelman--moved in “almost completely the opposite direction” into the Anglo suburbs.

Looking at the changes that occurred in Third District boundaries “in the context of . . . where Hispanics lived and moved to during that period of time,” Kenyon concluded, “the pattern is persuasive evidence that the lines were drawn and maintained with a racially discriminatory design.”

Camarillo and Romo, meanwhile, focused on the history of discrimination against Latinos.

“One of the intriguing myths about Western American history supports the notion that California had an exemplary record of tolerance toward its racial minorities,” said Romo, author of “East Los Angeles: A City Within a City.”

“In reality, the income gap between poor blacks and Hispanics (compared to Anglos) is as wide in Southern California as it is for these minorities in other Southwestern states,” Romo said. “The proportion of Hispanic elected officials in California is low when compared to Texas and New Mexico.”

Examples of discrimination presented during the trial ranged from lynchings of Mexican-Americans during the late 19th Century to restrictions in land deeds that barred the rental or sale of property to Latinos and the Zoot Suit riots, in which Anglo servicemen assaulted Latino youths during World War II.

Kenyon also cited the “repatriation” of 200,000 to 300,000 Mexican-Americans to their “country of origin” during and after the Great Depression. In the 1980s, Kenyon noted, the Board of Supervisors voted to stop providing election materials in Spanish.

Figures provided by the U.S. Department of Justice showed Latinos lagging in average years of school completed and annual income compared to Anglos. But county lawyers argued that the disparities were not the result of official action by the supervisors.

In the end, Kenyon ruled that 1981 redistricting plan did violate the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment and ordered new districts lines to be drawn.