What We Can Learn From Edward Roybal — California's First Latino in Congress and a Pioneer in L.A. Latino Politics
When Alex Padilla was sworn in as California's first Latino elected to the U.S. Senate, it evoked memories of Edward R. Roybal, the trailblazing Mexican American politician who broke barriers as California's first Latino representative in Congress since 1879. Padilla even paid a brief tribute to Roybal in La Opinion shortly before he became the first Latino to win a state-wide Congressional election. Eighty years ago, it was California’s newly-created 30th Congressional District that voted for the state’s first Mexican American to the House of Representatives. Roybal would serve his community as a U.S. Congressman for 30 years, yet it was his work as a Los Angeles City Councilman that not only laid the foundation for his national career but also speaks to a number of issues affecting Angelenos today.
In 1947, Edward Roybal ran for Los Angeles City Council's 9th District, a diverse area that encompassed Boyle Heights, Bunker Hill, Civic Center, parts of New Chinatown, Little Tokyo and the Central Avenue district. He lost that first election to the aging incumbent Parley Parker Christensen. Roybal re-grouped and, along with community organizer Fred Ross, channeled his energy into establishing the Community Service Organization (CSO) with Anthony Ríos. As historian Kenneth Burt explained, the CSO was a liberal grassroots organization that "had established ties to organized labor, the Catholic Church, the Jewish community, and to individuals in both Democratic and Progressive parties." With this support, Roybal and the CSO focused heavily on voter registration and citizenship drives. They hosted campaign house parties to address voters' concerns in intimate settings. In two years, the CSO registered 17,000 voters on the Eastside which increased membership in the CSO and interest in Roybal's campaign.
Multi-Ethnic Coalition Building
In his second run for City Council, Roybal focused on issues like civil rights, social justice and ensuring the 9th District had its equal share of city services, according to historian Katherine Underwood. Prior to his political life, Roybal was a member of the Eastside Council for Racial Unity and participated in community events like the 1944 discussion he moderated with Fred Covington, Executive Director of the Urban League, which followed Covington’s lecture "Minorities at the Crossroads." The Committee to Elect Edward Roybal was staffed with hundreds of volunteers of "every ethnicity, age and occupation," to quote Roybal's biographerDr. Frank Javier Garcia Berumen. One of those volunteers was a young Tom Bradley, who would follow in Roybal's pioneering footsteps in building multi-ethnic coalitions. Roybal and the CSO worked with progressive Jewish organizations, unions and businesses that provided critical support to the campaign. The African American newspaper The California Eagle endorsed Roybal and opined, "Edward R. Roybal is a true son of the district. He is the real voice of the working people, and if elected will be the exponent of a better life for the struggling masses."
Roybal won that second election and became the first Latino voted to Los Angeles City Council since 1881. He easily kept that seat for 12 years because he actively worked to address issues facing all his multi-ethnic constituents, such as housing and job discrimination and police brutality. He advocated against the freeway construction that threatened to divide his district. In his book about Boyle Heights, George J. Sánchez noted that during Roybal's first month on City Council, he sponsored a bill to create the Fair Employment Practices Commission "to administer existing but unenforced laws that made it illegal to racially discriminate against employees for firms doing business with the city." Although he couldn't garner enough City Council votes, the effort strengthened his ties with African American and progressive Jewish organizations that contributed to his future political successes. When Roybal ran for U.S. Congress, The California Eagle continued to endorse him:
"Mr. Roybal has waged a long fight in City Council to protect his constituents and to extend their rights. He was the only member of the Council to protest against this year's gerrymander which deprives Negroes of a seat in the Council. No person in California has done more than he to further civil rights. His defeat would be a calamity."The California Eagle endorsement for Edward Roybal
Roybal won his Congressional election and left City Council, but he continued to build on those relationships through his Congressional work. To quote George J. Sánchez, "The growing literature on multiracial California has yet to fully acknowledge the critical role of Edward Roybal in setting the standard for politicians who actively sought to represent a multiracial constituency."
The Importance of Public Health
Before his political career, Roybal worked as the director of health education for the Los Angeles and California Tuberculosis (TB) and Health Association. The death of his younger siblings during the 1918 flu epidemic served as a driving force for his focus on the health and well-being of his Eastside community and then his constituents. As part of his early work in public health, he organized school immunizations, produced public health resources in English and Spanish, and coordinated outreach efforts to Mexican Americans to screen for TB. With his strong public health background, he was made chairman of the Public Health and Welfare Committee shortly after he took his City Council seat in 1949. In this role, he supported research and advocated for vaccinations for diphtheria, flu and polio. As an extension of his focus on public health, he advocated for economic issues as well (like when he voted against electricity rates in 1956). According to his biographer Dr. Frank Javier Garcia Berumen, Roybal learned how "health, economics and political conditions intersected."
As Roybal rose from Councilman to Congressman, he continued to prioritize public health initiatives. In the 1970s, he secured federal funding for a health center in what is now the East Los Angeles Civic Center, renamed the Edward R. Roybal Comprehensive Health Center in 1979. The Center for Disease Control named its main campus in Atlanta in honor of Roybal for his work directing funding for its initiatives, including the organization's first AIDS research in 1982.
Displacement & Housing Discrimination
Housing discrimination was an important issue for Edward Roybal and also a personal one. When the young Councilman and his wife attempted to buy a house in a new development in his 9th District with funds from the GI Bill, the realtor failed to recognize the new civic leader and explained he couldn't sell to Mexicans. As George Sánchez recounted, Roybal then handed the realtor his new business card with his new city title. The realtor tried to correct his mistake but it was too late. The year before, the Supreme Court found these racially restrictive housing covenants unconstitutional in Shelley v. Kraemer, yet this incident illustrated the challenges in enforcing this national decision on the local level. Roybal reported this moment to City Council which garnered headlines in the press. The CSO picketed outside that particular development company until the company negotiated with Roybal and the CSO to end its discriminatory practice.
Roybal prioritized housing, housing discrimination and displacement in his district and beyond. He was one of the few Councilmen who supported rent control in a 1951 vote when the majority of the council voted to block a possible federal rent control law. Roybal was again in the minority when he disagreed with the City Council vote to end federally-supported public housing in Los Angeles. He spoke out publicly against the Community Redevelopment Association efforts to redevelop Bunker Hill that would ultimately displace 7,000 residents. And when the State Highway Commission announced that the Golden State Freeway would bisect his 9th District (and eventually destroy 1,400 homes), Roybal chaired the Anti-Golden State Freeway Committee in September 1953. The committee sent protest letters and mobilized community members to attend public meetings to suggest alternative routes. But it was to no avail as the freeway route through Hollenbeck Park was adopted on June 24, 1954. As Sánchez explained, "On March 7, 1955, Edward Roybal cast the lone dissenting vote when the city council approved the agreement between the City of Los Angeles and the State Highway Commission closing the streets for the constructions of the Golden State Freeway."
The forced removal of families from Chavez Ravine is one of the more widely known stories of displacement in the city's recent history. Disturbing photos and footage of the Arechiga family being carried out by officers followed by bull dozers crushing their home horrified Angelenos. Though Chavez Ravine was outside his district, Roybal protested on their behalf. And while efforts to stop the evictions were ultimately unsuccessful, Roybal's protests against the removal of the Chavez Ravine families struck a chord with Angelenos worried that their neighborhood may suffer the same fate. His papers at UCLA Library's Special Collections are full of notes and letters like this May 1959 telegram:
"Reading to-night about the stand you took for those people who were so roughly dragged from their homes last Friday. What a scene to be on T.V. Screaming children, women yelling and crying. Police carrying a woman down the front steps by the arms and legs to a police car. We all sat here speechless. Free America. Something like this makes you wonder….They all should be so ashamed for such a thing like this to happen in our city. We need more like you Mr. Roybal. Just had to write!"May 1959 telegram to Edward Roybal
Standing Up Against McCarthyism
Roybal's time on the L.A. City Council took place during U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy's grip on the country, when fears of communism ran rampant. When the City Council voted in 1950 to require Communists to register with the police, Roybal was the only councilmember to vote against it. He opined, "The doctrine explicit in this ordinance carried to its logical conclusion places every citizen and every organization whose word or action resembles at any time those of the communists, at the mercy of any biased crackpot who may decide to report the matter to the police department as subversive."
As Sánchez wrote, "the political and personal bravery of that vote cannot be overstated. A crowd of 500 people had jammed the council chambers to hear speaker after speaker rail against supposed community conspirators and witness the vote count. When Roybal left the chambers with his family afterwards, he was mercilessly booed." In a time when anti-communism exerted intense pressure to conform to ideas at odds with the First Amendment, Roybal stood strong against the tide.
Police Brutality
When Roybal ran for City Council in 1949, Roybal campaigned against the police brutality in his district. He was a relatively new City Councilman when news broke about the "Bloody Christmas" that exploded at the Central City jail on Christmas Eve 1951. Fictionalized in the film "L.A. Confidential," "Bloody Christmas" referred to the violent exchange that took place when about 50 officers beat seven young men who'd been arrested earlier that night for fighting with other officers at the Showboat Bar on Riverside Drive. Roybal spoke at the Police Commission hearing, prompting his fellow CSO co-founder Anthony Ríos to publicly thank him for "sticking out his neck" in raising this issue of police brutality in City Council. Five officers were convicted of assault and over 40 officers were punished with temporary suspensions.
In February 1952, Roybal reported to the City Council that he received "complaints of 50 cases of police brutality against citizens in the last three months. "It appears to be a problem not only in my [Eastside] district but prevalent throughout the city," Roybal said to his colleagues in a quote in the Daily News. He demanded "corrective action" from William H. Parker that went unanswered.
Conclusion
These are just a handful of ways Roybal's professional and political work speaks to issues facing many Angelenos today. From housing discrimination and displacement to police brutality and public health, Roybal's years of public service in City Council illustrate the long trajectory of these battles in Los Angeles. Roybal was a Mexican American pioneer, fighting for these issues on a City Council dominated by conservative voices. While his ability to effect significant change as one of the few progressive voices was limited, Roybal still managed to draw media attention (through public protests and hearings) to issues facing the heterogeneous 9th District. In the wise words of historian George J. Sánchez, "The legacy of Edward Roybal's time in the Los Angeles City Council is a blueprint for building multiracial political coalitions anchored by principled political practice as well as a deep desire to adequately represent the needs of all constituents in the district."
Author’s Note: My research for this article was originally undertaken for a possible project at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes. Thank you to the La Plaza team, its former CEO John Echeveste, its advisory committee and curatorial consultant Jessica Hough for all the inspiration about the Councilman and Congressman Edward R. Roybal.
