Mixed Race Studies

Garcetti, New Los Angeles Mayor, Reflects Changing City

The New York Times
2013-10-07

Jennifer Medina

LOS ANGELES — He is Jewish. He is Latino. He can break dance and play jazz piano. He speaks nearly impeccable Spanish. He has talked longingly about growing his own vegetables and maybe even raising his own chickens. He lives on this city’s hip east side.

Three months into office, Mayor Eric Garcetti seems to embody a host of ethnic, ideological and cultural strains that are transforming Los Angeles. At the same time, he is avoiding any temptation of red carpet glamour here, a striking change from his predecessor, Antonio Villaraigosa, who came in as mayor riding a powerful wave of popularity but left with decidedly less regard.

“In some ways everything I have done has prepared me for this job,” Mr. Garcetti said recently in his still mostly barren City Hall office, which he plans to decorate with local historical memorabilia. “Governing Los Angeles is all about cultural literacy — nobody can be completely literate across the board here, but if you don’t have some understanding of many of those cultures, you will be left behind.”…

…But while many of the city’s most powerful Latino politicians, including Mr. Villaraigosa, were raised in such immigrant enclaves, Mr. Garcetti grew up in the well-heeled San Fernando Valley. Early in the campaign, he faced pointed comments from other elected officials, including the speaker of the State Assembly, that questioned his Latino credentials. Even now, without the pressure of campaigning, he is not given to wax philosophical about his identity. “There was all this craziness about, ‘What are you?’ ” he said. “I am what I am, as Popeye would say. I think we are all tired of that conversation.”…

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I’m a kosher burrito, says new mixed-race LA mayor

The Jewish Chronicle Online
London, England
2013-05-30

Tom Tugend

Eric Garcetti, the first Jewish mayor elected by Los Angeles voters, jokingly refers to himself as a “kosher burrito”, the latter word referring to a popular Mexican dish.

The son of a Jewish mother and a father of Mexican and Italian descent, the hip, good-looking Garcetti, 42, was a popular figure at Oxford’s L’Chaim Society when he attended the university as a Rhodes Scholar between 1993 and 1995.

LA, incorporated as a municipality in 1850, has had Mexican-American, African-American and lots of Anglo mayors, but in this year’s race the top three contenders all had strong Jewish ties…

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Eric Garcetti invokes Latino-Jewish ancestry in mayor’s race

The Los Angeles Times
2013-01-02

Michael Finnegan

Working a recent breakfast gathering of business owners in Northridge, Los Angeles mayoral contender Eric Garcetti introduced himself in Hindi when a Sikh businessman approached.

A few hours later, Garcetti donned a colorful Peruvian headpiece with ear flaps as he spoke Spanish with immigrants on the steps of City Hall, part of a show of solidarity for designating a stretch of Hollywood’s Vine Street as “Peru Village.”

After lunch, Garcetti joined rabbis at a City Hall menorah lighting. Wearing a yarmulke, the Hollywood-area councilman sang Hanukkah songs in Hebrew, English and Spanish. “Toda la familia,” Garcetti said as the group huddled for a photo.

A top contender to succeed Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Garcetti prides himself on his ease with the city’s diverse cultures. He sees his mixed ancestry (“I have an Italian last name, and I’m half Mexican and half Jewish,” he says) as a powerful part of his appeal in a city where voters for decades have split along racial and ethnic lines in mayoral elections…

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