Second in a series
Re “Is Cubas the Answer to Election Question in Bare-Shelves South L.A.?”
[img]1899|right|Ms. Cubas||no_popup[/img]Between now and when the polls close on Tuesday evening at 8, don’t let anyone tell you that ethnicity is not the overwhelming factor in the tense runoff to represent the 9th District in South Los Angeles on the City Council.
With a black man squaring off against a Latina, this is a race made for the ‘hood that has gone from 55-45 percent black in the early ’90s to a whopping 75 percent Latin today.
Oh, nearly everyone will deny that race and ethnicity are pivotal. However, they probably would choke in a lie detector test.
Curren Price Jr., the favorite, is the latest in an interminable line of Democratic politicians hoping to successfully negotiate the career roundtrip, from Los Angeles to Sacramento to Los Angeles.
Ana Cubas, the lesser known, offers a splendid contrast, an East Side-trained newcomer who has been eager to joust with tall, dapper Mr. Price all spring, ever since finishing a close runnerup in the seven-cornered March 5 primary election.
Lest anyone diminish her light sprinkling of political seasoning, the far more experienced Mr. Price has not been able to shake her.
Ms. Cubas says they have had numerous debating dates – campaign manager John Hill counts a half-dozen – but Mr. Price only has appeared one time.
She can make President Obama’s rhetoric sound as if he is munching on crunchy marbles.
A native of El Salvador, she has a master’s from Princeton, and when she begins to declaim, her Ivy League credentials cannot be doubted.
Infinitely more disturbing than the debate snub, says Ms. Cubas, is that despite extending interview invitations to all corners of the vaunted black press, every publication has turned her down.
A stunning development in a community that preaches but does not necessarily practice diversity.
Councilman Bernard Parks, the former Police Chief who is her neighbor in the 8th District, has called Ms. Cubas a bridge-builder.
Since the 9th never has been led by a Latina, and since the influential black press has taken a hardline stance, possibly reflecting their readers, Ms. Cubas may have to construct ethnic bridges all of her waking hours.
A pity, say her supporters.
They believe that her fresh eyes will help create pragmatic policies designed to soften the parched district’s howling poverty, which is as ubiquitous as the saddest, most egregious display of graffiti writ large as exists anywhere in Los Angeles.
(To be continued)
