L.A. activist has a lot on the ball besides soccer
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Raul Macias, a native of Guadalajara, arrived illegally in Los Angeles in 1976. He washed dishes in Chinatown and became a garment worker. Then, taking advantage of his training as a fabric maker in Mexico, he started his own textile factory. He became an American citizen.
Some who know Raul Macias, 55, say he deserves the title ‘don’ not just as a simple sign of respect, but because of the political clout he built on an unlikely base: the soccer fields of northeast Los Angeles. In the late 1990s he took over a ragtag team of children and wound up creating a league. He scraped for soccer fields, and with every field he got -- like a politician plucking up a district -- his ranks grew. ‘There’s two things that Latinos on a regular basis attend,’ said Miguel Luna, a former Heal the Bay coordinator who joined Macias as environmental program director last year. ‘Church and soccer.’
Read on about Raul Macias here.
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-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City