Voting Power Up for Grabs : Latinos are split between Richard Riordan and Mike Woo, and most are undecided. They face obstacles to exercising their political muscle.

As the race for mayor of Los Angeles enters the stretch, both the Riordan and Woo camps are placing more emphasis on the heterogeneous San Fernando Valley, where about one-half of the city’s voters reside. It is conventional wisdom that the election could be decided in the Valley.

Although Latinos number 31% of the Valley population, they face major obstacles to the exercise of political power commensurate with their population. They are also divided over how to advance their interests.

Who are these Latinos anyway? While most are working-class folks, many are professionals and small-business people. They have scattered over the huge region far beyond the original areas of Sylmar, San Fernando and Pacoima.

Although most middle-class Latinos assimilate, about half of the Valley Latinos can’t because they are not yet citizens. They cannot vote, and they live in an underground society. The core areas are flooded with undocumented immigrants or green-carders on the way to citizenship.

The U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that green-carders in Los Angeles number between 500,000 and 700,000. Now, several years after the immigration reform act of 1986, they are eligible for citizenship. Their applications have swamped federal agencies so that a two- or three-month process is taking almost a year. New Americans are reliable voters, and this holds for Latinos as well.

Another vital statistic politicians take into account is that about 65% of the kids in L. A. public schools have Spanish surnames. Each year another graduating class reaches voting age, and many of them will join the ranks of voters during a period of economic recession that could drag on.

I don’t see anything on the horizon to change these demographic trends. This is so in spite of the general concerns over immigration, and a stream of 22 bills making the rounds in Sacramento designed to make California less attractive to immigrants.

Mayoral candidate Tom Houston, a former deputy mayor for Tom Bradley, staked his campaign (and $102,000) on a platform denouncing illegal immigration and related problems, calling for drastic action to stop it. Yet Houston got fewer than 1% of the votes and pulled me down with him.

It seems that while folks opposed illegal immigration generally, they were not willing to make their choice on that issue alone.

When it comes to immigration, you might as well tell the tide to turn around, for until conditions in Mexico make living there more attractive, Mexicans seeking opportunity will come here because Americans will hire them.

The composition of the Los Angeles electorate will be greatly altered by new Latinos joining its ranks before our new mayor runs for reelection.

However, selecting him will be done by those already qualified to vote.

The soundings I have made lead me to conclude that Valley Latino votes are up for grabs. Latino voters, most of whom are Mexican-Americans, are split between Riordan and Woo, and most are undecided. Many like Woo’s Democratic Party association, but others like Riordan’s Catholicism and his longstanding support of education and their church.

A vote in Pacoima is worth a vote in Woodland Hills, and in a sense it may be worth more. Last-minute decisions by the “undecideds� can decide elections.

Valley Latinos feel alienated by city agencies and even their own leaders. Valley Latino civic and political groups have dissipated much of their energy or have been weakened by dispersal as a result of professional success, assimilation and geographic mobility.

Regional and national Latino groups have been largely indifferent to Valley Latinos due to a fixation with the East Side.

The Democratic Party, which claims to care, has a shabby record for helping Latinos, which accounts for a trend in recent years to support for Republicans. Furthermore, Mexican-American groups like the Mexican American Political Assn. have lost credibility and membership.

At the same time, most leader-forming groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens, the G. I. Forum, the National Assn. of Latin Elected Officials, the National Council of La Raza, the Latin Business Assn., the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and others simply took a walk during this historic primary.

The rise of delinquency among Valley Latino youth is a symptom of this alienation and desperation. These emotions are often turned against our own.

Latino voters are on their own for now, but look for new leaders and defenders of their rights.

As I took my turn carrying Cesar Chavez’s coffin along that long procession in Delano, I wondered quo vadis , Latinos?

For a few more years, due to the presence of so many immigrants and a divided leadership, the Latino population will continue splintered. Thus City Council candidate Lyle Hall could maintain an edge over the younger Richard Alarcon in the new Valley district carved out to enhance Latino representation in City Hall. It’s an open question whether those who claim to support Latino representation will demonstrate sincerity.

As Richard Guerrero, a Valley grass-roots fellow, put it to me, the mayoral candidate who supports Alarcon could go far to capture the Latino votes in the San Fernando Valley, to which I would add citywide as well.

Latino Voting in the Valley

Citizen voting-age population, 1990

Latinos: 80,661

Latinos: 16%

(For City Council Districts 2, 3, 7 and 12, which are entirely in the San Fernando Valley.)

Actual 1993 impact

Valley voters in April 20 city election

Latinos: 14,700 (estimated)

Latinos: 7%

Sources: Pactech Data and Research, Times exit poll, April 20, 1993