An Old Activist Resumes the Fight for Latino Rights

For weeks, Mario Obledo waited for someone to step forward and do something about the sign that declared California the “Illegal Immigration State.” But no one did.

The question before Obledo was a tough one: Should an aging civil rights warhorse like himself jump into the fray or should he leave it to the new generation of Latino leaders and civil rights activists?

His dilemma was answered when no one did anything about it. That’s when he decided to dust off the memories of brawls seeking social change of the 1960s and ‘70s and do battle again.

“Somebody had to do it,” Obledo said. “No one else was going to do it, so I picked myself. I vowed to burn or deface the sign.”

To Obledo, who at 66 has a bad back and is fighting health problems including diabetes, the sign was the straw that broke his silence. Obledo said he believed Latinos in the state were under attack with initiatives targeting social services for illegal immigrants, affirmative action and bilingual education.

“He’s been evaluating, looking at what’s happening in the past decade or so,” said Gil Flores, state director for the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, one of the largest civil rights organizations. “Nobody was doing anything. Everybody was sitting back. . . . Latinos don’t have a brown Jesse Jackson who can rally support. There are politicians but they can’t do as much as civil rights leaders like Mario.”

Now Latinos are turning to Obledo, who again is becoming a symbol of activism.

In June, he vowed to burn the billboard near Blythe, Calif. Two weeks ago, he threatened to boycott Taco Bell for its use of the Chihuahua “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” TV commercial because Obledo was offended by the dog’s “Mexican accent,” saying a dog was a negative representative for Spanish-speaking Latinos.

Last week, he sat in a Long Beach courtroom in support of a defendant who was electrically shocked by a bailiff on orders of a judge, and then he drove to Ontario to support Latinos whose float was excluded from a Fourth of July parade.

“I’ve devoted most of my life to civil rights,” Obledo said. “I’m relaxed in my life now, and I can afford to take on these issues.”

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Obledo is president of the Sacramento-based California Coalition of Hispanic Organizations, an umbrella for about 50 Latino advocacy groups. During former Gov. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr.’s administration, Obledo served as secretary of Health and Welfare. He helped found the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and is former chairman of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition.

In January, his years of community work were recognized by President Clinton with a Presidential Medal of Freedom award.

Obledo acknowledged that he did “drop out” of the public limelight in the early 1980s, but the recent rash of initiatives prompted him to say, “Enough is enough.”

“We’re being batted over the head with these initiatives and throughout the state people have been telling me of racial injustices,” Obledo said. “I think it’s a reaction, because [non-Latinos] see our growing political influence and they see us become more active in the state, taking over more institutions. So it’s a matter of fear.”

Obledo is quick to point out that with Latinos now the fastest-growing ethnic group, making up nearly 30% of the state’s population, they soon will become a majority.

“It’s inevitable that Hispanics or Mexican Americans are going to control the institutions of the state of California in the not too distant future,” he said, adding, “If people don’t like that, they can leave.”

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Such provocative statements and Obledo’s willingness to encourage civil disobedience, such as burning a billboard, rub emotions raw with many Californians, including Barbara Coe, president of the Orange County-based group California Coalition for Immigration Reform, which co-sponsored Proposition 187 and put up the billboard.

The sign was eventually taken down by the advertising company out of concern for property damage and community pressure against Burger King and Best Western, which bought advertising space on the flip side of the billboard.

“Obledo called for criminal, terrorist attacks [to the sign] in an effort to deprive Americans of the freedom of speech,” said Coe, who denied that her billboard was racist. “We believe that Americans of Hispanic heritage do not and will not support these terrorists.”

The sign, which was erected near the Arizona border in the desert community of Blythe, was a warning to other states about “the devastation that has occurred in California because of illegal immigration and bilingual education,” Coe said.

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Ben J. Seeley, executive director of the Border Solution Task Force, a San Diego-based group that touts itself as border watchdogs, interpreted Obledo’s actions as “the last gasps of anarchy” from an aging Latino leader.

“Mexican illegals are a nationality,” Seeley said. “Mario just decided to make it a racial issue and it’s not. We need billboards like that all over the place.”

In Blythe, not all Latinos agreed with Obledo. Carmela Garnica, 42, executive director of Escuela de La Raza Unida, a private K-12 school, said she was reluctant to follow Obledo, who lives in Sacramento, because he’s an “outsider.”

“We’re a nonviolent group who believe in the nonviolent beliefs of Cesar Chavez,” Garnica said. “We are not going to be manipulated by outsiders. We have issues here in Blythe that are more important, such as incorporating East Blythe, where raza [Latinos] live, and getting access to social services. Those are our major issues that need to be addressed, not whether Mario Obledo is going to burn down or paint a sign.”

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Obledo conceded that most Latinos were against his burning or defacing a billboard.

“We’re generally a law-abiding community that obeys the law and loves our country,” he said. “But I felt that was an action that needed to be taken under the circumstances.”

As for a threat of a boycott against Irvine-based Taco Bell Corp., Obledo said that if the company polled Latinos and found that fewer than 10% oppose the commercial, he would give up the fight. He has set an Aug. 14 deadline for the company to take its commercial off the air.

Peter Stack, vice president of public relations for the company, said the popular commercial was produced only after the company conducted extensive tests for racial sensitivity with focus groups that included Latinos.

“I would think it’s most appropriate for Mr. Obledo to speak to us directly, and we encourage a direct dialogue with him,” Stack said.

Younger activists such as Arturo Montez, 48, of Santa Ana said he respects Obledo, yet also said activism in the 1990s requires too much time away from full-time jobs and families with bills to pay.

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Few Latinos hold credentials such as Obledo.

He rose from poverty in Texas to earn degrees first in pharmacy and then in law. He ascended to the faculty of Harvard Law School before then-Gov. Brown plucked him from academia for his Cabinet in 1978. Obledo quit the Health secretary’s job in 1982 for an unsuccessful bid for governor. He also was LULAC’s national president from 1983 to 1985.

There are others who privately say that Obledo is a quixotic leader who attacks too many issues. They also question whether an aging old bull can symbolize a community bulging with young families under 30.

“I don’t think he is a Don Quixote in terms of deeds which are unattainable,” said Cruz Reynoso, a longtime friend and former justice of the California Supreme Court. “The sign was an example of his choosing issues that are important, and he’s been able to rally people to those issues. . . .

“To me, Mario has always been a hero.”