
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) speaks to Latino community organizers at Mexes Cafe in East L.A.
Latino community organizers, young Latino professionals and interested voters came to meet with Congresswoman and progressive candidate for the U.S. Senate Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) at a café in East L.A.
A group of 20 people gathered at Mexes Cafe for coffee and sweet bread on Sunday to express their support and concerns over local issues affecting the Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles communities.
“If you walk down the streets of Boyle Heights you see the lack of lighting, people living in cars, mariachis living in cars … we are underrepresented,” Elsie Garcia said as she explained why she understands why people in the community feel disenfranchised and don’t want to vote.
Garcia, 32, became involved in volunteering with the Bernie Sanders’ campaign and has continued in grassroots efforts to promote voting in the Boyle Heights area. She runs the instagram account Boyle Heights Vota, which provides a voting guide and other resources for the community to “help engage the community to come out to vote.”
When the congresswoman came into the café, she sat down and heard some of the concerns, including homelessness and affordable housing, sustainability and community organizing.
Yaquelin Perez, 33, thanked the representative for issuing a statement on the war in Gaza and calling for a ceasefire.
“I’m happy to see a U.S. candidate actually visiting our community,” said Genesis Coronado, who is running for California State Assembly District 52. “One of the reasons our community isn’t turning out to vote is because we don’t have campaigns that are investing the necessary resources to engage our voters and our working class families.”
Coronado said she has been a resident of East Los Angeles for 20 years. She asked Rep. Lee about having representation for East Los Angeles, which is an unincorporated area. “We have no representation at the local level, so we have no one advocating for us there. How can we also make sure that going upwards, at congress, state level, we also have someone that is bringing up the needs of communities like East Los Angeles?”
The representative responded that she would look at the federal earmarks that can help unincorporated areas and help get “taxes back to do work in the community.”
When a question came up on homelessness, Rep. Lee said that from her experience as a social worker, if people stay in the street more than 2 weeks, it becomes their home, so that needs to be considered when addressing the issue.
“It’s really hard to afford L.A. and I just want to see things get done, that can be done for people to stay here in their homes,” one of the community organizers told Rep. Lee. The woman did not want to give her name but said she maintains the instagram account L.A. eyes.
Danielle Guillen, 33, helped organize the event because she said Rep. Lee has a record of “non-stop commitment to communities of color.” The third-generation Mexican American said her family comes from Chihuahua.
Rep. Lee said if she was elected as the next California senator, the first bill she would vote to pass would be Medicare for all. She said she believes making healthcare affordable for everyone, including people of color, would be her first priority.
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