Mexican American candidate running for LA Council said he wants to represent working-class people regardless of immigration status

With almost 20 years of experience behind the scenes of successful political campaigns, Mexican American Jose Ugarte is throwing his hat in the ring to become the next Los Angeles city councilmember. 

He is no stranger to the work that needs to be done in the district where he lives, CD9, and where he once worked as communications director for current Councilman Curren Price Jr. whose term expires this year.

CD9 includes Historic South Central, South Park, South Figueroa corridor, South Los Angeles, Central Alameda and Vermont Square. It has a population of about 300,000 residents with 80% of them Latino and a significant number of undocumented people.

Ugarte is widely known for running campaigns for elected officials and propositions at the local, state and national level as well as working with labor unions and other organizations. 

Throughout the years Ugarte has learned that advocacy creates change. That’s why he advocates for the candidates and propositions that he believes in. 

“I only did pro-union, pro-immigrant Democrats [campaigns],” he said. “I’ve never worked for someone that isn’t supported by unions or by immigrant organizations, so that’s a no-brainer for me.”

Ugarte said he’s always on the side of the hard-working people including immigrants, regardless of immigration status, as he knows the struggle first hand. 

He migrated from Oaxaca, Mexico as an undocumented child at the age of four with his parents. When he was seven, his mother took him to a protest against Prop 187 in Downtown L.A., where he saw for the first time the power in numbers.

While he didn't really understand what was going on, he knew people were angry and they were protesting against something that was going on. That massive movement stayed in his mind.

At the age of 17 he learned he was undocumented, and it was just before he turned 18 that his father was granted residency and Ugarte became a U.S. citizen. 

His priorities as a councilman

HIs own life experience has made it his number one reason to run for office, Ugarte said. He sees it every day with people who live in the same district and work hard to overcome everyday struggles. CD9 is one of the poorest districts in Los Angeles.

“Even though I’m a citizen, even though I have my paperwork in order and I can be a candidate, I still remember my parents being afraid of la migra,” he said. “I’m always going to remember where I came from, that’s the most important to me.” 

Under his pro-immigration plan, Ugarte wants to make sure Los Angeles strengthens its status as a sanctuary status. This includes getting enough funding for a legal defense fund to help pay for legal fees for people who get detained by ICE. He wants to make sure LAPD doesn’t collaborate with federal immigration officers and he plans to update the Special Order 40 – implemented in 1979 – which prohibits officers from questioning people solely to determine their immigration status.  

On affordable housing, while CD9 has been the only district considered as being most affordable for renters  rents and also one of the poorest, Ugarte says he wants to keep rents low in the area by avoiding luxury housing. 

“For the last 13 years we’ve kept it pretty sustainable. If you go to Boyle Heights (CD14), [rents have]  probably doubled, if you go to Echo Park (CD13), [they’ve] probably tripled, but in South L.A. it stayed pretty good, especially CD9,” he said. “Eventually we want to be wealthier but we can’t just displace people.”

While housing prices have stayed low there is the vital  issue of transportation and parking in the area that Ugarte also plans to address. He admits the city doesn’t have a reliable transportation system and some areas of CD9 are pretty far from a Metro line. 

“I want to build a train system down Slauson from the City of Maywood, [from the] L.A. River all the way to Venice Beach. It’s across our entire district,” he said. 

He said he also plans to address the issues he has heard during his campaign trail from concerned residents, including public safety, the quality of life, cleaner streets, repairing potholes, tree trimming and issues dealing with homelessness.

Ugarte said in CD9 there are 100,000 registered voters; however, less than 20,000 vote. Among the reasons he has heard is that voters don’t have time to get to the polls, they don’t know the candidates or they think their vote doesn’t matter. 

“Or they think, ‘I don’t have any representatives that speak my language, that look like me,’ especially in South L.A.,” he said

He also thinks about the younger generations who are unaware of the election process and he said it is paramount to get to them online not only through basic social media pages but also through communications apps like Signal, Discord and Steam Chat. 

“[Younger people] are very visual, they want to see a video of 15 to 30 seconds, saying what you do and what you want to do, and if you captivate them, then they’ll read your profile,” he said. 

Making his family proud

Ugarte said his parents are proud of his work and while he is very busy, he also enjoys spending time with his wife and his three-year-old. He also enjoys playing basketball with friends and volunteering time with local organizations. He sponsors events, especially if they are from Oaxaca, his birth place, of which he’s very proud.

Ugarte has raised over half a million dollars in donations and he’s running against five other candidates.