In Southeast Los Angeles County’s bizarre political environmentwhere there has never been a mess as bad as the one that Cudahy Vice Mayor Cynthia Gonzalez stirred up last week, and scandals appear to blossom every year with the regularity of Jacar.
In a social media video, how else would you characterize an elected official ordering gang leaders to get their members in line and head to the streets to protest Donald Trump’s immigration raids?
At the worst conceivable moment, Gonzalez’s tirade has sparked a nationwide uproar. She is portrayed by conservative media as a Latina politician who, of course, gives gangs the go-ahead to target Migra. The Department of Homeland Security posted her video on social media, calling it vile, and asserted that attacks on its agents have been stoked by such shit.
Later, after the FBI visited my home, Gonzalez begged her Facebook friends for assistance in finding a lawyer.According to my colleague Ruben Vives, Gonzalez’s claim was neither verified nor refuted by the agency.
The video that started this pitiful event is so embarrassing that the first-term council member is most deserving of all the criticism being directed at her.
California
Cynthia Gonzalez, Cudahy’s vice mayor, released a now-removed video that appeared to urge local gang members to react to ICE officials’ raids.
Where are all the cholos located on 18th Street in Florencia, Los Angeles, and where is the leadership? Gonzalez stated at the start of the video, which was promptly removed. You guys tag everything up and claim hood, and now that the largest gang in the world is invading your hood, not a single one of you is complaining!
Gonzalez continued by saying that if you’re not showing up right now trying to, like, assist out and organize, then rival gangs 18th Street and Florencia 13, which are among the biggest and most infamous in Southern California, shouldn’t be attempting to claim no block, no nothing. After they’re gone, I don’t want to hear from you again.
Given her black halter top, bright red lipstick, new hairstyle, and ostentatious earrings, along with the club music blaring in the background, it appears that the second-in-command of the Cudahy council shot the video at a party. In an attempt to sound tough in front of her perplexed Cholo relatives, she spoke and looked like an older cousin who was raised in the barrio and now resides in Downtown.
To put an end to what it has called an uprising, the Trump administration is searching for any excuse to deploy even more Marines and National Guard soldiers. If asking a gang for assistance, let alone two infamous gangs like Florencia and 18th Street, doesn’t seem like what Trump says he’s attempting to stop, I don’t know what does.
Worst of all, Gonzalez once again pushed Southeast L.A. County, or SELA, into political disrepute. Even while Gonzalez’s generation has promised not to repeat the mistakes of the past, its small, supermajority Latino cities have long been associated with political corruption and never seem to gain a lucky break from their leaders.
According to a written statement from her lawyer, Damian J. Martinez, Dr. Gonzalez challenged the Latino community in her post to join the thousands of Angelenos who are already peacefully mobilizing in reaction to continuing enforcement efforts. Crucially, Dr. Gonzalez did not advocate for violence in any way. It is completely untrue and unfounded to imply that she supported violence.
Cudahy authorities stated that Gonzalez’s opinions are her own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or official stance of the city.
Gonzalez, a Bell High graduate and Huntington Park native, has worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District for 22 years as a teacher, principal, and administrator. She told The Times De Los section that Latinos know what it’s like to be left behind when Cudahy, a 98% Latino suburb of roughly 22,000 people, became the first municipal in Southern California to ratify a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in 2023.
Gonzalez joined government officials from Ventura and Los Angeles counties, as well as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a few weeks ago to protest the recently intensifying immigration sweeps.
Gonzalez stated that corporations are using our brown bodies to avoid the discussion that this administration is a failure and that they do not know how to legislate. “I want to speak to Americans, especially those who have allowed our community to be the scapegoat of this administration that made you feel that your American dream hasn’t happened because of us,” Gonzalez said.
She told her Facebook fans last week that she will be running for the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees for a third time and asked them to donate to organizations that support immigrants instead of her campaign. The urgency of the times must be reflected in our priorities, she added.
Gonzalez appears to be just another wokosa politician in those situations. She is now viewed by the federal government as a potential Big Homie.
Attempting to use gangs to support immigration comes across as both disrespectful and ridiculous, and characterizing Florencia and 18th Street as the Latino community is akin to characterizing the Manson family as carefree hippies. Since the era of the Gangs of New York, gang members have harassed immigrant communities and extorted immigrant merchants. Too many Americans will always associate Latinos with violence because of their strategy of using killing and fear to increase territory, profit, and power. Trump’s deportation tsunami was allegedly caused by transnational gangs like Tren de Aragua and MS-13, so why does a politician now think it’s a good idea to invite Cholos to approach closer?
Even if Gonzalez was flawed and clumsy, I still understand and even agree with what she was trying to say. In light of history, Homeland Security’s allegation that she was inciting gangs to carry out violent acts against our courageous ICE officers is unfounded.
Southeast L.A. County’s doom-loop reputation is being challenged by a new generation of lawmakers who are attempting something different: cooperating.
For many years, Latino activists have worked to persuade gang members to join the movement—not as stormtroopers, but as mischievous youths and veterans who, with enough enlightenment, could abandon their local lives.At the height of the Chicano movement, in 1969, a manifesto called El Plan Espiritual de Aztl n envisioned a society free of adolescent delinquency and filled with revolutionary activities instead. El Plan de Santa Barbara, its companion paper, cautioned activists that they needed to be able to relate to every group in the Barrio, from thevatos locos to middle-class assimilationists.
People continue to believe in the power of forgiveness and work to reintegrate gang members into society as contributing members, from Homeboy Industries to universities that grant degrees to incarcerated individuals. The argument says that they are not unredeemable monsters, but rather friends, family, and members of the community.
That do-gooder spirit is evident throughout Gonzalez’s video. She isn’t lionizing Florencia 13 or 18th Street, as a closer listen reveals. By using civil disobedience rather than criminal disobedience, she is encouraging them to be genuinely difficult.
With a strong Eastside accent, the vice mayor stated, “It’s everyone else who isn’t about the gang life that’s out there protesting and speaking up.” Where are you? We’re out there, like, defending our people, defending our turf, and fighting for our turf.Bien calladitos, lcholitos bien calladitos.
“Good and quiet, littlecholitos” is a Spanish term that means “baby gangsters,” but it sounds much more contemptuous.
Although her delivery was awful, the message is clear to gang members and anybody else who hasn’t yet responded to the call for immigrants: if not now, when? Who else, if not you?
If Gonzalez’s political career turns around, it will be a miracle. However, she should be treated with kindness by future chroniclers of L.A. It’s simple to call out cholos for being cholos. It isn’t to challenge people to improve themselves at a pivotal point in history.