As I learned this morning on the way to his funeral, even in his death, Richard Alatorre casts a huge shadow over Los Angeles.
I got off the 101 Freeway on First Street in Boyle Heights, Mr. Alatorre’s birthplace, where he built an East Side political organization that forever changed city and state politics.
As I headed west toward downtown, the Gold Line tracks paralleled my path, part of a light rail expansion to the East Side that Alatorre championed as MTA board chairman.
We crossed the First Street Bridge and saw City Hall, where in 1985 Alatorre made history by becoming the first Latino city council member in nearly a quarter century.
Downtown, I caught a glimpse of the LAPD, where Mr. Alatorre helped diversify the department’s upper echelons through an unlikely alliance with longtime chief Daryl Gates, and nearby the former headquarters of the newspaper that had long covered allegations of nepotism and backroom dealings against Mr. Alatorre.
Driving down Temple Street, I passed the old federal courthouse where prosecutors doggedly pursued Alatorre on corruption charges toward the end of his political career, portraying it as a cautionary tale of a politician gone wild: In 2001, Alatorre pleaded guilty to failing to pay taxes that prosecutors called bribes.
Google Maps quickly let me know I was near my destination: the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, where Richard and his wife, Angie, had attended weekly mass for years and where he would receive his final rites after he died of cancer last month at age 81.
The cavernous space quickly filled with people from all eras of Alatorre’s career, former staffers performing one last duty for their old boss by ushering people to their seats.
In attendance were giants of black political power in Los Angeles, including Congresswoman Maxine Waters and former Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden, who witnessed Alatorre chart a rise in Latino political power without compromising the city’s black population.
Cultural leaders included Culture Clash member Richard Montoya, actor Edward James Olmos, former La Opinion publisher Monica Lozano, Mexican Consul General Carlos González Gutierrez, and longtime director of the Los Angeles Cultural Arts Plaza John Echeveste.
“It seems like this is becoming so commonplace,” Etxebeste said as we passed through the cathedral’s massive doors. “It’s like an entire generation is leaving us.”
There were so many people that ushers ran out of funeral programs to prepare, so instead people picked up prayer cards with Alatorre’s photo on one side and his favorite saint, St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of failed causes, on the other.
The line to sign the guest book stretched out the door. Ahead of me was Los Angeles City Councilwoman Heather Hutt, and behind me was Richard Polanco, Alatorre’s protégé who had replaced him in the state Assembly.
Politicians from Washington, D.C., to Sacramento, from the Inland Empire to the Bay Area and throughout Los Angeles filled the 11 seats. Longtime Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido recalled advice Alatorre once gave him: “‘You can win or you can lose, but you have to fight hard to make a name for yourself.’ And I did just that.”
And then there were people like Mark Grossman, who took civil rights classes from Alatorre at the University of California, Irvine, in the late 1960s, which led him to eventually work for Alatorre in Sacramento and serve for many years as a speechwriter and assistant to Cesar Chavez.
“Richard and Cesar were similar in important ways,” says Grossman, who helped Alatorre write his autobiography in 2016. “They could spot talent and convince people they could do more than they thought they could. They were focused only on other people and what they could do, not on what they could get out of them.”
Alatorre is a lifelong Los Angeles Rams fan, and the team’s official mariachis kicked off the ceremony with a moving rendition of Alatorre’s favorite ranchera classic, “La Feria de las Flores.” The opening lyrics perfectly summed up his unapologetically fierce and proud personality.
I should say this first.
Because my song
I don’t know what you’re talking about
The usual place
I like to sing into the wind because my lyrics fly and I say what I feel, wherever I am and whenever I feel.
The Mass was celebrated by retired Cardinal Roger Mahoney, who makes rare public appearances. The two men met in the 1970s, when Mahoney was bishop of Fresno and Alatorre was starting his political career.
In his sermon, Mahoney stressed that Alatorre’s drive to bring power to his constituents was born out of his “deep fellowship with Jesus” and that he was following Christ’s example of standing with those on the “margins” of society.
On one side of Alatorre’s casket were flags of the United States, Mexico, the city of Los Angeles and the United Farm Workers Union. On the other side was a cardinal-and-gold funeral wreath paying tribute to his beloved alma mater, the University of Southern California, and a large photo of Alatorre, arms crossed, a slight, confident smile on his face.
“Richard understood that change comes from people who have the will and motivation to follow that path,” the cardinal continued.
George Pla, chairman of the Coliseum Committee and part of the group that regularly had breakfast with Alatorre at La Carreta in East Los Angeles, half-jokingly said in a brief eulogy that “there are mocosos (snotty brats) in the state who don’t even know how they were elected” when Alatorre paved the way for them.
Alatorre’s daughter Melinda praised him as a “great grandfather and dog dad,” while his son Darrell boasted that his father was “Mexican and not Mexican. A lot of Latino politicians should take note.”
Alatorre’s city council chief of staff, Luisa Acosta, once told her boss that she was going to accept a job as a TV news anchor.
“He said, ‘Why would you want to be in front of a camera reading the news when you can be part of shaping our community?'” Acosta recalled. “Richard not only saw our potential, he nurtured it. … Rest in peace, Jeff.”
The eulogy was closed by Willie Brown, the former San Francisco mayor and longtime speaker of the California State Assembly who grew up politically with Alatorre in Sacramento in the 1970s. Brown selected his friend to lead a redistricting effort in 1981 that forever changed the face of the State Legislature.
“It all started with Richard Alatorre, no one else,” Brown said to thunderous applause, praising Alatorre’s foresight in drawing the line at a time when California’s demographics would change dramatically in the coming decades when “there will be no one left.”
“When you say your prayers today,” Brown joked, “you’d better ask Richard if there’s room where he is, or you’re not going to get into heaven.”
Alatorre’s honorary pallbearers draped a United Farm Workers flag over his casket and led the procession out of the cathedral with Mariachi Los Rams singing “De Colors.” Mourners walked through the cathedral plaza and were greeted by the USC Trojan Marching Band before proceeding to a large reception hall on the second floor.
Postcards written by mourners in memory of Alatorre were stacked next to a telegram of condolence from Vice President Kamala Harris. People munched on chips and pan dulce and looked at a photo collage of Alatorre’s life and career on a poster board that also featured some of his favorite sayings: “First of all…,” “Aurare,” and “Chula.”
Maria D. Acosta and Cynthia Amador Diaz both wore “Viva Alatorre!” pins. Ms. Acosta, a former district director for the U.S. Department of Commerce in Los Angeles, said she attended Catholic University in the late 1960s and credited Ms. Alatorre with helping her get a job soon after graduation.
“We (on the East Side) knew him as someone who was always willing to help,” said Acosta, who lives in Pasadena. Diaz agreed, recalling how he helped out the nonprofit she worked for when he was a city councilman.
“He picked up the phone, called someone in the city and said, ‘These people need help,’ and things got started,” the Monrovia resident said.
“He was a mentor to everyone,” Acosta added.
Nearby, well-wishers were greeted by Andres Chavez, Cesar Chavez’s grandson and executive director of the National Chavez Center, who recounted his grandfather’s famous speech in which he predicted that Hispanics would one day be California’s political and economic driving force.
“My dad said that, but Richard made it happen,” Chavez said. He then showed me a voicemail from Alatorre expressing his pride in Chavez and his career. The call ended with Alatorre saying, “I love you, brother.”
“You see it inside the cathedral, the people that Richard mentored, and I’m now the next generation,” Chavez said. “We owe it to Richard to help out the way he did.”