Hispanics in California were dreaming of a Senate seat

San Diego- Well, Merry Christmas to you too, California Governor Gavin Newsom.

What a thoughtful Christmas present. I shouldn’t have. Stripe that. Of course I should have. And many Latinos in Golden State are glad you did. This gift is appreciated. But let’s not reverse the narrative: it is also well deserved and long overdue.

Newsom announced Tuesday that he will appoint California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to the seat in the United States Senate vacated by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

That’s history, honey. And it is about time. Padilla, 47, who is Mexican American and grew up near Los Angeles before graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with an engineering degree, will be the first Hispanic senator from the United States from California in history.

Think about that for a second. Ever since military officer John Fremont and physician William Gwin were sworn in and began serving as the state’s first U.S. senators in the mid-1800s, there has been a parade of mostly white men filling those seats. At different times in history, Asians and African Americans have had the opportunity to represent California in the United States Senate. But never Hispanics, a group that now makes up a staggering 40 percent of the state’s population.

Furthermore, in 2020, we can have history and diversity without sacrificing quality. The person who will break the color line, the son of Mexican immigrants, Santos and Lupe Padilla, is the real deal. To say that Alex Padilla has political experience would be an understatement. Padilla has been in politics since 1995, when he served as an aide to the person he will now serve with: California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. For the next quarter century, Padilla has served as a member of the Los Angeles City Council, president of the Los Angeles City Council, president of the League of California Cities, a California state senator, and a California secretary of state.

This was always going to be Newsom’s decision. And sure, Padilla’s election makes sense in six ways starting Sunday. The governor, who needed a victory in 2020 almost as much as Hispanics, as Covid-19 has been brutal to both, can make history and add some diversity to the Senate with a respectable election that has already been nominated and won throughout the state.

Still, I confess, as a cynical journalist who has been working hard at my craft even longer than Padilla has been hammering at his, I didn’t think this day would come. Once African Americans made it clear a few weeks ago that they believed the seat was their private property and that an African American woman should only be replaced by an African American woman, I thought Hispanics were going to have a lump of coal in their stockings. After all, that’s what we usually get from a Democratic Party whose dominant color scheme resembles a television set in the 1950s: black and white. Once the quest for the Senate seat turned into racial politics and the competition between African Americans and Hispanics broke out, I was sure we were going to be overlooked. Again.

As I said before, Hispanics are good at many things, but the list does not include politics. It’s a game that we just don’t play well. We are loyal to the extreme, even to those who betray us, which only encourages further acts of betrayal. We do not pressure, we do not complain or demand. We accept what they humbly give us with bowed head and hat in hand. After all, for the most part, we are Catholics. Whatever we don’t have in this world, we tell ourselves, we will get it in the next. At least that’s how it has always been.

The generations of Hispanics running the game now, X, Y, and Z (which basically covers anyone aged 18 to 54), see things differently. For them, this open seat — this Californian seat — had to go into the hands of a Hispanic. It was not negotiable. Anything else would have been a sham.

When it gets to the point where you make up almost half the state’s population, and you can look back over 60 years of Democratic elections for all state offices, they have a lot of credit to the party. The only question is when you dare to collect it.

Don’t look now. But Hispanics have taken their credit. And California will be better off for it.

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