Courtesy NYT/AP
GOWEHO COMMUNITY
Mayor Upcoming Political Star?
If you knew anything about Mayor Robert Garcia of Long Beach before he spoke at the Democratic National Convention, it was probably that he is the first Latino to lead the city of more than 460,000 (its population is 42.5% Latino), and that he is Long Beach’s first openly gay mayor (he married his husband in 2018, the city’s first mayor to tie the knot while in office).
More recently, Mayor Garcia made headlines for speaking out about something that has nothing to do with his political career. On July 26, his mother, 61, died of Covid-19 complications. His stepfather, 58, died of the virus two weeks later.
Here is New York Times writer Jill Cowan’s conversation with Garcia, 42, after the speech (lightly edited and condensed):
Question: I’m so sorry about your parents. Can I ask you to talk a bit about them? How do you think they would have responded to your appearance at the convention?
Garcia: Well they’re just huge supporters of anything I did — for me, my brother, so they would be very happy. I think, especially for my mom. She’s someone that always taught us to love our country, to always give back to it as immigrants. I wish she was still here, obviously. But I know that in her own way, she supported. She was excited about the election herself. In fact, the last person she voted for was Joe Biden in the primary.
Q: Wow. So how are you feeling right now?
Garcia: The last few weeks have been up and down, so that’s been really rough. Just personally for my family. But I’m also excited to be part of the convention and join a group of really great people, many of whom I know from across the country, all kind of working together to make sure that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris get elected in November.
Garcia: We knew from the get-go that it was going to be a joint speech. And so we also knew it was going to showcase a diverse group of people. We all had phones and lights and kits to get it done. And then it got pieced together on the production side. It’s been really important for Vice President Biden to be a bridge for the future. He’s talked about that a lot in his campaign, in trying to highlight younger people. And the speech was indicative of what tonight was about.
Q: I read in The Press-Telegram recently that you were previously registered as a Republican. How would you explain to your past self that you’d someday be speaking at the Democratic National Convention? What changed?
Garcia: I mean, everything. I think of the person I was in my 20s: closeted and confused. I wasn’t aware of who I was. My family and I immigrated and we became citizens because of Ronald Reagan. It was an amnesty bill that got us citizenship. So everyone in my family loves Ronald Reagan — they still do. So when we all registered, we all registered Republican. Over time, you realize a lot about yourself. I was gay, my values didn’t align with the party. And obviously things were happening around immigration. I always like to say I chose to become a Democrat. And the Republican Party today is the party of Donald Trump, and that’s something that is just against everything our country is about and everything my family taught me. You think about what bipartisan effort on immigration was in the past — that would never happen again.
Q: Shifting back a little bit, what would you say to Californians about the pandemic, in light of everything you’ve been through?
Garcia: Even before my family got sick, we were taking things pretty seriously. I’ve grown up around clinics and nurses my whole life because my mom was a nurse’s assistant for so long. My mom was like the most careful person that I know. She wore P.P.E. to work, she didn’t go anywhere she didn’t need to go. Even then, when my parents were hospitalized, I really realized this could happen to anybody. You’re realizing people are dying every day. Every single one of those families matters and has value. And, certainly, my resolve has strengthened on this issue. I hope that talking about my family has helped others take it even more seriously — I’ve heard that from folks and that’s something I’m glad about.
Q: Is there anything you wish the state government would do or had done differently?
Garcia: You know, that’s a hard question. There’s so much we’re learning all the time, so I think anyone in retrospect would change a lot of things. There’s so much we know about how transmission works. We learned in the last couple months just how much more dangerous closed spaces are. I think with the information we had, the state has done a great job and the county and the Long Beach Health Department. What’s missing is national standards. From Day 1, we were dealing with mixed messaging on masks.
Q: What were some of the biggest challenges facing Long Beach before the pandemic? And how have those shifted?
Garcia: The issues that existed before the pandemic exist today, but they’re just larger. You think about issues around income inequality and homelessness, the housing crisis that exists here in California, climate change — those are all huge. And then, of course, the George Floyd murder and all of the protests and civil unrest that happened after that. Here, it became so much more of a movement to do the right things faster.
This article is part of the NY Times California Today newsletter. Sign up to get it delivered to your inbox.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login