Wednesday, June 21, 2023 | 2 a.m.
The legendary Latinas who tore down many of last century’s barriers to civil rights are leaving public life or passing away.
A month after the death of the trailblazing leader Gloria Molina, her close friend and co-conspirator Antonia Hernández, 75, president and CEO of the California Community Foundation, is preparing to retire.
This older generation of leaders has lessons for Gen Z and millennial Latinas fighting for social justice. I visited Hernández at her office this month to hear her insights for up-and-coming leaders. She wore pearl earrings, a matching necklace and the epic poise of a Mexican matriarch who’s used to winning her battles.
As head of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), Hernández scored unprecedented victories for Latino voting rights, education and immigrant rights across the country. She developed a reputation for speaking her mind.
At the same time, she knew how to put herself in her opponents’ shoes and persuade them with strategic, behind-the-scenes conversations.
“I’ll work with the devil if he’ll take me where I want to go,” Hernández said.
Hernandez and Molina were often the only Latinas in the room. Today, Hernández worries about younger leaders’ phobia of reaching across the aisle and enduring discomfort. “You folks are much more sensitive about everything,” she said. “Much more fragile.”
She recalled her friendship with Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo.. “The great nemesis of immigration,” she said with a smile. “He was my best friend.” The two fought viciously over policy, but only after asking about each other’s families. In the 1980s, her frenemy sponsored the bipartisan Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), a historic bipartisan bill that allowed millions of people to legalize their immigration status and step out of the shadows.
Hernández and immigrant rights organizations actually lobbied against the bill because it included employer sanctions, which they saw as too big of a concession to Republicans — one that would fuel discrimination against Latinos. It passed in 1986. Now, Hernández sees it as one of her greatest achievements, the imperfect culmination of years of wrangling with conservatives from her time as the first Latina counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
She recalls that wwwhen she didn’t want to compromise, her one-time boss Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., gave her good advice: “Take half a loaf today, ‘cause tomorrow we’re going after the other half.”
But Congress has failed to pass immigration protections in four decades since. Every time there’s a bipartisan bill, ideologues on the left or the right derail it, refusing to compromise. This has even been the case when Democrats have had a majority. Meanwhile, millions of people are being deported.
Hernández fears people have forgotten the importance of building relationships with opponents and being flexible. Some of her biggest victories came when she settled for less than she wanted, including legal settlements in landmark cases. The negotiations required empathy for her adversaries. “To be a really good litigator you have to put yourself in the other person’s shoes to counter what they’re going to say or do,” she said. “And then you figure out where the alignment is.”
She thinks young leaders are repeating the same mistakes she once made. She has advice for them: “Politics works when you give and take. And if you’re not willing to give, nobody’s going to give you anything!”
The proliferation of bad-faith Republican politicians has made it harder to work across the aisle. But Hernández thinks young people, including Latinas, have to try.
Many Latinas are practiced in the art of crossing borders: cultural, linguistic or otherwise. Why not use this gift? Hernández did, and still does. “I’m trying to get a hold of the president and director of the Koch brothers foundation,” she told me. I was confused. “Why?” I asked. “Money!” she replied. “Partnership! They fund immigration. They fund scholarships.”
She leaned forward and made a sewing gesture with her hands: “Like I said: You find the common thread, and you begin to weave it,” she said.
She’s hoping that young Latinas will move toward the middle in order to pull people to the left, whether it’s national celebrities like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., or rising local voices in L.A. inspired by Molina. Even Molina, maligned as too angry, sought to be practical; she criticized the waving of Mexican flags at immigrant rights marches because it alienated moderates.
As they look to the future, young Latinas mustn’t forget the lessons of the past: Their predecessors achieved the impossible because they bridged divides.
Jean Guerrero is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
