New York's fast-growing Latino community is still underrepresented at the highest levels of power. Will the city’s Democratic leaders help address the problem by coalescing around one of three Latino candidates for City Council Speaker? errollouis reports
Carlina Rivera, second from left, is a favorite to be the next speaker of New York’s City Council. Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Rob Kim/GC Images It’s a great mystery — and to some, a source of anger — that New York has never elected a Latino candidate to citywide or statewide office.
That’s not all. In recent years, Mark-Viverito painstakingly helped mastermind the unprecedented election of 31 women to the council, making women legislators a majority for the first time. Antonio Reynoso was just elected as Brooklyn’s first Latino borough president, and Eric Gonzalez easily won re-election as Brooklyn district attorney.
“It’s a problem because we are not putting things on the agenda that should be put,” says Eli Valentin, an adjunct professor at Union Theological Seminary who is a shrewd observer of Latino politics. “Political participation, which means potentially political power, proper political representation — that stuff is missing.”
Latinos make up a disproportionate share of low-wage essential workers, like the deliveristas who bring New Yorkers our food and the carwasheros who scrub vehicles for tips. They have higher-than-average rates of chronic diseases like diabetes. And recent climate catastrophes Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Ida struck especially hard in Latino communities like Sunset Park, Red Hook, and the Lower East Side.
The City Council speakership — a powerful post with citywide influence — has emerged as a central concern of Latino politicians. Rivera is considered a leading contender for the job, as are councilman Franciso Moya of Queens and Diana Ayala, whose district includes East Harlem and part of the South Bronx.
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