The son of a Mexican American mother and Mexican immigrant father spent his 28-year political career practicing what he called “change from the inside”: climbing California’s political hierarchies and bringing other Latinos up with him.
It was a meeting of two of the most powerful men in Los Angeles — and there was no way Richard Alatorre would lose. Los Angeles Police Chief Darryl Gates and his command staff had stopped by Alatorre's office to introduce themselves. Alatorre, newly elected to the city council, stayed seated, feet on his desk, a friend looking on. Gates offered some pleasantries before Alatorre cut him off — and down — with a question: 'Where are the greasers?' The police chief was flummoxed.
'He loves clothes and I love clothes,' Alatorre said in his UCLA oral history. 'He likes nice things, I like nice things. And we're the two foul-mouthed legislators.' When Brown became assembly speaker in 1981, he asked Alatorre to head the committee tasked to redraw the boundaries for state legislative districts. Alatorre's task was to ensure that Democrats kept their majority in Sacramento.
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