Last Blog On Earth

Near the end of a panel discussion on Saturday at the National Council of La Raza’s annual conference at the San Diego Convention Center, Dolores Huerta, the 78-year-old co-founder of United Farm Workers of America, stepped up to a microphone set up for the audience to ask questions or make comments. She essentially urged the Latinos in attendance to vote for Barack Obama in November because to do otherwise would be voting against their own economic self-interest. Two of the panelists, moderate San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Ruben Navarrette Jr. and Leslie Sanchez, a Republican strategist working for CNN, had earlier urged Latinos to consider diversifying their votes, lest they be taken for granted by the Democrats and written off completely by the Republicans.

Huerta received big applause after her comments, but Navarrette wasn’t impressed. As part of his response, Navarrette said Huerta’s statement would carry more weight if it hadn’t come from someone who works on behalf of an organization that had acted as a de facto agent of the Immigration and Naturalization Service decades ago during farmworker unrest. Navarrette’s remark was greeted with boos and hisses from the audience. Huerta made her way to the foot of the stage and shouted, “That’s not true!” State Assemblymember Lori Saldaña was particularly miffed, telling me that attacking such a great Latina leader that way was not cool, especially since she didn’t have the opportunity to respond.

I left the room to find none other than City Attorney Mike Aguirre sitting at a table, joking with Mateo Camarillo, an elder statesman in San Diego’s Latino community, about how the NCLR had infiltrated some of the largest corporations in the world. (His humor was a reference to both nativist fringe hysteria over NCLR being a racist organization bent on taking back the American Southwest for Mexico and the high level of corporate sponsorship of the conference.)

I told Aguirre that I thought it was the opposite: The conference is evidence that corporate America is attempting to infiltrate La Raza. Then I told him what had happened between Huerta and Navarrette, and Aguirre immediately sprung into action, as is his custom. The seminar had ended by then, and Huerta had emerged from the room. After introducing her to me, Aguirre, who once served as lawyer to Huerta’s former cohort, the late Cesar Chavez, bolted into the room to find Navarrette—he wanted to broker a meeting between the columnist and the activist.

Having corralled Navarrette, Aguirre commandeered the next room over and pulled Navarrette and Huerta inside. Of course, I followed and plopped myself down in a chair near the table where the trio was seated. Immediately, one of NCLR’s security thugs told me to get out, saying it was a private meeting. I pleaded with Aguirre to do something as I was escorted out—I really wanted to listen in. But Aguirre just threw up his hands, as if to say there was nothing he could do.

What a jerk.

The security thug and two of his stern-faced colleagues stood just outside the closed door so that no one could go in. About 15 minutes later, Navarrette came out of the room, flanked by his wife and brother, looking agitated. I asked him what had happened in there. He said he doesn’t appreciate people who tell other people how to think. “And you can quote me,” he said before marching off toward the convention center exit. I waited around for a few minutes—I wanted to give Aguirre a piece of my mind—but Aguirre and Huerta stayed put, and I gave up.

I ran into Navarrette a day later in the convention expo hall, which was basically an orgy of corporate come-ons aimed at the Latino attendees. He was still steaming. Navarrette told me he’d seen Aguirre later Saturday evening and complained to the city attorney that he stole 15 minutes of his life and that he’d like to have them back.