Ysabel Jurado: Working Hard To Win As The 1st FilAm In The LA City Council
by Elpidio Estioko
A Filipina made waves in the last primary election by placing first in the Los Angeles City Council District 14 race and will be running against the incumbent in the November general election.
Ysabel Jurado, 34, a tenants’ rights attorney, affordable housing activist, single mom, and daughter of an undocumented Filipino immigrant, placed first in the Los Angeles City Council District 14 primary and will likely be the first FilAm in the LA city council if she wins come November.
With her impressive show in the primary as a newcomer in LA politics garnering 8,618 votes among 7 other candidates and against 2nd placer incumbent council member Kevin De Leon’s 8,220 votes, she got the attention of many sectors in the community and was endorsed by prominent politicians and community leaders.
“This is an exciting moment for me hoping to be the first Filipino in the LA city council and a real opportunity for me not to frustrate the more than 8,000 constituents who voted for me during the primary,” Jurado said in a telephone interview.
Among her early endorsers are Kenneth Mejia (Los Angeles City Controller); Eunisses Hernandez (Los Angeles City Councilmember, District 1); Gina Viola (2022 Los Angeles mayoral candidate); Dr. Daniel Wayne Lee, Culver City Mayor Emeritus; Mia Livas Porter, East Area Progressive, Democratic Gun Safety Chair; Konstantine Anthony, Mayor of Burbank; and Steve Diaz, Former Deputy Director of LA CAN.
The Filipino community in Southern California attests to her superb qualifications and abilities as displayed during public interviews showing her intelligence and articulating her wide grasp of issues facing the community.
The group is working hard to make this happen by rallying voters in the district and meeting with various groups to ensure her victory in November.
Jurado was born and raised in Highland Park, North East Los Angeles, California. She attended Pasadena City College where she completed her bachelor’s degree in political science as a working student.
She was still a working student and a single mom when she pursued her Juris Doctorate at UCLA School of Law, specializing in Critical Race Studies and the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy.
Continuing the telephone interview, Jurado confirmed she achieved all these while raising her daughter, Stella, as a single teen mom and a working mother earning her college education.
At the same time, while preparing for their future, she found time to look at her community by fighting against tenant evictions and standing alongside community organizations and small businesses facing their lease challenges.
As to her platform, Jurado recognizes the significant influence wielded by the City Council in Los Angeles but to her observation, it’s not working in favor of the community.
“I observed and recognized the corruption going on in the city government and its inaction [referring to local representatives] and repeated its failure in attending to the needs of my community,” she commented.
She hopes to expand affordable housing by creating more accessible housing options, eliminating red tapes in the application process, and building more affordable units for needy constituents.
She emphasized in the interview to end homelessness, a very important issue in LA, by implementing effective strategies to support those without shelter and taking care of their well-being.
“Homeless people need to see their doctor, their health needs to be taken care of, and they need to eat three square meals a day,” she said. She emphasized that there should be a total program for them, not only providing housing but also their needs as human beings.
Continuing the phone interview while driving, she said, “I am committed to supporting small businesses by nurturing local entrepreneurship and economic growth and working with union leaders.”
Jurado’s campaign aims to create positive change for District 14, and her commitment to social justice and community well-being are priority projects for her campaign.
She is ably supported by her campaign manager Naomi Villagomez Roochnik and campaign scheduler Milagros Montalvo who both, gladly assisted me in getting the interview with Ysabel.
I would like also to thank Chelsea from the office of LA Council member Eunessis Hernandez who referred me to Jurado’s campaign staff when I was trying to contact Jurado.
Will Jurado make it? It is now in the hands of District 14 voters who will determine her fate in the coming November general election to become the first FilAm in the LA City Council!
ELPIDIO R. ESTIOKO was a veteran journalist in the Philippines and an award-winning journalist here in the US. He just published his book Unlocking the chain of Poverty: In Pursuit of the American Dream which is now available with Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Xlibris Publishing. For feedbacks, comments… please email author at estiokoelpidio@gmail.com).
