Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Dakota Smith, with an assist from Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.

At L.A. City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s swearing-in last month, the national anthem of the Philippines played, and traditional Filipino dancers performed.

Jurado is part of the latest group of Filipino Americans making political history in California.

Three years ago, L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia became the first Asian and first Filipino American to hold citywide office.

Then Jurado thumped incumbent Kevin de León to win a downtown and Eastside seat and become the first Filipino American on the City Council.

Also in November, Jessica Caloza won a state Assembly seat representing a northern L.A. County district stretching from Glendale to East L.A. She is the third Filipino American — and first female — to serve in the Assembly after Rob Bonta, who is now California’s first Filipino American attorney general, and Todd Gloria.

And in Northern California, Christopher Cabaldon became the first Filipino American state senator.

More than 1.6 million Filipino Americans live in California, with about 1 million in Southern California. They are Los Angeles’ largest Asian American community, with many residents in the eastern San Fernando Valley and the city’s Eastside.

But Filipino Americans are vastly underrepresented in the state Legislature and in local elected offices.

Cabaldon, who worked in the state Assembly and served as West Sacramento mayor, cited Bonta’s milestones and a few other breakthrough moments but said that long-term gains have remained elusive.

“One of the things that’s really encouraging about this round is that it’s so broad-based: Different places, different narratives and different ages,” Cabaldon said. “It really feels like we laid a foundation for the long term.”

“To see a Filipino American in both houses? That’s history,” said Melissa Ramos, an Artesia city councilmember, of Caloza and Cabaldon.

Bonta, on the other hand, sees the wins as reflective of the candidates’ strong campaigns and the powerful coalitions they built, rather than a turning point.

“I don’t know if there’s anything magic about this particular moment,” he said.

Experts credited the political gains to several factors, including more Filipino Americans working in government and at nonprofits on issues important to the community.

At the same time, Filipino American leaders in business and civic life have successfully built coalitions with other communities, allowing candidates to break through, especially in areas where Filipinos are far from the majority, said Cabaldon.

One hurdle to organizing Filipino Americans is that residents are spread out across the state. In L.A. County, most cities and neighborhoods have some Filipino American residents, but few have a concentration larger than 10%, according to voter data.

At the same time, newer immigrants may be distrustful of politics because of rampant government corruption in the Philippines.

“A lot of people just don’t think their vote counts,” said Aquilina Soriano-Versoza, executive director of the Pilipino Workers Center in Los Angeles.

Caloza, who worked for L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Obama administration, was born in Quezon City in the Philippines. Her family moved to Eagle Rock when she was a child, and she learned English from a “Hooked on Phonics” program.

Jurado was born in Highland Park and worked as a tenant rights attorney before joining the council. She told The Times that she wanted her swearing-in ceremony to showcase indigenous Filipino culture from her father’s hometown of Iligan.

Those at the ceremony included Cerritos politician Mark Pulido, a mentor to many Filipino Americans, Mayor Karen Bass and others. Jurado joins two other Asian American councilmembers, John Lee and Nithya Raman.

Jurado described her and Caloza’s victories as a tipping point “not only for Filipinos, but also for women to be seen as leaders.”

Both Colaza and Jurado told The Times that they plan to focus on workers rights and housing, citing those issues as important to Filipino Americans and other groups.

Filipino Americans make up the biggest percentage of foreign-born caregivers in the state. Soriano-Versoza said she often sees them in precarious housing situations, either lacking leases because they are live-in workers or struggling to pay rent.

Soriano-Versoza said both Colaza and Jurado are plugged into the Filipino American community and understand residents’ needs.

“It means a lot for immigrants to see themselves in the government here,” she said.

Pilipino Workers Center has been raising and distributing funds to Filipino Americans affected by the recent fires, said Soriano-Versoza.

Jurado told The Times that her campaign sent mailers in Tagalog to the council district’s Filipino American-registered voters, who number about 4,500. The district stretches from Eagle Rock to Boyle Heights and includes parts of downtown L.A.

The Pilipino Workers Center’s political arm held a get-out-the-vote event in November for Jurado and Caloza at Oinkster, an Eagle Rock burger restaurant run by brothers Fred and Max Guerrero.

The event featured an antique Jeepney — a traditional open-air vehicle used in the Philippines — and ube shakes. The Guerrero brothers refer to themselves as Filipino Mestizo, or “mixed” because of their Spanish lineage, said Fred Guerrero, who added that he is not particularly political.

“The overarching thing for us is community … in our backyard, in our neighborhood,” he said.

Meanwhile, Cerritos made its own history this week, electing an all-Asian American City Council.

Councilmembers voted to install Frank Aurelio Yokoyama, a Filipino American, as mayor. Another Filipino American, Lynda P. Johnson, was elected mayor pro tem.

Pulido, who had previously served as the city’s mayor, was also elected to the council and sworn in by Bonta.

State of play

—ZIP IT: City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson unveiled a plan to ban the N-word and the C-word at council meetings, arguing that hate speech is discouraging people from coming to speak. But 1st Amendment experts are dubious that the prohibition would survive a legal challenge.

—SHOW US THE TEXTS: Mayor Karen Bass’ texts in the first hours of the Palisades fire show how anxious she was to get back to L.A from Ghana. Meanwhile, The Times sued the city this week, accusing officials of withholding the mayor’s text messages and other public records related to the Palisades fire, including the LAFD’s response to the fire.

—NEIGH ON L.A.: Both the city’s ad hoc committee on the 2028 Olympic Games and the full council gave its approval this week to several venue changes, including shifting equestrian events from the Valley to Temecula. Still, City Councilmember Tim McOsker wants sailing to be in San Pedro, not Long Beach.

City analysts are asking that LA28, the private group that is organizing and paying for the Games, spell out the financial impact of the shuffle.

In a bit of irony, City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, who recently joined the ad hoc committee, is a former member of NOlympics, an anti-Games group. We caught up with Soto-Martínez briefly this week, and he expressed concern over the Games’ potential cost overruns in light of the city’s budget problems. (LA28 is paying for the multibillion-dollar event, but the city is responsible for covering the first $270 million in overruns.)

“The last thing we need is another massive hole in our budget that we’re going to have to pay for somehow,” he said. “It’s a huge concern.”

—TAKING A STAND: Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) and most of the Democrats in the California Assembly are leaving billionaire Elon Musk’s X platform, saying it’s become a toxic stew full of attacks and falsehoods. Politico reported that Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry referenced the L.A. fires when announcing her departure from X. “It broke my heart to see people reject federal assistance because of disinformation on X,” she said.

—CD2 MOVES: Karo Torossian, a longtime presence at the council horseshoe, has left city government after 15 years with Council District 2. Torossian served as former Council President Paul Krekorian’s chief of staff before joining Councilmember Adrin Nazarian’s staff. No word yet on where he’ll land.

—NEW GIG: Former L.A. City Councilmember Mike Bonin was named executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State L.A.

—THE HGTV GUIDE TO REBUILDING: “Property Brothers” co-host Jonathan Scott has put together a guide for wildfire survivors looking to rebuild. The fires were personal for Scott — his fiancée Zooey Deschanel’s childhood home in the Palisades burned.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature initiative to tackle homelessness went to Bundy Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard in Councilmember Traci Park’s district. The outreach also returned to the sites of previous Safe Inside operations in Hollywood, South L.A. and the San Fernando Valley.
• On the docket for next week: The L.A. County Board of Supervisors meets Tuesday to discuss their proposal to pull hundreds of millions of dollars out of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and create a new county agency.