Bricia Lopez has welcomed people of all walks to dine at her family’s popular restaurant on the Indigenous-influenced food of her native Mexican state of Oaxaca — among them Nury Martinez, the first Latina elected president of the Los Angeles City Council.
Bricia Lopez has welcomed people of all walks to dine at her family’s popular restaurant on the Indigenous-influenced food of her native Mexican state of Oaxaca — among them Nury Martinez, the first Latina elected president of the Los Angeles City Council.
The restaurant, Guelaguetza, has become an institution known for introducing Oaxaca’s unique cuisine and culture to Angelenos, attracting everyone from immigrant families to Mexican stars to powerful city officials like Martinez.
But now after a scandal exploded over a recording of Martinez making racist remarks about Oaxacans like Lopez, the 37-year-old restaurateur and cookbook author said she feels a tremendous sense of betrayal.
Martinez resigned from her council seat Wednesday and offered her apologies. But the disparaging remarks still deeply hurt the city’s immigrants from Oaxaca, which has one of Mexico’s large indigenous populations. Sadly, many said, they are not surprised. Both growing up in their homeland and after reaching the U.S., they say they’ve become accustomed to hearing such stinging comments — not only from non-Latinos but from lighter skinned Mexican immigrants and their descendants.
“Every time these people looked at me in my face, they were all lying to me,” Lopez said. “We should not let these people continue to lie to us and tell us we are less than, or we are ugly, or allow them to laugh at us.“
Following Martinez‘ departure, two other Latino city council members also are facing widespread calls to resign since the year-old recording surfaced of them mocking colleagues while scheming to protect Latino political strength in council districts. Martinez used a disparaging term for the Black son of a white council member and called immigrants from Oaxaca ugly.
“I see a lot of little short dark people,” Martinez said on the recording, referring to an area of the largely Hispanic Koreatown neighborhood. “I was like, I don’t know where these people are from, I don’t know what village they came (from), how they got here.”
Lopez said she heard such racist comments growing up in California but had hoped they would be a thing of the past, that young Oaxacan immigrants would not have to hear them.
