Formation of a Latino Grassroots Movement the Association of Latin American Gardeners of Los Angeles Challenges City Hall
Huerta and Morales Formation of a Latino Grassroots Movement The Association of Latin American Gardeners of Los Angeles Challenges City Hall Alvaro Huerta and Alfonso Morales ABSTRACT: When the city of Los Angeles banned gas-powered leaf blowers in 1996, the law sparked one of the most dynamic grassroots campaigns by Latino immigrants in recent history. Latino immigrant gardeners, working with a small group of Chicana/o activists, organized the Association of Latin American Gardeners of Los Angeles (ALAGLA), which pressured city leaders to reverse the ban. ALAGLA pursued its objectives by engag- ing in the political process, taking direct action, advocating technological adaptations, and reframing the gardeners and their tools in a positive light. Turning public opinion in their favor, they persuaded city leaders to void the draconian elements of the ordinance, which included a misdemeanor charge, a $1,000 fine, and jail time for gardeners using the blow- ers. ALAGLA’s movement can be compared in some ways to earlier immigrant-organizing efforts by organized labor, notably the United Farm Workers and the Service Employees International Union’s Justice for Janitors campaign, but it is also distinguished from them by ALAGLA’s nonbureaucratic grassroots structure. The association’s campaign for social and economic justice shows the potential for collective action among marginalized immigrant workers and petty entrepreneurs in the informal economy. On January 9, 1998, after a historic organizing campaign, a group of Latino gardeners successfully forced the city of Los Angeles to take the teeth out of an ordinance banning gas-powered leaf blowers. Starting out with few finan- cial resources and little or no political support from local unions, business groups, civic leaders, or elected officials, the Latino gardeners nonetheless pressured city leaders to drastically amend the ordinance, which would have criminalized contract gardeners in the city’s household service sector.
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