Credits

Interviewer: Serrato, Richard
Interviewee: Serrato, Alfred
Editor: Serrato, Richard
Camera: Serrato, Richard

Transcript: ...Community Oriented Policing. And of course, you know, being a politician, I wanted to do as much as I could to develop linkages with those groups who might help me should I decide to run for re-election. So I attended the meeting and - “Thank you Councilman for coming down. We really appreciate it. You know, we're honored to have you here.” I spoke a little bit about some of the programs I wanted to do and, “Any questions?” He says, “Yes, what can we do about all these damn Mexicans coming into Santa Ana? And also there's a market over there flying the Mexican flag. We need to take that down. What do we have to do to get the City to force them to take that flag down?” I was shocked, you know, at those kinds of comments and shocked that they're telling it to me but I could see now, really, that they definitely did not see me as a Hispanic, they saw me only as an elected official which is the only way I wanted to be looked at anyway - not ONLY - but I mean, I wanted to be looked at equally like everybody else. So my answer was, “We can't force the owner of that market to take that flag down because we are then intruding into what is called freedom of expression guaranteed by our Constitution, you know. The more we get involved in those kinds of issues, the less rights that we as Americans have. So that person, whether or not that person likes the Mexican flag or Norwegian flag or whatever, has every right to fly that flag. That's why we live in America. We have freedom of expression. Regarding the other issue of, 'all these Mexicans' coming into Santa Ana - that's a federal issue. The Border Patrol and Immigration are the people that are responsible for determining whether a person can stay or not stay in this country based on their citizenship status. That is not the purview of the City Police. We're involved in trying to get to your house when it gets burglarized.” I suppose when I was elected, I was considered unique in that they had never had a Hispanic like me on the City Council before. There were no Supervisors that were Hispanic. There were no Congressmen that were Hispanic, you know, in Orange County. All of this was, like, brand new and so people got into an attitude in those days that everyone still were orange pickers, low income, uneducated people and thank God those years are no longer - that now people are judged by who they are, not by what they are. We now have County Supervisors who are Hispanic. Congressmen. Judges. Lawyers. Religious leaders. I think we have come a long way because we've all grown in the process. We've all matured politically. We treat each other like human beings and I'm so happy to see that. One more thing, I wish I were running for office now rather than then.