LOS ANGELES – Filipino American Ysabel Jurado, 34, a tenants’ rights attorney, affordable housing activist, single mom, and daughter of 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 showing in the primary as a neophyte in LA politics garnering 8,618 votes among 7 other candidates and against 2^nd 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.

In a telephone interview while driving to her next appointment, Jurado said: “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.”

She was endorsed by 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 is pushing hard for her candidacy. They attest to her excellent qualifications and superb abilities as shown in public interviews, exhibiting her intelligence and articulating her wide grasp of issues facing the community. The group is 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, CA. 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, Ysabel 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 her future and her daughter’s, 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.

When asked about her platform, Ysabel said she 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 witnessed the corruption going on in the city government and its inaction (referring to local representatives) and repeated failures 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, she said, “I am committed to supporting small businesses by nurturing local entrepreneurship and economic growth and working with union leaders.”

Ysabel 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.