Georgette Gómez is one of four Latino candidates running to fill the San Diego City Council seat now occupied by Marti Emerald; but she’s the only candidate who identifies as a “queer woman of color.”
District 9 encompasses the neighborhoods of Alvarado Estates, City Heights, College Area, College View Estates, El Cerrito, Kensington, Talmadge, Mount Hope, Mountain View, Rolando and Southcrest.
In an effort to give Latino voters a stronger voice on the council, District 9 was created in 2011 by a redrawing of electoral lines; yet the district has never elected a minority councilmember to represent it. Now, in addition to Gómez, at least three other candidates of Hispanic heritage are vying to replace Emerald, who has endorsed her chief of staff Ricardo Flores.
Should Gómez prevail as the winner from a competitive field of no fewer than eight candidates, she will be the first Latina member of the San Diego City Council who is also a member of the LGBT community.
Gómez, who resides in Azalea Park with her partner of 12 years, Xochitl, and their two rescued dogs, says she derives strength as a candidate and in life moreover, from her upbringing. She credits hardworking, loving and service-oriented parents as her role models.
It takes strength, says she, to persevere when people like Republican frontrunner and infamous xenophobe, Donald Trump foment hate and bigotry against immigrants. Born to immigrant parents and seeking to represent a council district that includes many immigrant families, Gómez says she is eager to represent people from all backgrounds.
“I don’t know if it’s lack of imagination, lack of empathy or outright hate and racism that motivates what we’re seeing nationally,” says Gómez. “But I do know that we in San Diego have a special obligation and an opportunity to be the example of how to live together and support one another.”
Following is San Diego LGBT Weekly’s interview with San Diego City Council candidate, Georgette Gómez.
San Diego LGBT Weekly: What inspired you to enter the race for San Diego City Council District 9?
Georgette Gómez: I am running to shake up City Hall and make it work for our communities. I see the other candidates running and I know that I am best suited to change City Hall, and shift the focus from downtown development to our neighborhoods.
What in your professional background qualifies you to hold office?
As a non-profit executive, I work to bring broad coalitions together to address environmental and social justice issues. In doing so, I’ve helped build over 500 affordable housing units, and lead the campaign to hold polluters accountable and fight for every neighborhoods’ right to live in a toxic free environment. I know how to build consensus, and more importantly, what it takes to get things done for the residents of District 9, and San Diego.
How about in your personal, non-professional experience?
My entire life has been devoted to representing and giving a voice to those who have none or are being ignored. As a daughter of immigrant parents, and a first generation Mexican American lesbian woman, I’ve learned the value of hard work, perseverance and the importance of being involved in my community. This is why, after graduating from SDSU, I became a community organizer and this led me to being elected to the local planning groups first in Southeastern San Diego, then the City Heights Area Planning Committee. Here, I fought for our neighborhood’s fair share of infrastructure money. I’ve also served on the Area Redevelopment Committees when they existed, and I am very involved with community garden projects and generally around my neighborhood. I’ve always sought to be connected to my community, and this is what best suits me to being the best representative for our District.
How will you represent the widely diverse economic constituencies of District 9? Asked another way, how will you balance and unify the interests of City Heights and Kensington residents?
This is a great question, and very important. I believe that we are all in this together. We have had enough talk about subsidizing a football stadium when our City Services are lacking. In Kensington, someone was talking to me about how they were told they had to choose between getting street repair and maintenance taken care of, or getting the desperately needed tree trimming done in the neighborhood. This is unacceptable when that same day, we hear about the mayor’s proposal to give $350 million for a stadium. It is not right, and that is why I am running. To change City Hall and make it work for all our neighborhoods, so that Kensington and Talmadge aren’t told to choose, and that City Heights gets the help with infrastructure and housing we desperately need. My message is clear, and one that affects all of us. Let’s stop the insider and special interest control of City Hall, and make sure our communities get the services we pay for, need and deserve.
If you were advising an opponent running against Georgette Gómez and you really wanted to prevail, what advice would you offer?
I would say that Georgette Gómez will not quit. She will work hard to do what is right and it will be hard to beat her. Don’t underestimate her either. She was the first out walking, she has raised more money than all the other candidates, but one; and she has the right experience and know-how to win this election.
What’s the most important challenge residents of District 9 face today; and how will you address that challenge?
There are a lot of issues our residents face and I plan working toward ways to address the problems. If I had to talk about just one, I believe that the cost of living in San Diego continues to go up, while the income of our residents is stagnant. We are seeing more and more people being priced out of their homes and businesses having a hard time staying in San Diego. I want to work with residents, businesses and developers to come up with innovative solutions to our housing crisis, ensuring our city is utilizing the state and federal monies available, and building our neighborhoods the way residents want it done. I will fight to raise the minimum wage and I will work to make San Diego more business friendly for small local businesses, by streamlining the permitting process, making City Hall more accessible and coming up with incentives for businesses with higher paying jobs to come into the district.
You promise to advocate for “smart growth” in San Diego. Does smart growth by necessity mean building new construction upward rather than outward?
I’m committed to ensuring our neighborhoods are protected and enhanced as needed, while we do more to protect and minimize our impact on our environment. We need to ensure development protects neighborhoods, but we also need to develop our neighborhoods with the needed infrastructure to encourage walking and biking. Smart growth is an opportunity to develop our neighborhoods in a manner that brings people out of their homes and into the community, fostering community safety, protection of our environment and supporting our local economy.
Which of the several candidates you’re running against is your closest competitor?
I would have to say Ricardo [Flores] is the closest competitor in that he had the inside track for this race. He’s gotten a lot of support from insiders and lobbyists, which have given him the edge. But, I am confident in running our grassroots campaign that we will win. Residents are tired of having business as usual in City Hall and they are demanding change. I am that change, and I know we will win this election.
How important is it that Marti Emerald is replaced by a Latina or Latino council member?
I think it is quite significant for this District to have a Latina councilmember. San Diego has not had a Latina in office for many years, let alone a lesbian Latina. I bring a very different perspective to the table, and one that can relate to the majority of our district. My parents emigrated from Mexico, they struggled to make ends meet for me and my siblings, but they never gave up. This shaped who I am today, and those experiences growing up gave me a unique view of the world and the need to help those struggling.
Specifically, how can families, business owners, LGBT people and non-LGBT people in District 9 benefit from having a queer woman of color, as you have described yourself, as their representative on the council?
I’m committed in fighting for everyone, but the major benefit in electing me is that I’ve come from this community. I have deep roots in the neighborhoods and I see their struggle every day. City Hall is broken; it has failed our neighborhoods for too long. I have a deep understanding of what our community needs, especially because I’ve lived and experienced the life of the new majority and I understand what our government has done and not done to provide better opportunities to have a safe and healthy life.
How close is San Diego, a city with a robust LGBT electoral history, to being a place where queerness is completely a non-issue in politics?
Even though we do have a big LGBTQ population in San Diego, we continue to experience hate, discrimination and violence toward the queer communities. San Diego needs to do much more to foster a safe environment and create opportunities for the youth and trans persons. We’ve seen a big suicide rate among our transgender youth. So, we’ve come a long way in our community but we have much further to go. This is why, I’m proud to be running as an openly queer woman of color in San Diego. It is critical that queerness issues become part of our politics. I also don’t forget that I am a woman entering in to a male dominated environment and that must change. Additionally, I am a person of color, the daughter of immigrant parents and that needs to be part of our local politics. These issues are critical to the new majority in San Diego and need to be part of our political dialogue.
This is great! I’m very proud and happy for this woman and her accomplishments! I am certain she will be a wonderful asset to the LGBTQ community of color.
On another note, this headline alludes to the idea that people of color are behind when there are LGBTQ people of color in leadership, just underrepresented in media. Just an fyi, headlines like this are awful.
Good article and interview, but I second the comment of David that the headline is regressive and even racist I would say, in that it assumes a certain “backwardness” of the Latino community by placing it as an issue of whether a community is “ready” or not for an LGBTQ representative… This is what many of us attuned to these issues have long-identified as the racial blindspots of many in the white queer and white feminist community that are often oblivious, paternalizing and condescending to queer and feminist of color concerns… I really hope you change your headline!