Antonio Villaraigosa

Antonio Villaraigosa (born Antonio Villar in Los Angeles, California) is a California politician and attorney. Born in East Los Angeles of Mexican-American parentage, Villaraigosa rose up from a poor, unstable childhood and unsettled young adulthood to become a labor lawyer and California state assemblyman, and one of the leading liberal and Hispanic voices in the state. He ran for mayor of Los Angeles in 2001 but was narrowly defeated by James Hahn after what many saw as a blatantly racist, ethnocentrist campaign relying on negative ethnic stereotypes of Mexican-Americans. Villaraigosa currently serves on the Los Angeles City Council.