Nativo Lopez

American politician and activist (1951–2019)

Nativo Lopez Vigil (born Larry Lopez; October 3, 1951 – May 19, 2019) was an American political leader and immigrant rights activist in Southern California. Lopez was a national president of the Mexican American Political Association and the national director of the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana (formerly the Hermandad Mexicana La Original), a community service and advocacy organization for Mexican and Latin American immigrants throughout the United States.

Lopez was born in Los Angeles and raised in Norwalk, California. He became an activist in 1968, inspired by Bert Corona and Cesar Chavez. Prior to college at UCLA and California State University, Dominguez Hills, Lopez who was born Larry Nativo Lopez, changed his name to Nativo Vigil Lopez. He organized student walk outs from high schools in order to demonstrate for education reform. He was involved in successful efforts to win a large scale amnesty for undocumented immigrants in 1986, and became involved in a campaign to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers' licenses in the 1990s.

Lopez served on the school board of Santa Ana, California for six years, from 1997 until 2003. He was recalled from office after a campaign led by Ron Unz, the multi millionaire backer of California Proposition 227, which prohibited bilingual education programs. He was accused of failing to enforce Prop 227, informing parents of their rights under the new law to opt for bilingual education for their children. He sued to challenge the use of English only recall petitions as a violation of the Voting Rights Act, and won in the Ninth Circuit federal appeals court, although the case is not yet resolved. Another issue involved in the recall campaign was the proposed construction of an elementary school in the wealthiest side of Santa Ana, but opposed by the majority wealthy Republican and conservative constituency of the city. Lopez was recalled by 71% of the voters and lost every single one of the 16 precincts were the ballots were cast, including areas with majority Latino voters. Lopez, backed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, filed a lawsuit against the petition and recall process, claiming the English only petitions violated the Voting Rights Act. California began providing Spanish language ballots statewide in 2002, and local jurisdictions also provide multilingual election materials. But petitions, which are written by ordinary people hoping to change laws from the grass roots level, are often available in English only. On April 13, 2006, Lopez appeared on Lou Dobbs' television show, where he argued that "illegal immigrant" is an offensively racist term on par with "wop," "nigger," or "kike."

In 2009, Lopez was charged by the Los Angeles District Attorney's office with eight felony counts, including voter registration fraud, perjury, filing a false instrument, and fraudulent voting. In 2008, although Lopez lived at his Santa Ana home, he switched his voter registration to the Boyle Heights, Los Angeles office of Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, the group he led, and allegedly cast an illegal ballot in Los Angeles County in the 2008 presidential primary, rather than Orange County.