A mother’s joy, a city’s new source of hope
LOS ANGELES—For a doting mother like Raquel Mejia, nothing draws a crowd more to her son’s political campaign than to offer them free Filipino food. Plates and plates of mouth-watering “lumpia,” “pancit” and chicken adobo to be exact.
After attending Mass last Sunday at the St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in the nearby city of Burbank, the 71-year-old longtime nurse and mother of city controller Kenneth Mejia hastily drove to Dollar Hits restaurant along Temple Street here where a huge crowd of millennials and Gen-Z geeks have gathered to support her son’s reelection campaign for the June 2 primaries.
“It’s heartwarming to see my son getting this much support from the young voters of LA. He must be doing something right,” said Mejia, as she ushered in scores of her son’s supporters to this popular mecca of street food in LA made famous in Netflix and YouTube documentaries.
“But nothing beats my ‘sinigang’ which is Kenny’s favorite,” Mejia said of her son, the youngest of her four children – who in 2022, defied the odds by becoming the first ever Filipino American elected to a citywide office in America’s second largest city, even getting more votes than the current Mayor Karen Bass, who is also seeking reelection this year.
“He (Mejia) got 513,000 votes to the mayor’s 509,944. His message of transparency and accountability in the use of the people’s money is resonating with voters,” said Jane Nguyen, 36, Mejia’s campaign manager and part of his inner circle whose main job is to audit the city’s finances.
Left 6-figure job
“I was shocked. I could not believe this was happening,” said Mejia, the first certified public accountant elected to this lesser-known public office in the city of LA.
“It was Bernie Sanders who actually inspired him to run,” said his mother Raquel, “Suddenly, he told me he was now running for Congress!”
After meeting Sanders in San Diego in 2015 when the independent senator from Vermont ran for president, Mejia left his six-figure job as an auditor at Ernst & Young, one of America’s top accounting firms, and ran for the US Congress for the 34th district here which includes Historic Filipinotown as a write-in candidate for the Green Party.
Mejia lost, getting 1,177 votes in the election of 2016 where Donald Trump also beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the US presidency.
In 2018, he met fellow millennial Nguyen who retooled his image and campaign, placing him all over the social media landscape.
“He’s not a boring candidate. He’s a lot of fun,” said Nguyen, an activist who was born in Vietnam.
By fun she means all the myriad ways Mejia has endeared himself to Angelenos; whether rolling around in his scooter in flip-flops, dressing up as Pokemon icon Pikachu, doing funny dances while rapping on TikTok or running around with his lovable duo of corgis: Killa and Kirby.
Watchdog of coffers
But Mejia could be just as serious. In January, as the city’s top watchdog of its coffers, Mejia and his investigators exposed a $23-million fraud involving the city’s program for the homeless, the most intractable of LA’s problems.
“We don’t see eye to eye politically, but Kenneth is so effective in informing the voters how their tax dollars are being used or misused,” said Evan Lovett, creator of the famous L.A. in a Minute podcast.
“We have the power. We can use it for the people’s good,” the 35-year-old Mejia told this reporter, citing that Asian Americans have become the biggest voting bloc in this city of 4 million people.
Mirroring his hero Sanders’ political mantra that a creeping oligarchy has now become America’s new reality, Mejia warned that under Trump, the super wealthy are buying elections to maintain their hold on power.
“Trump did not drain the swamp. But we the people can stop this,” Mejia said.
‘My Nanay’
When told that the mom of her son’s opponent, Zack Sokoloff, a hedge fund investor, gave $2.5 million in support of the Sokoloff campaign to oust her son, Mejia, the single mother, smiled.
“We don’t have that kind of money. What we have is my son’s honesty, integrity and respect for his fellowmen,” said Mejia’s mom, who divorced her husband, Emmanuel, in 2001.
“I owe everything to my Nanay, the single mom and hardworking nurse that made me who I am today,” Mejia said of his mom. But he maintains a connection to his father, even following in his footsteps as an accountant, finishing his degree in two-and-a-half years at Woodbury University.
When the former Raquel Puzon left her hometown of Bayambang, Pangasinan in the summer of 1978, she never dreamed that she will have a son in America that is fast becoming the voice of a generation fighting against inequality in their adopted country.
A year after her son’s historic win, Mejia returned to her hometown in Pangasinan to accept an award given to her now famous son for putting Bayambang on California’s political map.
“I am so proud of my son. He has accomplished so much. I hope he keeps on winning,” she said.
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