Fil-Am fighter for labor rights rises in California
LOS ANGELES—As legions of workers pour into America’s streets today to celebrate Labor Day (Sept. 1 in the United State), a diminutive Filipino American attorney will join that march to protest what they see as President Donald Trump’s continuing assault on labor rights.
Ysabel Jurado, the 35-year-old lawyer upholding tenants’ rights and the first openly gay member of the city council of Los Angeles, has also become a strident voice in defense of immigrant rights—she herself being the daughter of undocumented immigrants from the Philippines.
“Immigrants are human beings, not political footballs,” said Jurado, who represents Council District 14 in LA where majority are Latino immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
Council District 14 is also home to a neighborhood called Historic Filipinotown—which, as its name implies, began as a pioneering settlement for Filipino Americans.
Inspired by father
Observers call Jurado a political novice who became a “giant-killer” after taking down Kevin de Leon, the powerful yet scandal-ridden incumbent in the district where their predecessors were either sent to jail for corruption or political exile.
Her decision to join the city’s politics was inspired by her dad Carlo who arrived in this city from Iligan, Lanao del Norte, in the 1980s, immediately experiencing wage theft and discrimination because of his undocumented status.
“I was paid $1.25 an hour [when California’s minimum wage in 1984 was $3.35],” said the elder Jurado, now a US citizen and a retired claims administrator.
What her father endured and went through made Jurado an activist for workers’ rights.
Her grassroots campaign was fueled by small-dollar donations from teachers, janitors, dishwashers, caregivers and renters whom she saved from eviction.
Growing breed
Her appeal is largely because she can speak truth to power like no other politician new to public office in California.
An eviction attorney since 2022 and a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Law School in 2013, Jurado became active in picket lines and various protest actions involving various groups, from truck drivers in Port of Long Beach to sweatshop workers in LA’s garments district—all in support of the working class.
She is part of a growing breed of young, progressive California politicians with Filipino roots—including Attorney General Rob Bonta, 52nd district Assemblymember Jessica Calosa and City Controller Kenneth Mejia—who appeal to young voters repelled by Trump’s chaotic presidency.
Fight vs retailer
Jurado once stood in front of Kaiser Permanente—the hospital along Sunset Boulevard where she was born in 1990 and where, as a young teen, she gave birth to her daughter Stella in 2009—demanding fair wages for health-care workers.
The recent target of her ire is Home Depot, the giant conglomerate that has become the site of several immigration raids across California.
The store has a branch in Eagle Rock, an enclave that is part of her district where most Filipino immigrants live.
“When your name has become associated with terror and you refuse to speak, then you are complicit,” Jurado said of Home Depot in her Instagram post on Friday.
She has called for a boycott of Home Depot and other companies supporting Trump’s anti-immigrant and antiworker onslaughts.
Trump’s tariffs
Bernard Marcus, the late Home Depot cofounder, was a vocal Trump supporter who poured millions of dollars into his presidential campaign in 2016 and 2020.
“Home Depot has chosen power and profit over the working people who sustain it,” Jurado said.
But Ken Langone, the retailer’s other founder, has publicly criticized Trump’s high tariff policies which are now hurting American consumers.
When Jurado was told by this reporter that Trump’s 19-percent tariff on Philippine goods sent “patis” and “bagoong” prices soaring, she became animated.
“This tariff is another example of [Trump] trying to impose American supremacy on everyone,” she said. “For putting additional tax on the things you like to eat and things that are native to you, it just adds insult to injury.”
“Prices have all gone up,” said nurse Mailen Lim. On Friday she was at Seafood City in the heart of Little Manila here, as she picked up a 400-gram jar of Barrio Fiesta bagoong .
Lim said the high prices of grocery items imported from the Philippines is starting to hurt her wallet.
“This President has shown himself to be anti-immigrant, antiworker and antipeople of color and this tariff is just another example,” Jurado said.
‘Sisig,’ mariachi
Jurado showed a folksy type of campaigning when she ran for councilor last year, appealing to the diverse diaspora in her district.
In one campaign sortie, she whipped up a mean “sisig,” spiced with patis, soy sauce and calamansi. In another, she danced to mariachi music for her Latina besties whom she called “chingonas,” Mexican slang for powerful women.
As a candidate, Jurado advocated free public transit around LA, inspired by the memory of her mother Jocelyn–a native of Nagcarlan, Laguna—who took her on numerous joy rides aboard Metrobus 81 when she was growing up.
Political giants
In 2016, her mother died of brain cancer, never seeing her only daughter achieve a stunning, historic political victory on Nov. 5—the same day Trump denied Kamala Harris’ dream of becoming the first woman president of the United States.
Jurado’s introduction to a wider audience came on April 12 when she was cheered on by some 36,000 people during the “Stop Oligarchy” campaign at Gloria Molina Park here.
On that occasion, progressive heavyweights like Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (populary known as AOC) applauded her.
“I never imagined that in my first six months, I’d be fighting fascism,” she said. “But I’m the daughter of two “lolas” who never kneeled to the Japanese.”
“And I am not about to kneel to a dictator,” Jurado told young Filipino Americans in a recent forum, in obvious defiance of Trump.
This giant-killer now stands shoulder to shoulder with America’s political giants. And she is just getting started.
