Ethnic Issues in Recall Play Out at Latino Parade

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 7 — Race and politics, two of the unsolvable riddles of California life, collided this morning at the corner of Cesar Chavez Avenue and Indiana Street during the Mexican Independence Day parade.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who until two days ago was to be the grand marshal, was unceremoniously dumped when organizers rescinded his invitation. Instead, it was Gov. Gray Davis in attendance, the hero of the moment in the Latino community for having signed a bill on Friday that gives illegal immigrants the right to hold driver's licenses.

Parade organizers said Democratic politicians had put pressure on them to drop Mr. Schwarzenegger, but Mr. Davis's camp denied any involvement.

"Absolutely not," said Peter Ragone, the governor's spokesman. "We had no contact with anyone."

Today's contretemps capped a week of racial pandering and wedge-issue politics in the California recall race that left none of the top candidates unstained.

Mr. Davis was tagged by his critics as a toady to Latinos and the far left when he signed the driver's license bill. Only a few months ago, before the threat of his recall, Mr. Davis vetoed the bill because, he said, it lacked safeguards to stop criminals or terrorists from changing their identities by acquiring a California license. It does not require a background investigation and other measures Mr. Davis requested.

"I am honored to have signed it," Mr. Davis said today.

Lt. Gov. Cruz M. Bustamante, who has run on the platform that the governor should not be recalled, but that if Mr. Davis is recalled he is the best choice to replace him, opened the ethnic can of worms last Sunday, when he accused Mr. Schwarzenegger, an immigrant from Austria, of being anti-immigrant.

Mr. Bustamante, the grandson of Mexican immigrants and the first Latino elected to statewide office in California in a century, found himself accused of being a hypocrite. As a state assemblyman in 1993, he voted to deny driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, who had held the privilege for decades.

And Mr. Bustamante was pilloried for exploiting the campaign finance laws to accept $1.5 million from an Indian tribe that runs a casino.

Today, Mr. Bustamante announced in Fresno that he had "decided to resolve the questions raised by the Republicans about my campaign finances," by spending the bulk of the $4 million in contributions he took from Indians and big labor toward defeating Proposition 54, the initiative that seeks to limit the state government from collecting ethnic and racial data. It will be on the same ballot as the recall on Oct. 7.

Mr. Schwarzenegger has yet to clear up confusion as to whether he briefly worked illegally when he first came to California in the late 1960's.

Mr. Schwarzenegger said last week in a news conference in Riverside that he arrived in California in late 1968 on a visitor's visa and was not issued a temporary work visa until he landed his first movie role, in "Hercules in New York," which was shot in late 1969.

Mr. Schwarzenegger and a friend from Europe, Franco Columbu, were brought to California by Joe Weider, the bodybuilding guru, who sponsored them, giving them a place to live and an $80 a week stipend. The stipend was not enough to live on, said Mr. Columbu, who arrived in Santa Monica in June 1969.

Mr. Columbu said last week in an interview that to make ends meet, he and Mr. Schwarzenegger began a bricklaying and patio business called European Brick Works in 1969.

Mr. Schwarzenegger said today through a spokesman that they did not begin the venture until 1971.

Tom Hiltachk, a lawyer for Mr. Schwarzenegger, said today that his client arrived in the United States on a business visa in late 1968, which allowed him to compete professionally as an athlete. He was granted a temporary work visa in November 1969 and renewed it through June 1974, when he was issued a green card, Mr. Hiltachk said. Mr. Schwarzenegger became a naturalized citizen in 1983.

"At no time was Mr. Schwarzenegger in the United States without a valid visa," Mr. Hiltachk said. "His permanent residency and citizenship were granted by the I.N.S. without any concern to his visa status."

Mr. Schwarzenegger often says at campaign appearances that he supports immigrants "who do it the right way" — those who arrive legally, work hard and pay taxes. He frequently reminds people that he was the penniless Austrian farm boy who realized such fantastic dreams that he paid $15 million in taxes in 2000 and 2001.

Mr. Schwarzenegger says he would work to rescind the driver's license law if elected governor.

If some responses at the parade today are any indication, his appeals have not swayed many Latinos.

"Schwarzenegger is a good actor but a bad politician," said Leo Alaniz, 43, who was holding a placard that read, "Gracias Davis No Recall." "Davis is going to win votes with the driver's license."

A man like Mr. Alaniz would be a concern for the Schwarzenegger campaign, except that he cannot vote. He resides in California illegally, he said.

Los Angeles County alone is home to an estimated one million illegal immigrants, the vast majority of whom are Mexican. And while nearly half of the City of Los Angeles and one-third of the state is of Hispanic descent, they constitute just 15 percent of voters. Whites, who make up half of the state's population, account for nearly three-quarters of voters, with blacks at 6 percent and Asians about 3 percent.

Strategists for Mr. Schwarzenegger say that their focus groups show that about 60 percent of voters will make immigration their determinant issue. And because Mr. Davis and Mr. Bustamante supported the driver's license law, they risk alienating white swing voters, they say.

"There's no question that Davis flip-flopped on the driver's license issue to shore up the left flank of his party," said Arnold Steinberg, a Republican strategist. "But in doing that he loses the disaffected non-Latino Democrats who aren't Mexican-bashers, but are preoccupied by the overall net drain in services associated with them."

Mr. Bustamante has nagging ethnic problems of his own. He is still hounded by a gaffe he made in February 2001 in a speech before a black labor group. According to newspaper accounts, the lieutenant governor was discussing the history of black labor unions and reciting the names of some of them that had "Negro" in their titles when he uttered a racial slur instead. Mr. Bustamante apologized immediately and has done so repeatedly over the past two years for what he says was a humiliating mistake.

Mr. Schwarzenegger's strategy of billing himself as the immigration reform candidate as well as the quintessential immigrant is not without its perils. Mr. Schwarzenegger freely admits that he voted for Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot initiative denying basic social services to illegal immigrants that was eventually struck down in court, but now says he considers some of its provisions to be Draconian. For instance, he says that he would not bar children of illegal immigrants from schools or hospitals, he said.

"He wants it both ways," said Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist who is not involved in the recall race. "Schwarzenegger wants to reach out to the angry white voters of the Republican Party who are most concerned about immigration. This turns off Latinos who the Republicans are reaching out to. On the other hand, he is saying to Latinos, `Don't worry about it, I'm an immigrant myself.' "