Carter Hutchinson 0:00

Okay. This is Carter Hutchinson interviewing Delegate Alfonso Lopez here in his house in Arlington, Virginia. It is March 27th, 2025. And it is 1:30 in the afternoon.

 

Alfonso Lopez 0:15

 

Opening Day, Major League Baseball, 2024.

 

Carter Hutchinson 0:17

 

Yes, yes, it is. So, how would you like me to refer to you in this? Alfonso?

 

Alfonso Lopez 0:24

 

Yeah.

 

Carter Hutchinson  0:25

 

Okay, alright.

 

Alfonso Lopez   0:26

 

Everybody calls me Alfonso.

 

Carter Hutchinson 0:27

 

Alfonso, do you mind starting us off by just sharing a little bit of background about where your family is from and your childhood?

 

Alfonso Lopez 0:34

 

Sure. So -- a lot of people knew my mom. She was a high school guidance counselor in Arlington, Virginia. And she was this four-foot-eleven, 250-pound comet bolt of energy who was famous because she was the E.S.L. and H.I.L.T. guidance counselor at W&L High School. And she was the kind of person who -- there would be, before we called kids 'Dreamers', she knew who all the undocumented kids were and all the immigrant kids were, and she helped over a thousand kids, who could have been forgotten, not only get into college but help pay for college. She helped start the Dream Project with Emma Violand-Sánchez. I remember when I was twelve in 1982, all of these folks, including Emma, in my kitchen out in Fairfax, Virginia where I grew up, talking about what we now call 'Dreamers' and trying to figure out ways to help them. Because the institutions were not in place to help them. And I remember my mom going to places like Dickenson College and, you know, basically sitting and waiting until she was able to have a meeting with the president of Dickenson, and Franklin and Marshall, and, you know, all these different universities, usually private institutions, usually private liberal arts colleges, where she would say, 'I have valedictorians and class presidents who simply because of their immigration status can't afford to go to college anywhere, don't have the ability to even navigate this process.' And what I found fascinating is that, sometimes immediately, eventually my mom would break them down [Laughter] and she would get them to the point where, 'You're telling me you can give me valedictorians who are Latino, or Nigerian, or Australian, or --', you know, anything? 'Who are simply in the process of becoming naturalized? And I just need to help them get the money to go? Yeah.' And so, she had these pipelines. She would literally -- she had these pipelines of being able to get kids into college. And so, when I first, you know-- for years -- I'd get stop at least once every couple of weeks by someone who said 'Was your mom Carol Lopez?'

 

Carter Hutchinson 3:19

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 3:20

 

I was like, 'Yeah.' And then they'd hug me. Or they'll shake my hand. And they'll say, 'Because of your mom, I didn’t go to the Marine Corps or I didn't take that construction job', 'I got into college. She helped me graduate from college.' Even when -- 'and now I am Teacher of the Year at Key Elementary School', or 'I'm a dentist', or 'I'm Vanessa Cárdenas and I'm on CNN' [laughter] talking about international policy or domestic policy and one of the major Latino leaders in the nation. There's a man named Manuel Leiva who a lot of people know in Northern Virginia because he's an amazing defense attorney, I know making seven figures a year. He was going to go to the Marine Corps and my mom basically met with him every few days and said, 'No, you're going to college. You should go to college. Here's why you should go to college.' And she met with his parents, who were immigrants and didn't speak English, and got him nearly a full ride at George Mason. And he graduated from George Mason and then he went to law school and now he's one of the leading defense attorneys in Northern Virginia. Who should be on the bench. And I've known him forever, since he was a kid.

 

Carter Hutchinson 4:43

 

That's awesome.

 

Alfonso Lopez 4:44

 

And that was all due to my mom. So, a lot of people knew my mom, especially in Northern Virginia.

 

Carter Hutchinson 4:48

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 4:49

 

Not as many people knew my dad, who was one of twenty-two brothers and sisters from the same parents in the Andes Mountains of Venezuela.

 

Carter Hutchinson 4:55

 

Wow.

 

Alfonso Lopez 4:57

 

My grandmother had her first child when she was fourteen, her last child when she was forty-four years old. And we found out later on that my grandfather had two kids out of wedlock that we know about. [Laughter] But it was a very tight-knit, close family. One set of twins out of twenty-two who were born. And my dad was a little different. He was very good in school. He didn’t want to be a farmer -- because we had a big ranchito in a place called San Félix, five kilometers from the Colombian border near the Cucata River in San Cristobal, which is a bigger city in Táchira -- in Venezuela. That's a state. And he said, 'I want to go to the United States, I want a better life.' So, he saved up 280 dollars in 1950s money, which is hard to do when you're eighteen-nineteen, and he bought a plane ticket to the United States because he wanted to figure out how he could live in the United States. Guess how many days -- how long it took him to get a green card? 1958. Now it takes thirteen years, lucky if seven years -- it took him five days. That included a weekend. Alright? In 1958. He had overstayed his tourist visa, and he was undocumented for three months. Different times.

 

Carter Hutchinson 6:35

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 6:36

 

And he worked as a busboy and as a waiter. He learned English.

 

Carter Hutchinson 6:41

 

Where were some of the early places that --

 

Alfonso Lopez 6:44

 

He worked at the Madison Hotel in downtown D.C., which still exists, and then he worked at the Mayflower Hotel. He told stories about -- he would be the waiter, like repeatedly, for J. Edgar Hoover and a bunch of -- like, basically, back in the day, all of early-'60s D.C., you know, officials would go to, like, four different restaurants for lunch and the Mayflower Hotel was one of those places.

 

Carter Hutchinson 7:14

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 7:15

 

And, you know how they used to call -- I mean, because of the sort of incredibly racist past of our region and D.C. -- how they used to call, you know, elderly Black men, instead of 'Sir', they'd say, 'George'? You know? Well, they did the same thing for Latinos, especially dark-skinned Indio-looking Latinos like my dad. They called them all 'Pablo', which was a dismissive, belittling term.

 

Carter Hutchinson 7:49

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 7:50

 

And so, J. Edgar Hoover used to call my father 'Pablo' on a regular basis, and dad, not being of this place, would just, you know, work for tips. And my dad was pretty lonely when he was like twenty, twenty-one. He was living in a small apartment off of Dupont Circle, because you could back then, you could afford it. It used to be where the Bank of America is, right on -- and the CVS is -- right on Dupont Circle. There was an old Howard Johnson's Hot Shops, and every Sunday my father would go and buy himself a piece of apple pie and ice cream, because he thought that was the most delicious thing in the world, and he's sitting there in the morning and all of a sudden, he hears Venezuelan Spanish being spoken. And he sees four guys in the back of the Hot Shops, all just apoplectic. They're, you know, tearing their hair out, they're, like -- but they're all Venezuelan guys his age. And he goes over, and he sort of jokes with them in Venezuelan Spanish and they're like, 'Hey! How you doing?' So, he sits down and talks with them. Seven hours later, my dad had four roommates. Turned out that they're all from Valencia, they're all friends, they're all -- back in the day they had, the whole government had this program where they paid for them to go to school in the United States, so one was at Georgetown, two were at American, and one was at Catholic. But then the dictator slashed the money in half, so they could either live or go to school, they couldn't do both. So, my dad fixed it and said, 'Alright, you'll all live with me.' And then my dad had friends. [Laughter] Then he had, you know, roommates and so these four -- five guys lived together in three rooms. And every night my dad would come home, and he'd take his tips and he'd split them up. He'd give everybody tips. So, they all go home, they marry each other’s sisters, and they basically take over the city of Valencia. And so, Antonio Jose was like in charge of all of the major farming operations outside of the city, another guy was in charge of, like, Firestone U.S.A., like [Laughter], my father's best man, Oswaldo Umaness, became the president of Firestone in Latin America.

 

Carter Hutchinson 10:17

 

Wow.

 

Alfonso Lopez 10:18

 

Which is based in Valencia, Venezuela, and then -- so they all sort of -- you know, whatever -- and so every time we'd go home to Venezuela, or my father would go home to Venezuela, we'd be treated like royalty.

 

Carter Hutchinson 10:29

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 10:30

Because they all, to a person, believe that my father enabled them to have successful lives. So, these are my parents.

 

Carter Hutchinson 10:37

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 10:43

 

My dad worked like a dog his whole life. You know, he took -- he graduated from Northern Virginia Community College when I was five years old, and then took one class a semester at George Mason back when George Mason was like four buildings and a dream and not a city like it is now, until he graduated from college one month before I graduated from high school at Robinson High School in Fairfax. And then he became a citizen in 1991. And I only ever saw him -- I say this a lot -- but I only ever saw my father cry three times: once when his mom passed away, once when my mom passed away, and once when I took him to the White House to meet my boss. And we're in the Oval Office, and he's in the car ride coming home and he says, 'solamente en los Estados Unidos, solamente en los Estados Unidos,' only in America. So, literally, he's a guy who came from nothing -- abject poverty in the Andes Mountains of Venezuela, who didn't want to be a farmer, and overstayed his tourist visa in the United States in 1958 -- and his son works for the President of the United States in the West Wing.

 

Carter Hutchinson 11:45

 

Yeah. 

 

 

Alfonso Lopez 11:46

Right. Twice. I worked for Clinton and Obama. [Laughter]

 

Carter Hutchinson 11:50

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 11:51

 

And I was a member of Governor Kaine's administration. And now I'm the first Latino Democrat ever elected to the Virginia General Assembly in 400 years. So like -- I always find it difficult to explain this to my relatives because they don't understand. But, I think my mom -- my mom passed away before I got elected to the House, and she would have loved all this. She would have been like Sharon Bulova and, you know, Surovell's mom wrapped up in one big package. [Laughter]

 

Carter Hutchinson 12:31

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 12:33

 

But, yeah, so that's my family. My mom is Pennsylvania Dutch. My dad is Venezuelan. And so, the joke is I'm Venezuelan-Amish. [Laughter] But I have white skin but all my features are the Lopez features; I have the Lopez nose, I have the Lopez eyebrows, I have the Lopez eyes. And so, every time you go to San Félix, it's like -- it's me everywhere. [Laughter]

 

Carter Hutchinson 13:01

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 13:03

 

You know? Like, we'd go back and visit and, you know, like, the maid in the local hotel would be a third cousin of my father, who used to play with her. And it's like, 'Oh, hey! How are you doing?' The guy who owns the bar, 'Oh, he's a second cousin.' [Laughter] You know? It's a huge family. But he -- there's something else I want to tell you. He ended his career as the caterer, he was the executive -- or manager -- with Sodexho-Marriott, where he was the caterer for the World Bank and the Pan American Health Organization, and he ran the cafeteria.

 

Carter Hutchinson 13:44

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 13:45

 

But think about that. You know? You come from a farm, you know, a hardscrabble farm in the Andes Mountains to being, you know, the guy who puts on all the events for the World Bank, you know? [Laughter]

 

Carter Hutchinson 13:58

 

Yeah.

 

 

Alfonso Lopez 14:00

 

And so, you know, he -- I'm very proud of him. And I'm very proud of my mom. And I'm very proud of the work that they did. They weren't elected officials, but they were public servants.

 

Carter Hutchinson 14:10

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 14:11

 

Especially my mom and what she worked for and what she tried to accomplish.

 

Carter Hutchinson 14:17

 

Absolutely.

 

Alfonso Lopez 14:18

 

She was also a Republican most of my life, which I find really unnerving. [Laughter] But she became a Democrat after Reagan when she realized that some of the policies that she was advocating for were actually being ignored by -- I mean, '60s Republicans, and Howard Baker, and Nancy Kassebaum Republicans no longer exist.

 

Carter Hutchinson 14:43

 

Right.

 

Alfonso Lopez 14:44

 

So.

 

Carter Hutchinson 14:45

 

Well, and -- you know, Martin Luther King's dad was a Republican, too, until J.F.K., right? [Laughter]

 

Alfonso Lopez 14:50

 

Well, you know what's crazy -- it's like, what's always fascinating how, like, these Republicans -- mostly operatives, they're always operatives because, like, I hang out with a bunch of them -- and they'll say, like, 'Oh, you guys are the party of the K.K.K.,' and it's like, dude, you know that parties evolve, right? [Laughter]

 

Carter Hutchinson 15:08

 

We switched places.

 

Alfonso Lopez 15:09

 

Like, we switched, you know?

 

Carter Hutchinson 15:10

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 15:12

 

And it was slow, but it happened. And then it happened fast.

 

Carter Hutchinson 15:15

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 15:15

 

Over like a fifteen-year period, a twenty-year period. But like that's what I can't stand, like, the dumb -- a word my little boy used once, 'stupidification', like intentionally being dumb about something. I was -- we're off topic. What is next?

 

Carter Hutchinson 15:35 

 

No, not at all.

 

Alfonso Lopez 15:36

 

That's my family.

 

Carter Hutchinson 15:37

 

Not at all.

 

Alfonso Lopez 15:38

 

My dad had twenty-two brothers and sisters, including himself, so twenty-one brothers and sisters, and I am an only child, which makes no sense whatsoever. [Laughter]

 

 

Carter Hutchinson 15:46

 

There you go, yep. Well, you talked a little bit about -- well you talked a lot about the value of education. You know, maybe you could go into a little bit more about your experience going through, you know, sort of, primary education experience here?

 

Alfonso Lopez 16:06

Yeah. I'll tell you a story: the day I knew my mom was a superhero. 1976 -- ten years after Loving versus Virginia -- I'm at a very small elementary school out in Burke, Virginia, called Fairview Elementary. And we had just come back from -- like, we're two years back from Latin American and the Caribbean and Africa because my dad kept getting assigned to different places, six months here, six months there, for InterContinental Hotels. And we put down my name, 'Alfonso Lopez. Alfonso Hoffman Lopez.' A-L-F-O-N-S-O. It's how Venezuelans, and Latin Americans, and most sane people [laughter] spell 'Alfonso'. But my report cards and notes and everything would come back 'A-L-P-H-O-N-Z-O'.

 

Carter Hutchinson 17:03

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 17:04

 

And my mom would call and say, 'No, you're spelling this wrong.' And, after my first sort of report card came back and they still hadn't done it, my mom called up again and the assistant principal, an old white lady, don't remember her name, told my mom, 'Mrs. Lopez, I don't know where you're from but in America, and Virginia, this is how we spell it. I would appreciate you just not -- I would appreciate you not calling us back.' At which point, my mom put us back -- grabbed me off the couch -- put me into the blue Oldsmobile and drove me back to school. She was very angry. [Laughter] And she sits me down in the chair in the front office and the woman, apparently, realizing that my mom was white, started apologizing. And my mom simply held up a hand, looked at her and then looked at me and says, 'stay here.' She goes into the principal's office, slams the door, and I hear screaming. And they never misspelled my name again. My name was never misspelled again. And I never saw that old lady again.

 

Carter Hutchinson 18:28

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 18:30

 

That was the day I knew my mom was a super hero. And so, in terms of education, you know, if I didn't -- all I had was the example of my father, who after working maybe two jobs would come home and study until he was so exhausted that he fell asleep on the couch. And he was just taking one class a semester, every year. But if I didn't study as hard as he did, if I wasn't honoring... Because we would go back to Venezuela for weeks every year, and I'd see I had some family who lived very nice upper-middle class livelihoods in Caracas or Valencia, and I had other family who were in San Félix who were living in huts. I don't want to misstate that they were living in huts. Okay? They were nice for the town, but they were huts. And they'd have something called -- they... And so, it was made very clear to me very early on that education was the path. Alright? And I had to do as well as I could, and I had to -- do whatever I wanted, but I had to do well. Alright? And my mom would instill this in all of her students. You know, like, I always thought it was funny, my mom was, like I said, four foot-eleven, 250 pounds. Alright? But I'd go to see her at W&L and she'd have six foot-four, you know, power forwards on the basketball team, you know, like, cowering because she'd be like, 'Your're failing calculus, what's wrong with you?' You know? And I always thought it was funny because like she used to have these little photos from -- like people would buy and give them to people they cared about -- and my mom had an entire wall of people, of students, who'd give her little photos of themselves with little notes on the back. And she had them all, like, for years.

 

Carter Hutchinson 20:39

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 20:42

 

And the most prominent thing in her office were these two, like, three-foot-three-foot photos that had been blown up and made into posters: one of her hang-gliding, another of her parachuting -- parasailing, another of her whitewater rafting. And I'm like staring -- and mom had this schtick, she'd take like these freshmen and sophomores, or new kids, and she'd stick them in the office, and she'd have them wait for a couple of minutes. And, inevitably, they're looking at these photographs of my mom, who's four foot-eleven, 250 pounds, you know, doing incredible things.

 

Carter Hutchinson 21:20

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 21:21

 

And the message was that 'You can do incredible things, too.' 'You can do whatever you want.' You know? 'Nothing can stop you.' 'Nothing should stop you.' [Laughter] And she used to do this thing when I'd come home from grad school, or law school, or college, and there'd be fifty kids in my backyard. And I'd go up to my dad and say, 'Que es este? que pasa?' [Laughter] And my mom realized, back in like the late '80s-early-'90s, that a lot of these kids who are in free and reduced lunch weren't eating over long weekends. So, she started a club -- a couple of clubs -- at W&L that still exist, one's like the 'Welcome Club', and one's like the 'Latino', you know, 'Empowerment Club', and then she'd just invite those kids, and all of their friends, to come over to her house for a party over a long weekend. And she'd have a three-day barbeque. So, there'd be like people in sleeping bags in our house, including people like Vanessa Cardenas. You know? Who is now on CNN all the time [laughter] and MSNBC, you know?

 

Carter Hutchinson 22:37

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 22:40

 

And so, she was that kind of teacher. You know what I mean?

 

Carter Hutchinson 22:44

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 22:45 

 

She was that kind of teacher.

 

Carter Hutchinson 22:46

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 22:48

 

So, I got into -- [laughter] I applied to nineteen colleges using an electric typewriter -- [laughter] -- back in 1987 -- [laughter] and how the hell I did that is beyond me, but I remember going to the basement for like a year and just looking at all these colleges I wanted to apply to and then typing it out with Whiteout and erasing tape.

 

Carter Hutchinson 23:18

 

And then putting it in the mail, I guess?

 

Alfonso Lopez 23:19

 

Yeah. And so, I got into a lot of different places. I got into Vassar, and Oberlin, and U-Chicago -- I got into some serious schools -- and my top three were those three and, you know, I went and visited and, you know, did all my stuff and, you know, I went to Vassar solely because if I'd gone to like -- like a place like Cornell or something -- I could have maybe done one thing. You know? I could have done student government, or athletics, or, you know –

 

Carter Hutchinson 23:52

 

But it would have consumed --

 

Alfonso Lopez 23:53

 

-- drama, but like the competition at this huge school -- at Vassar, I was able to do everything. I was class president, I was on the judicial board, I was in the sketch comedy team, I played varsity baseball, I was a catcher and third baseman, so I was able to do everything.

 

Carter Hutchinson 24:10

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 24:11

 

You know? And I was in plays, I was Estragon in ‘Waiting for Godot’, I mean -- I did a lot of cool stuff, but if I'd gone to a bigger school I would have maybe been able to do one thing.

 

Carter Hutchinson 24:22

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 24:23

 

And so, I think I made the right choice and it's been the best. One of the hallmarks of my life is the fact that I'm a -- that I went to Vassar. And so, for me, education has been sort of an example of how my father got ahead, and how it's one of the primary values of my home, of my family life.

 

Carter Hutchinson 24:47

 

Yeah. You can't take it for granted.

 

Alfonso Lopez 24:49

 

No. No. And that's the thing.

 

Carter Hutchinson 24:51

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 24:53

 

That's the thing. I hate people who try to make education uncool.

 

Carter Hutchinson 24:58

 

Right.

 

Alfonso Lopez 24:59

 

I mean, what is wrong with you?

 

Carter Hutchinson 25:02

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 25:02

 

You know? [Laughter] Or like -- those are -- that's truly evil.

 

Carter Hutchinson 25:06

 

Right.

 

Alfonso Lopez 25:07

 

You know what I mean?

 

Carter Hutchinson 25:07

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 25:08

 

There is something evil about that.

 

Carter Hutchinson 25:09

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 25:11

 

It's like -- instilling that in a child, or making it easy to find -- I don't know...

 

Carter Hutchinson 25:19

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 25:20

 

It's so... Yeah, that's... Yeah. Okay. What else?

 

Carter Hutchinson 25:26

 

Well --

 

Alfonso Lopez 25:28

 

Like I said, if you don't shut me up I will keep going. [Laughter]

 

Carter Hutchinson 25:30

 

No, we're good. Um -- what role do you think, or how much of a role do you think, you know, any particular faith tradition, or multiple faith traditions, may have played in, you know, some of that --

 

Alfonso Lopez 25:45

 

My father's Catholic. My mother's Lutheran. My wife is Jewish, and I spend all my time at temple. Alright?

 

Carter Hutchinson 25:50

 

[Laughter]. Yeah, so...

 

Alfonso Lopez 25:51

 

So, I believe in a higher power, I'm just not so arrogant to believe that one viewpoint on God is the right viewpoint on God. Do I appreciate the Lutheran faith? Yes. Do I appreciate the Reform Judaism faith? Yes, because both of them involve questioning, an idea that maybe we don't -- we're fallible -- we're not, we don't know what God is or how He or She manifests itself. So, like, I don't -- I'm never comfortable talking about my faith tradition, but to say that I'm a bit of everything is an understatement [laughter] considering my family.

 

Carter Hutchinson 26:50

 

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um -- How do you -- how do you recall it was that your family ended up in the Arlington area? You know, what led -- to here?

 

Alfonso Lopez 27:04

 

We -- for Fairfax, it was a house and a good school system that they could afford.

 

Carter Hutchinson 27:16

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 27:17

 

You know? This was 1975-1976, and we got the biggest, nicest house we could get, which -- back then -- was out in farmland in Fairfax, which is now like, you know, a city. I mean, it's all just built up -- if you had told me that all these things would be there when I was first moving out 123 Ox Road -- which is a one-lane road going both directions -- I would have told you that you were crazy.

 

Carter Hutchinson 27:42

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 27:43

 

That all of it would be built up and the population of Fairfax alone would be 1.4 million people -- I mean, that's insanity.

 

Carter Hutchinson 27:49

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 27:50

 

And I've seen it all. Like, I remember I'd been away from home for college, and grad school, and law school, and I hadn't been home in years. And they built Fairfax County Parkway, which is like three miles from my house. When I was coming from points south, with my cousins, and I was three miles from my house, I had no idea where I was. [Laughter] Because I had no idea how this highway just got here.

 

Carter Hutchinson 28:18

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 28:19

 

'Why is there a highway right here?' You know, and this was pre-, you know, and I didn't have a map,a nd like, 'What's going on?' None of this computes! [Laughter] 'Where did Ox Road go?' And they thought it was hilarious at eleven o'clock at night. So, yeah -- and then I moved to Arlington simply because I had friends, I was living in a group house after law school in D.C., -- which was amazing, it was this gorgeous four-story half-acre mansion in Cleveland Park, it wasn't like a mansion it was just nice. We were supposed to be there a year, we ended up there for five years. [Laughter] Then a bunch of my buddies lived in apartments in Courthouse, in Arlington, and I was like, 'Alright, I want to go home to Arlington and that's where I'll go.' And I'd been involved in politics out here for a while, so I might as well just come back home.

 

Carter Hutchinson 29:15

 

Yeah.

Alfonso Lopez 29:16

 

And Arlington became my place. And then I started getting involved in Arlington County Democratic Committee.

 

Carter Hutchinson 29:22

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 29:23

 

And one thing led to another, and I was, you know, ensconced. I was a part of it. [Laughter] I was doing my thing.

 

Carter Hutchinson 29:31

 

Yeah. What -- uh --

 

Alfonso Lopez 29:35

 

And my mom had also taught here for -- since 1982.

 

Carter Hutchinson  29:37

 

Yeah.

 

 

Alfonso Lopez 29:38

 

And so, she had a lot of friends and colleagues --

 

 

Carter Hutchinson 29:42

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 29:43

 

-- in Arlington, so it was an easy choice for me.

 

Carter Hutchinson 29:46

 

Do you think that there -- what do you think, if anything, is unique about, let's say the Latino immigrant experience, in this sort of D.C.-close-in area? Maybe compared to the rest of the state? Do you think there are some big differences, maybe?

 

Alfonso Lopez 30:04

 

Yeah, I mean, first off -- well, first off -- just in the Third District I represent, it's over 150 languages spoken. [Laughter] Alright?

 

Carter Hutchinson 30:10

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 30:11

 

There are more than forty languages spoken at Wakefield High School and there's more than forty languages spoken at Alexandria City High School, both in the Third District that I represent. But also, what I find interesting is that the DMV is the second largest El Salvadoran population in the world besides San Salvador, El Salvador. The capitol. And so, why is that? It's because in the '80s and '90s, everybody came here because that's where their family was. You know? And now you see it happening with the Venezuelan community, the -- a lot of Central Americans are up here. And the population continues to grow. I mean, we are 11.4 percent of Virginia's population now. You can't win a statewide election without, you know, the Latino support. So, what I find unique about Northern Virginia, and Arlington, is that it is -- it embraces diversity. It embraces sort of the rich tapestry of what America is and what Virginia is, not becoming, but what Virginia is.

 

Carter Hutchinson 31:25

 

Mm-hmm.

 

 

Alfonso Lopez 31:26

 

In a way that maybe other parts of Virginia, at least by their elected representatives, either don't see diversity or don't want to see diversity.

 

Carter Hutchinson 31:35

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 31:36

 

But, at the same time, Harrisonburg is forty-two percent E.S.L. in their student--in their school system. Right? You've got Latino and Latina elected officials in every corner of Virginia. It's not just Fairfax, it's not just Arlington, you've got folks on the Roanoke City Council -- Vivian Sanchez Jones -- I mean, who are, you know, prominent Latino leaders. And you've got people who are running -- you've got Phil Hernandez in Norfolk, you've got Marty Martinez in Loudoun, you've got, you know, we're everywhere. And I think we need representation in the House of Delegates that is equivalent to our population. So, I think there should be eleven of us in the House of Delegates, there should be four of us in the State Senate. I mean, there are 171 Circuit Court judges in Virginia -- 171. Guess how many of them are Latino.

 

Carter Hutchinson 32:35

 

One?

 

Alfonso Lopez 32:36

 

Five.

 

Carter Hutchinson 32:36

 

Five.

 

Alfonso Lopez 32:37

 

Four -- four. One of them, we had -- Judge Bernhardt, from El Salvador, became the first Latino ever to go above Circuit Court. He's on the state Court of Appeals now. But we've never had a person on the Supreme Court, never had a person until just a few months ago on the state Court of Appeals. And, I mean, what does that mean when a majority of the people who go before the bench are Black and brown populations, but they don't see themselves.

 

Carter Hutchinson 33:03

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 33:03

 

-- represented in the court system. That is a -- hopefully a -- hopefully will soon be a relic of the past and we'll actually have a bench that reflects the diversity of the United States, and the diversity of our beautiful Commonwealth.

 

Carter Hutchinson 33:18

 

Absolutely. Um -- I want to make sure to ask you -- and we're coming up on thirty-five minutes now so, give you about ten more minutes -- I want to ask you in particular --

 

Alfonso Lopez 33:36

 

I'll be faster.

 

Carter Hutchinson 33:37

 

-- about COVID? You know --

 

Alfonso Lopez 33:40

 

Don't get me started.

 

Carter Hutchinson 33:42

 

What do you think are some, maybe, prime examples of how you saw the pandemic impacting the Latino community?

 

Alfonso Lopez 33:52 

 

Alright. Okay, I'll be very blunt. Ralph Northam and his efforts to reach out to diverse communities was not really an effort to reach out to Asian American, you know, Latino, new immigrant populations. It wasn't.

 

Carter Hutchinson 34:12

 

That's kind of --

 

Alfonso Lopez 34:12

 

The explosion that you probably heard three months into the COVID pandemic was my head exploding when I found out that the website put forward by the Governor's team had simply taken the English translation and translated it using Google Translate! The letter on the website -- specifically for Latino populations -- said that you could take or leave the -- getting the -- getting the injection ---

 

Carter Hutchinson 34:50

 

Vaccine?

 

Alfonso Lopez 34:50

 

Vaccine. Because they didn't care enough to properly translate the website into different languages! They were more focused on one community than all of the other communities, and all the other communities spoke different languages. And to say that the administration heard me about that would be an understatement.

 

Carter Hutchinson 35:19

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 35:21

 

And the way I was pushed away and pushed off by some of the folks who were leading that effort initially? I will never forget how poorly -- I understand that a lot of stuff was going on and I need to be kinder about, and have a little bit more grace, and give other people more grace because a lot stuff was happening very quickly, but -- using Google Translate to translate things into Korean, and Vietnamese, and Urdu, and Spanish -- and not checking? And allowing bad information to go out to populations that were specifically working! I mean, like -- while everyone else was staying home and working from home via Zoom things, a lot of the Latino population was out doing what were considered vitally important jobs in food preparation and health care, and when people got -- you've got, I mean, back during the height of COVID you had, and you still have today, in some cases, slum-like conditions in -- even here in the Third District on the western end of Columbia Pike, the old Seneca Apartments, I mean, they were called out and it was a very bad deal, but you had people who were living in substandard housing but it's not just one family, it's two, or three, or four families. Or four groups of people sharing six rooms. Alright? And what they would do is, like, I ca -- I -- how many times do I have to hear about this? Like, person got sick -- they put him in the closet. You know? They didn't have the money to take him to the -- they didn't have the luxury of staying home. And they didn't have the luxury of working by Zoom. They had to go out into the world and work in the industries they were working in because they could not do them from their house. And the lack of information, despite all of the efforts that would trickle down to new immigrant populations, it was unnerving.

I mean, because they weren't -- they weren't being focused on, they weren't being reached out to. Eventually, they were. But the confusion amongst some of these folks about what was happening, what they needed to do to protect themselves, and get vaccinated, and do what they needed to do, was simply not there.

 

Carter Hutchinson 38:22

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 38:23

 

And as much as we were with groups, and try to get stuff translated and get word out to folks, it was, you know, my reach was only but so much.

 

Carter Hutchinson 38:34

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 38:35

 

And that's why you had situations where you had someone like the Governor and his team able to have a much broader reach, when they don't do it properly and people are endangered, then that makes me more than a little angry. 

 

Carter Hutchinson 38:54

 

Yeah. Absolutely.

 

Alfonso Lopez 38:58

 

But yeah, you had people, like -- three families living in a two-bedroom apartment. And what do they do with -- and they're all working in the height of the COVID pandemic, and you've got, you know, people who are very, very ill not getting the medicine they need, not getting the care they need, you know, stay in the closet. You know? That's horrible. Completely horrible. And the fact that it happened in Arlington just makes me sick.

 

Carter Hutchinson 39:

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 39:25

 

You know? 

 

Carter Hutchinson 39:25 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 39:36

 

But, think about it: if that's happening in Arlington, where else is it happening?

 

Carter Hutchinson 39:30

 

Right.

 

Alfonso Lopez 39:31

 

You know?

 

Carter Hutchinson 39:32

 

Yeah. And to what degree?

 

Alfonso Lopez 39:35

 

And to what degree, if -- I mean, like...

 

Carter Hutchinson 39:36

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 39:37

 

Yeah. So, what else?

 

Carter Hutchinson 39:40

 

Um -- why don't we wrap up with a little bit of a forward-looking --

 

Alfonso Lopez 39:46

 

Sure.

 

Carter Hutchinson 39:47

 

Um -- you know, you've been serving for -- in public service in varying degrees for a couple of decades now, so, you know, what are -- you know, not all, but what are some of the [40:00]-- um -- challenges that -- that you are excited -- um -- but, you know, also sort of committed to keeping the fight up on?

 

Alfonso Lopez 40:17

 

Well, I'm -- right now, I'm trying to prevent the rollbacks.

 

Carter Hutchinson 40:21

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 40:22

 

-- of everything from social safety net, to education standards, to immigration protections, to -- you know, Latino issues are American issues.

 

Carter Hutchinson 40:31

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 40:32

 

You know, we care just as much about transit and transportation, and economic development, and jobs and security, and as -- and the environment -- as anybody else does. But we have very specific issues -- like, there are members of the General Assembly right now, you know, who I doubt have ever actually met a Latino, who, on their website, have one of their three major goals is to roll back in-state tuition for Dreamers.

 

Carter Hutchinson 40:37

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 40:59

 

-- a bill I worked on for nine years. And cried like a baby on national television [laughter] when it passed and I had the Attorney General and the Governor, Ralph Northam, God love him, signing the damn bill.

 

Carter Hutchinson 41:12

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 41:13

 

Right? And God knows I love them both for doing what they did. Mark Herring for changing his tune, doing a complete one-eighty on in-state tuition and realizing the benefits, and why it was important, and Ralph Northam for understanding why it needed to happen.

 

[Narrator's phone begins vibrating]

 

Carter Hutchinson 41:35

 

You can definitely -- you can take that.

 

Alfonso Lopez 41:36

 

I'm not going to get that because he wants me to allow his staff to come to this event with Spanberger.

 

Carter Hutchinson 41:44

 

Well, and that --

 

Alfonso Lopez 41:45

 

I'll call him back. And then, the other thing is -- but, what am I dedicated to? I'm dedicated to more representation. I'm dedicated, as the chair -- the founder and co-chair -- of the Virginia Latino Caucus, to ensuring that we have more Latinos in the House of Delegates. Right now, we have four -- five if Kelly Fowler decides to join. Six, if Elizabeth Guzman gets elected. But here are people who are going to retire in two years, four years, six years, who represent communities that have fourteen-to-thirty-eight percent Latino, you know, voters.

 

Carter Hutchinson 42:24

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 42:25

 

Alright? There are communities in Virginia that should be Latino districts.

 

Carter Hutchinson 42:29

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 42:30 

And that we are preparing to get our candidates ready for.

 

Carter Hutchinson 42:34

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 42:35

 

And, not now, but in two years, and four years, and six years -- and so that's something that I'm very excited about. I'm excited about growing the Latino membership on the bench in Virginia. I'm excited about creating a state and a commonwealth where we embrace diversity and it's not something that people look at and are scared of. You know? It makes us stronger. The reason why we're such a vitally-dynamic, economic juggernaut relative to other states is because of, one--our proximity to D.C., but also our embracing of new technologies. And a lot of the expertise that's going into that are from immigrants and new Americans who are desperate to work here, and because we are an open community, they're bringing their time and their talent and their treasure to the United States. When I was working for Tim Kaine, there was an individual I worked with who was about to be -- who had gotten very bad advice about his green card status, who had created a company that was, like, a seventy-million dollar tech company in Blacksburg, Virginia, and we were able to help him stay in the United States with his family. But, by staying in the United States, we were able to keep him and his company here with like ninety employees. [Laughter] You know, who had tech jobs in Blacksburg, you know? And in parts of the Shenandoah Valley, who was making other offshoots in other parts of the valley. And so, like -- this anti-immigrant mindset from MAGA Republicans is so ugly, and short-sighted, and counterproductive for what we're trying to accomplish in terms of economic development, and...

 

Carter Hutchinson 44:32

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 44:33

 

And also, just -- from a cultural perspective.

 

Carter Hutchinson 44:35

 

Yeah, just life.

 

Alfonso Lopez 44:36

 

Like, how -- how -- silly. Not -- silly is too nice of a word.

 

Carter Hutchinson 44:43

 

Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's --

 

Alfonso Lopez 44:46

 

It's -- they're ugly people who put forward these -- these attitudes and arguments that somehow America is a Christian nation based on one faith and one community and one culture. And I'm like, no. That's the exact opposite of what our founders wrote. The exact opposite of what's on the Statue of Liberty.

 

Carter Hutchinson 45:14

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 45:15

 

Can I tell you a story?

 

Carter Hutchinson 45:16

 

Absolutely. Please do.

 

Alfonso Lopez 45:17

 

I'm in Western Maryland with my uncle, my white uncle, and my white cousin, and my father, and our car is broken down in zero-degree weather. And we're at this greasy, ugly gas station. I say ugly a lot and I shouldn't, and I'm sorry.

 

Carter Hutchinson 45:41

 

That's okay.

 

Alfonso Lopez 45:42

 

And I think I was sixteen, and these two men started, like, saying stuff about my dad, like, as he's asking for help with our broken-down car. He -- they were saying some of the most vile, disgusting things you could say about my dad, simply because he's a dark-skinned Latino, Indio-looking guy. And they called him ugly words and told him to go back where he came from, and all that stuff. And I, being me, started pushing over their display cases, and basically threatening, you know, to cause them bodily harm, [Laughter] and like, burn their place down, and being equally ugly back to them. I was really angry. And my uncle, who was a good five inches taller than me, picked me up and carried me screaming out of the -- no, I wasn't twelve, I was maybe thirteen, I wasn't sixteen, it was 1983 -- carried me screaming back to the car and I was crying, and my father was just like... took it. He took it all. And, but he stared them down. And this is why he was a badass, my God, he just -- this happened to him all the time. You have to understand, this happened to him all the time. These people would say -- and they would say it in front of me, not knowing I'm with him, not knowing that's my father that you're doing that, that you're saying that to. I'm in the, like, the back trying to get a Coke and all-of-a-sudden, like, I hear them saying this about my father. And this happened like a few times where I was present, but it happened to him a lot. Alright? And I don't know what he did or said but the car was fixed, almost immediately. And... Just pride, that -- and stubbornness, you know, which is infuriating to me now as a fifty-four-year-old man, but -- and he's eighty-eight [laughter] -- but he -- think about what he had to overcome to build a life for himself, coming from nothing, and he, you know, and having J. Edgar Hoover call him fucking Pablo.

 

Carter Hutchinson 48:39

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 48:40

 

You know? And like, you know, I -- it's like he -- the messages that... 'This ugliness in front of me -- is nothing. I know who they are -- the moment they open their mouth. I know what they are -- I don't have to sink to their level. I don't have to be that.

 

Carter Hutchinson 49:05

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 49:06

 

I'm simply going to get what I want -- and they have to live with themselves. Because their anger is not on me, it's about something else.

 

Carter Hutchinson 49:14

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 49:15

 

Alright? And, as a thirteen-year-old, I didn't understand that. As a thirteen-year-old, I was about to light a torch.

 

Carter Hutchinson 49:22

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 49:23

 

Alright? And my problem is I'm still too much like that thirteen-year-old. I want to just burn stuff down when people are like that. And you'd be surprised how often people are like that. When I first got elected to the House of Delegates, an old lady-lobbyist came up to me -- who is no longer a lobbyist -- and said, 'You don't look Latino.' And I stopped and turned around and said, 'Mam, what's a Latino look like?' I guess she'd had a few glasses of wine, but she told me what she thought a Latino looked like. And I said, 'Oh, okay. Have you ever been to Argentina? A lot of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Latinos there. You ever been to Cuba? Or seen Cubans in Miami? They look pretty European. You ever been to Chile?' [Laughter] Basically, she was describing my father. And my father is that I can be both my father and that thirteen-year-old boy.

 

Carter Hutchinson 50:28

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 50:29

 

And so, I unfortunately told her that -- as a freshman in the House of Delegates -- that if she ever spoke to me again before she'd traveled, I'd let her and her clients know what kind of person she was. And she never spoke to me again.

 

Carter Hutchinson 50:48

 

Yeah. Probably made her think, though.

 

Alfonso Lopez 50:50

 

Huh? [Laughter]

 

Carter Hutchinson 50:51

 

You probably made her think, though.

 

Alfonso Lopez 50:52

 

I don't know. I don't think half these folks actually think about their ugliness -- or their bigotry. Think about that, like, this is a woman who must have been sixty-eight, sixty-five, something, you know? Telling me I didn't look like a Latino.

 

Carter Hutchinson 51:08

 

Not only that, but just kind of how casual it sounds like it was.

 

Alfonso Lopez 51:11

 

Oh, fuck. Oh, no, no, no, no. That was the -- the unnerving part about it was the... We were at thirty-two in the House, we couldn't even sustain a veto. And it was like we weren't even there.

 

Carter Hutchinson 51:24

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 51:25

 

You know? And these are old-school Byrd Democrats from what I gathered who are now, like, fully-invested Reagan Republicans.

 

Carter Hutchinson 51:35

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 51:36

 

Or worse, now.

 

Carter Hutchinson 51:37

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 51:38

 

You know, I'm very proud of Marty Martinez.

 

Carter Hutchinson 51:46

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 51:47

 

Because he really reminds me of my dad, a lot. But I'm really proud of Phil Hernandez. Phil Hernandez is such a great legislator and such a great lawyer, who represents, I think, the best of us in a lot of ways, but who also cares deeply about the issues and is perfectly willing to, you know, stand up for the stuff that matters. Elizabeth Guzman -- I love her. I know because she's had such an amazing journey herself. She's been the immigrant -- fighting for things. I mean, it's like, if you and I went to Poland and got elected to the Polish legislature --

 

Carter Hutchinson 52:43

 

Right. [Laughter] Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 52:45

 

We would have American accents. And people would not say, 'Who is this man from America in the Polish legislature?' -- 'Look at how amazing this guy is. He came from America and is not even a Polish guy and he speaks Polish and he's in the legislature!’  'What is that? That's crazy! That's amazing!'

 

Carter Hutchinson 53:03

 

Right.

 

Alfonso Lopez 53:04

 

But the way that they would abuse her, some members like Greg Habeeb and -- who is a vacuous waste of oxygen because of the ugliness he would spout repeatedly in private -- and the Tag Greasons of the world. And she just -- she doesn't get angry, she just gets ahead, you know? Her whole life. I knew that she was going to beat Scott Lingamfelter because three points don't mean anything to her. She's going to do everything she can to make sure she wins. And I'm going to fight tooth and nail for her this election cycle, and I -- the dumbest bet in the world is to bet against Elizbeth Guzman. 

 

Carter Hutchinson 54:00

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 54:02

 

And then there are so many other people like Chris Falcone, and Zariah Tapia, my God, she's on the school board here in Arlington. And then Andres Jimenez, Vivian Sanchez Jones, I mean, truly brilliant, amazing public servants who care deeply about Virginia and their communities and making life better for everybody. And I just -- I'm excited for the future. I'm excited for the kinds of people we're going to get elected in the future. There are these young people who like -- Mel Borha, she is a, I think, a third-year law student at U.V.A., I think she has a full ride to U.V.A. Law, which is incredible, she's going to be governor someday. Pablo Gomez. Pablo Gomez -- or Alex Cintra. Alex Cintra was the first student body president at U.V.A. who was a Latino ever, and he works in the General Assembly for Michele Maldonado. And he's the executive director of the Latino Caucus. Alright? His predecessor was Pablo Gomez. Pablo Gomez -- his parents are both from Central America. No. Yes. His father has been detained twice by I.C.E., not once but twice, and let go from detention. He became -- he wanted to become a page, and he became a page, and I met him -- he was the first Latino page ever -- and he wanted to meet me because I was the first Latino Democrat. And we talked, and he's this amazing young kid. I mean, brilliant, truly brilliant young man. He said, 'I want to be the head page next year.' And Howell didn't -- Speaker Howell didn't let him be the head page, so that didn't work. But then, so I said, 'Well, just come back and intern for me.' So, he was going to Maggie Walker School for Government, and interning for me, every year. And then he said, 'Do you know anything about this U.S. Senate page program?' Said, 'Yeah, do you want to do that?' I said, 'Alright, I'll write you a recommendation -- I'll help you through the whole process.' He becomes the U.S. Senate page for Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, the first Latino to ever represent Virginia in the U.S. Senate Page Program. Does that for a year, learns about the Fulbright Program for high school kids to go to school in Germany, gets accepted to that -- the whole time, he's got a four-point-five, like a straight-a average, alright? Out at Maggie Walker. And the whole time he's dealing with this, his father's being detained by I.C.E. And he's the one who speaks the best English so he's helping negotiate things with the immigration attorneys. We helped him apply to college. We said, 'set your sights really high, alright?' And he had a lot of help from a lot of people. He got into Harvard, Yale, he got rejected by Princeton, he got rejected by Northwestern, and he got into U.V.A. and William & Mary. Harvard and Yale gave him a full, almost a full ride. I think he had to pay seven thousand dollars, total, a year for Harvard, and it would have been nine thousand at Yale. Guess how much money U.V.A. gave him? Zero. William & Mary gave him zero. He had almost a full ride to Harvard, okay? [Sighs] So he graduates from Harvard and he's doing all this cool stuff. He's studying -- in the height of COVID he's going to Spain and he's studying there and doing all this stuff and taking his classes remotely and he applies to law school. He's in his second semester at U.V.A. Law. He's going to do big law, I think, to pay off his law school debt. And he'll do, like, clerkships -- and he's doing really well. And he's going to, you know, make the kind of money to help his family and help his brothers and sisters and he's a credit to everything we've worked for. Alright? But if we're lucky, someone like him, in the back of his mind, he's thinking about running for office someday. Because he could be A.G. He could be a congressperson. And he's the kind of person you want to be A.G. He's the kind of person you want to be a congressperson. Who has empathy. Who cares about everybody. And especially his family and his community and rising all boats, not pushing people out because they look different or they're -- they think differently. I'm excited about the Venezuelan -- not Venezuelan -- the Latino community in Virginia and our future. And I'm excited about the impact we can have as long as we can get through these difficult times.

 

Carter Hutchinson 59:19

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 59:20

 

You understand?

 

Carter Hutchinson 59:21

 

Absolutely. It sounds -- um -- one thing that I think I heard loud and clear through that is that, in a lot of ways, the best revenge is, you know, a life well-lived, right?

 

Alfonso Lopez 59:35

 

[Slaps table]. It's not about revenge, man.

 

Carter Hutchinson 59:37

 

Well, exactly. There is no revenge. There's just --

 

Alfonso Lopez 59:39

 

The first thing I said as you came in here was like, 'How many people want to be something? And how many people want to do something?'

 

Carter Hutchinson 59:44

 

Right.

 

Alfonso Lopez 59:45

 

It's not about revenge. Or it's not about being ahead of somebody or living well, it's about getting shit done.

 

Carter Hutchinson 59:52

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 59:53

 

The whole purpose of being in public service is to accomplish things. You know? It's to actually get bills passed, to create laws, to make life better for people, even in small ways. So, like, I passed the Affordable Housing Trust Fund as a -- in my second year in the House. And we got it from like six-point-five million dollars to almost 150 million dollars. It should be 400 million dollars. Because that's -- relative to our size, the need that's out there, especially in Northern Virginia, for every project we fund, there are seven we don't. For every project in Southside Virginia and Southwest Virginia that we fund, there are four that we don't. And there are far too many kids living in double-wide trailers with, you know, [sighs] leaking holes in the roof and no heat. In 2025! Alright? That's not affordable housing. That's not legitimate affordable housing. That's not quality housing. And so, meeting someone who has a roof over their head because of something you worked on, to the detriment of your own -- like, I don't know how many people I piss off because I care deeply about these policy issues. And, sometimes I just, you know -- my problem is that everybody wants to be a prince or princess, they don't -- they want to be the prince or princess of their little fiefdom, they want to be told that every idea they have is good, and they want to just move a comma and say that they've done something. I want to do big things and I want to help people, and everybody does too, but you'd be surprised how many people are perfectly willing to ... settle.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:01:45

 

It's so interesting how -- um -- you know, in a lot of ways, it seems like the background and experience, for a lot of folks who are Latino, is sort of by nature, a lot of them identifying with a more sort of heterogenous community. You know? It kind of doesn't really line up with sort of your traditional Virginia civic identity of white and Black. Right?

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:02:18

 

[Laughter].

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:02:20

 

And so it can be, I think that thing that can bring people out of their foxholes. Hopefully.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:02:28

 

Yeah. Hopefully.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:02:29

 

But, you can also see it get used to keep people in their foxholes. So...

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:02:34

 

There you go.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:02:35

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:02:36

 

I -- I'm well aware of ... what some Democrats like to say about -- and what some Latinos like to say. Because, I'm not going to lie to you, man, every Latino does not love -- the problem with the white political class twenty years ago in Virginia is the assumption that every Latino was the same, when El Salvadorans are not Nicaraguans, are not Peruvians, are not Argentinians, are not Cubans, are not Venezuelans, are not Colombians. And the ancient animosities between those countries [laughter] is real. Okay? And the accents, and, like -- what I found fascinating was only like twelve-fifteen years ago, the Democratic party finally start using Chicano accents on radio ads in Texas versus Cuban accents. So, like, they would think, 'Oh, I'm going to use this Cuban kind of Spanish and we're going to do that ad in Oregon, or we're going to do that ad in D.C. When the accent that's going to play in D.C. is an El Salvadoran accent, or a Central American accent, versus a Cuban accent in Miami, but in Doral County, it's all Venezuelan all the time, so you want to have a Venezuelan accent in that radio network. And the fact that it took forever for people to figure that out is a little sad. Alright? My job, a lot of the time is -- as sort of the first Latino and the highest-ranking Latino in the Kaine administration and then the founder of D.L.O.V. and all this stuff, it was to sort of bring people out of their silos.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:04:39 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:04:40

 

So, today -- this event we're doing with Spanberger, there are basically sixty-three leading Latino individuals across Virginia. Right? Who are doing serious work. Who are elected officials, or they're association leads, or, you know, they're professors who are involved in policy. And so, important people.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:05:07

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:05:08

 

And so, we're going to have two meetings with Spanberger. And we're going to sit down, and one of them is today, one of them is in April, twenty-fourth, I think, where we're going to have a very frank conversation about a lot of the stuff that we care about. And -- but if you had talked to me twenty-five years ago, the Mexicans would not have played with ... anybody who wasn't from Mexico. And Walter Tejada's El Salvadorans would have had a hard time talking to some other groups. And Walter understood the importance of organizing everybody. And he's sort of the founder of a lot of what we've been able to accomplish -- we all sort of ride on his shoulders. I mean, I think I gave you his number. But you need to talk to him.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:05:56

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:05:57

 

And Emma. But like, it's taken people a long time to get to the point where we all are coming together and talking about stuff -- based on policy agreements as opposed to cultural agreements. Because as that sort of small-minded bigot said to me, 'Delegate Lopez, you don't look Latino.'

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:06:28

 

Mm-hmm. Right.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:06:29

 

[Laughter]. You know? Maybe that helps.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:06:33

 

Right.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:06:34

 

Maybe that helps, because, you know -- I'm known by my works, not by the fact that my Spanish is perfect and my skin tone is lighter than typical new Americans. But it's taken a while to sort of get people to the point where ... I mean, there's still people who will -- in good-natured jest -- make fun of my grammar. You know? And I'm still a product of my parents. My mom was supposed to speak to me in English. My dad was supposed to speak to me in Spanish. And my father was stuck in the fifties mindset that speaking Spanish was somehow less than.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:07:27

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:07:28

 

I mean, you saw what happened in Texas -- I mean, like, they were kept out of school if they spoke Spanish.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:07:32

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:07:33

 

They were sent to detention if they spoke Spanish.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:07:37

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:07:38

 

The early-nineteen-fifties and Eisenhower's Operation quote-unquote "Wetback" was not that far removed from when my father came to the United States.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:07:47

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:07:48

 

And so, the idea, somehow, that there's an entire generation of Latino political leaders -- the Castro brothers. You know, former cabinet secretary, former--current member of Congress, do they speak Spanish?

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:08:03

 

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:08:04

 

Not a lick! Not a lick!

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:08:06

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:08:07

 

Do you think they want people to know that?

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:08:08

 

[Laughter] Right. Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:08:10

 

I mean, they speak about as well as I do.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:08:12

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:08:14

 

But, like, does it mean they're not fighting for our community? No.

 

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:08:20

 

Right.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:08:20

 

Of course they're fighting for our community.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:08:21

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:08:23

 

So, once you get passed that kind of small-mindedness and weirdness, and you realize that you judge people by their good works, not by, you know, whether or not they're, you know, sounding the way they need to -- or whether or not they fit an image -- then we can get a lot of good stuff done.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:08:49

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:08:49

 

It's like, what have I been saying? It's like, I don't care who you are or where you come from, but where's your heart, you know? Are you -- Andres Tovar said this to me a long time ago: He was like, 'I don't care how smart you are. What's in your heart? What's going to -- what truly motivates you?'

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:09:05

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:09:05

 

And can you -- can you', and then Walter would say, 'Can you -- what are you willing to do to accomplish what's in your heart?' You know, those two men are great men and we don't talk about them enough. They're truly great men. Like, and Andres said it, it's like, 'You're very smart, Alfonso, but what's in your heart?' And then Walter would say -- and I remember Robin, his wife, joking, like laughing, when he said it, and it's like -- 'And what are you willing to do to accomplish what's in your heart?'

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:09:36

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:09:37

 

You know?

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:09:40

 

Yeah man.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:09:40

 

Talk about the time to actually keep that in our -- like, write that above every door frame, you know?

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:09:47

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:09:47

 

But, like -- that's the thing, it's like, if you can get past cult--ancient animosities, you can actually accomplish great things. If you come together, you can actually do a lot of good stuff , so... But there are so many people hurting right now. A lot of these groups that are fly-by-night groups that are mostly young kids who are scared, because of the federal policies, and they're lashing out at anybody and anything, in the wrong direction a lot of the time, and then they -- but we have to respect the fact that they are scared, and we're living in times where it's not ... unfounded. It's real.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:10:32

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:10:34

 

I have fourteen relatives right now who are on the verge of being deported -- a few who lived in my house for a year because of the Trump administration's, you know, completely unfounded policies on T.P.S., and what the current nature and status of things in Venezuela is. Because he's about to get rid of T.P.S., and he's, you know -- he's disappearing people. You know? What is it -- 150-plus people who are sent to El Salvadoran prisons? Including some people who shouldn't be there? You know? Who are quietly being sent back? I mean, this is autocracy in some ways -- that's what an autocrat does, that's not what happens in a democracy. And so, if we don't all work together, and if we don't stick up for each other, and if we don't fight with a unified voice on policy issues that we all care about, then more of it's going to happen and that is ... even with the mountains we're having to climb, shame on us. Even though it's difficult, shame on us if we don't meet this moment. If we don't fight back. If we don't ... speak with a unified voice. If we don't actively work to engage the populations that are voting for someone in increasingly higher numbers who lies to them. And so, like, the exit poll numbers are not lost on me or anybody else, in terms of the Latino population. In the last presidential election cycle. And then, what happened? Like -- Doral County, which is significant population of Latinos, voted in high numbers for Trump and now he's -- they're all scared out of their mind, because 'We voted for you, what do you mean you're doing this to us? What do you mean you're sending us all back home? What do you mean, you're sending our neighbors, and our cousins, and our family back home? What do you mean, you're splitting our family apart?' It's a dystopian hellhole in Venezuela right now. How dare you say different on national tv?

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:13:02

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:13:04

 

And then the demonization of a criminal gang ... you know, I'm not apologizing -- if somebody commits a felony, rape or murder, or a violent crime, and they're undocumented, I am the first person to say they should be deported after they serve their sentence here. Alright? But the easy slippery slope that the folks in the Trump administration, and the President, uses to demonize all immigrants, all new Americans, by saying, 'Oh, those people are violent.' Or, 'Those people --' It's such an easy political trope and it's just not worthy of the presidency, and not worthy of a political party. This is the Republicans doing this. And the fact that you have Latinos voting for it -- for whatever reason -- it's horrible. It's horrible. Because, you know, nobody assumed that it would ever be like this in the United States, and it's becoming like this, at least if you watch closely -- ignoring the courts, pushing back on the courts, seeing how far you can push the courts, seeing how far you can push the executive branch, that's not the work of a -- of a democracy, that's the work of an autocrat.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:14:34

 

Yeah, well --

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:14:35

 

And that's scares the hell out of me.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:14:37

 

Yeah, I mean -- it's -- uh --

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:14:41

 

That's why it's important that we win this next election in Virginia.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:14:43

 

Yeah.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:14:44

 

Send a message to the world, I mean, not just the country, but the world, that we're not okay with the craziness across the Potomac.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:14:52

 

Absolutely.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:14:54

 

Sorry, like I said, if you don't shut me up ---

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:14:55

 

No --

 

Alfonso Lopez: 1:14:55

 

-- I will keep talking. 

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:14:56

 

No. This has been great. Um -- is there anything -- I'd like to first just thank you.

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:15:01 

Sure!

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:15:02

 

Um -- is there anything else that you want to -- um talk about? Or do you feel like --

 

Alfonso Lopez 1:15:06

 

No, man.

 

Carter Hutchinson 1:15:07

 

You good? Yeah.

 

 

 

Daniel Morales - 00:00

Okay, the recording is now in progress.

Alfonso Lopez - 00:08

Hello? Yeah, can you hear me?

Daniel Morales - 00:10

Yes, I am Daniel Morales and I'm a professor here at Virginia Commonwealth University, and today is September 1st, 2026 at 1 PM, and we are interviewing Delegate Alfonso Lopez. Um, would you like to introduce yourself?

Alfonso Lopez - 00:27

Hi, my name is Alfonso Lopez. I am the state delegate from the 3rd District representing all of South Arlington and parts of Alexandria. I've been in the Virginia House of Delegates now for 16 years, and I'm the chair of the Agricultural, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources Committee, which basically deals with ag and environment issues. And I'm also the number 2 member of the Labor and Commerce Committee, in seniority, and I'm also the chair of the Labor Workforce Subcommittee. I'm also a member of Public Safety and Communications Technology and Innovation. And I was formerly the majority and minority whip for the House Democratic Caucus and the former campaign chair for the House Democratic Caucus.

Daniel Morales - 01:15

Okay, welcome. We're happy to have you today.

Alfonso Lopez - 01:18

And I was— I am the first Latino Democrat ever elected to the Virginia General Assembly in 400-plus years. Um, my wife, my, my staff always insisted I say this, so it's a little unnerving.

Daniel Morales - 01:32

All right. Um, so first I would like, uh, to get sort of your verbal permission to use this interview as part of the Latino Virginia Digital Archive.

Alfonso Lopez - 01:44

Sure.

Daniel Morales - 01:46

Um, so do I have your permission to use the audio recording and to make a transcript of the interview and to make a photograph.

Alfonso Lopez - 02:04

Sure.

Daniel Morales - 02:04 

Do I have your permission to use your real name with this and to have this be part of the archive immediately?

Alfonso Lopez - 02:11 

Sure.

Daniel Morales - 02:12 

All right, thank you. And then we'll send you a copy of the forms as well. If you can send us a signed copy, that would be appreciated.

Alfonso Lopez - 02:25 

Sure.

Daniel Morales - 02:28

Okay. So first, I'd like to sort of get some of your background and your youth. What brought you to politics? What were the influence of your parents on, on that trajectory?

Alfonso Lopez - 02:52 

Politics and policy have been a part of my life since my earliest memories. My parents would talk about campaigns and elections and policy every night at the dinner table and at parties. And some of my earliest memories are of having my parents having friends over at their apartment to watch the Watergate hearings. And me as a 4-year-old and 5-year-old running around saying, what did he know? When did he know it? What did he know? When did he know it? And so it's been literally something I've grown up with. And then I got very involved with fights with my mom because she was a Republican or a very old-school Republican, and I was a strong Democrat. As was my father. And then it was fascinating to see my mom slowly become a Democrat over the years as she saw the Republican Party sort of leave, like, leave her, not her leave it. And then what's also been fascinating is me and both of my parents being very open to me getting involved with clubs, that got me involved with local politics like the Young Democrats. And even, and then things like Model United Nations and debates. And I got very good at Model United Nations in high school. And I was part of a team that was very, very good and had a great mentor in a teacher named David Hemingway that really excited got me excited about policy. And it went very well for the team. We went to a lot of national conferences at Harvard and the national conference in New York at the actual United Nations and dozens of local conferences. And we always did very well. We— the team did really well. And I would win a bunch of awards. And I think my success at that got me— helped me get into a bunch of different colleges that I got into. And I went to a place called Vassar College in New York, a small liberal arts college, because I sort of fell under the spell of a couple professors up there who I'm still friends with today. One was Professor Sidney Plotkin, and really got excited about the nuances of American politics and government and policy and got a lot of encouragement in college to get involved with campaigns and to try to pursue positions in, in government. And interestingly, I didn't, I did a bunch of legislative transaction adjacent positions in college for internships and things. But then I was supposed to go, I went straight to law school because I got very excited about environmental policy. And I went to a place called Tulane University Law School, and mostly because of the focus they did on environmental justice issues and environmental law. And they were an amazing cohort of professors who did incredible work sort of developing what we know as environmental justice and addressing all of the toxic releases and you know, clean water, safe drinking water, clean air issues up and down the Mississippi River Valley. And I once again fell under the spell of a couple professors, including the amazing Professor Oliver Houck at Tulane, and took several classes with him. And was going to sort of go to a law firm. And then interestingly, I learned from a fellow student that she had just left working at the White House, and she had gotten her foothold at the White House by being an intern in the Bush administration. H.W. Bush administration. And I searched up and found out that there was going to be an internship program in the first year of the Clinton administration. And I applied on a whim. And, you know, after I'd already accepted my position for the upcoming summer, Got a phone call from the White House. Like, and I joke because I hung up on them. I thought it was a friend of mine playing a prank. And they called back and said, here's a number you need to call at the White House, ask for this office and ask for this person. And it's actually the White House calling you. Please don't hang up next time. And they— I called them back. Very nervous, very sweaty. And they said, we'd like to offer you an internship in the first intern class in the Clinton White House. And, you know, at the end of the Clinton administration, they had like 650 people a summer. You know, they— this is like a— it's just a whole lot of people. And that first intern class in the Clinton White House was 60, 65 people. And they were all— I mean, just the cohort I had in the Domestic Policy Council where I was working, was one Woodrow Wilson public policy student, one Yale Law student, one PhD candidate in political science at the University of Arkansas, and me. And I remember walking in with Bruce Reed, who is the Bruce Reed and a former deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy. And he got all of us after our orientation, and he walks all of us into the Old Executive Office Building. I mean, let me be very clear. I'm a— I've just finished my first year of law school. I'm 23 years old, and I'm walking into the White House. All right. It's a little mind-blowing. You know, my father was one of 22 brothers and sisters from the Andes Mountains of Venezuela, undocumented. My mom was Pennsylvania Dutch from central Pennsylvania and a guidance counselor. My dad, you know, was a busboy and a waiter, you know, learned English and was, you know, a manager with Sodexo Marriott, you know, helping out with, or basically working at Pan American Health Organization, running the cafeterias and working at the World Bank doing catering events and things. And I'm, I'm 23 and I'm about to walk into the White House. And so literally, I walk into this room and there are 3 desks that they have in this 20-foot ceiling office for the interns for the Domestic Policy Council. And there's no desk for me. And I'm like, all right, they figured it out. I'm getting kicked out. I knew it. I knew it was wrong. I knew it was a joke. And Bruce Reed says, "oh, you're coming with me" like, oh, okay. You're going to have me in the new executive office. Are you going to put me in some closet someplace, you know, in Delaware or something? And, and he takes me down a flight of stairs and he takes me towards this hallway and these huge doors. And all of a sudden, I'm looking at the West Wing of the White House and a side view of the White House you never see. And he says, your office is over here. "Excuse me?" And we go down the huge flight of steps across the the, the, the, the parts, like a parking lot slash driveway. And we walk into the West Wing of the White House. And I take 10 steps and to my right is the Situation Room and the Navy Mess. And I'm seeing US senators walk by and I'm seeing All these young staffers I see on TV all the time walk by. And then we walk up a flight of stairs and, it's Al Gore's office. And he says, we're going to the second floor. And so literally my desk was on the second floor of the West Wing of the White House. And my boss was Gene Sperling, not Gene Sperling, Bill Galston, who was sharing an office with Gene Sperling. who was the other deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy, both working for Carol Rasko. But in this little subsection of the second floor of the West Wing of the White House was Bob Rubin, who would go on to become the secretary of the Treasury, who was at the time the head of the NEC. And then Rahm Emanuel. And, you know, and like, there's George Stephanopoulos and there's, you know, Vince Foster. And all of these capital letter people. And literally as far away as, you know, 15 feet was Hillary Clinton's office, the first First Lady to ever have an office in the West Wing of the White House. And, and I'm literally in— my mouth is open. I'm in awe of every moment of what's going on. And I have a desk the size of a, you know, a large laptop, you know, but I'm, I'm sitting there with all of these brilliant people and these like staffers who are young 20-something staffers who are, oh, oh, these are people who are going to want to become the chief of staff at OMB, or they're going to become the head of OMB, or now they're members of Congress and, and all these people. And within 4 or 5 days, I realized that I'm not going to be a lawyer. I'm not going to go do patent law. I'm not going to go do copyright law. I'm going to, or environmental law. I'm going to do this. And I made a promise to myself that I would finish law school as fast as I possibly could to get back to this. Because it was— to say that it was an intoxicating and mind-numbing and wonderful experience is the understatement of understatements, because I was doing work. And I'm 23. And I'm, I'm writing memos. And I'm on phone calls and I'm in meetings with the— of the Domestic Policy Council in the Cabinet Room and I'm in the Roosevelt Room and I'm, you know, shaking hands with the president. And I'm there the night we pass the famous budget in '92 or '93 that sets us on a path to, you know, balancing the nation's budget. I mean, literally, my son found for me, like, you know, that series the '90s on CNN? For 3 seconds, you can see me at the budget signing. I'm right there with my tan suit and my long hair, you know. But so like, everything led me to that moment. And that experience got me truly excited about law, about policy and law and the intersection. And from that, every position I ever had was in the legislative transaction space. So I was— I went from— I finished law school in 5 semesters and went straight back to the Clinton White House at the Council on Environmental Quality, interning there. And then I got recruited to go work in the environmental community as a member of the B Team, working on things like the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, the Clean Air Act reauthorization. the Safe Drinking Act reauthorization, the Kyoto Protocol. So the climate change issue back in the late '90s and then left that to go. I got, I interviewed to go be on the Hill and I interviewed for, with a bunch of US senators and I took a job as basically a senior legislative assistant to Bob Torricelli from New Jersey, which was interesting. And an education in and of itself in bare-knuckle politics. But I was brought on to be the environment and energy guy. And within 45 minutes, I was also doing labor, education, most of the social safety net domestic policy issues for the senator as his legislative assistant, doing basically everything from ag to animal welfare to energy. And it was all these different domestic policy issues. And I did that for a period of time, realized I eventually had to pay off my law school debt. So I went to a firm doing environmental transaction work or not doing lobbying, federal lobbying. Became a partner there and then got very involved in Democratic politics in Virginia where I grew up in Northern Virginia, was the president of the Young Democrats of Arlington. And the vice president for 2 years before that, was named the Young Democrat of the Year in Arlington twice, and then the Young Democrat of the Year in Virginia when I was— as well. And as part of that, I met everybody across the state, including a guy named Tim King, who was the lieutenant governor of Virginia. And then also a very good guy named Larry Roberts, who was basically my big brother. And Larry Roberts and I were attached at the hip for many years. And he's the one who brought me into Kaine land. He was Tim Kaine's campaign chair for governor and offered me a job to come onto the campaign. And I said no, but I volunteered big time. And then 2 days after the election that no one thought that Tim Kaine was going to win 6 weeks out from the election and then he won. I get a phone call from Larry Roberts saying, hey, do you want to jump off a cliff with me? It's like, "what are you talking about?" I want you to be the deputy policy director of the transition team for Tim Kaine. And you know what it's like in Virginia. You have like 800 people on paid staffers on a statewide campaign, and then you have 21 people in charge of putting an entire government together for 3 months. And so I said, sure, I'll take it. How much does it pay? He said nothing. Okay. You got a place for me to stay? No, you got to figure that out yourself. So I worked for them for 3 months from 7 a.m. until 1 o'clock in the morning every day with 2 days off for Christmas until at the end of it, we put an entire government together and they offered me a whole bunch of jobs. And I took the best one, which was the head of Congressional and Federal Affairs for Virginia running the D.C. office. which is a cabinet-level position, and became the highest-ranking Latino in the Kaine administration of the 8 of us who were there. People like Lenny, like Lenny Gonzalez and Cindy Benavides. You should talk to Cindy Benavides, who's had every job now in Virginia. Cindy became the head of LULAC, the national LULAC for a time. And, and the great thing about being the head of the D.C. office for a state, I mean, every state has a D.C. office. All 6 territories have a D.C. office. Puerto Rico has 29 staff. Kentucky has 1 staffer. Virginia had 7. And we're the crossroads for all state politics and policy and federal politics and policy. And every, every— and we brought like $1 billion back every year to the state in terms of projects we were working on with the congressional delegation or grants we were securing. But then we also were an advocate for the state with the delegation with the federal government. So in our fight to keep a nuclear carrier group in Hampton Roads, as opposed to having to move to Florida, that was a Republican and Democrat Virginia fight, working together to make sure we did it. Building the Silver Line, took 3 and a half years, took 9 years off my life. 9 years off my life over those 3 and a half years because we got the death sentence not once, but twice. We still got it done. You know, and everything from, you know, tribal recognition to, you know, highway funding or social safety net funding across the state that we were able to bring in through our amazing team at the D.C. liaison office for Virginia. And then, you know, I leave that. I go back to being a lobbyist. And no, actually, that's not true. I went to the Obama administration. So because of my position from Tim Kaine, I got recruited to go be the assistant administrator of the SBA doing congressional legislative work on small business issues for President Obama as the head of congressional legislative affairs for intergovernmental affairs for the SBA, and then I was the White House liaison at GSA for a time. And then I got recruited to run for the House of Delegates. And I did. I got in 2 and a half months after my opposition did. And we won with, you know, we outraised them, I think, 3 to 1, and we won, Actually, or 3 to 1, and we won the race 3 to 1. You know, I won with 66% of the vote. And even though we were in it, considerably less time than our opponent was. And then I find out a week after I get elected, or a couple of days after I get elected, I'm the first Latino ever elected to the General Assembly, a Democrat, or as someone joked once, the first Latino who actually liked Latinos. Um, previous guy was a Republican named, uh, Jeff Frederick, who can be— yeah, I'm sorry, if you, if you don't shut me up.

Daniel Morales - 21:51

Do you know anything?

Alfonso Lopez - 21:52

...Daniel...

Daniel Morales - 21:52

...Anything about his background?

Alfonso Lopez - 21:54

Uh, I think his mom was Latino. Um, but I mean, not a— I don't know, I, I've never really spoken to him. Daniel, if you don't shut me up, I will keep talking. There's a reason why I was the majority whip.

Daniel Morales - 22:15

All right, so what I would like you to talk about next is those couple of years in the legislature and the bills that you were trying to work on, especially because this is a climate of sort of post-9/11 security climate. There was a— before that time, there was Ken Cuccinelli, who had become attorney general, had passed a lot of anti-immigrant laws. How did you work that climate to try to push back against it? And what were some of the bills that you were trying to pass?

Alfonso Lopez - 22:53

First bill I put in every year for 9 straight years was the Virginia Dream Act. And let me put it this way. There are only 32 Democrats in the House of Delegates out of 100. When I first got elected, we couldn't even sustain a veto if we had a governor. That's how bad it was. If you had told me, you know, 16 years ago that we'd be at 64, double the number of Democrats in the House as we were back then, I would have told you you were insane. But things have changed dramatically. The sort of egregious know-nothing aspect of some of the MAGA Tea Party rhetoric has really turned people off. So in addition to the demographics shifting in the state continually. But let me be very blunt, Dr. Morales. They wouldn't even hear the bill. Like, like, literally, it was— I was putting all this time and attention into it. I was saying, this is something that has passed in Texas and Oklahoma, in Utah. These are not blue states. And they wouldn't even give it a hearing. All right. And, and I worked— I fought tooth and nail every year to try to get that bill moved because of what it meant to literally tens of thousands of students in Virginia. And the lost revenue, the lost hearts and minds, the feelings of desperation that so many children were feeling because they were in some cases only finding out that they were not citizens months before they were applying to college. And what that does to people and what that does to communities in terms of economic development and growth and what it means to the bottom line in Virginia. I mean, how self-defeating it was. And what's fascinating is when you actually look at polling data about the impact, like about the popularity of the DREAM Act. I mean, take out immigration reform in general, but the popularity of the DREAM Act alone, taken as a silo, Republicans and Democrats support it. But certain aspects of the Republican base or the conservative base was more than happy to demonize and harm children in order to move a narrative that is ugly and divisive and not who we are as Virginians or as Americans. So I literally would sit down with— I remember standing in 30-degree weather for an hour and 15 minutes with Richard Anderson, who, a former delegate from what, like southern Northern Virginia, who went on to become the chair of the Republican Party of Virginia, about the importance of passing the DREAM Act and quoting numbers of people in his own district who would benefit from it and getting nowhere. I remember having 2 conversations with Speaker Bill Howe, who represented Fredericksburg. And the second conversation has always stuck with me. I mean, he said, I said, sir, you've got like over 190 kids that I've been able to track myself without going to every high school in your community that would benefit from this bill. Those are children in your community with families who are, you know, contributing to the tax base of your community that are not getting any of the benefits from those taxes that are going to be harmed if we don't pass the Dream Act. And his quote to me after being a little frustrated with me was, "Well, they're not real Virginians, are they?" That was the Speaker of the House, Bill Howell, who said that to me, knowing full well that my father was undocumented. So when every year I'd bring it back and you'd get a hearing in subcommittee and be killed in subcommittee. And then a couple years it was killed in subcommittee. Then it was— it got out of subcommittee and it went to the full committee. I remember one year, however, there were these kids. They were La Colectiva adjacent, which is this horrible organization that I think is misguided in how it does things. Very misguided in how it does things. They don't go after the Republicans, they go after their friends. And we were— had a chance to pass the bill, the DREAM Act, out of subcommittee. I had Rob Bloxham saying very positive things. And if we were able to thread the needle the way I needed to thread the needle, we might get it out of sub. And this one young lady got up and basically called every Republican, every Democrat on the subcommittee racists. And we weren't able to get the bill. They killed the bill almost immediately. And I— it's very frustrating sometimes because I'm trying to get things accomplished. And if someone's saying something to make themselves feel good in the moment, runs counter to our trying to accomplish something for our entire community. And I'm— I get very angry about that. So we got it out of— the whole time this is going on, Democrats are winning more and more seats in the House of Delegates. More and more seats.

Daniel Morales - 29:16

Yeah.

Alfonso Lopez - 29:17

And I'm talking to all the new members about the importance of this and what it means to their districts and what it means to the numbers of Latinos and African immigrants and European immigrants and Asian immigrants who benefit from the DREAM Act. Especially Northern Virginia, but also in places like Harrisonburg, Lynchburg, Richmond. Oh my God, the numbers in Richmond are amazing. Like Hampton Roads. And I have the votes. And then we elect— we get a majority and we elect the first female Speaker of the House, Eileen Filiquan. And she stands by it. And then I have, some of the most important things that we did was when the Attorney General, Mark Herring, got elected. He ran and said in his campaign that he would not support the DREAM Act. This is a Democrat.

Daniel Morales - 30:28

Okay.

Alfonso Lopez - 30:28

From Loudoun County. But then we had numerous meetings with him, numerous meetings where we brought high school kids from Loudoun to him. And he had this huge change of heart and a huge epiphany. And he was able to overturn with one letter, the Cuccinelli letter that had given guidance to all the universities about who could get in-state tuition, who couldn't. And he, he, with one stroke of the pen at Northern Virginia Community College, I remember being there with Adam Ebbett and a few other folks, was able to systematically change the lives of thousands of people he never met before. And with that, we had a champion. With him, because like literally every time I see him, he says every day for like a few years, every week someone would come up to him and say, because of what you did, I'm going to college. And he'll tell you to this day, it's one of the most gratifying things he's ever done. All right. But then we got the majority and we were able to then a few years later and have a governor, not just an AG, but a governor in Ralph Northam. Who by the 3rd year, within his administration was willing to sign the DREAM Act. We got it passed, got out of the Senate. And I'm not gonna lie to you, Dr. Morales, when that bill was signed by the governor with me standing there and Governor Northam and the AG, I cried like a baby. I mean, I'm literally remembering it right now, and it took 9 years. First bill I put in every year. But when that bill passed, I, I was on national television crying openly. And but that was 9 years of my life kicking and screaming and advocating with folks in private. And bringing them the data, bringing them the individual stories of people about why was it important to get it done. And also, like, I mean, from a financial background, from a business development background, from a pure fairness, like, these are children who've done no one any harm. They, through no fault of their own, they were brought into this country. And, you know, what does it say that we're going to, you know, deny kids? And so we got that done despite Ken Cuccinelli, by doing everything we had to do in terms of advocacy, coordination, but then also elections. And as we got the better numbers in Virginia, we, I think we became the 19th state in the country to actually pass a DREAM Act.

Daniel Morales - 33:56

Yeah.

Alfonso Lopez - 33:57

And that's one thing I hope. And but here's the other thing, Dr. Morales, the DREAM Act is currently in court, in the federal district court. So we could hear today or tomorrow or some other day whether or not it's going to be gutted because the Trump DOJ is systematically going after every state's Dream Act policies.

Daniel Morales - 34:21 

Keep a lookout on that in the papers then.

Alfonso Lopez - 34:23 

Yeah. And then also my legislation. I mean, I also worked— I mean, ICE, the ugliness of the ICE immigration tactics and efforts over the last year and a half, 2 years have been nauseating. There are countless examples of— I mean, just the numbers alone. I mean, in the last year of the Biden administration, around 1,400 ICE detentions took place in Virginia. And all the vast majority of those were done with judicial warrants. They went to a court. They, they got a judge to sign off on it because they were going after someone who had committed a felony, you know, or had committed a crime that was of the equivalence of deportation level. What happened under the first year of the Trump administration and with the complete cooperation of— I, I have just a truly ugly, horrible acquiescence by the Glenn Youngkin administration, um, was they opened up the floodgates in terms of sharing data, sharing, uh, DMV information, even though they were technically, actually, not technically. They were not allowed to according to the Virginia State Code, and they did anyways. And school information. There's Glenn Youngkin's first act as governor was to ban books.

Daniel Morales - 36:18

Right?

Alfonso Lopez - 36:19

It wasn't a slippery slope for him to open up the floodgates for Donald Trump to enable ICE agents to put zip ties on 5-year-olds and handcuffs on 11-year-olds, which has happened in Virginia. In Virginia. And so what I'm saying is this, and I'll shut up. He— we went from 1,400 in the last year of the Biden administration in Virginia to 7,900. In the first year, in the last year of the first year of the Trump administration and the last year of the Youngkin administration. And how did that happen? That happened because of 287 agreements, but more importantly, it happened because of administrative warrants versus judicial warrants. All right. And that's the thing. And what I was able to do was I able— I worked from August, even before the Spanberger administration was even elected, I sat down with folks on her team, including Bonnie Krenz, and said, I'm going to be doing a comprehensive soup-to-nuts immigration reform bill that disassociates the state from any cooperation with ICE. All right, we're not going to accept an unfunded mandate. We're not going to do the bidding, the work of the federal government. Federal government's going to do what the federal government's going to do, but we don't have to be a party at all this. All right. So I had a bill that addressed everything from data collection to masks to place-based initiatives like, nope, you can't do anything in public on state-owned hospitals, schools, universities, then also churches, mosques, you know, temples, everything. As well as the 287 agreements, as well as the the most important thing, I think, which is the administrative warrants versus judicial warrants. You have to have a judicial warrant if you're going to go down this process, which means you're only going after felons. You're not going after just 12-year-old kids with an administrative warrant because another ICE agent can simply give you an administrative warrant, which is freedom to go do whatever you want to do, as opposed to a judge looking at something and saying, you shall do this or you shall not do this. So what does that mean? That means that we then had it broken up into 11. We met with them 4 times during the transition. There was 3 times before the transition and for the election, then 4 times after the— during the transition, and then once with the Speaker and Jerica from the governor's office and the governor's team. And then broke up everything originally to 11 different bills, and we broke it into 5 different bills. And I took the biggest one, which was 287G/initiative warrants versus judicial warrants. Chris Schmidt took the masks. Katrina Carlson took the play space, which was— had 34 different places like emergency food assistance shelters, emergency shelters in storms, you know, playgrounds, everything. And then they limited it to like 4 different places. And then also there was the data collection bill that was carried by Kathy Tran, and another bill about, from Irene Shin about impersonation of ICE agents. And we got them all passed except for one which was gutted by the governor at the end. And now the— we had the—

Daniel Morales - 39:54

Which one was that?

Alfonso Lopez - 39:56

I think it was the place-based one. Or the masks. I forget which one. I apologize. I haven't slept in a couple days. I just moved my son back into college. And so we— but once again, the Trump DOJ has taken us all to court, and there was a ruling came down late last night about a preliminary injunction on the 287G piece. Then they only touched that. So basically it said that there are no new 287G agreements, but the current 287G Agreements that were in place before the law passed may remain in place, which is pretty crappy. But the final ruling has not come out yet from Judge Payne in the Eastern District, Federal District Court of Virginia. So what does this mean? I've passed— I've worked on every major immigration/Latino issue for the last 16 years in Virginia. I, I helped create— I, I— it took me 3 years, but I did it. We created D-LOVE, Democratic Latino Organization Virginia, and got it officially recognized by the Democratic Party of Virginia. I created the Latino Caucus in the General Assembly. Originally tried to get Jason Miyares to join me in that effort. He told me to my face, after thinking about it for 2 days, that he really represented the country club section of Virginia Beach and really wasn't interested in doing it, which I was like, “I'm out. I get it. I get who you are.” And yeah, I always will remember that one. And the only, you know, he would only ever talk about Latinos when he was talking about Cuba. And wanted to equate authoritarianism with socialism because stupid thinking. And then, so basically everything from, you know, protecting community policing. And ensuring that people don't have to say, say they're immigrants when they're called, or they're— there was an article in The New Yorker several years ago that talked about the failures of community policing. And people were too scared to call the local police because if they did, they thought that they would be caught up in the ICE detention process. Even though that they're the victims of rape or murder or physical assault or blackmail. And I thought, well, where are they going to— where— what is this community they're talking about? This is Arizona, this is California. What are they talking about? No, it was Arlington, Virginia. It was South Arlington, Virginia, the district I represented. And I use that as a way to address community policing with Attorney General Herron and made it so that immigrants did not have to— when they were calling into the police about a violent crime happening, that they don't have to live in fear and be preyed upon by bad actors because they know that this person can't call for help. I want people to be able to call for help. All right. And so we're able to get that passed. We're able to get, you know, reform. Like everyone thinks that if you go to a— everyone from Latin American countries sometimes thinks that if they go to a— I don't know what the hell it is. I Forget, they think they're going to a lawyer when in fact they're just going to somebody who can sign papers and documents for them.

Daniel Morales - 43:55

Oh, the notarios.

Alfonso Lopez - 43:56

The notario reforms. Notario reform. I passed that bill. That was early on because like I even got Republicans to figure out, oh, that's a bad idea. All right, these guys are putting themselves out as lawyers and they're preying on these communities. Um, and so we were able to address that. And I worked on that with, uh, uh, former State Senator Adam Eppin. So we did, like, so literally everything from ESL to notary reform to, uh, community policing to all the ICE immigration processes to the DREAM Act. I mean, I've been involved with now for 16 years. But then also what I'm incredibly proud of is the Latino Caucus for far too long was just me. All right. It was just me. And now it's 7 members, and it's growing. And we have done a very good job, I think, of a very good job of working with candidates and literally sending them seed money. You know, you're Latino, you've got strong ties to the community, you've got a legitimate case to make for running for office. You run for the General Assembly, the State Senate, the State House. Here's, here's $10,000. Here's $15,000. Here's $20,000. And that's our job, is our job is to get more like-minded Latinos in the General Assembly because there should be 11 of us in the House. I mean, based on population figures, there should be 11 Latinos in the House of Delegates. There should be 4 in the State Senate. There are 7 in the House. There are 0 in the State Senate. But hopefully that'll change soon. So my job is to grow Latino participation and political power. And we've been very successful in that to the point where you now have a lobbyist class that includes Latinos. You've got staffers who are Latinos. You've got considerably more staffers in the governor's office and the AG's office that are Latinos. It's healthy all around, I think, and political.

Daniel Morales - 46:19

Okay.

Alfonso Lopez - 46:20 

So like local office as well. I mean, the number of Latino school board members and county board members and city council members across the state has grown exponentially to the point now where they're around 24, 25. And you've got, you know, people at the city council in Roanoke who are Latino. You've got the city council in Harrisonburg that are Latino. Um, that's a huge step in the right direction.

Daniel Morales - 46:44

Yes, it is. I have a few questions about going back to the period around 2020. Could you walk me through the efforts to get and how the bill for driver's licenses got passed?

Alfonso Lopez - 47:05

Oh, which one? You're talking about—

Daniel Morales - 47:08

What became the driver's privilege cards for the—

Alfonso Lopez - 47:10

The driver privilege cards that Serval carried. Um, so that was Edgar Allende. Um, uh, that was his big baby. And I was, uh, behind the scenes, um, working phones and meetings, um, trying to get the bill through. Um, what would you like to know about it? I mean, it was basically, um, It was, it was an up or down effort with Searle. But he was true to his word. He got everything he said he'd do through and done. He, once again, it was weird because you'd provide data, you'd provide the fact that it saved the state money. You— it saved localities money. It, it was the right thing to do in terms of driver safety. And there is a certain segment of the legislature that would simply be against it because it was, um, I mean, they'd simply be against it. for whatever reasons those might be.

Daniel Morales - 48:37

So like the DREAM Act in those years, do you think a good number of Republicans privately supported it but were afraid to take a public stance on it?

Alfonso Lopez - 48:49

Oh, yes. I can— yes. I am very lucky to have several good friends in the Republican caucus who, a few of whom are still in the House with me that I came in with when I was— they were right after the redistricting in 2011 and the class of 2012. And there are only 4 of us left on the House side. The ones in the Senate, there were 16 members of that class, 15 Republicans, and I was the only Democrat. Right. And Not just them, but like others. I mean, I'm not saying it's them, but like, there are several Republicans in the House and the Senate who, if you hang out with, have a couple drinks with, go to a party with, a reception, and you're just talking as friends, they'll tell you they can't vote the way they want to vote because they're afraid of getting primaried from the right. And they represent communities where the only people who truly matter from a local political perspective is the MAGA voice. And but they know they're doing the wrong thing. They know it. And they, they know it. Yeah. And There are— I'm the chair of the Ag Committee, which deals with forestry and ag and natural resources issues. And how many farmers do I know of who will vote against immigration issues, but then talk, thump their chest and talk about how great their workers are, how great their employees are. And I actually had a Pennsylvania— a relative on my mom's side who repeatedly talked about her support for, and his support for, 2 of them, for Donald Trump. And would talk about immigrants and how bad immigrants were. And, and then I'd point at my dad out of earshot and say, that immigrant over there changed your diapers repeatedly when you were growing up. “Oh, he's one of the good ones.” Oh, there's a reason I don't talk to those people anymore. But I mean, I'm telling you something very personal, but it's hard to reconcile that kind of ugliness when people say it in the public spec and they say in the public sphere, and it's, and it's applauded by some people. They applaud. That kind of divisive, ugly language about human beings, you know, but then they disassociate the people they know versus the mass or the other. It's so offensive, completely offensive, and it's hard to engage and communicate with folks who simply refuse to see what they're doing. It's very disheartening.

Daniel Morales - 52:33

All right. Going back before 2020, how did you build a majority? So every year there was more and more Democrats who had been elected to the state legislature. Was that the result of population changes? backlash against the Trump administration?

Alfonso Lopez - 52:53

Both. Yes, yes, and yes. Yes. All of it. The— it's always been fascinating. Traditionally, you see the— with our off-year elections, the whoever the governors or president— I mean, we are very, very beholden to national policy and rollouts of national policy and how that affects our state elections. And then also, our elections are a response to gubernatorial elections and a response to presidential dynamics as well. And it's been fascinating to see how things are affected and how they, what the implications are for statewide elections. I think it's fascinating that you'll have 74, 73% of the population vote in a presidential election in Virginia, and then the next year, or actually no, in a. Yeah. And then the next year it'll go down to 50% for a governor's race. And then, and, and that includes like the House delegates. And then in the off-off-year elections, when you vote for the state Senate, it goes down to like 25%, 26%. And then it goes back up to 75% in, in like, or like 50% again for the midterms. All right. And then it's, it's fascinating how like The fluctuations in overall turnout models change so dramatically every year in Virginia, and it's all a reaction to what's happened before, or the perceptions about what's happened before. But I think as you've seen an increase in demographic shifts, and also as you've seen an increase in reaction and understanding and social media of national trends and statewide trends, you've seen an increase in Democratic Party support. And honestly, Dr. Morales, when I would joke, I was telling people, not joking, I was telling people we're going to win 10 seats. And everybody laughed. You'll win 4. No one ever wins more than 4 seats in Virginia. That's the fluctuations. But we were going to win 10 seats after Trump got away. And we won 17, something like that. And I remember a lobbyist named Meat Spot saying "the only person who knew was Lopez." You know, like "Lopez, the only guy who told everybody the truth." But it was a real reaction to Trump and the stuff that Trump was doing. And so for Democrats in the House of Delegates, you know, Trump has really led to what has become once in a generation, once in a century kind of elections. You see all these once in a century kind of elections or once in a generation, we've had repeated once in a generation elections happening in Virginia. How do you go from 32 to 64 in just 16 years? I mean, that's [inaudible 00:56:38]  elections you can do that over. Those are several once in a generation elections happening, or once in 100 year elections happening. So this is a electoral tsunami. That's what's been going on.

Daniel Morales - 57:02 

How do you think the Trump administration has sort of affected politics, political discourse in Virginia?

Alfonso Lopez - 57:14 

I think it's made it increasingly partisan and increasingly divisive. I think he has systematically devalued civil debate. And I think he has reveled in the demonization of the opposition and opponents. I mean, calling human beings vermin and rats and calling Democrats or the opposition communists and terrorists and worthy of prison is not who the president of the United States should be, by any stretch of the imagination. And that has devolved and crept into a very small, very, very small number of— I mean, it's not pervasive by any stretch of the imagination, but it has allowed some members of the General Assembly to be their worst selves. And inevitably, what's fascinating about those people is there's no there there. I mean, you, you have a— you try to have a rational conversation with some of these folks and you realize that they're either very susceptible to the big lies coming out of MAGA, or they're just— there's no there there. And what I'm heartened by, however, are the same people I talked about before who are very open to— who see the problems, who see the destruction of civil discourse, who see the issues. I'm losing stuff here. Hold on. A bunch of apps are closing. Are you— do you still hear me?

Daniel Morales - 59:36

Yeah, I'm still here.

 Alfonso Lopez - 59:37

Okay. I don't know what's going on. The— so I— the vast majority of members of the General Assembly care about getting things done. They care about making the trains run on time. They care about the social safety net. They care about the environment. They care about ag and farmers and business. And they care about making Virginia the best place it can be. The vast majority of them do. And that bears itself out not just in public, but in private as well. And I try to go into every conversation with every member of the General Assembly thinking about the best aspects of everybody. I'm assuming that everyone has the best interests of the public at heart. Only when I'm repeatedly proven wrong do I discount people. Um, but even then, I really shouldn't, you know, show always hope.

Daniel Morales - 01:00:59

All right, so I'm going to ask sort of a follow-up question to something you said 20 minutes ago, and that was about 287Gs, um, and warrants. Um, last year, you said that more people picked it than any prior year for ICE detentions. And I also remember, again, making a big deal about this, at the high point, Virginia actually had the highest number of 287G agreements of any state in the United States.

Alfonso Lopez - 01:01:37

Mm-hmm.

Daniel Morales - 01:01:41

So for immigrants that were trying to get this, how would they get caught up in the system, basically? So, okay, like, can you walk me through the mechanics of how so many people were being picked up and sort of the balance between local police and sort of ICE actions in that?

Alfonso Lopez - 01:02:01 

It's a little bit more involved than that.

Daniel Morales - 01:02:05

Yeah.

Alfonso Lopez - 01:02:06

So for years, the standard for ICE detention was if the state law or the federal law that was violated involved— could, not did, but could involve a year in jail. All right, a misdemeanor, a certain, a certain type of misdemeanor. And However, there are some laws on the books where it was like a busted taillight or no, or, you know, some kind of accident or, you know, odd things in the, in the state code about like, you know, misappropriation of funds for the peanut board, you know, like, like very odd things that would rise to the level of being getting caught up in the ICE detention process. And that has been a— and so what would happen is they would— there were a significant number of things that would trigger an ICE detention process. And that were nowhere near the level of rationale. So what we tried to do several times was to fix that process a little bit from the state perspective. And inevitably would run up against the Republican governor or Republican committee chair or something. But we tried. any number of ways to sort of rationalize that process. If someone has a busted taillight, that should not lead to ICE being called.

Daniel Morales - 01:03:58

Right.

Alfonso Lopez - 01:04:00

But there are a significant number of municipalities in Virginia that have 287G agreements, where they are essentially doing the work of federal immigration enforcement. And there are any number of incentive programs for local sheriffs and police departments to do those things. And the cleanest, best thing that we could do was to ensure that everything went through a judge, and that the judges were making the final determination about who should be pursued. And, and not, not another ICE agent simply pulling off an administrative warrant. The problem with all of this is that there's nothing under federalism, there's nothing that we can do as Virginia to stop ICE from doing what ICE is going to do. But Virginia doesn't have to be a party to it. We don't have to give you our data. We don't have to expend state money for what is essentially a federal process. We don't have to allow the state police or the local police to become deputized by the, by federal ICE agents. And so That's what we have done in terms of addressing some of the ugliness we've seen at the federal level.

Daniel Morales - 01:05:45

Okay. Well, how does that— things in Virginia stand now? The state government versus the local 287G agreements?

Alfonso Lopez - 01:06:00

We're waiting on the court, federal district court.

Daniel Morales - 01:06:04 

All right. What are your goals and sort of hopes for the Spanberger administration and for the, the Legislative Assembly in the next couple of years?

Alfonso López - 01:06:19

I, I want Abigail Spanberger to be incredibly successful, uh, and I want her to be the kind of governor that Republicans and Democrats can say, I'm proud of what she accomplished. I want the General Assembly to be what it has traditionally been for centuries now, a place for rational discourse based on ideas and data and the best interests of all Virginians. And I want us to get past this unnecessarily but increasingly ugly time of political discourse in Virginia that Donald Trump and the MAGA movement has sort of thrust upon us all. And I want to see what I love about the House Democratic Caucus, and I love about the general, specifically the House Democratic Caucus, is that it looks like Virginia. It actually, because representation matters. And I want every corner of the Commonwealth to be truly represented. Wealthy and not so wealthy, suburban and urban and rural. And I'm— but I also don't want to see just all lawyers in the General Assembly, even though we need a lot of them. I want to see workers, and I want to see firefighters, and I want to see teachers, and I want to see everybody, men and women and African Americans and Latinos and Asians and Muslim Americans. I mean, the fact that we've elected our first Asians in the last 16 years, the first LGBTQ+ in the last 30, the first transgender woman, Danica Roem, in the country. The first Muslim American man, all just in the last, you know, 20 years or so. We're still making history in Virginia, you know, and that says something that it took us that long. That really says something. It took us that long. But I don't want us to stop. I want us to continue being a truly representative body that, that where everyone can see themselves. Everyone can see themselves in the general side because representation matters. And when you know it in your heart, you feel it in your soul. Like, as, as Andres Tobar and Walter Tejada said to me a long time, sometimes, Lopez, I don't care how smart you are, I want to know what's in your heart. What's in your heart? That's the mark of somebody. And it's a lot easier to understand someone's perspective and to walk in their shoes if you've walked in their shoes, you know. And so, um, don't tell me how smart somebody is. Tell me what's in their heart, because that's what matters to actually getting stuff accomplished and doing right by folks. And but also doing right by everybody and making sure that Virginia is a better place.

Daniel Morales - 01:10:03 

Okay. And so to sort of the sort of the last formal question is, over the last 30 years, we've seen a lot of changes in Virginia. Oh, yeah. And Latinos continue to be the largest growth population in the state. in the state. What hopes and challenges do you see with all of the changes happening in Virginia, both in Latino but sort of just general immigrant communities and sort of growing diversity across the state?

Alfonso Lopez - 01:10:41 

I think we need more affordable housing. I think we need to address affordability across the state. We need to address Environmental degradation. I think we need to address renewable energy issues, costs. I think we need to make it easier for everybody to thrive in the Commonwealth. I want to make sure that everyone has the kind of educational opportunities that we have in Northern Virginia. I want everybody to, when they walk into a school, think, my God, this is gorgeous. It's cathedral. I want to make sure that teachers are paid what they're supposed to be paid. I want to make sure that we have a social safety net that is more than just an idea. And I want to make it so that we're lifting— I mean, I say this a lot, but I want to lift everybody up and leave nobody behind. All right. It shouldn't just be some people benefiting. I mean, we shouldn't just have one class of people or one group of people really having a great life. It should be everybody as much as possible benefiting from the bounty that is the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States of America. We're the wealthiest, most amazing country in the history of, of, of the world. People should have healthcare. People should have education. People should have a social safety net that prevents rampant homelessness. You know, why is it that— I mean, think about the World Cup that just happened. Every other nation in the World Cup had universal healthcare except the United States, you know. And there are all of these issues that still need to be addressed that I think we have within our ability to do if we simply had a tax structure that addressed some of the loopholes that are allowing the top 1% to get away with murder sometimes. And because it's not about— it's we have to be looking out for everybody.

Daniel Morales - 01:13:02

Going back to the, um, I think it was, you said it was a speaker back 10 years ago who said that effectively the undocumented were not real Virginians.

Alfonso Lopez - 01:13:14

Oh yeah. Um, even though they had been brought here when they were like, you know, 5 weeks old, that's not a real Virginian.

Daniel Morales - 01:13:24

There's still this sense that immigrants, Latinos, even those born in the U.S., are not really the real people, or like the traditional Virginians, real Virginians, rural Virginians, whatever you want to call it. How would you fight back against that?

Alfonso Lopez - 01:13:55 

A few years ago, when there were contentious elections happening in Virginia, Republican pundits kept going on TV saying that, well, there was Northern Virginia, then there was the real Virginia.

Daniel Morales - 01:14:10

Yeah.

Alfonso Lopez - 01:14:11

And it happened repeatedly. I mean, it was unnerving. Excuse me? I've lived here most of my life. What are you talking about? I'm not a real Virginian? Because in your mind, who the hell do you think you are? You know, I don't— there are several different ways I can answer that question. And suffice to say that there are challenges still ahead because of, um, people who like slogans better than they like thinking. And so, um, I just want to have an honest conversation about, you know, facts and data and policies that can help everybody. So I'm usually much more blunt Daniel, about it. And when we're— I am, I get in trouble because I'm overly blunt a lot with, with folks, and I call them like I see them. And I have no problem telling people to their face, here's where you're lacking. And maybe you should think about that. Before you try to tell me that I should include your version of Baptist theology in the state code. So I don't know. I can't answer that question.

Daniel Morales - 01:15:45 

All right. What do you think we've not talked on that would be useful for people in the public to know?

Alfonso Lopez - 01:15:59 

Everyone everywhere should think about giving back to their community. Everyone everywhere, no matter what their lot is in life, should try to give back to their community and think about public service. Think about community support. And people should all think in the back of their mind about running for office someday. Um, because if, as Tim Kaine once told me, if good people don't run for office, the worst people do. And it's important that everybody think about it, um, and being actively engaged in your government. And it could be as small as simply voting, but that's the most valuable important thing in the world is just to not ignore politics and not ignore public policy. I know that most people are just trying to pay their mortgage and get their kids educated and have a good life. But part of that is also being engaged in your community and your state and your, your Commonwealth and your country and caring about the policies that we put forward. And the more voices involved in that, The better. So I want more people running for office, not fewer.

Daniel Morales - 01:17:27

Well, that's a good way to think about that and think about the role of politicians in our society. That's not always a bad thing to be a politician, but actually you're bringing people together and building things.

Alfonso Lopez - 01:17:40 

Right. Yeah. You think about like the truly great figures in the United States. Right? They were politicians. I mean, say what you will about Abraham Lincoln, that guy was a master politician. All right? But he— Teddy Roosevelt, master politician, you know? And, and the only way you can actually— but they— politicians have to get elected, yes, but they're You have the opportunity to truly affect change, to truly make things better for people. It's that old line— I'm gonna start crying again. Jesus. Um, when I passed— when I worked to get— when we got the DREAM Act— when we got the DREAM Act passed and signed by the governor, and I started crying on national TV, I didn't know 10,000 kids who benefited from that or more. But I was able to help them, you know, every one of them get an education. And think about that power. Think about that ability, that opportunity to help tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people you don't even know make their lives better. Isn't that the most— isn't that the greatest thing you can possibly do? Isn't that the— I mean, we lionize and value things that we shouldn't in this country. Like, who cares if someone's an actor on a TV show? You know, who cares if someone, you know, is a billionaire? What have you done for your fellow man, you know, like teachers, my God, teachers, if we were maybe the best teachers in the country should be getting— what's that? There was a funny sketch I saw once where they, the best teachers coming out of like teaching school, like universities were drafted like the NFL, you know, there was big like signing bonuses for the best teachers coming out of Harvard, you know, or Columbia or UVA or William Mary. And that's where we should be, where you've got nurses and doctors and, and teachers and professors who are valued as much as a middle linebacker for the Los Angeles Raiders or Los Angeles Rams or whatever they are. Chicago Bears. And those are the things we should be putting value in. And if you have the ability to help as a public servant or someone working in government or as an elected official, to do that 'cause you love it and you adore every second of it, why would you not do that? I mean, think about, I mean, I get excited about that stuff. I mean, like if you look at someone like Katrina Colson, all right, Katrina Colson is a delegate from Charlottesville, all right? She could do anything in the world. She is truly brilliant, all right? But she's a member of the General Assembly, you know, or someone like, you know, Marcus Simon, you know, or, or Charnelle Herron, or Dan Helmer, or, you know, Kathy Tran, or Irene Shin, you know, uh, or Jean Ward, you know. Like, they're— they do— they, they could be anything. All right, they could do anything. But they want to be members of the General Assembly. And what a gift that is. You know, someone like Israel O'Quinn on the Republican side. I mean, I probably got him a primary just by saying that. out loud. But like, he is a truly good person who comes at government from a people perspective. You know, he cares about how does this help people in impoverished parts of Southwest Virginia? You know, and do we agree on most stuff? No. But he is a good man. You know, how lucky we are to have people like that in government. You know, and then people like Bonnie Krenz, I mean, as the chief of staff, the first female chief of staff to a governor in Virginia history. I mean, you ever meet someone where intellect has heft? You actually feel the weight of their brilliance and you realize that they're just playing with you as they talk to you. It's like, it's like that. It's like when, like one of your friends are Rhodes Scholars. It's like, oh, oh, that's what real thinking, that's what That's what brilliant intellect is, you know what I mean? And I mean, how lucky that someone like that is serving in government. That's what we want. That's what we should be. I want everybody in the world thinking, what's the best job I can have? I want to be working government. You know, I want to serve the first female governor of Virginia, or I want to be in the General Assembly. That's what I want. That's what I think would be great. But I'm biased. So there you go.

Daniel Morales - 01:23:31 

All right. Well, thank you for speaking with me. And I'm gonna end the sort of the formal part here.