Vince Luna was born to be a Democrat. He came to life on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 60th birthday, January 30, 1942, and they were going to name him Frank in honor of the president, but fate intervened.
While driving Vince's mom from a labor-camp near King City to the hospital in Salinas, his grandfather decided to try to pass a military convoy and had to drive off the road to avoid a head-on collision. The out-of-control car stopped just short of a threatening tree trunk and no one was hurt. Eventually, mom had a boy at the hospital, and they named the baby Vincent after his very lucky grandfather.
His folks need not have worried about his name. Vince grew up to be a Democrat anyway and in August, he's going to the convention in Denver as a delegate from the 17th Congressional District, which includes Hollister. I arranged to interview Vince over some iced tea.
Vince is the kind of person I like right away. He has an easy smile, is soft-spoken and completely unpretentious. It's obvious that he's comfortable with who he is, and many people believe that is the key to real happiness.
Vince is the true 'local.' He grew up in San Juan Bautista, graduated from "Hollister High" and is still proud that he did not miss a single day of school in his last two years.
He was in Vietnam with the famous Big Red One (1st Infantry Division). In 1967 he married Mickie, another local, and they settled in Hollister and raised a family while Vince worked in private industry for 17 years then 20 years for the county.
I asked him what he thought were most important issues coming up in the election, and he replied with a list that would probably be the same for most folks. No. 1 was the economy. He wants people to get ahead and have a chance at some good jobs and the stability and better life economic security brings. Hand and glove with that was education. He thought that economics and education went together. He works with young people to try to keep them in school and away from the gang culture.
Vince said that the war was next on his list. He'd originally supported the invasion of Iraq to prevent the Saddam regime from developing weapons of mass destruction, but he believes that when we did not find any WMD, we should have gone home. He's worried that Vietnam vets are still not getting the care they were promised and that today's veterans will fare no better.
I asked him what he thought was most important thing about politics and this election. He said that the politicians have to start keeping their promises. I wish him luck with that.
Not once during the entire conversation did Vince show any bitterness or recrimination; he just expressed his opinion on things that needed fixing. He never even tried to define exactly how to do it as so many people do. Maybe he was trying not to be controversial, but I did not think so.
I asked him why he thought he'd been selected as a delegate and he said, matter-of-factly, that he thought being a Vietnam veteran and a minority had helped. Did Vince consider himself a Latino or a Hispanic? He said he considered himself a Mexican-American.
When I got home, I started wondering about that, so I checked. Sure enough, the California Democrats had delegate requirements by gender, and there were also "goals" for seven other groups with a list of percentages that looked too much like quotas to suit me. It's exactly what I oppose politically.
Then I thought about it and realized that in the case of Vince Luna, both he and the Democrats were wrong. Vince was not a Mexican-American, as he would call himself; neither was he Latino/Hispanic, as the Democratic Party would have it. He was as typically American as anyone I had ever met and I'm sure he will represent Hollister well.
Marty Richman Got a question or a comment? Send us an email.
