[citation needed] In 1922, a railroad strike prevented his father from being able to work, and Roybal, age 6, was brought with his family to the East Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights, where he graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1934.

He lived the rest of his life in Pasadena, California as one of the deans of local and national politics, endorsing several candidates in elections throughout the region.

In 1947, Roybal ran to fill the Los Angeles City Council District 9 seat held by Parley Parker Christensen.

The district, which included Boyle Heights, Bunker Hill, Civic Center, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, and the Central Avenue corridor, was then 45% White, 34% Latino, 15% African American, and 6% "other" residents.

He told the council he believed he was "signing a political death warrant" with his vote, adding that the law "places every citizen and organization .

Allen said it was his opinion that if policemen were "equipped with a good old-fashioned hair brush, which could be applied to some of these kids," there might be a lessening of juvenile crime.

But Roybal disagreed, noting that most of the "hoodlums" were over 21 and recommending closer cooperation by the police with agencies "dealing with youth problems.

Roybal threatened a filibuster when the council would not accede to a request he made for monthly reports on the fate of residents evicted from Bunker Hill to make room for a massive improvement project.

Parker made the statement at a hearing before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; he refused to apologize but said that the word "wild" was ill-advised.

[14] During his time on the City Council, Roybal, as a prominent young Democrat, received encouragement to run for higher office.

Powers, who had been appointed to the position after Lieutenant Governor Goodwin Knight acceded to the governorship after Earl Warren was named Chief Justice of the United States, by 1,764,035 votes (44.66%) to 2,185,918 (55.34%).

[19] Beginning in 1971, he served on the House Appropriations Committee for more than two decades and authored a number of bills, many of which were not universally popular, which offered support for groups he saw as disenfranchised; many of his actions were on behalf of veterans, the elderly, and Mexican-Americans.

In 1967 he wrote the first bill giving federal support to bilingual education, creating specialized language instruction for immigrant populations.

In 1978, Roybal was involved in a vote-buying investigation known as the Koreagate scandal, in which he failed to properly report to the House Ethics Committee a gift of $1000 from a South Korean lobbyist, Tongsun Park.

In a letter dated November 29, 1978, Thomas H. Henderson, Jr., Chief of the Public Integrity Section, stated that "The House Committee found that this change of testimony and other facts testified to on April 25, 1978, concerning the incident was not intentionally untruthful as originally charged."

In August 2022, the Roybal School of Film and Television Production Magnet opened, housed within the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, aiming to provide a conduit for students from underrepresented backgrounds to gain below-the-line employment in the film and television sector, in fields such as lighting, cinematography and editing.

[citation needed] The Metro Gold Line Edward R. Roybal Linea de Oro Eastside Extension opened in November 2009.