Nativo Lopez-Vigil (born Larry Lopez;[1] October 3, 1951 – May 19, 2019) was an American political leader and immigrant rights activist in Southern California.
He was recalled from office after a campaign led by Ron Unz, the multi-millionaire backer of California Proposition 227, which prohibited bilingual education programs.
He sued to challenge the use of English-only recall petitions as a violation of the Voting Rights Act, and won in the Ninth Circuit federal appeals court, although the case is not yet resolved.
Another issue involved in the recall campaign was the proposed construction of an elementary school in the wealthiest side of Santa Ana, but opposed by the majority wealthy Republican and conservative constituency of the city.
[5][6][7][8] On April 13, 2006, Lopez appeared on Lou Dobbs' television show, where he argued that "illegal immigrant" is an offensively racist term on par with "wop," "nigger," or "kike."
In 2009, Lopez was charged by the Los Angeles District Attorney's office with eight felony counts, including voter-registration fraud, perjury, filing a false instrument, and fraudulent voting.