In electing Eric Garcetti their mayor on Tuesday, voters here chose a candidate who personifies the multiracial, multicultural city of L.A.’s hipster youth. At 42, Garcetti will be the youngest mayor this city has had in more than 100 years. Ethnically, Garcetti is not only the first elected Jewish mayor of Los Angeles but also the city’s second Latino mayor in more than 100 years (he’ll succeed the termed-out Antonio Villaraigosa). His Italian forebears settled in Mexico; his mother’s family is Jewish. Not since New York was governed by Fiorello La Guardia — an Italian Episcopalian who had a Jewish mother — has a mayor been a better demographic fit for so polyglot a city.




In September, 2009 Atlantic Monthly named 
