A daughter of our city, Mayor Bass was raised with her three brothers in the Venice/Fairfax neighborhood and is a proud graduate of Hamilton High School. After serving as a front-line healthcare provider as a nurse and as a Physician Assistant, Mayor Bass founded the Community Coalition to organize the predominantly Black and Latino residents of South L.A. against substance abuse, poverty and crime, and to pioneer strategies to address the root causes behind the challenges faced by underserved neighborhoods.

After being elected to represent Los Angeles in the State Assembly, Mayor Bass was elected Speaker, making her the first African American woman to ever lead a state legislative body in the history of the United States. There she and other legislative leaders were awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for their work making tough decisions to keep the state from bankruptcy while protecting vital services during the largest economic decline since the Great Depression.

While representing Los Angeles and Culver City in Congress, Mayor Bass helped protect small businesses during the pandemic, created policy to drive local jobs from federal infrastructure funding, and led the passage of what the Los Angeles Times called “the most significant child welfare policy reform in decades.”

Mayor Bass is the 43rd Mayor of Los Angeles and the first woman and second African American to be elected as the city's chief executive. She earned her bachelor's degree in health sciences from CSU Dominguez Hills before graduating from the USC Keck School of Medicine Physician Assistant Program and earning her masters degree in social work from USC. 

Mayor Bass’s oldest daughter Emilia planned to follow in her mother’s footsteps working for social change. The Mayor continues to be inspired by Emilia and her son-in-law Michael’s passion for life. She has three other children, Scythia, Omar and Yvette, and three grandchildren, Michael, Henry and Oliver who live in the Los Angeles area.

Angelica Salas is an immigrant from Durango, Mexico. She came to the United States as a child to reunite with her parents, who came to provide a better life for their family. Angelica comes to her understanding of immigrants and immigration first hand, she and her entire family lived in the country undocumented, experienced deportation, and were able to legalize their status. In 2008, Angelica became a U.S. citizen. She makes Pasadena, California her home, the first city she arrived at as a child. She is married to Mayron Payes, an immigrant from El Salvador, and has two children Ruben and Maya Payes.

Angelica joined CHIRLA in 1995 and became CHIRLA’s Executive Director in 1999. In her role, she has grown CHIRLA into one of the nation’s largest and most effective immigrant rights organizations that organize, advocates, educates, and provides legal services to all immigrants. She has spearheaded ambitious statewide and national campaigns to expand immigrant rights. Among her achievements include: winning in-state, financial aid and grant programs for California’s undocumented students, establishing day-laborer centers that become national models, winning drivers’ licenses for undocumented drivers, decoupling local police departments from immigration enforcement, expanding access to immigrant legal services and winning Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

Angelica is a state and national leader in the advocacy for immigration reform and immigrant. Recently, Angelica’s work led to the House of Representatives passage of the Dream and Promise Act of 2019 and the Dream and Promise Act of 2021, a bill to give people with DACA and TPS a path to citizenship.

She graduated from Occidental College with a B.A. in History and a B.A. in Sociology in 1993. In 2007, Occidental College awarded her an Honorary Doctorate for her many contributions making her one of the youngest persons to earn such an honor in the college’s history.