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      Struggling to Understand TV Dialogue? Join the Club.

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      More from our inbox:Airbrushing Older ModelsHaley’s Raised HandSea Life in CaptivityDerek AbellaTo the Editor: Re “Huh? What? There Are Ways to Improve the Sound on Your TV?” (Business, Aug. 18):As an American expat, I got a good chuckle out of Brian X. Chen’s article about poor dialogue sound quality in streaming. The premise, that using subtitles is a terrible inconvenience that diminishes one’s enjoyment of video entertainment, is one of those peculiarly American complaints that seem bizarre to many people overseas.In Chinese-speaking areas and other parts of East Asia, the wide variety of languages, accents and usages can make it tough to comprehend dialogue regardless of sound quality, so video nearly always comes with subtitles, whether it’s on TV, in a movie theater or online. Nobody here seems to mind.Indeed, the people in Malaysia who build the Sonos equipment that Mr. Chen praised must be thrilled that Americans will spend $900 on soundbars to avoid those irritating subtitles.Michael P. ClarkeTaoyuan City, TaiwanTo the Editor:We do not have to bring speakers to a movie theater to watch a movie and we should not have to put speakers on our TV sets to enjoy a television show. Modern television sets should come with high-resolution pictures and high-quality, audible sound. The quality of the sound is as important as the quality of the picture. We should not have to buy soundbars.Bill ChastainNew YorkTo the Editor:I’ve used closed captioning for a while now, not only because the sound quality on streaming services is far from as good as it should be but also because programs produced in England — many of the shows on PBS, which I like — use a lot of slang and hard-to-understand dialects.But a major problem is that some of the streaming services, like Netflix, have closed captions that are far from helpful. They come on well before or well after the spoken words, and too often they flash on so fast that it is impossible to read the entire line of dialogue.Michael SpielmanWellfleet, Mass.To the Editor:Brian X. Chen suggests that we can hear the dialogue in movies and television shows better by installing new equipment. Along with the attempts at improvements made by directors and sound mixers, producers might insist upon better diction from the actors.I’ve noticed this slurring and breathy quality in stage performers, too. Perhaps Broadway shows need closed captioning?Lawrence RaikenQueensAirbrushing Older ModelsRafael Pavarotti/VogueTo the Editor: Re “Do Supermodels Age, or Get Airbrushed Instead?” (Sunday Styles, Aug. 20):The timing couldn’t be more prescient. Just as Greta Gerwig’s irreverent blockbuster “Barbie” is sweeping theaters around the world, Vogue has released its iconic September issue featuring the likes of America’s supermodels — Linda Evangelista, 58, Cindy Crawford, 57, Christy Turlington, 54, and Naomi Campbell, 53 — on its cover.As Vanessa Friedman aptly remarks, they are “paragons of mature beauty whose years have seemingly been smoothed from their faces,” which “look so retouched that they seem more like A.I.-generated bots than actual people.” A Vogue spokeswoman claimed there was only “minimal retouching.” We know better.Although we can surely applaud Vogue’s decision to feature 50-something models on its cover, “retouching” them is perpetuating a big lie. It is, in effect, “Barbiefying” them. Barbie was the icon that fed upon young girls’ feelings of inadequacy. Now older women can gaze at Vogue’s cover and feel inadequate too. Thank you, Vogue.If Vogue, “the fashion Bible,” had elected not to retouch these mature beauties, it would have been a truly groundbreaking event. Certainly a missed opportunity.Thank you, Vanessa Friedman, for speaking truth to Vogue. As Ms. Gerwig’s Barbie comes to realize, “It’s time to change the Constitution.”Elizabeth LangerNew YorkThe writer is a co-founder of the Women’s Rights Law Reporter, the first U.S. journal devoted to women and the law.To the Editor:I laughed this morning reading Vanessa Friedman’s column at the silliness of an article criticizing the airbrushing of aging models. The fashion industry runs on unrealistic representations of beauty. Why should those standards be different for older models?I’ve attended fashion shoots where young models had terrible acne that was ultimately airbrushed out. It seems that, no matter how young or beautiful a model is, there’s almost always flattering lighting and image manipulation. The industry runs on fantasy.So, whether or not older models have their wrinkles airbrushed seems irrelevant if everything is unrealistic. This is commerce. They aren’t profiling women curing cancer. At least now they’re democratizing fashion to allow older women to put their best selves forward, too.I hope they can continue to do that without being criticized for tricks of the trade. I think focusing on airbrushing undermines how great it is that Vogue is keeping women over 50 relevant.Jenifer VogtDobbs Ferry, N.Y.Haley’s Raised HandJoe Buglewicz for The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Nikki Haley Is the Best Alternative to Trump,” by David Brooks (column, Aug. 25):Wednesday night’s Republican debate persuaded Mr. Brooks that Nikki Haley is the best alternative to Donald Trump. Yet while Mr. Brooks makes a convincing case that Ms. Haley is a preferable candidate to Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis and especially Vivek Ramaswamy, he fails to address the fact that Ms. Haley, along with every other candidate on the stage except Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, raised her hand when asked if she would support Mr. Trump if he is convicted of one or more felonies and is the Republican nominee.I would ask Mr. Brooks how Ms. Haley’s raised hand shows that she is “one of the few candidates who understands that to run against Trump you have to run against Trump”? And should that not, by itself, render her unfit to become the next president of the United States?David A. BarryCambridge, Mass.Sea Life in CaptivityLolita during a performance at the Miami Seaquarium in 1995. She has been in captivity since 1970.Nuri Vallbona/Miami Herald, via Associated PressTo the Editor: Re “Lolita the Orca, Mainstay of Miami Seaquarium for 50 Years, Dies,” by Jesus Jiménez (news article, nytimes.com, Aug. 18):I know I am not alone in grieving the tragedy of the kidnapping of this orca, also known as Tokitae, her decades spent in captivity, and her untimely death just when freedom and the possibility of being reunited with her family in the Salish Sea were close enough to touch. Her sorrowful life story hurts all the more because our human collective doesn’t seem to have learned a thing from it.Orcas remain endangered and continue to struggle to hear each other and catch dwindling salmon in polluted waters that are choking with boat noise from unceasing human commercial and recreational activity. Worse, the captive industry carries on, including in Seattle, which is intent upon building a shiny new shark tank to imprison even more animals.My hope is that Tokitae’s death will galvanize support against the captivity industry locally and beyond, and serve as a beacon of hope for other beings languishing in tanks simply so that they can be ogled by humans. Let’s honor Tokitae and her bereaved family by ensuring that nobody else has to suffer similarly.Stephanie C. BellSeaTac, Wash. More

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      Shining a Light on Postpartum Depression

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      More from our inbox:How Climate Change Feeds ‘Eco-Anxiety’Domestic ViolenceTrump’s Strategy: StallMaking a Minyan to Mourn Together Travis Dove for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “A Look at Life in the Throes of Postpartum Depression” (news article, July 6):Thank you for bringing attention to postpartum depression. Unfortunately, it is estimated that up to half of women with it never get screened and identified. And fewer get effective and adequate treatment.Because so many of its symptoms, such as lack of energy and trouble concentrating, overlap with what normally occurs after delivery, it may not be suspected.But when these symptoms coexist with a predominantly depressed mood that is present all day, when there is a loss of interest and a lack of pleasure, and when the symptoms last for at least two weeks, that is not a normal consequence of childbirth. And it needs to be evaluated and treated.Without treatment, depression can last for months or years. In addition to the personal suffering, the depression can interfere with the mother’s ability to connect and interact with her baby, which can negatively affect the child’s development.Deciding between the two types of treatment mentioned in your article, psychotherapy and medication, need not always be an either/or choice. As with many other forms of depression, a combination of the two may be most effective.Monica N. StarkmanAnn Arbor, Mich.The writer is an active emerita professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan.To the Editor:As the mom of a 6-week-old (she is asleep in my arms as I write this), I appreciate the increased coverage of postpartum depression and anxiety that I’ve noticed lately in this newspaper and other sources.Since giving birth, I’ve been screened for those conditions more times than I can count — in the hospital, at my OB-GYN’s office and at my daughter’s pediatrician visits.However, in my household, there are two moms: me (the birthing parent) and my wife. Though she may not be experiencing the same shifting hormones or bodily changes and demands as I am, my wife is certainly undergoing the radical life transformations associated with new parenthood.Despite that, she has never been screened for postpartum depression or anxiety, though she currently suffers from the latter to the point that she can hardly sleep.We should be screening all parents — birthing and non-birthing, regardless of gender or biological affiliation with the child — for postpartum depression and anxiety. And we should be including discussion about those individuals in publications such as this one to increase awareness.Andrea B. ScottAustin, TexasHow Climate Change Feeds ‘Eco-Anxiety’A search and rescue worker in Cambridge, Vt. Officials said access to some communities remained almost completely cut off.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Urgent Call in Vermont for Better Preparedness” (news article, July 13):Vermont’s catastrophic flooding, and the flooding, fires, tornadoes and severe heat currently engulfing much of the nation, are obvious byproducts of climate change. Our growing fears over these destructive events are less obvious, since they are often left out of the conversation over climate change, even with the devastation left in our communities and the loss of lives that almost always follows these tragic events.An unanticipated consequence of deadly climate change is “eco-anxiety,” the chronic fear of environmental collapse and community destruction. As therapists, we see more and more patients struggling with overwhelming feelings ranging from terror, disgust and rage to grief, sadness and despair.A study of eco-anxiety published in The Lancet showed that 46 percent of young adults in the U.S., and 56 percent globally, believe we are all doomed by climate change, especially with young people experiencing greater anxiety over their futures.Fighting climate change requires science and action. It also requires integrating climate-aware therapy into the equation. We must provide mental resilience for our minds so that we can sustain the fight to repair climate change.Barbara EasterlinLeslie DavenportSan FranciscoThe writers lead the California Institute of Integral Studies’ climate psychology certificate program.Domestic Violence Illustration by Shoshana Schultz/The New York Times; photographs by Michael Ochs Archives and Adam Gault/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Another Threat to Domestic Abuse Survivors,” by Kathy Hochul (Opinion guest essay, July 12):Firearms and domestic violence are a deadly mix. Every day on average three women are killed by a current or former partner. When a male abuser has access to a gun, the risk he will kill a female partner increases by 1,000 percent. Abusers also use guns to wound, threaten, intimidate and terrorize victims.Governor Hochul is right to be concerned for the safety of domestic violence survivors. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in United States v. Rahimi was dangerous and callously put millions of survivors and their children at risk. It also recklessly disposed of a law effective in reducing intimate partner homicides.Dangerous abusers and others intent on harm should not have access to firearms. The National Network to End Domestic Violence urges the U.S. Supreme Court to put survivor safety front and center and overturn the Fifth Circuit’s misguided decision. Lives are at stake.Melina MilazzoWashingtonThe writer is deputy director of public policy, National Network to End Domestic Violence.Trump’s Strategy: Stall Jordan Gale for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Bid to Delay Florida Trial Poses Key Early Test for Judge” (front page, July 12):Donald Trump’s legal strategy is now clear: Delay, delay, delay until after the 2024 presidential election and do everything possible, legal or otherwise, to win that election, so that he will be able to either pardon himself or install a puppet attorney general who will dismiss all charges.It may not be constitutional for him to pardon himself, but that would ultimately likely be decided by the Supreme Court, with its six-member right-wing supermajority, half of which was appointed by him.It follows that for there to be any hope of justice being done, Mr. Trump can’t be allowed to use his presidential candidacy as an excuse to stall prosecution and can’t be allowed to regain the White House and use the power of the presidency to escape justice.Eric B. LippsStaten IslandMaking a Minyan to Mourn Together Illustration by Shoshana Schultz/The New York Times; photograph by Jeff Swensen/GettyTo the Editor:Re “By Killing 11 Jews, He Killed Something Else, Too,” by Mark Oppenheimer (Opinion guest essay, July 1):Mr. Oppenheimer writes that the massacre of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh (the city where I was born and raised) not only tragically took the lives of these individuals but also has made it difficult for the synagogue to make a minyan, the quorum of 10 Jews required to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish, among other prayers.The reality is that making a minyan has been a problem for synagogues in this country long before the most recent wave of antisemitic events. As the ritual vice president for a Conservative synagogue in a heavily Jewish suburb of Chicago, I see this problem firsthand.We constantly struggle to get a full minyan at our weeknight services, potentially depriving those in mourning or observing a yahrzeit (anniversary of a death) the opportunity to recite Kaddish.The requirement of a minyan reinforces a central value of Judaism: that we do not mourn alone, but as part of a supportive community. It’s incumbent on synagogues to convey this message to their congregations and preserve this age-old tradition.Josh CharlsonDeerfield, Ill. More

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      Republican Midterm Turnout Is a Warning for Democrats in 2024, Report Finds

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      Even though Democrats held the Senate and other key offices, Republican turnout was more robust, and the party showed strength among women, Latinos and rural voters, a new report found.Even though Democrats held off a widely expected red wave in the 2022 midterm elections, Republican turnout was in fact stronger, and the party energized key demographic groups including women, Latinos and rural voters, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.The report serves as a warning sign for Democrats ahead of the 2024 presidential election, with early polls pointing toward a possible rematch between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.Though Democrats maintained control of the Senate, all but one of their governor’s mansions and only narrowly lost the House, the Pew data shows that a larger percentage of voters who supported Mr. Trump in 2020 cast ballots in November than those who backed Mr. Biden did. People who had voted in past elections but sat out 2022 were overwhelmingly Democrats.And for all the Democratic emphasis on finding Republican voters who could be persuaded to buck their party in the Trump era, Pew found that a vast majority of voters stuck with the same party through the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections. Just 6 percent of voters cast ballots for more than one party over those three elections — and those voters were more likely to be Democrats flipping to Republican candidates than Republicans to Democratic candidates.“An eternal debate among political analysts after each election is what was a bigger factor in the outcome — persuading voters to switch their allegiance, or getting more of their core party loyalists to vote,” said Hannah Hartig, one of the authors of the Pew report.Voters who cast a ballot in 2018 but skipped the 2022 midterms had favored Democrats by two to one in the 2018 election.Democrats tried last year to energize these voters, seeking to inflate Mr. Trump’s profile and tie other Republicans to him. Mr. Biden coined the phrase “ultra-MAGA” to describe Republicans in an effort to engage Democratic voters.In the end, what most likely drove Democrats to the polls was less about Mr. Biden’s actions than a broader reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.Dan Sena, a former executive director of House Democrats’ campaign arm, said the Pew results suggested that the key to 2024 would be persuading independent and moderate Republican voters who dislike both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump to support Democrats. Abortion rights, he said, is the issue most likely to do so.“There is a group of persuadable Republicans that the Democrats were able to win over,” Mr. Sena said. “Those voters align very closely with those who see choice and personal freedom on health care in alignment.”Pew’s analysis is based on a panel of over 7,000 Americans whose attitudes and voting behavior the group has tracked through multiple election cycles. Pew also compared voters to state voting rolls to verify that they actually cast ballots in 2022. Taken together, this provides a portrait of the 2022 electorate.In most midterm years, the party that is not in the White House fares well. And while Republicans enjoyed a turnout advantage in 2022, they nevertheless fell short of expectations and did not match Democrats’ turnout advantage in 2018, the first midterm election after Mr. Trump took office.Still, midterm voters historically skew older and whiter than voters in presidential years, a phenomenon that tends to benefit Republicans. The 2018 midterms were, in many ways, the exception to that rule, with increased turnout across age groups, but especially among young people. The 2022 electorate was more in line with historical trends.Much of the narrative around the 2022 election has centered on Democratic energy after the Supreme Court’s abortion decision. And while that played out in key governor’s races in states where abortion was on the ballot, nationally, Democrats appear to have lost ground with a crucial group: women.In the 2018 election cycle, when increased activism — including the Women’s March — fueled record turnout among women, Democrats had an advantage of 18 percentage points. That edge shrunk to just three points in 2022, Pew found.However, the study found that few women actually switched the party they were supporting. Instead, most of the drop for Democrats stemmed from the fact that Republican women voted at a higher rate than Democratic women.Hispanic voters continued to support Democrats overall, but by a much smaller margin than four years earlier. In 2018, Democrats won 72 percent of Hispanic voters, but in 2022 they won only 60 percent. The decline began in 2020, when Democrats also won about 60 percent of Hispanic voters.And Republicans also continued to increase their support from rural voters. The party made gains with them not only through increased turnout, but also among rural voters who had voted for Democrats in the past but cast ballots for Republicans in 2022.“The Trump base continues to be motivated,” said Corry Bliss, a Republican strategist who ran the party’s House super PAC in 2018.Yet, Mr. Bliss added, “In a handful of races that really matter, we had bad candidates, and in all the races that matter, we were dramatically outspent.” More

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      Should Gay People Seek to Be Seen as ‘Normal’?

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      More from our inbox:Domingo Germán, Simply PerfectTrump and EvangelicalsArt in Private Hands, Lost to Public ViewMissing: Younger Women’s Voices Amir Hamja/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “As a Gay Man, I’ll Never Be Normal,” by Richard Morgan (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, June 25):Mr. Morgan just reinforces the concept of normalcy. Better that we just be ourselves, and ignore the labeling altogether.I live in a college town, and what I see every day is gender fluidity and sexual orientation boundaries continuing to be dissolved at a pace that middle-aged queers like me should find both inspirational and enviable. Young people today don’t care so much about the “who is normal/abnormal” space that the author writes about.We should not retreat from the many hues in our “rainbow” of people, including all those who dwell in the borders. We should neither spend too much time separating out the colors (as the author does), nor dig our heels into concepts of “true” or “pure” queerness.Young people aren’t normalizing queer; they are finding newer and braver ways of being themselves. Whether that means walking in a parade, or never doing it; whether obviously or imperceptibly gender fluid; whether in, out or through the back closet into Narnia; whether normal, abnormal, homogenized or wildly unique. Everyone belongs, and we should have a wide open door.James SeniorMarquette, Mich.To the Editor:Richard Morgan makes the mistake that countless individuals have made in equating heterosexuality with normality and being gay with … something else. Heterosexuality isn’t normal … it’s just common.Yes, Mr. Morgan, as gay folks, you and I are in a distinct minority. But why take on the burden of allowing others to categorize us as abnormal?Yes, homosexuality is less common than heterosexuality, but it’s entirely natural and entirely normal. Raise your consciousness, brother.Jim SkofieldWalpole, N.H.To the Editor:“As a Gay Man, I’ll Never Be Normal” was such a touching reflection of emotions I’ve long held myself. As a teenager I cried and prayed for the “normalcy” he described, but only now have realized that it was ease I hoped for. As a proud gay man I’m happy to have survived such a difficult and uneasy journey to adulthood.The Human Rights Campaign’s messaging for marriage equality, grounded in the claim that gay relationships are deserving of equal protection because they are just like straight relationships, did unmeasurable good for the community. But it was flawed in the sense that it set a requirement of likeness for legitimacy.We aren’t like heterosexuals; we often live and love very differently and across a wide spectrum. I’ve seen a shift in the queer community away from “we’re just like you” messaging recently, and applaud those who demand acceptance despite their differences.While this might not be the easiest path to tolerance, it’s the only path to acceptance.Austin RichardsChicagoTo the Editor:I do not agree with Richard Morgan that “L.G.B.T.Q. folks have a peculiar interest in normalization.” Whether or not he, or I, or any gay man feels either “normal” or “normalized” matters only to the individual.What seems much more important is that our legal, religious and educational institutions come to understand that a society composed of people of varying sexual and gender identities is, in the end, what is truly “normal.”David CastronuovoRomeTo the Editor:Richard Morgan is right. As a gay man, I will never be “normal,” even if I always wanted to be accepted like everyone else. I have accepted that truth now and have offered that up as my cross to bear.But I am grateful for the empathy and caring it taught me and for the kindness of strangers, and, of course, for my kind and strong husband.It’s OK to be different. Just learn to let go of the stress and anger it can sometimes bring.Patrick Sampson-BabineauEdmonds, Wash.Domingo Germán, Simply PerfectDomingo Germán of the Yankees needed only 99 pitches to complete a perfect game against the Oakland Athletics.Godofredo A. Vásquez/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Yankees Pitcher Throws M.L.B.’s First Perfect Game Since 2012” (Sports, nytimes.com, June 29):He had been so imperfect his last two starts. His statistics were ghastly. And before that, there was the 10-game suspension for being the poster child for this year’s worst sin: a pitcher with too much sticky stuff on his hands.He was a mere afterthought in the starting rotation, an asterisk caused by injury to others. Domingo Germán, hanging on by a thread.So Wednesday night seemed more likely a final chance, a last gasp at redemption rather than a ticket to baseball immortality.Maybe his choice of uniform number — zero — was prophetic. Maybe mere serendipity that he had his best stuff against a uniquely inept opponent, the Oakland Athletics. Whatever the cause, there it was, and there it will be in perpetuity.My most prized piece of sports memorabilia is a ball signed by the pitchers and catchers of the three previous perfect games thrown by the Yankees. Suddenly, that ball needs two more signatures. But I forgive Mr. Germán his transgression.Not good. Not great. Perfect.Robert S. NussbaumFort Lee, N.J.Trump and EvangelicalsIn an effort to consolidate evangelical support, former President Donald J. Trump emphasized his role in appointing three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Burnishes Judicial Record at Evangelical Conference: ‘This Guy Ended Roe’” (news article, June 26):Evangelicals’ support for such a morally compromised and ethically challenged individual as Donald Trump never ceases to amaze me. Their dubious rationalization for this — that he brought an end to Roe v. Wade — borders on the absurd, given that every Republican candidate running in 2016 and today would have nominated three “pro-life” nominees for the Supreme Court if afforded the same opportunity that Mr. Trump had as president.So why continue to support someone who has made a mockery of almost every fundamental Christian value and endorse such a deplorable example of leadership for our youth when so many others are available who represent those values so much better?Ira BelskyFranklin Lakes, N.J.Art in Private Hands, Lost to Public ViewTo the Editor:Re “$108.4 Million Sale Sets Auction Record for Klimt” (news article, June 28), about the sale of “Lady With a Fan”:Art sold to private collectors is often lost to public view. As someone who spent many years researching Gustav Klimt and his work, I found that your story raised critical issues about ownership and access to important paintings.When the philanthropist and World War II restitution activist Ronald S. Lauder purchased “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I” for a record $135 million in 2006, he put the portrait in the Neue Galerie in Manhattan, where it has remained on continuous display.By contrast, “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II” is now in private, unnamed ownership in China, and “Lady With a Fan” is now in the possession of a private collector in Hong Kong.Klimt’s paintings show us the lost world of his Jewish patrons in turn-of-the-century Vienna. Some may applaud Sotheby’s record European sale, but art is more than a commodity; it is part of our shared history.When a painting is sold to private collectors for record millions, it becomes unaffordable to museums and too often inaccessible to the people who would appreciate its beauty and significance.Laurie Lico AlbaneseMontclair, N.J.The writer is the author of “Stolen Beauty,” a novel about the creation and restitution of “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I.”Missing: Younger Women’s VoicesTo the Editor:Re “Nine Kansas Women on Abortion” (“America in Focus” series, Opinion, June 25):Come on! Of the nine women who discussed their thoughts and votes on abortion, the youngest was 37 years old. The other women interviewed were in their 40s, 50s and 60s!Why be so removed from the women who are the hardest hit subjects of the bans? You should have given readers a chance to hear from the many fertile women in their teens and 20s whose bodily autonomy is being challenged now.Lisa LumpkinOsprey, Fla. More

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      Taiwan Faces a #MeToo Wave, Set Off by a Netflix Hit

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      A torrent of sexual harassment accusations has prompted questions about the state of women’s rights on an island democracy that has long been one of Asia’s most progressive places.In the past few weeks, a wave of #MeToo allegations has raced to the very top of Taiwan’s political, judicial and arts scenes, forcing a new reckoning of the state of women’s rights on a democratic island that has long taken pride in being among Asia’s most progressive places.Nearly every day, fresh allegations emerge, setting off discussions on talk shows and on social media, with newspaper commentaries and activist groups calling for stronger protections for victims.In many ways, Taiwan stands out for the significant strides that women have made that helped elect the island’s first female president and bolster laws against rape and sexual assault, before #MeToo took off in the United States. But the flood of new sexual harassment accusations points to what activists and scholars say is entrenched sexism that leaves women vulnerable at work, and a culture that is quick to blame victims and cover up accusations against powerful men.President Tsai, in 2020, with other officials. Some of the earliest #MeToo allegations centered on senior members of her political party, posing risks to the party’s credibility with younger voters.Makoto Lin/Taiwan Presidential Office, via ReutersThe outpouring of complaints was set off by a popular Netflix drama about Taiwanese politics called “Wave Makers,” which featured a subplot about a female member of a political party telling her boss that she had been sexually harassed by a high-ranking party member. Her boss promises to help her report the harassment, and in an indication of how often such politically inconvenient complaints are ignored, says, “Let’s not just let this go this time.”That quote from the fictional supervisor became a clarion call, inspiring more than 100 accusers, mostly women, to speak out on social media, sharing their accounts of unwanted kisses, groping and in a few cases, attempted rape. They described the indignities endured at the workplace, including inappropriate touching and unwanted advances by male colleagues and bosses, as well as lewd comments. Some of their posts have been shared thousands of times.The stakes are particularly high for President Tsai Ing-wen’s governing Democratic Progressive Party. Senior party and government officials were among the first accused of harassment and of seeking to silence accusers, forcing Ms. Tsai to apologize twice for her party’s mishandling of internal complaints. The criticism runs counter to the party’s record as a champion of liberal values, which includes legalizing same-sex marriage in 2019 and granting gay couples the right to adopt earlier this year. And it poses risks to the party’s credibility with younger voters ahead of a presidential election next year.“The Democratic Progressive Party has regarded itself as the governing party that supports gender equality,” Fan Yun, a party legislator who is also a professor specializing in gender issues at National Taiwan University, said in a telephone interview. “The Netflix show was seen by others as a snapshot of what’s happening within the party, and it has brought about great impact.”A scene from Wave Makers. A line from the show about properly addressing a sexual harassment complaint, “Let’s not just let this go this time,” resonated in Taiwan.NetflixAmong the most senior figures accused of harassment is Yen Chih-fa, who denied the allegation but resigned from his post as an adviser to President Tsai. Taiwan’s highest legal body said it would investigate a complaint against a former chief justice, Lee Po-tao. Tsai Mu-lin, a high-level party official, has been accused of bullying a female party staff member into silence when she reported that a male colleague had tried to enter her hotel room.Mr. Tsai, who is not related to the president, has since stepped down.The woman who accused him, Chen Wen-hsuan, said she felt empowered to speak out publicly by the other women who had shared their experiences. “This movement has taught me that no injustice should be swallowed,” she said. “After all, we can’t just let it go.”Allegations have also been made against men from the main opposition party, the Kuomintang, as well as across Taiwan’s society more broadly, including in academia, journalism, and most recently, entertainment.Mickey Huang, a TV personality, apologized after being accused by a woman he met at work of kissing her without her consent and forcing her to be photographed nude. Aaron Yan, a pop star, apologized after an ex-boyfriend accused him of secretly shooting videos of them having sex, when the ex-boyfriend was 16, a minor. Local prosecutors said this week they would investigate the allegation.Mickey Huang, a TV personality, apologized after being accused by a woman of kissing her without her consent and forcing her to be photographed nude.Visual China Group, via Getty ImagesIn some ways, the #MeToo movement points to a generational shift in attitudes brought about by the hard-fought advances won by women’s rights activists in decades past. Taiwan’s younger generation started learning about gender equality in elementary school, as part of curriculum changes enacted in 2004, and have since come of age.But workplaces are struggling to keep pace.Taiwan’s younger generation has “a higher awareness of gender diversity and equality than the older generation,” said Wei-Ting Yen, an assistant professor of government at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania. “However, the workplace that young people are entering is still dominated by the older generation.”Lawmakers have pledged to quickly pass changes to laws to make workplaces and schools safer by holding organizations accountable for protecting victims of harassment. The changes would require organizations to track complaints and provide independent, third-party review panels if needed. Women’s rights groups have called for Taiwan to extend the statute of limitations for sexual harassment complaints, currently at one year.But activists also say more needs to be done to address the culture of sexism that underlies the misconduct and deters many women from speaking out. A survey by Taiwan’s labor ministry last year showed that only a tiny percentage of female respondents who said they had encountered sexual harassment at work had filed complaints. Activists and scholars in Taiwan say that men in power, whether they are supervisors in workplaces or police officers or judges, are often seen as sympathetic toward other men in power, and likely to blame the victim.This month, Lai Yu-fen, 27, accused a Polish diplomat, Bartosz Rys, on her Facebook and Twitter accounts, of what Ms. Lai described as sexual assault last year. She said that when she filed a police report, investigators asked why she had apologized to the diplomat as she rejected his advances, and why she had not told her family about the encounter. She said a defense lawyer gossiped about her to mutual friends. “I want to take back my own story,” Ms. Lai said in an interview.The Polish Office in Taipei, Poland’s de facto embassy in Taiwan, confirmed that it cooperated with the authorities. Prosecutors decided not to charge Mr. Rys, whose posting ended last year and who later left Taiwan. He did not respond to an emailed request for comment, but said on his Twitter page that Ms. Lai had sought money in exchange for dropping the accusation. (She said the request for money was part of negotiating a legal settlement.)To those working in Taiwan’s civil society, perhaps the most concerning of allegations are those directed at activists seen as influential leaders in the rights community. Lee Yuan-chun, 29, an activist, this month publicly accused Wang Dan, a veteran Chinese pro-democracy dissident, of pressing him onto a bed and asking him for sex in 2014. He said he was suing Mr. Wang.Wang Dan, middle, a Chinese pro-democracy dissident, was accused this month by an activist of pressing him onto a bed and asking him for sex. Andres Kudacki/Associated PressIn a statement, Mr. Wang said he hoped that the public would reserve judgment until a court ruled on the lawsuit. “As a public figure, one’s private life will be subject to more stringent scrutiny,” he said. “Through this incident I will pay more attention to this in the future.” More

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      The Trump Indictment: A Changed Landscape

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      More from our inbox:Our Failure to Support New Parents and BabiesThe indictment followed criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump in a hush-money case brought by local prosecutors in New York.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Is Indicted Over Classified Files” (front page, June 9):The indictment of Donald Trump heralds a new chapter in American history. His trial could come sometime next year during the Republican primary season. He will continue to tell his followers that he has done nothing wrong and that this is all part of a vendetta by the Washington elite.His followers will continue to support him. If he is found guilty in any of his trials, he will appeal. If he is nominated, the appeals process will play out during the election campaign. He could be elected and then have a guilty verdict upheld as he is about to be sworn into office.Mr. Trump and the special counsel Jack Smith serve as the protagonists in the first act of a Shakespearean tragedy. The full effects on America of Mr. Smith’s essential action will not be known until the final act.Sidney WeissmanHighland Park, Ill.To the Editor:Is no one above the law? We are about to find out. The stakes couldn’t be higher if the country hopes to remain a legitimate democracy.Tom McGrawGrand Rapids, Mich.To the Editor:The indictment of Donald Trump on federal criminal charges might improve his odds of receiving the Republican nomination, but it almost certainly means that if nominated, he would lose the general election.It may increase the sympathy and anger of millions of his hard-core supporters. They will give him even more money to run and turn out in even greater numbers in the primaries, but it will not persuade many, if any, supporters of President Biden to vote against him in November 2024.This is not yet a banana republic. The greater number of Americans who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 will continue to believe that this and future indictments are legitimate.Even if Mr. Trump manages to beat all the charges against him, he has been further disgraced by all these legal battles. And the effect of the indictments after the lessons of the Jan. 6 hearings will bring new voters, particularly first-time voters, to Mr. Biden.If he remains healthy, President Biden wins again.Allen SmithSalisbury, Md.To the Editor:Journalists need to get to the meat of the Republicans’ support of Donald Trump’s behavior in the classified documents case and ask them the following questions:Are you saying you do not trust the Florida grand jury, made up of ordinary citizens from a state that twice voted for Mr. Trump? The prosecutor presents the facts, but the grand jurors vote on whether to indict. Do you really think all of them are on an anti-Trump witch hunt?Why are you making judgments about this case when you don’t know the charges or the facts? It sounds as if you are advocating for Mr. Trump to be able to break the law at will with no consequences; do you deny that?Stop allowing Republican politicians to hide behind specious arguments bereft of facts or even common sense. They are spouting anti-democratic nonsense, and the press should be exposing them for what they are.Jean PhillipsFlorence, Ore.To the Editor:In all the discussions, among all the various talking heads, about the various aspects of this new criminal indictment, one significant factor has been overlooked.At no time, during any judicial proceedings, will Donald Trump ever take the witness stand. It will never happen.Stuart AltshulerNew YorkTo the Editor:It is vital that Donald Trump’s trial be scheduled to start no later than four months after his arraignment, so that the trial can be finished well before the Iowa caucuses. This can be done by actions of the judge assigned to the case immediately after the arraignment, setting strict time limits for all pretrial matters.Both parties have experienced attorneys who can promptly complete pretrial matters, including discovery and pretrial motions, within that four-month period so that the trial can end well before the voters have to make their decisions.Robert LernerMilwaukeeThe writer is a retired lawyer who tried many cases in federal courts as a prosecutor or as a defense attorney.To the Editor:Jack Smith, all I can say is thank you. Thank you for believing in our country. Thank you for trying to uphold our democracy. Thank you for your courage.I have tears in my eyes. You have restored my hope. Grateful. Stay well.Dody Osborne CoxGuilford, Conn.Our Failure to Support New Parents and Babies Shuran Huang for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Risk to Mothers Lasts a Full Year After Childbirth” (front page, May 28) and “A 3-Month-Old Baby Was Found Dead Near a Bronx Expressway” (nytimes.com, May 29):As a midwife working with pregnant people and new parents, I found these articles — about increasing rates of maternal mortality from hypertension, mental illness and other causes and about parents charged with murder or reckless endangerment — heartbreaking.This represents the total failure of our society to support pregnant people and new parents. After receiving only rudimentary maternity services with limited access to care, new parents are turned out of the medical system without proper follow-up and support. Our health care system has not responded to the increasing challenges of parenting in the modern world, leaving parents and children to face preventable dangers.Patient-centered care in pregnancy and improved postpartum services could prevent the suffering and deaths through early identification of risks and swift intervention. Access to care is far too limited.There has been enough hand-wringing about our horrible statistics. We need immediate investment in maternity services, expanded access to obstetric and midwifery care, mental health services, postpartum care and support for new parents.How many more deaths will it take for us to invest in the well-being and safety of our parents and children?Laura WeilSan FranciscoThe writer is an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.To the Editor:Our nation’s failure to properly care for expectant and new mothers and their babies speaks to a larger problem: Our health care system is siloed and focused on delivering urgent services. We treat pregnancy as an event, focused on a safe delivery and a healthy baby and mother, and our systems respond to problems only when they arise.There is a pressing need to address increasing maternal and infant morbidity and mortality — and the many other health issues across the country that are rapidly getting worse — by considering the entirety of factors that make up a person’s health and well-being. We need to spend more time upstream, creating the vital conditions that are key to good health and well-being, like a healthy environment, humane housing, meaningful work and sufficient wealth.If we increase our investments in order to create the conditions people need to thrive, we can build the long-lasting change that is needed to prevent many serious health problems. This is much harder than treating a single person presenting in the emergency room, but it is a much smarter investment for our long-term health and well-being.Alan LieberMorristown, N.J.The writer is chief operating officer and chief health care strategist for the Rippel Foundation, which is working to rethink systems that have an impact on health and well-being. More

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      Erdogan Pushed to Victory in Turkey by Conservative Women

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      In winning another term as Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was propelled to victory in part by the fervent support of an often underappreciated constituency — conservative religious women.Ten years ago, Emine Kilic, was focused on raising her two children at home in Istanbul when she decided to set up her own clothing company to help support her family.Her business, started with an interest-free government-backed loan for female entrepreneurs, now employs 60 people and exports to 15 countries, said Ms. Kilic, who has an elementary-school education. She credited a powerful motivator who inspired her to transform her life — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — calling him a champion for women.“Thanks to my president, I became the boss of my own company,” said Ms. Kilic, 38. She said she had voted for him for years and did so again to help him secure another presidential term on Sunday.To beat back the most serious political threat to his two-decade tenure as Turkey’s dominant politician, Mr. Erdogan counted on the fervent support of an often underappreciated constituency: conservative religious women.Across Turkey, devout women, both professionals and those who don’t work outside the home, not only turned out to vote for Mr. Erdogan in large numbers, but also coaxed their friends and relatives to do the same. Women are also active across the country in his governing Justice and Development Party, ranging from activists who spread party messages among their neighbors over tea to the dozens of women who represent the party in Parliament.Since arriving on the national stage in 2003 as an ambitious Islamist politician, Mr. Erdogan has sidelined Turkey’s secular elites.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesUniting these women and Mr. Erdogan is a shared conservative Muslim view of female roles in Turkish society, first as mothers and wives, second as members of the work force. In a staunchly secular country where women who covered their hair were long barred from universities and government jobs, many devout women view Mr. Erdogan as their protector because he pushed to loosen those rules.“Voting in Turkey, especially for our community, is not only about electing someone. It is making a decision about your life,” said Ozlem Zengin, a lawmaker and senior female member of Mr. Erdogan’s party.For many conservative women, the bitterness of having their ambitions limited by public expressions of their faith runs deep, even affecting the children of those who lived through it, she said. That resentment also fuels the tremendous gratitude toward Mr. Erdogan.“Erdogan is loved that much, because he changed people’s lives,” Ms. Zengin said.The electricity between Mr. Erdogan and his female supporters coursed through an Istanbul conference hall during a women’s rally two days before the May 28 runoff. Thousands of women, some with babies or children in tow, packed the hall, clapping and waiving their arms to campaign anthems and holding up their cellphone flashlights to welcome him onstage.“Women are the most important heroes in our struggle to serve the country,” Mr. Erdogan said, to rapturous applause.“Women are with you!” the crowd at a campaign rally chanted to Mr. Erdogan.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesHe reminded his audience that he had delivered on conservative causes, lifting head scarf bans and turning the Hagia Sofia, one of Turkey’s architectural treasures, from a museum into a mosque. And he made a new promise to seek retirement pay for women who do not work outside the home, garnering more cheers.“We will burst the ballot boxes,” Mr. Erdogan said. “Don’t just go by yourself. You must make sure your families, neighbors and distant relatives also go to the ballot box.”“The women are with you!” the crowd chanted.Mr. Erdogan’s loyal following among conservatives is rooted in Turkey’s history.Though a predominantly Muslim society, the country was founded in 1923 as a secular state. That gave the government oversight of religious institutions and the power to keep open displays of religiosity out of the public sphere.Some Turks treasure that secularism as a founding pillar of the republic. But it rankled many devout people, including women who felt that it made them second-class citizens. Some women had to remove their veils to attend university. Others wore wigs.In a staunchly secular country where women who covered their hair were long barred from universities and government jobs, many devout women view Mr. Erdogan as their protector.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMs. Zengin, the lawmaker, said she had worked as a lawyer for 20 years without being allowed to even enter the courtroom because she covered her hair.“If you were a defendant or an aggrieved party, you could enter the courtroom, but not as a lawyer,” she said. “It was incomprehensible.”Since Mr. Erdogan arrived on the national stage in 2003 as an ambitious Islamist politician, he has sidelined Turkey’s secular elites and consolidated more power in his own hands. Along the way, he pushed to loosen head scarf restrictions.The restrictions were lifted on university campuses in 2008, and in 2013 four veiled women from Mr. Erdogan’s party became Parliament members, a first. Now, there are many more, and conservatives still thank Mr. Erdogan with their votes.“I feel like I have a debt to him,” said Eda Yurtseven, a kindergarten teacher. “I owe him a lot because now I can live freely.”Mr. Erdogan’s vision of the family remains conservative, holding sacrosanct the notion of marriage being only between a man and a woman, preferably with three children. His idea of personal freedom leaves little room for L.G.B.T.Q. people in Turkey.“We believe the family is sacred,” he said during the women’s rally. “We must take precautions now against these trends that are spreading like the plague.”Turkey’s Constitution grants equal rights to men and women, and its labor code bars gender-based discrimination. But women still earn 15.6 percent less than men on average, according to a United Nations report last year.Mr. Erdogan’s foes say he has acquired too much power and accuse him of pushing the country toward one-man rule.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesIn 2021, Mr. Erdogan shocked rights groups by withdrawing Turkey from an international treaty on preventing violence against women that he had signed in 2011. Women’s advocates consider the country’s domestic violence laws strong but say that physical and sexual abuse against women remains common and often goes unreported or is not properly investigated by the authorities.Female political representation has increased during Mr. Erdogan’s tenure, and women won about 120 seats in the 600-member Parliament in this month’s election. Still, the United Nations report said, most women work in campaigning, communications or support roles, not in high-level decision making.Mr. Erdogan has been a pioneer in tapping the power of devout, conservative women in grass-roots politics in Turkey, said Nur Sinem Kourou, a professor at Istanbul Kultur University who has studied his party’s women’s groups. Many work in their neighborhoods, she said, spreading party views through informal meetings or religious activities while gathering information to feed back to the party.“The fact that the women’s branches are on the ground every week, every day means that they analyze society very well,” Ms. Kourou said. “That data leads back to Erdogan’s speeches on TV.”Those activists remain fiercely loyal to Mr. Erdogan and consider him key to Turkey’s future, she added.“We have to protect him,” Ms. Kourou said, summarizing their views. “Erdogan protects us.”That bond means that Mr. Erdogan’s staunchest female supporters tend to give him a pass on the country’s problems, including a painful cost-of-living crisis, blaming instead other members of his party or foreign powers.Woman at a meeting of Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in Istanbul. He pushed to loosen head scarf restrictions.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMr. Erdogan’s foes say he has acquired too much power and accuse him of pushing the country toward one-man rule. But his vast control does not bother his loyalists. On the contrary, they say he needs it to do his job.Mina Murat, 26, said she voted for Mr. Erdogan and his party because they protected her right to cover her hair.“My teacher used to wear a wig over her head scarf in school,” she recalled. “Women couldn’t attend college and couldn’t get government jobs because of their head scarves.”Now, Ms. Murat works in a clothing store geared toward conservative women, with head scarves in a vast array of colors and patterns.“Now we can dress fashionably and conservatively,” she said. More

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      Gloria Molina, Pioneering Latina Politician, Dies at 74

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      In three elections, she was a “first,” becoming one of the leading Latina politicians in California and the country.Gloria Molina, a groundbreaking Chicana politician at the city, county and state levels in California who was a fierce advocate for the communities she represented, even though that often meant defying entrenched political structures, died on May 14 at her home in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles. She was 74.Her family announced her death, from cancer, on her Facebook page.Since she announced she had terminal cancer in March, colleagues, constituents and the California news media had been praising her achievements in articles and on social media. The Los Angeles Metro’s board of directors voted to name a train station in East Los Angeles after her. Casa 0101, a performing arts organization in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles, designated its main stage theater as the Gloria Molina Auditorium. Grand Park, in downtown Los Angeles, which she helped bring into being in 2012, is now Gloria Molina Grand Park.“She championed for years to increase access to parks and green spaces,” the park’s overseeing body said in announcing the renaming, “as well as recreational opportunities that engage culture, support well-being and improve the quality of life for everyone in Los Angeles.”The accolades reflected her legacy as one of the leading Latina politicians in the country, with much of her more than three-decade career encompassing a time when few Latinas were in important positions.In 1982, after working on other politicians’ campaigns, including that of Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, who would later be elected to Congress, Ms. Molina became the first Latina elected to the California Assembly. She ran for that seat even though the political leadership of the Eastside area of Los Angeles County had already selected another candidate, Richard Polanco. She beat him in the Democratic primary and easily defeated a Republican opponent in the general election.A similar thing happened in 1987 when she ran for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council that had been created by redistricting. The political leadership had chosen Larry Gonzalez for the post, but she beat him and a third candidate to become the first Latina council member.Ms. Molina in 1984 campaigning with Walter Mondale, center, who was running for president, and Art Torres, a California state senator.Wally Fong/Associated PressIn 1991, she scored a political hat trick of sorts, becoming the first woman to be elected to the powerful Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. (In 1979, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke became the first woman on the board when she was appointed to fill out the term of a retiring member.) Some 1,000 supporters attended her swearing in.“We must look forward to a time when a person’s ethnic background or gender is no longer a historical footnote,” Ms. Molina said at the time. “And this election is another step in that positive path to the American promise.”Ms. Molina, who served on the board until term limits ended her tenure in 2014, was right that her victory was no token; today, all five supervisors are women.Roz Wyman, a groundbreaker herself — in 1953, at 22, she became the youngest person ever elected to the Los Angeles City Council — once reflected on Ms. Molina’s “firsts.”“We had a saying in those days: ‘Can a woman break the glass ceiling?’” she said. “Not only did she break it, she busted it in every way that you could possibly bust a glass ceiling.”Gloria Molina was born on May 31, 1948, in Montebello, a Los Angeles suburb. Her father, Leonardo, was a construction worker who was born in Los Angeles but raised in Casas Grandes, Mexico, and her mother, Concepción, was a homemaker from Mexico. The couple immigrated in the 1940s, and Gloria was the oldest of 10 children.“She was almost like a second mom in the family,” Ms. Molina’s daughter, Valentina Martinez, said in a video about her mother made in 2020 for the Mexican-American Cultural Education Foundation. “She did everything. She would tell me that she would come home from school every day and make tortillas for her brothers and sisters. She didn’t get to have fun or go to after-school programs. She was always kind of doing the hard work, making sure everyone was taken care of, changing diapers, cooking, doing all of that. So she was a tough lady from the very beginning.”She was, Ms. Molina said, “brought up in a very traditionally Chicano family.”“The expectations were that you were going to get married and have children,” she said in an oral history recorded in 1990 for the Online Archive of California. “You weren’t going to go on to be anything other than maybe what your mom was.”But she told her mother that she didn’t want to get married young; she wanted to travel and work and get her own place.“She thought I was sort of nuts,” Ms. Molina said.She studied fashion design at Rio Hondo College, in Whittier, Calif., and took courses at East Los Angeles College and California State University, Los Angeles, though she did not get a degree because for most of that period she was also working full time to support herself, including as a legal secretary for five years. She joined in the student activism of the 1960s and early ’70s, demonstrating against the Vietnam War and for Chicano rights.One thing she realized, she said in the Cultural Education Foundation video, was that those activism movements were generally led by men and “really didn’t allow the women to have any role whatsoever.” She banded with other Chicana women try to change that culture.“We were Chicana feminists when there weren’t any around,” she said.She was drawn into politics, working for several prominent figures and, in 1982, deciding to seek the assembly seat over the objections of the male political hierarchy. She and her Chicana supporters knew it would be a difficult battle.“We wanted to destroy everything that they had said I could not do,” she recalled in the oral history. “Like I said, we always accepted the fact that we needed to work twice as hard; we really physically went out and did that.”In her career in the State Assembly, she told The Los Angeles Times in 1987, she prided herself on “being a fighter, one who doesn’t just go along with the program because that’s how the pressure is being applied.” That was certainly true for her signature issue during her assembly years — her opposition to a proposal to build a prison in her Eastside district, a plan whose proponents included Gov. George Deukmejian.She won that battle, a significant one.“She stopped the 100-year pattern of dumping negative land-use developments on the Eastside,” Fernando Guerra, the director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, said in a phone interview.In the process, she earned a reputation for being tough and uncompromising that stuck with her throughout her political career.“Just listen to her talk,” Sergio Munoz, then the executive editor of the Spanish language daily La Opinion, told The New York Times in 1991, shortly after Ms. Molina won election to the Board of Supervisors. “Listen to her answer questions. You are going to get a direct answer, whether it affects other interests or compromises someone else.”Ms. Molina’s last elected position was on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, where she served for more than two decades.Reed Saxon/Associated PressAfter leaving the Board of Supervisors, Ms. Molina made one more bid for political office, challenging José Huizar, an incumbent, for his Los Angeles City Council seat in 2015. She lost. Mr. Huizar later pleaded guilty to corruption charges.Though no longer in office, Ms. Molina remained active in various causes. In 2018, she was among a group protesting outside an Academy Awards luncheon in Beverly Hills, denouncing the scarcity of Hispanic characters in films.“The movie industry should be ashamed of itself,” she said then.In addition to her daughter, Ms. Molina is survived by her husband, Ron Martinez; her siblings, Gracie Molina, Irma Molina, Domingo Molina, Bertha Molina Mejia, Mario Molina, Sergio Molina, Danny Molina, Olga Molina Palacios and Lisa Molina Banuelos; and a grandson.Professor Guerra noted that Ms. Molina, in her various elections, faced the task of convincing voters to choose her over another Latino candidate.“What she had to show was, of the other Latinos that were running, she was the one who was going to represent them better,” he said. “Her secret sauce was that she came across as incredibly authentic, and she was a populist.”“Her only interest, and it came across,” he added, “was the community.” More