In the spring of 1980, Julian Nava found himself about to become a pioneer again.

The Boyle Heights native had gone through his life as a man of firsts. First Mexican American student body president at East Los Angeles College. One of the first Mexican Americans to earn a doctorate from Harvard. The first Latino elected to the Los Angeles Unified School District board of trustees. One of the masterminds behind a pivotal television series about the Chicano experience.

Now, President Carter had appointed Nava as the first-ever Mexican American U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

He sat down with The Times for an interview shortly after the Senate approved his nomination. Nava told this paper that while the choice of him for the role was “historically significant… after the novelty wears off, all that really matters is what kind of job you do.”

It was an apt summation of a man who based his career more on pragmatism and principle than political posturing. Nava paved paths for the waves of Latino politicians across Southern California that followed him in education, elected office, diplomacy and beyond by working within systems that had long excluded people like them. That drew barbs early in his career from both sides of the proverbial political aisle: liberals…