A daughter of L.A. and a transplant to the city. The different paths taken by Bass and Raman

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Set us as preferred When Karen Bass was first elected to the California state Assembly in 2004, Nithya Raman was halfway across the world, fresh out of college and working in the slums of Delhi, India.Raman had only visited Los Angeles for the first time a year before.

Bass, meanwhile, had already called L.A.home for more than half a century as she built a career as a physician’s assistant, then as an activist, and finally as a politician.

The two women who have charted vastly different life paths are now locked in a contentious battle for mayor of Los Angeles.When the votes are finally tallied after election day Tuesday, the job will go to one of them: Bass, a daughter of South L.A.

and the civil rights movement who committed her life to public service, or Raman, who moved to Los Angeles 13 years ago with her husband, hoping, like so many before them, to discover whatever their future might be.Raman’s relative newness to the city has become a talking point on the campaign trail for the Bass campaign and her surrogates, who have painted the challenger as ignorant of the city’s sometimes painful past, including hammering Raman over a seemingly positive remark she made about former police chief, Daryl F.

Gates, who led the force during the 1991 videotaped police beating of Rodney King.“It’s one thing to be new.

That’s the secondary issue,” Bass said in an interview with The Times.“But if you want to lead the city, you would think that you would know some of the most important moments in L.A.

history.”Raman’s response: Los Angeles was built by people like herself who came here seeking a better life and new opportunities.“This city welcomed me with open arms.

So when the mayor keeps saying I’m not really an Angeleno, she’s attacking more than me.She’s rejecting the very DNA of Los Angeles: a c...