Need a microcosm of the state’s increasingly diverse population? Look no further than Santa Ana, California. The New York Times recently profiled the bustling Southern California city where 78 percent of residents and all seven city council members are Latino.
It wasn’t always this way. In 1980, Latinos made up just 44 percent of the city’s population. Forty years prior, they barely broke 15 percent. It’s a trend taking hold across the state. And with it comes growing political influence among Latinos.
“The power and presence of Latinos in this community in Orange County — itself once a bastion of Republicanism — is echoed up and down the California coast,” according to the Times. “Latinos now make up just under 40 percent of the state’s population, projected to increase to 47 percent by 2050. The leaders of both houses of the Legislature are Latino, as is the secretary of state, the current mayor of Los Angeles and the previous mayor.”
According to Mark Hugo Lopez, director of Hispanic research at the Pew Research Center, over 25 percent of the nation’s Latino voters live in California. There are 1,377 Latinos holding state, local and federal office, the second highest in the country after Texas. Political observers are now clamoring to see what effect this will have during the 2016 presidential race in which immigration has taken center stage.
As the Times notes, significant social and economic disparities between the state’s white and Latino populations also persist, but prominent Latino politicians believe we’re on the road to change.
“Latino political power is not the panacea nor does it equate to instant gains overall or lifting people out of poverty,” said State Senator leader Kevin de León. “The fact that we have political power, I think, means we’ve started that journey.”
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