A Changing Population in South-Central L.A., Watts

Most Los Angeles residents are used to thinking of Watts and South-Central Los Angeles as black communities. Population specialist Philip Garcia points out what is less known: that there has always been a Latino presence in these areas.

As Teresa Ramos, a former resident, recalls, “When I was going to school in the 1930s and 1940s, Watts and surrounding areas including South L.A. were mostly Mexican-American and Japanese-American. The merchants were mostly Anglo and Jewish.

“There were a few black families in the area back then, (who) were from California; we didn’t see large numbers of black people moving into the area until the ‘50s and ‘60s and they came from the Southern states.”

Census research by Garcia supports this. “The residential areas of Avalon, Baldwin Hills, Central, Exposition Park, South Vermont, West Adams, Watts and Santa Barbara (now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) were built up in the 1920s and became black neighborhoods in the 1950s and ‘60s, said Garcia, who is assistant director of institutional research for California State University.

Between 1970 and 1980, Latino growth in the area was 117%. And during that same time the black population dropped about 8%, according to Garcia.

The drop in black population can be attributed to a variety of causes, including an older population and movement by blacks to the suburbs. Immigrants from Mexico and Central America, attracted by affordable housing, have moved in.

The dramatic shift to a greater Latino population is a new phenomenon, Garcia said.

“Latinos have moved into and transformed black neighborhoods and that almost never happens,” Garcia said.