NEWS ANALYSIS : Latinos, Asians Gain in Numbers, Not Power

The growing ethnic diversity of California society, as reflected in newly released 1990 census numbers, is now visible in suburbs and small towns, agricultural counties and desert subdivisions--almost everywhere, except in the corridors of power.

The latest census has documented a widening divide in California politics: the disparity between the growth of the Latino and Asian populations and the relatively minuscule size of their delegations in Washington, Sacramento and on the governing bodies of the state’s major cities and counties.

As immigrant growth propels the state toward a non-Anglo majority, political power remains solidly in the grasp of a shrinking Anglo constituency. While the results of the latest census stir optimism among Asian and Latino activists--revealing a gross numerical strength that conceivably could be harnessed into electoral might--few strategies have emerged to raise realistic hopes of a power shift anytime soon.

“A lot of new opportunities are opening up, but I expect progress, in general, will continue to be slow and victories hard won,” said Richard Santillan, chairman of the ethnic studies department at Cal Poly Pomona.

“I don’t expect wholesale changes in ethnic political participation until after the turn of the century,” said Mark DiCamillo, managing editor of the California Poll. “Despite the population changes, I expect the characteristics of voters to look pretty much the same, about 80% white and 50% over 50 years old.

“Historically,” DiCamillo said, “it takes minority groups a generation or longer to become part of the political mainstream.”

Immigrants are not alone in the struggle to wield political power commensurate with their numbers.

Blacks in California also face a challenge: how to maintain hard-won political gains in the face of urban population losses, especially in south Los Angeles, where the traditional African-American base is fast eroding. As black voters move out, some districts will have to be redrawn, and, increasingly, black politicians may find themselves running in multiethnic districts, campaigning in immigrant neighborhoods and white, middle-class enclaves.

Established black politicians who are learning to work with new constituencies are less likely to be in trouble than the next crop of aspiring black officeholders. By the end of the century, some of them will be running in districts populated by politically active Asians and Latinos who will be aggressively pushing their agendas.

“The problem is going to come in the year 2000, when a shrinking urban black population is likely to be compounded by a declining birthrate among African-Americans,” said an aide to a veteran black politician. The aide asked not to be identified.

Nowhere is the disparity between population and political participation more evident than among California’s Asians and Pacific Islanders. With a growth rate of 127% since the 1980 census, Asian/Pacific residents are now the state’s third-largest ethnic group, having surpassed blacks during the past decade. Yet, Asian-Americans have not had one of their own serving in the Assembly or state Senate in over 10 years. While they now constitute nearly 10% of the population, Asians hold barely 2% of the state’s top 300 elective offices, according to a 1990 analysis by Fernando Guerra, director of Chicano studies at Loyola Marymount University.

Asians, such as UCLA population expert Don Nakanishi, talk about playing a role akin to Jews in American politics--leveraging money and votes in key elections in return for favorable policy decisions. Nakanishi acknowledged that Asians have not found their Israel, or any cause so universally compelling that Chinese, Japanese, Southeast Asians, Filipinos and others will register to vote in appreciable numbers.

In Los Angeles County, the registration rate among eligible Asians is about 30%, Nakanishi said, about half the countywide average for all qualified to vote.

For Latinos, the numbers paint only a slightly rosier picture. Latinos now comprise 26% of the population, but they hold less than 6% of the state’s top elected offices, according to Guerra’s study.

During the coming year, ethnic politics in California will focus on how the state’s non-Anglo population will fare during a wide-scale redistricting. Much of the attention will be paid to how an Anglo governor and a mostly Anglo Legislature will draw the lines of seven new congressional districts.

Latino and Asian groups are busily organizing into redistricting coalitions, but there are signs that there is a lack of consensus on how to translate population gains into political advantage.

U.S. Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-La Puente) has called for three of the state’s seven new congressional districts to be drawn in ways that would ensure the election of Latinos. Santillan has cautioned that such a strategy might backfire by requiring that Latino voters be taken away from incumbent Latino officeholders such as Torres.

Among Asians in Los Angeles, there is disagreement over whether to push for the creation of a City Council district that would run from Chinatown to Koreatown and take in Japanese and Filipino enclaves along the way.

“Some people think that such a district would be shaped like an octopus,” said Stewart Kwoh, head of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center. “You also hear the claim that there isn’t enough inter-Asian communication and linkage for a single district to make a lot of sense.”

People also point to the success of Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo, who won in a district with a small Asian population, as evidence that Asians do not need to form their own districts in order to win. Skeptics counter that Woo is one of a handful of successful Asian candidates in California over the past decade. Moreover, they argue that, at the very least, stronger Asian districts will cause politicians of other races to pay more attention to Asian interests.

Behind the debate over political strategy in various ethnic communities is a common anxiety that, despite their numbers, Latinos and Asians will not count for much if they do not do a better job of unifying around candidates and issues.

“My concern is that unless all this amorphous growth is organized, we will move in the direction of quasi-apartheid, where you have a powerless majority and a minority that still constitutes the power,” said Armando Navarro, director of the Latino studies program at Claremont McKenna College’s Rose Institute.

Navarro is hopeful that things will change. He cited a number of reasons why the Latino political presence could grow during the coming decade.

He said that as many as 1 million new Latino voters may emerge, as beneficiaries of the federal government’s amnesty laws become eligible to register over the next several years. “We have the potential to double the number of Latino voters statewide,” Navarro said. Latinos account for 8.5% of registered voters, he said.

There also will be new opportunities to run for the Legislature, if last year’s term-limit initiative survives legal challenges. More seats will open up if, as expected, several incumbent officeholders choose to run for the newly created congressional seats.

Meanwhile, said Navarro and others, there is the prospect of more lawsuits--similar to the one that paved the way for Gloria Molina’s recent election to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors--contending that political boundaries in communities around the state were drawn in a way that dilutes Latino voting power.

“One of the things we are trying to do right now is develop a network of lawyers around the state who can assist local groups with redistricting suits,” said Richard Fajardo of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Mostly, Latino and Asian activists hope that it will not take much more than a glance at the map of California’s changing face to make voters aware of their enormous political potential.

“You show them a map of the west San Gabriel Valley, and they see the vast shaded areas showing the new concentrations of Asians,” Nakanishi said. “It’s mind-boggling. The whole map seems to change color. People are going to realize the stake they have in the political process. I think you’ll see some changes.”