Latinos No Longer an ‘Underclass,’ Researcher Says : Sociology: Three-year study of cultural attitudes shows a ‘paradox’ of middle-class values and poverty-level incomes.

Although poor, Southern California’s Latinos no longer fit the so-called “poverty-stricken urban underclass” mold defined by the sociologists of the 1960s, the director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center said Thursday.

“Latinos are poor, but they are also hard-working and have strong family values,” said David E. Hayes-Bautista of UCLA, describing a “Latino paradox” that entraps some who exhibit middle-class behavior and attitudes but still endure poverty-level incomes.

Hayes-Bautista spoke to about 70 community leaders who were invited to the County Administration Building by the county’s Health Care Agency. During his talk, Hayes-Bautista also shared some findings from his recent three-year study of Latino cultural attitudes. Esther Valles Murray, the county’s health and disease prevention manager, said that she invited the researcher to Orange County because his study, which has been met with widespread interest, “will change how we look at health care.”

Although Hayes-Bautista’s study did not distinguish between those of Mexican descent and other Latinos, he said he thinks that many of the findings about cultural ties could be generalized to later generations of Puerto Ricans, Cubans or other Latinos who predominate in other parts of the country.

Policy-makers and politicians tend to highlight Latino deficiencies, portraying them as either dependent on welfare, high school dropouts or part of an immigrant invasion, Hayes-Bautista said. They falsely interpret the state’s growing Latino population as “the beginning of the end of the world,” he said.

“Look at what (former Republican presidential candidate) Pat Buchanan said the other evening at the Republican convention about the L.A. riots. He sees minorities as a diversity nightmare,” Hayes-Bautista said.

He suggested a shift in approach as the state moves closer to the 21st Century, especially in view of the fact that Latinos will make up about 33% of the population by the year 2000.

“Rather than being a disadvantaged population presenting social problems, Latinos should be looked upon as a potential source of strength for the society and economy of the state,” Hayes-Bautista said.

David J. Burciaga, executive director of Clinica Nueva Esperanza, a mental health center in Santa Ana, applauded the researcher’s findings, especially when Hayes-Bautista spoke of the low ratio of Latino physicians in the population.

“It’s a significant problem for us in Orange County. We just don’t have enough physicians who can speak Spanish,” Burciaga said.

Although some 1990 census information indicates that Latinos are younger, have larger households and live longer than some other ethnic groups, Hayes-Bautista noted that there is one Anglo doctor for every 330 whites in California while there is only one Latino physician per 4,670 Latinos--a ratio so high, he said, that “even Paraguay beats California in Latino physicians per population.”

Pointing to a recent census finding, Hayes-Bautista noted that median household income in Orange County ranged from a comfortable $47,353 for whites to a less generous $35,905 for Latinos who were counted by census takers.

And with larger families, Latinos have less to spend on individuals within the household, including money for health care costs. Consequently, Hayes-Bautista said, in 1987--the most recent year for which figures are available--Latinos made up only 16% of the county’s population but “40% of the tuberculosis cases in Orange County.”