A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : In the Neighborhood : SANTA ANA: Latino Power Is Visible on the Horizon : If Santa Ana’s 65% Latino population is excluded from political power in 1992, most agree the imbalance won’t last long.

The Anglo candidates for the three open City Council seats in Santa Ana are better-funded, and the election of a Latino in next week’s election would be an upset. Many Santa Ana Latinos believe their voting power is diluted by at-large election of the City Council. A high proportion of non-citizens among Latinos also reduces the voting population.

Santa Ana does have the highest percentage of Latinos of any major California city, and on the positive side of the ledger, there are two Latinos on the seven-member City Council. The school superintendent is Latino, as are three of the five school board members.

Over the next six years, between 40,000 and 50,000 Santa Anans--nearly all Latino--will become eligible for citizenship under the U.S. Amnesty Program. In the same period, thousands of permanent residents will become citizens and the children of immigrants will come of voting age. The crucial variable will be whether the new citizens register and vote.

Demographics

Santa Ana: % change since ’80

Population: +44.2%

Hispanic: +111.1%

Anglo: -25.1%

Asian: na

Foreign born, not a citizen: 42% All foreign-born persons: 51% Households with seven or more persons: 17% Per capita income: $10,019

Orange County / % change since ’80 Population: 2,410,556 / +24.7% Hispanic: 23.4% / +97.3% Anglo: 64.5% / +2.9% Black: 1.6% /+60.4% Asian: na

Community Worker

Sam Romero works for the Orange County Community Housing Corp. and has lived in Santa Ana for more than 50 years.

The unfairness of the present electoral system enables the Anglo community, a minority, to control the city. Once the shoe’s on the other foot they’re all going to scream bloody murder, that it’s not right, and then they’ll go to another system--a district system. It’ll be another four years before they start screaming. Right now, in terms of political power, the Latino community is zilch. To give a good indication, we had a fiesta downtown, Fiesta Patrias. We had between 250,000 and 300,000 people show up downtown, and where was the mayor? He never shows up to any Hispanic function.

The business part of downtown redevelopment is a huge success. Where they erred is with the multistory apartment houses, because overcrowding put huge pressures on services like schools. The city council should have gotten together with the school board and asked if they could handle the influx of students.

Homeowner

Guy Ball, editor of the quarterly city-sponsored publication, Eye on Santa Ana

There’s a big schism between the pure Hispanic community and the Anglo-Hispanic-Asian community. When people say we’re 64% Hispanic, there’s a lot of English speaking, a lot of second- and third-generation Hispanics.

Most people think the whole 64% speak Spanish and have hard ties to Central America or south of the border. The reality is it’s probably 30% to 40%--which is still a big number.

The problem has been in the neighborhoods, where it’s been very tough to get the Hispanic community out and involved with neighborhood groups. Even when some of the neighborhoods have tried Spanish-speaking meetings and translations, even bilingual newsletters, they get very poor response.

Businessman

Frank Dominguez, director of the Hispanic Development Council and president-elect of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

From an economic development approach, how do you get some of these people that are your residents, that are your majority, how do you get them into the entrepreneurial spirit and allow them to contribute to the overall income of the city and help them contribute again toward providing revenue to support programs that would help the community?

From the sheer numbers, you can’t avoid looking at the city as predominantly Hispanic, so even though you may be an Anglo politically elected official, you cannot avoid dealing with that population. Yes, it’s nice to have Hispanic elected officials, but if we can’t do that we expect those that are elected, if they’re not Hispanic, to be sensitive and to respond to the Hispanic population.

Community activist

Martha Gallegos, resident of Santa Ana for more than 30 years and president of the Orange County Chapter of the Mexican-American Women’s National Assn.

It’s always been a Latino community, but the growth has meant it’s been difficult to catch up. There’s the issue of schools and the idea of dealing with monolingual or bilingual education. We don’t have the facilities or the educators in the numbers that we need. We have fantastic people doing fantastic things, but they’re limited by funds.

You’re looking at a population trying to educate itself, trying to get ahead, but the political people don’t see that as a priority. It’s been said that Latinos have a high dropout rate. I don’t know if I agree with that. Children by economic necessity are having to leave school. A lot of kids we speak to are dealing with difficult situations. Many times kids are pulled out of school; it’s a matter of economic survival.