Latino Growth Surge Continues in Ventura County

Steadily marching toward majority status in Ventura County, Latinos continued a decades-long population surge during the 1990s, a boom reflected in everything from growing political clout to emerging economic muscle for Latino entrepreneurs.

Already the county’s largest minority group, Latinos now account for about one of every three residents, compared with one in four a decade ago, according to the 2000 census.

In fact, Latinos accounted for at least two-thirds and as much as 88% of the county’s growth during the past decade, building on existing majorities in Oxnard, Santa Paula and Fillmore, while gaining ground on whites in the more affluent east county suburbs.

Race and ethnicity numbers for the 2000 census are reported as ranges, because for the first time people could report they belong to more than one racial group.

The population boom, a more than 200% increase since 1970, is expected to intensify over the next half-century, during which time Latinos are expected to replace whites as the dominant ethnic group.

But already, dramatic changes have taken hold:

* Latinos now make up 20% of those who hold positions on the county’s school boards and city councils, a doubling ofboards and city councils, a doubling of representation over the past decade.

* There has been a 40% increase in Latino-owned businesses in Ventura County since 1992. More than 7,000 Latino businesses generate $821 million in sales--the 10th-largest amount in the state.

* Change has come most strongly in the county’s schools, where Latino enrollment rose more than a percentage point a year during the ‘90s. Latinos account for 43% of all schoolchildren, up from 31% a decade ago.

* With about one-quarter of a million residents, the county is now home to the nation’s 22nd-largest Latino population, a mix of new immigrants and the descendants of those who came from Mexico and other Latin American countries more than a century ago.

Latinos make up at least 43% of the combined populations of Ojai, Ventura, Santa Paula, Fillmore, Port Hueneme and Camarillo. They also increased their numbers in the predominantly white east county, moving from 12% of the combined populations of Moorpark, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks in 1990 to at least 15% today.

“I see Latinos becoming part, in every way, of the tapestry that makes up Ventura County,” said Simi Valley resident Jorge Garcia, a political scientist who is dean of humanities at Cal State Northridge.

“I attribute the electoral successes and the economic successes to that growing population base,” Garcia continued. “It’s like a pyramid; you have to have a broad base before you can start having any upward movement.”

Indeed, more than ever, Latinos are buying homes, building businesses and injecting new energy into every aspect of county life, from corporate boardrooms to city council chambers.

And more continue to scale the economic ladder, with 55% of all local U.S.-born Latinos now reporting they live in middle-income households--nearly double the number of 30 years ago.

That shift has been especially good for business, where a growing number of Latino entrepreneurs are opening restaurants, launching public relations firms and embarking on a host of other enterprises geared to the Latino market and beyond.

Mexican-born Alfredo Plascencia is among them. The son of a Ventura County field hand, the 40-year-old Camarillo resident saved money from working in construction and purchased Spanish-language Radio Lazer (KXLM-FM) in 1991.

Within a year it became one of the highest-rated radio stations in the county. Plascencia now owns 10 stations, which pump out a norteno beat on airwaves from San Bernardino to San Luis Obispo.

“I think a lot of people still have the mind-set that we as Hispanics have not really progressed, that we’ve stayed in the fields,” said Plascencia, a resident of Camarillo’s ritzy Spanish Hills neighborhood.

“I can tell you that is not the case, and I’ve been able to see it firsthand,” he said. “More and more businesses are discovering Hispanics and understanding that we have buying power and have a lot to contribute to the county.”

In many ways, community leaders say, the changes are just beginning.

Record numbers of legal immigrants in the county have signed up to become U.S. citizens during the past decade, many with the assistance of Oxnard-based El Concilio del Condado de Ventura, a nonprofit Latino advocacy group.

Thousand Oaks resident Hank Lacayo, president of Concilio’s board of directors, said his organization also is scrambling to help scores of illegal immigrants take advantage of short-term legislation that could grant them legal status if they are married to--or closely related to--a citizen or legal resident.

Taken together, Lacayo said both efforts could help push thousands of Latinos in coming years toward greater involvement in civic affairs and increased participation at the ballot box.

With that in mind, Lacayo and other leaders are looking to the once-a-decade redistricting process--designed to reflect population changes documented by the census--to help Latinos claim their fair share of political power.

Lacayo is a member of the Ventura County Redistricting Taskforce, a coalition of community members who will be studying the census numbers and recommending ways to redraw political boundaries at the federal, state and local levels.

One goal, Lacayo says, is to draw a political map that would help boost Latino voter participation, which historically has been low.

But he said he also hopes to correct what he views as flawed congressional and legislative boundaries drawn in 1992 that subdivided the county’s Latino communities and undercut their influence.

“We want to make sure our voices are heard,” said Lacayo, who last week wrote to state and local officials advising them of the task force’s work.

“It’s an issue of fair representation,” he said. “We want to make sure the new lines make sense and that they are not drawn in the middle of the night without us having something to say about it.”

Latino leaders also are hoping to put the numbers to use in other ways.

Knowing that information generated by the census will be used to determine how federal money is spent in local communities, the Latino leaders hope the numbers will eventually translate to more resources to address problems that have long undermined Latino communities.

Despite progress in many areas, Latinos continue to disproportionately languish on welfare rolls and clog jails and juvenile halls.

Only 18% of Latino high school seniors meet entrance requirements for the University of California or Cal State University systems, compared with 45% for whites and 69% for Asians. And Latinos remain twice as likely as whites or Asians to drop out of high school.

The average Latino household earns two-thirds of a typical white household, and many Latinos still find themselves relegated to lower-paying farm jobs or factory work.

“You have a growing population, but you also have a growing population of poor people,” said Santos Gomez, directing attorney for the Oxnard office of California Rural Legal Assistance. The office provides free legal help to farm workers and other rural poor.

“Over the last several years we’ve had relatively good economic times, but those economic benefits haven’t trickled down to the farm worker population in particular, but poor people in general,” he added. “As a result, I think you see a widening gap between those who have achieved economic success and those struggling to get there.”

From his vantage point behind a prosecutor’s table at the Hall of Justice, Moorpark resident Ernesto Acosta sees up close some of the problems that plague the Latino community.

Every day, lines of Latinos dressed in drab jail blues are paraded into court.

Acosta, a 44-year-old USC law school graduate who emigrated with his family from Cuba in 1967 with only the clothes on their backs, said it’s clear the population surge has not yet translated into parity at many levels.

While more Latinos are finding their way into elected office, Acosta said there still is not a Latino in Congress, state Senate or Assembly representing Ventura County. And he points out that no Latino has been elected to the Board of Supervisors since Adolfo Camarillo held a seat near the turn of the century.

Acosta said similar disparities exist within his office, the local bench and other branches of municipal government.

“It matters because you have generations of Latinos growing up and seeing these disparities, and that leads to some degree of despair,” he said. “I hope there will be change, but I’m not optimistic it will happen any time soon.”

In some cases, however, the rising Latino tide already has transformed entire communities.

In Oxnard, which added 30,000 Latinos during the ‘90s, voters have elected a Latino mayor, a Latino councilman and several Latino trustees to area school boards. The county’s largest city--now at least 62% Latino--also has a Latino police chief, city manager and elementary school district superintendent.

In Santa Paula, where a full two-thirds of the population is Latino, community leaders have embarked on a campaign to get the federal government to change the local electoral system so more minorities are elected to the City Council.

The council now has two Latinos--veteran Laura Flores Espinosa and newcomer Ray Luna. But Espinosa said for many years she was the sole Latino on the council and that no more than two Latinos have ever served simultaneously.

“I’m hoping these census numbers will be an eye-opener to elected officials and others that Latinos make up a significant portion of the population and deserve a voice,” Espinosa said.

In the end, Espinosa and others say the push for greater Latino participation is not about advancing a so-called “Latino agenda.”

They say problems that affect Latinos also affect the community as a whole. And they note the interest of most Latinos--good schools, safe neighborhoods--are not any different from those of the population at large.

That’s why when M. Cecilia Cuevas ran last year for a seat on the Fillmore City Council, she told voters how her knowledge of land-use issues--she holds a degree from USC in real property management--would be of benefit to a rural community grappling with a host of growth issues.

“I tried not to play a racial campaign,” said Cuevas, who in November became only the second Latino since 1984 to win a seat on the council. “My platform was that I had the educational background to run for office, I had things to offer the city and I was a qualified candidate who happened to be Latina.”

On that point, Simi Valley Councilman Glen Becerra couldn’t agree more.

The 33-year-old Simi Valley native was elected to the council in 1998, the first Latino to serve on that municipal board.

His grandfather was a Mexican farm worker who settled in Simi Valley in 1927. His father was born there in 1936. And his son, Nicholas, was born in Simi Valley a few years ago.

Becerra said the census shows Latinos are becoming ingrained in every aspect of life in the county, breaking down long-held stereotypes with newfound political and economic clout.

He said those changes are evident in Simi Valley, where Latinos now make up at least 15% of the population, while whites have dropped from 80% of the population in 1990 to 73% today.

“We’ve been able to maintain a high-quality community while growing our diversity,” Becerra said.

“The Latino community no longer is a collection of small exotic niches, but part of a bigger picture of what is to be in California,” he added. “In a lot of ways, I see this as just the beginning. Latinos are now looking beyond their own neighborhoods and becoming part in every way of improving the larger communities they live in.”

On the playground at Rio Plaza School in El Rio, Supt. Yolanda Benitez is excited about the change. She is one of three Latino superintendents in the county.

And she’s guiding the district at a time of unprecedented Latino growth. Since 1989, Latino enrollment in county schools has gone from 31% to 43%. The Rio Elementary District is 80% Latino, compared with 70% a decade ago.

In four more years, there will be more Latino students than white students, if current trends continue.

This is not news to Benitez. Out here on the playground, she knows that is true because there is a whirl of brown faces, boys tossing the football and girls coming up to deliver big hugs while affectionately calling her “comadre.”

“The Latino agenda is an American agenda--good jobs, good education, good schools,” Benitez said.