Latinos and Asians Continue a Transformation

A small exodus of whites from Orange County--combined with a heavy influx of Latinos and Asians--has hastened the region’s transition over the last decade from a bastion of white conservatism to a new home for people from the Spanish-speaking Americas and the Pacific Rim.

U.S. census figures released Thursday show that whites are no longer a majority in 10 Orange County cities, compared with only one--Santa Ana--in 1990. Only Santa Ana has a Latino majority, as it did 10 years ago.

The numbers suggest that whites in the established core of north Orange County are being supplanted by a mix of races, ethnicities and cultures.

The county’s census population is 2,846,289, an increase of 435,733, or 18%, over 1990. That trails the county’s 25% growth spurt during the 1980s, when the population jumped from 1.9 million to 2.4 million.

The total makes Orange County the second-largest in the state, surpassing San Diego County’s 2,813,833 residents, but ranking well behind Los Angeles County’s 9,519,338. It is the fourth-largest county in the country, trailing Los Angeles, Cook County (Chicago) and Harris County (Houston).

Orange County also has more residents than 20 states, including Mississippi and Kansas.

Whites Moving Out or Around

The county’s Latino population grew by 46%, and Latinos now account for at least 28% of Orange County residents. The number of Asians grew even faster, by nearly 63%. They now account for at least 14% of the total population.

As the ranks of Latinos and Asians have swelled through migration and birth, the total number of whites has decreased by 95,523. Whites also have moved within the county. More than 100,000 have left such older core cities as Anaheim and Santa Ana, while nearly 60,000 moved into fast-growing southern county communities such as Rancho Santa Margarita and Aliso Viejo, which only recently have become cities.

Although the county’s ethnic makeup has shifted, changes in political power will be slower, said Loretta Sanchez, who in 1996 became the first Latino elected to Congress from Orange County--the home of Richard M. Nixon and long a national emblem of white conservatism.

“It has always been a struggle,” Sanchez said. “The issue of assimilation and tolerance and acceptance will continue to be an issue. People have to grow up. This is happening not just here, but in every place. . . . Omaha, Neb., is now 20% Latino.”

In the last decade, whites are no longer the majority population in Anaheim, at 36%; Buena Park, 38%; Fullerton, 49%; Garden Grove, 33%; La Habra, 41%; La Palma, 36%; Santa Ana, 12%; Stanton, 30%; Tustin, 45%; and Westminster, 36%.

Some patterns of growth have contradicted expectations. Irvine, for example, had the second-highest increase in Asian residents--22,985 people--of all Orange County cities. Asians now account for 30% of Irvine’s population.

“I am not surprised,” said Mai Cong, president of the Vietnamese Community of Orange County. “When I first came here, 26 years ago, it was rare to meet another Asian face. Today, anywhere you look in the central part of the county, you run into an Asian person.”

Simple numbers, though, don’t tell the full story of a county in the midst of an unstoppable evolution.

The strains of those changes already have been felt, with anti-immigrant initiatives gaining considerable voter support in Orange County. In Anaheim, a group of residents has waged a campaign to bill Mexico and other foreign governments for the cost of educating illegal immigrants in the Anaheim Union High School District.

“Anaheim is becoming a Third World slum,” Harald G. Martin, chairman of the school board and a leader of the effort, said Thursday. “If people will open their eyes and look, and stop being fooled by the word ‘racist,’ then maybe we can get some decent dialogue on what’s happening.”

Sanchez, though, sees such attitudes as the backdrop to the next change: Local governments more closely reflecting their populations.

“Political change will be very slow until people figure out how to break down the barriers of money and political machinery,” Sanchez said. “You talk about Anaheim being one of the areas being high for non-Anglo families, but if you look at the City Council, if you look at the school boards of that city, you see very little diversity.”

Officials Pleased With First Numbers

The changes have been the most significant in the relatively small city of Buena Park, where the white population of 71% in 1990 dropped to as low as 38% in 2000 as the numbers of Latinos increased to at least 30%, and Asians to at least 21% of the city’s population of 78,282.

One key census difference from 10 years ago seemed to be the efficiency of the count itself. In 1990, urban areas--including Santa Ana and Anaheim--complained that the census undercounted people living in minority and immigrant neighborhoods, which in turn reduced the amount of federal money local governments received.

On Thursday, Santa Ana officials were initially pleased with a count that showed a population gain of 15.1%, to 337,977. They credited that, in part, to an aggressive city campaign to encourage people to cooperate with census enumerators.

“It’s very close to where we thought we were going to be,” said Manuel Gomez, assistant to the city manager of Santa Ana. “We’re pretty satisfied that we did the best we could. The community put its best foot forward to find people who might be shy in participating.”

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Times staff writers Jennifer Mena and Daniel Yi also contributed to this story.

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Orange County Growth

Fastest Growing:

Aliso Viejo - 420.7%

Rancho Santa Margarita - 314.5

Laguna Niguel - 39.4%

Tustin - 33.2%

Irvine - 29.7%

Slowest Growing:

Laguna Hills - -33.3%

Villa Park - -4.8%

Seal Beach - -3.7%

Los Alamitos - -1.2%

La Palma - 0.1%

City by city

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City 2000 % change pop. from 1990 Aliso Viejo 40,166 427.7 Anaheim 328,014 23.1 Brea 35,410 7.7 Buena Park 78,282 13.8 Costa Mesa 108,724 12.8 Cypress 46,229 8.4 Dana Point 35,110 10.1 Fountain Valley 54,978 2.4 Fullerton 126,003 10.4 Garden Grove 165,196 15.5 Huntington Beach 189,594 4.4 Irvine 143,072 29.7 La Habra 58,974 15.0 La Palma 15,408 0.1 Laguna Beach 23,727 2.4 Laguna Hills 31,178 -33.3 Laguna Niguel 61,891 39.4 Lake Forest 58,707 n.a. Los Alamitos 11,536 -1.2 Mission Viejo 93,102 27.9 Newport Beach 70,032 5.1 Orange 128,821 16.4 Placentia 46,488 12.7 Rancho Santa Margarita 47,214 314.5 San Clemente 49,936 21.5 San Juan Capistrano 33,826 29.2 Santa Ana 337,977 15.1 Seal Beach 24,157 -3.7 Stanton 37,403 22.7 Tustin 67,504 33.2 Villa Park 5,999 -4.8 Westminster 88,207 12.9 Yorba Linda 58,918 12.4

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