![]() Which is apt, because the paper’s first Latino editor swings an ax at the county’s record.Īrellano, 37, has delighted and enraged readers by denouncing the absence of blacks and referring to Santa Ana as SanTana, the way Latinos pronounce the city’s name. Not just any Mexican - Gustavo Arellano, editor of the alternative magazine OC Weekly and author of the syndicated column ¡Ask a Mexican!, which answers reader queries about Latino stereotypes.ĭonald Trump’s head – the remnant of a piñata smashed at a protest rally when the presidential candidate visited Orange County – adorns the entrance to Arellano’s office. It’s just that people are more comfortable with their own culture,” said one 15-year-old girl.Īsk a Mexican and you get a very different perspective. Those interviewed by the Guardian on the boardwalk – a very unscientific sample of teenagers, fortysomethings and pensioners – bristled at any suggestion of prejudice. They resisted the transport of Latino children to white-majority schools and expressed willingness to withdraw their children from integrated schools. In an interview this week, Lacayo said whites used parking fees, homeowner association rules and gated communities to deter unwanted visitors and settlers, even middle-class Latinos. They have a wet dirty blanket and they’ll drag it, and they’ll stop on the boardwalk. “The Mexicans go to the beach, and I don’t know why they always swim in their clothes. “Hispanics, they just don’t fit in,” he told the researchers. ![]() They used words like “trash”, “third world” and “gangy”.Įxamples included a 42-year-old repo company owner named Mark. The respondents “overwhelmingly characterized Latinos and African Americans as culturally deficient, problematic and inferior”, according to Lacayo. The random sample was aged 25 to 61 and mostly middle to upper class professionals involved in law, real estate, sales and marketing.Ī small sample, but with striking findings. It is based on in-depth interviews with 40 white residents in 2010, conducted by two white researchers Lacaya contracted to encourage candour. Celia Lacayo, a postdoctoral scholar at UCLA’s Institute of American Cultures, has published a report titled Latinos Need to Stay in Their Place: Differential Segregation in a Multi-Ethnic Suburb. Now there is an academic study bolstering the case that racism does indeed fuel the segregation. Many observers have long suspected racism, too, but the evidence has been anecdotal. Whites are wealthier and can afford pricey coastal real estate. The inland city of Santa Ana, in contrast, once predominantly white, is now 78% Latino.Įconomics explains much of this. Most whites live in tracts that are at least 60% white, many of them coastal cities such as Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach and San Clemente. They make up 44% of the population of 3 million, with Latinos comprising 34% and Asians 18%.īut melting pot it is not. In fact, over the past two decades, the county has become diverse to the point that whites are no longer a majority. The Real Housewives of Orange County, a reality TV show, has bolstered the impression of a white enclave. A sub-group of neo-Nazi surfers acquired notoriety for daubing swastikas on boards. It led the state’s crackdown on illegal immigration in the 1990s. California’s Republican bastion, it helped launch Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, who called it the place “where all the good Republicans go to die”. Orange County, a cluster of cities and freeways tucked between Los Angeles and San Diego, is known for being white and politically conservative. There is little chance the social services worker will feel forced to flee his home, at least not on account of Latinos. “When a neighborhood goes downhill, people leave.” Huntington Beach was fine just as it was. His heritage was Puerto Rican, but Montanez did not identify with, nor yearn to see, the absent Latinos. In this world, no one gets along, so you hang out with your own kind,” said Ruben Montanez, 54, in shorts and shades, perched on a bench.
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