Los Angeles & Southern California - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [21]
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Certainly, explosive race-related incidents have received high-profile exposure, as with the riots in 1965 in Watts and in 1992 in Los Angeles, yet day-to-day civility between races is the norm. Animosity is hard to maintain when you encounter different races on a daily basis.
Latino SoCal
Forty percent of LA County’s residents are Mexican by birth or ancestry, and by 2020 Latinos are projected to be the outright majority. Other groups from South and Central America continue to arrive, mostly because opportunities in their home countries are narrowing. Their collective influence is huge. From radio and TV stations to Spanish-language billboards, you’ll see and hear Latino culture across the Southland. Click here for more information.
Despite their numbers, Latinos had little say in leadership until fairly recently. Now LA’s mayor, county sheriff, members of the city council and the powerful county board of supervisors are Latino, as well as many representatives in the California State Assembly and US Congress from across SoCal.
Spanish is the lingua franca of many SoCal restaurant kitchens, and there’s a host of Latino products on grocery-store shelves. Even non-Latino Angelenos can expound on mole and corn versus flour tortillas.
On the music scene, Latino groups are top-sellers at Gibson Amphitheatre and Greek Theatre.
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In Once upon a Quinceañera (2007), Julia Alvarez investigates the art, history and sociology of this ritual among Latinas turning 15 years old (an elaborate party akin to a Sweet Sixteen), infused with traditions from across Latin America.
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Barrios still exist, most notably in LA’s ‘gateway’ community of Pico Union, where recent Mexican and Central American immigrants first get a toehold in the USA, but nowadays young Latino hipsters are joining their hipster brethren in neighborhoods like Venice, Silver Lake and Echo Park.
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SOCAL BY THE NUMBERS
Total regional population 21,185,000
Total population of Australia 20,266,000
Total population of California approx 36.5 million
LA County ethnic breakdown Latino 46.8%; Caucasian (non-Latino) 29.5%; Asian or Pacific Islander: 13.4%; African American: 9.7%
Cities in LA County 88
Area of LA County 4081 sq miles (10,571 sq km)
Area of Lebanon 4015 sq miles (10,400 sq km)
Rank of San Bernardino County in area among American counties One (20,105 sq miles)
Number of US states that would fit together into San Bernardino County Four – Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut and Massachusetts
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For all this upward mobility, Latino workers still do most of the farm labor and domestic work, and many of them are without proper papers. Estimates put the numbers of undocumented/illegal immigrants at between 12 and 20 million nationwide, about one-quarter of whom live in California – the majority of those in SoCal. Click here for a discussion of border issues.
Other Ethnic Groups
LA’s – and SoCal’s – vast space has allowed ethnic enclaves to thrive as in few other places. Neighborhoods throughout the region burst with ethnic cuisine, food, clothing and souvenir shops, and houses of worship. Many have community newspapers printed in the native language and social services agencies providing outreach.
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There are more ethnic Samoans in LA (approximately 60,000) than in American Samoa.
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LA’s Koreatown is the largest, a vast swath between Hollywood and Downtown LA. Little Saigon, in the Orange County towns of Garden Grove and Westminster, has the largest population of ethnic Vietnamese outside Vietnam; many residents emigrated around the end of the Vietnam war, and the population here tends to be vocally opposed to the current Vietnamese regime. There are two Japanese neighborhoods (Downtown’s Little Tokyo and around Sawtelle Blvd in West LA), America’s first Thai Town, and enclaves from historic Filipinotown