California’s Diversity and its Impacts on its Politics
California’s population is large (40 million), diverse and comprised of many immigrant communities.
“California’s population is diverse. No race or ethnic group constitutes a majority of California’s population: 39% of state residents are Latino, 37% are white, 15% are Asian American, 6% are African American, 3% are multiracial, and fewer than 1% are American Indian or Pacific Islander, according to the 2018 American Community Survey. Latinos surpassed whites as the state’s single largest ethnic group in 2014.” “According to 2018 estimates, 27% (or 10.6 million) of Californians are foreign born—this share is larger than that of any state (New York is second with 23%) and double the share nationwide (14%). The leading countries of origin for California immigrants are Mexico (4.0 million), the Philippines (848,000), China (798,000), Vietnam (515,000), India (532,000), El Salvador (462,000), and Korea (312,000). In recent years, immigration from Asia has outpaced immigration from Latin America by a two-to-one margin.” https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-population/
In the 1982 gubernatorial election, Attorney General George Deukmejian beat Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who was black, in a race, that was notably devoid of race baiting; Bradley’s defeat was widely attributed to the “Bradley effect” – hidden white racism not expressed to California pollsters. Later research however suggested that the unexpected upset was likely due to more successful absentee balloting by Republicans and the backlash against Prop 15 – a gun control initiative -- combined with lower than expected turnout by African-American and other minority voters, which was particularly pronounced in the Bay Area. https://escholarship.org/content/qt3q90v38p/qt3q90v38p.pdf
During the 90’s, California’s GOP leaders led by then Governor Pete Wilson developed and passed a series of voter initiatives targeted at disadvantaging the state’s emerging minority and immigrant communities. These campaigns were explicitly anti-minority and anti-immigrant. While they passed muster with the state’s voters who were older and whiter than the state’s overall population, they spectacularly backfired politically, changing California (the home of Reagan and Nixon and Deukmejian and Wilson) to its deep blue political hue today. In 1996, Republican Governor Pete Wilson led the successful effort to pass Prop 187, which denied public services like education and health care to undocumented working families. Governor Wilson also led the effort to pass Prop 209 to eliminate affirmative action in any publicly funded services. Two years later, frequent Republican candidate Ron Unz led a voter initiative, Prop 227 to eliminate bi-lingual education. https://kappanonline.org/a-new-era-for-bilingual-education-in-california/
We now have a state legislature with strong and able representation from minority political leaders. The same cannot be said of bodies, such as the local LAUSD school board, with two out of seven minority representatives, compared to a student population of nearly 80% minority kids.
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 9/15/20