Was LA/Orange county mostly white at one point? (Los Angeles: houses, school)

[soldierlifter]

Demographically speaking. I'm not familiar with the past I'm just curious based on what I see on TV or was it more hispanic leaning even asian leaning say in the 70's and 80's?

[Veritas Vincit]

The whole country had vastly fewer Hispanic and Asian residents in the 70s and 80s than today. L.A county would already have had above average numbers of both people of Hispanic and Asian descent, but it would have been bigger percenages of white than now by a significant amount.


From what I could find, Los Angeles County was 53% non-hispanic white in 1980 as opposed to about 24% in 2020. Latino population was 28% in 1980 and is 48% now. Asian population in 1980 was too small to be separately listed but "other" was given as 7% in the source I found so Asian would have been a part of that. Today it's around 14%. The black % dropped from 12% to 7% in the 40 years.

So basically the white and black populations almost halved in relative terms while the Latino and Asian population nearly or more than doubled since 1980.

[saibot]

Much of Orange County was majority white in the 1970s and 80s. I grew up in La Habra and went to school in La Habra and Fullerton. My classes were 90%+ white. Maybe 15-20% of kids had Hispanic surnames, but most did not speak Spanish and were culturally almost indistinguishable from the Anglo kids. There were a small handful of Asian families, and an even smaller number of black families. In fact, my public elementary had exactly one black family.

Coastal cities were very white. South OC, what there was of it, was very white. We associated Santa Ana with Hispanics. I remember a lot of Vietnamese refugees coming in the 1970s and many of them settled in the Garden Grove area. I have no experience with most of LA County during that era, but East LA was majority Hispanic by the 1980s at least. I worked at a community center in South El Monte from about 1988 to 1995, and 95% of the kids were Spanish-speaking, and many of those families were undocumented.

East LA was majority white for quite a while in the post-WWII years. We had friends whose elderly parents still lived in their little houses in cities like Maywood and Bell, had been there since the 1950s, but the elderly were almost the only whites in that area by the late 1980s.

[Outer_Bluegrass]

Originally Posted by Veritas Vincit

So basically the white and black populations almost halved in relative terms while the Latino and Asian population nearly or more than doubled since 1980.

I hope you find that statistic as concerning as I do.

[V8 Vega]

Burbak High had 1 or 2 Hispanics in 61

[BRinSM]

Originally Posted by Outer_Bluegrass

I hope you find that statistic as concerning as I do.

As a middle aged white guy, I'm generally curious what's concerning about this. As far as I see it, times change, people change, and places change. You can either be stuck in the past yearning for the days of old (which are never coming back btw) or look for new opportunity in the future. Nothing concerning there IMO.

[shelato]

As recently as the late 60's and early 70's, Los Angeles was still referred to as "Iowa on the Pacific". Los Angeles grew post war more from internal migration from colder places in the midwest and east coast more than from international migration. In the 70's that was when things really started to change. You had large numbers of Mexicans moving in, but you also had lots of Asian immigrant moving in after Vietnam and Korean wars. After the six day war, there was also an effort to bring Sephardic Jews to Southern California because of persecution Jews faced in the mideast after that war. But the Sephardic Jews from Iran also created the infrastructure for the wave of emmigration from Iran after the Iranian revolution in 79 and that helped bring to LA not just the Persians, but Lebanese, Armenians and other middle easterners to LA.

Now in terms of domestic migration, Los Angeles is a net exporter of people. When international migration slows down for reasons like say (covid) Southern California starts losing population faster than it can replace it from international migration and Southern California stops growing.

[saibot]

Originally Posted by shelato

Now in terms of domestic migration, Los Angeles is a net exporter of people. When international migration slows down for reasons like say (covid) Southern California starts losing population faster than it can replace it from international migration and Southern California stops growing.

The population of SoCal decreasing slightly is not a bad thing. But you just can't win, when the population is growing people shriek that's getting out of control, and when it's shrinking people shriek that it's dying. (Not saying that you, shelato, are shrieking.)

No one is worried that SoCal is going to be depopulated. No one.

[Gaylord_Focker]

Originally Posted by Outer_Bluegrass

I hope you find that statistic as concerning as I do.

Minorities are not your problem chief.

[bad debt]

Originally Posted by Outer_Bluegrass

I hope you find that statistic as concerning as I do.

Why would you find that concerning?