Hispanics and Latinos in California

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Hispanics and Latinos in California
Hispanos y Latinos en California
Roman Catholicism[1]
Related ethnic groups
Hispanic and Latino Americans

Hispanic and Latino Californians are residents of the state of California who are of Hispanic or Latino ancestry. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, Hispanics and Latinos of any race were 39.4% of the state's population,[2] making it the largest ethnicity in California.

Chicanos
.

History

The Hispanic presence in California has existed since the earliest European exploration of the region, the first such explorer of the California coast being

Pt. Reyes, California.[4]

Romualdo Pacheco, the only Hispanic Governor of California since the American Conquest of California.

California became part of the

Viceroyalty of New Spain, with Monterey, California
, as its capital.

In 1821,

Chinese Mexicans who fled Mexico's anti-Chinese sentiment during the war and settled in the Imperial Valley
.

In the early 1930s, the US began repatriating those of Mexican descent to Mexico, of which 1/5th of California Mexicans were repatriated by 1932.

During the first half of the 20th century, Mexican-American workers formed unions of their own and joined integrated unions. The most significant union struggle involving Mexican Americans was the effort to organize agricultural workers and the

gained national prominence as they led a workers' rights organization that helped workers get unemployment insurance to an effective union of farmworkers almost overnight. The struggle to protect rights and sustainable wages for migrant workers has continued.

Demographics

.

Spanish is the state's second most spoken language. Areas with especially large Spanish speaking populations include the

Mexican American
is the largest ethnicity in half the state's 58 counties.

By ethnicity, 38.1% of the total population is Hispanic (of any race).

Anaheim is over half Hispanic, and Orange County
's population is 30–35 percent Hispanic.

The

Central Valley has many Mexican American migrant farm workers. Hispanics are the majority (and sometimes, plurality) in 14 other counties: Colusa, Fresno, Glenn, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles (the county is 45% Latino), Madera, Merced, Monterey (esp. the Salinas area), San Benito, San Bernardino, Santa Cruz (estimated 30–40% due to migrant labor patterns), Tulare and Yolo
counties.

Hispanics make up at least 20% of the

East Los Angeles and Logan Heights, San Diego, as well the San Joaquin Valley and Riverside county (almost half the population) are centers of historic Chicano
and Hispanic cultures.

Most of the state's Hispanics have

. Los Angeles has the United States' largest Central American community, as well as the largest Mexican American community since the 1910s and 1920s.

In Mariposa County, there is a very small community of Californios or Spanish American people as they identify themselves, that dates back before the U.S. annexation of California. Hornitos is home to an estimated 1,000 people and many are "Californio". The community's "Spanish" Californio culture is closely linked with Mexico and other Hispanic American nations.

(self-identified ethnicity, not by birthplace)
Ancestry by origin (2019 surveys)[9] Population %
Argentine
55,935
Bolivian
16,392
Chilean
27,396
Colombian
90,552
Costa Rican
26,741
Cuban
92,451
Dominican
16,422
Ecuadorian
36,689
Guatemalan
460,310
Honduran
107,887
Mexican
12,875,655
Nicaraguan
115,973
Panamanian
20,886
Paraguayan
1,039
Peruvian
108,134
Puerto Rican
226,314
Salvadoran
731,873
"
Spanish
"
84,186
"Spaniard" 162,356
"Spanish American" 1,370
Uruguayan
4,495
Venezuelan
20,174
All other 325,540
Total 15,574,882
Ancestry by region (2010 census)[10][11] Number %
Mexicans 11,423,146 30.7%
Caribbeans
290,007 0.8%
Central Americans 1,132,520 3.0%
South Americans 293,880 0.8%
Other Hispanic 874,166 2.3%
Total

Spanish language in California

As of 2010, 28.46% (9,696,638) of California residents age 5 and older spoke

primary language
. California has the second highest concentration of Spanish speakers in the United States.

California's first constitution recognized Spanish language rights:

All laws, decrees, regulations, and provisions emanating from any of the three supreme powers of this State, which from their nature require publication, shall be published in English and Spanish.

— 
California Constitution
, 1849, Art. XI Sec. 21.

By 1870, English-speaking Americans were a majority in California; in 1879, the state promulgated a new constitution under which all official proceedings were to be conducted exclusively in English, a clause that remained in effect until 1966. In 1986, California voters added a new constitutional clause, by referendum, stating that:

English is the official language of the State of California.

— California Constitution, Art. 3, Sec. 6

Spanish remains widely spoken throughout the state, and many government forms, documents, and services are bilingual, in English and Spanish. And although all official proceedings are to be conducted in English:

A person unable to understand English who is charged with a crime has a right to an interpreter throughout the proceedings.

— California Constitution, Art. 1. Sec. 14

Historic Hispanic/Latino population

Colonial and Mexican era

Population Statistics of Alta California Province (including California, Nevada, Utah and parts of Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming) [note 1]
Year Pop Spaniards/Mexican/Criollo/Mestizos % pop
1769 300
(first foundation in Spanish California)[12]
1781 600 (Spaniards)[12]
1783 1,000 (Spaniards)[13]
1790
(Revillagigedo census)[14]
19,800 (mostly mestizos and more than 1,100 Spaniards) N/A
1800 1,800 (Spaniards)[15] N/A
1810 2,000 (Spaniards)[13] N/A
1820 3,270 (Spaniards)[13] N/A
1838 3,500 (Spaniards)
(Faxon D. Atherton estimations[16])
N/A
1845 7,300 (Spaniards and some Americans)
(Weber estimations (1982:206),[16]
although other sources indicated that in 1846 11,500 Californians were of Spaniard or Mexican descent[17])
N/A

California as part of the United States

California California Number of people of Mexican Origin (1910-1930)
and of Hispanic/Latino Origin (1940-2020) in California
[18][19][20][21][a]
+% of Population of Mexican Origin (1910-1930)
and of Hispanic/Latino Origin (1940-2020) in California
1850 15,000[22] 15% of the Non-Amerindian population/[17]
17%[22]
1860 N/A N/A
1870 22,409 4%[17]
1880 42,311[23] N/A
1890 48,535 4%[22]
1900 47,112[23] N/A
1910 49,928 - 82,217[23] 2.1%
1920 126,793 - 155,085[23] 3.7%
1930 386,053 - 419,309[23] 6.8%
1940 415,113 6.0%
1950 762,208 7.2%
1960 1,430,265 9.1%
1970 2,738,513 (15% sample) 13.7%
1980 4,544,331 19.2%
1990 7,687,938 25.8%
2000 10,966,556 32.4%
2010 14,013,719 37.6%
2020 15,579,652 39.4%

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Almost the entire Spanish and mixed-race population lived in present-day California.

References

  1. ^ Adults in California who identify as Latino - Religion in America
  2. ^ "California QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau". Quickfacts.census.gov. 2011. Archived from the original on November 9, 2000. Retrieved October 6, 2013.
  3. ^ as quoted in Clark, Donald T. (2008). Santa Cruz County Place Names p.442, Scotts Valley, California, Kestrel Press.
  4. ^ Larry Gerston, Terry Christensen, California Politics and Government: A Practical Approach (2013), p. 2.
  5. ^ "Riverside, California | City of Arts & Innovation | At Home in Riverside". www.riversideca.gov.
  6. ^ "California QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau". United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on November 9, 2000. Retrieved July 25, 2012.
  7. ^ "Latino Population Now Equals That of Whites in California". ABC News. 2 July 2013.
  8. ^ "HISPANIC OR LATINO ORIGIN BY SPECIFIC ORIGIN: 2019 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates". United States Census Bureau. 2019.
  9. ^ US Census Bureau: "Redistricting Data, First Look at Local 2010 Census Results" Archived 2013-10-20 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ US Census Bureau, Systems Support Division. "Population by Race and Hispanic or Latino Origin for the United States: 1990 and 2000 (PHC-T-1)". Census.gov. Archived from the original on 20 January 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  11. ^ a b David P. Coulson; Linda Joyce (August 2003). "United States state-level population estimates: Colonization to 1999" (PDF). USDA. p. 33.
  12. ^ .
  13. ^ "New Spain (Mexico), 1790 Statistics Charts". 24 December 2013. Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
  14. .
  15. ^ a b "National Historic Trail Feasibility Study and Environmental Assessment: Old Spanish Trail". University of Minnesota. Government Publications Library. July 2001. p. 40.
  16. ^ a b c "California as I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849 to 1900. Other Californians". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2021-10-02.
  17. ^ "Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals By Race, 1790 to 1990, and By Hispanic Origin, 1970 to 1990, For The United States, Regions, Divisions, and States" (PDF). Census.gov. p. 37. Retrieved 2015-07-30.
  18. ^ "U.S. Census of Population: 1960" (PDF). Www2.census.gov. Retrieved 2012-09-30.
  19. ^ "The Hispanic Population: 2000" (PDF). US Census Bureau. Retrieved 2015-07-30.
  20. ^ "The Hispanic Population: 2010" (PDF). US Census Bureau. Retrieved 2021-10-02.
  21. ^ a b c LESLIE BERESTEIN-ROJAS (4 May 2014). "California's Latino Plurality Brings A Sense Of Déjà Vu". NPR. Retrieved 2021-10-02.Published on May 4, 2014.
  22. ^ .

Further reading

  • Tomás F. Summers Sandoval, Jr., Latinos at the Golden Gate: Creating Community and Identity in San Francisco. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.

External links