Thread: Hispanics to be Orange Co. majority by 2034, 7 years earlier

Hispanics to be O.C. majority
State projects Hispanics to be Orange County majority by 2034, 7 years earlier than predicted earlier.
By BRIAN JOSEPH
The Orange County Register
SACRAMENTO – Hispanics will become Orange County's ethnic majority in 2034, seven years earlier than previously projected, according to new state figures released Monday.

The state also projects that Asians will outnumber whites in Orange County by 2046. Previous figures never envisioned such a time.

The new projections, which update numbers released in 2004, paint a familiar picture of the white population's decline, albeit on an adjusted timetable. In 2004, the state projected Hispanics would account for 50 percent of its population, 25.3 million people, in 2038. Today, it now projects Hispanics won't reach the 50 percent mark until 2042.

At the county level, however, the timeframe has accelerated with Orange County projected to have a majority Hispanic population of 1.9 million by 2034, instead of a 1.8 million Hispanic majority in 2041.

Five years later, Asians will outstrip whites in Orange County 757,810 to 751,841, a difference of nearly 6,000. At the state level, there are no projections for Asians to outnumber whites.

By 2050, the latest date of the new projections, California is expected to be 52 percent Hispanic, 27 percent white and 13 percent Asian with a total population of 59.5 million. Orange County, on the other hand, is projected to be 60 percent Hispanic, 20 percent Asian and 17 percent white with a total population of roughly 4 million.

"Politically, you're going to have a very diverse pool of elected officials at all levels," said Assemblyman Van Tran, R-Westminster.

Tran envisions Orange County's elected officials at the state and local levels will more and more look like the county population as a whole, instead of being largely white. The key, he said, will be for the political parities to engage Hispanics and Asians now by recruiting members of their communities and getting them elected to high-profile positions.

But Assemblyman Jose Solorio, D-Santa Ana, warned that the change won't happen quickly or without significant effort. In an immigrant community like Orange County, he said, the first step is simply getting the newcomers naturalized. Then you have to encourage them to register to vote, and then actually vote. Any Hispanic takeover of Orange County politics will take time, Solorio said.

"There's a lot of hoops to jump through before raw numbers become political power," he said.

However, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, said a change in demographics doesn't foreshadow a change in county or party politics. Just because Republicans, for example, will have to reach out more to Hispanics and Asians doesn't suggest to him that party ideology or the balance of power would change.

"All that's going to happen is you're going to have more Republicans with last names like … Tran," DeVore said.

The new figures, which also project that Orange County will drop from third largest to fourth largest county following a population spike in Riverside County, are used largely for planning and research purposes. They are not nearly as important as the yearly population estimates, which are most frequently used to distribute state dollars.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/ho ... 759535.php

With the 10,000 unapprehended illegal aliens (70% mexican) crossing our borders daily (3 million per year), in conjuction with the exceptionally high hispanic fecundity rate, in conjunction with the legal immigrations of hispanics and the additional chain migrations of hispanic family members; it won't take until 2034.