Yeah you have to see it to believe it. We live in Bakersfield. Just had some relatives visiting from back east, they couldn't believe it. In East Bakersfield there are parts that look just like Mexico. Graffitti everywhere, billboards in spanish, every business is mexican. Lamont (one of our small communities) is 97% latino. Hubby used to work out there. The sheriffs and firefighters joke that they work in Lamont.....where murder is still a misdemeanor.
We are looking to get out.....and soon.
Kern county is textbook Illegal Alien paradigm and has the unemployment, education and health systems to prove it.
I think the most shocking was Las Vegas. We overshot an exit and had to do some surface streets through North Las Vegas, it was identical to the worst areas of Tijuana.
That is not to say there wasn't a very noticeable presence in the majority of places we stopped
I wish you luck in your search for a new home. We left LA about 12 years ago for a small town in the pacific north west. There is a bit of an Illegal presence here as well though.