Posted on 11/23/2001 7:03:00 PM PST by KQQL
Santa Ana adapts to culture changes
By CHELSEA J. CARTER
Associated Press
SANTA ANA - Before you can walk the beat as a police officer in this Southern California city, you have to be able to talk the talk.
Recruits must be bilingual before they can wear a badge. City Hall employees, from receptionists to telephone operators, are required to speak two languages. Even park workers must be able to speak more than English.
And for good reason: Santa Ana leads the nation in the percentage of non-English speakers.
More than 80 percent of residents age 5 and older speak another language at home, according to a U.S. Census survey of cities with more than 250,000 people.
Nationwide, 17.6 percent of people spoke a language other than English at home, according to the Census Bureau.
Rather than trying to pass English-only ordinances, the city is adapting to its newest residents.
Some school board meetings are translated to Spanish, as are some City Council meetings. A majority of the council even speaks Spanish.
''For years, we've been doing everything we can to diversify our work force by hiring Spanish speakers, Vietnamese speakers, Cambodian speakers,'' Santa Ana councilman Jose Folorio said.
California leads the country in the percentage of people who speak a language other than English at home - 39.4 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. New Mexico was second with 35.5 percent and Texas third with 32 percent.
With 83.6 percent of its population in that category, Santa Ana is more than twice California's average and is ahead of Miami at 75.9 percent and El Paso, Texas, at 72.3 percent. Los Angeles was fourth with 58.8 percent, followed by another Orange County city, Anaheim, with 55.6 percent.
''These cities are magnets. They have thriving economies with relatively low unemployment rates'' and business connections to foreign countries, said William Gayk, director of the Center of Demographic Research at California State University at Fullerton.
''These are natural locations for immigration,'' he said.
Spanish is the predominant foreign language in city and state census counts.
The challenge for communities is balancing efforts to accommodate non-English speakers and helping them assimilate, said Kevin Johnson, a law professor and sociologist at the University of California at Davis.
Santa Ana has long attracted predominantly Latino immigrants thanks in part to its accessible housing, bilingual public service programs and business partnerships with companies based in Latin America.
''There are two worlds in Santa Ana,'' said Nativo Lopez, executive director of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional of Santa Ana, a Latino civil rights organization. ''You have one world that speaks Spanish and one world that speaks English.''
The city also is home to the Mexico Trade Center, which connects small companies from Mexico and California by providing services and information about legal matters, tax issues and business or cultural differences involved in trade.
In nearby Anaheim, where schools report up to 70 different languages, there are few bilingual policies.
While immigration to Santa Ana has been steady for decades, Anaheim's immigration influx has been relatively new in the past decade.
''Obviously with such a diverse community, we face challenges,'' city spokesman John Nicoletti said.
He said the city has begun compiling census data to help with its plan to address its changing needs. The city also offers a hiring program aimed at attracting bilingual candidates.
What's worse fiscally is that these children need further subsidies. Besides school lunch, clothing and healthcare subsidies, these children require bilingual instructors. This guarantees that any teacher hired, any custodian, office worker, playground attendant, nurse and bus driver hired, must be Spanish speaking and this translates in almost every case to being Hispanic.
The perception that there is a takeover by culture is real. Refusing to assimilate, refusing to learn and speak English and claiming minority status, leads to preference in jobs and a gain in benefits and political power. When these things correlate with statements from Mexican leaders, the takeover perception becomes a fact.
The rest is pretty accurate and not limited to Santa Ana or Anaheim.
Actually, I'm not buying again until I do so in another state, three more years or so.
We have the same thing in the area I live in, now 1 out of 3 people is receiving some kind of welfare or food stamps, the taxes are sky high, the middle class (all races) are leaving in droves and no good jobs are moving in because all we have is a very high drop out rate in spite of large amounts of money spent on HeadStart and bilingual ed.
Politicians here actually see lots of federal money for welfare and other programs as a good way to build up the local economy. They don't seem to care about jobs at all, nothing is being done to bring back the middle class, all the solutions are based on how to demand the government to send more money.
Because they own the judges. When I lived in California, we passed English-only and Prop. 187, and judges basically nullified the vote of the people in both cases.
On an $85,000 valued little patio home in AZ, the tax is $740 per year and rising.
In the past fifteen years, we have had a flood of white Californians, as well as some Latinos. But mostly white. Apartment rents went out of sight, so many of us bought homes.
Just heard on the radio several times this AM that Arizona is now considered the WORST state to live, according to some poll by I think United Way!!!
g
baboxer.
The rationale: We must be inclusive. Also, these (illegal) folks must live under the ordinances made by the City Council; should they not have a say?...
I don't know if they got it through or not.
I wrote a letter to the papers (not published):
"These folks are not thinking big enough. What are borders, anyway, except imaginary lines on a map? Let's declare that every human being in the hemisphere is a citizen. That way they can vote by mail-in ballot, and collect welfare, too, without making the arduous trek to el norte."
I suppose the sarcasm wasn't appreciated.
--Boris
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