Minorities’ Political Muscle Is Growing

You wouldn’t know it from recent rhetoric, but even in the vitriolic atmosphere of Campaign ‘96, I think the political clout of African Americans, Asian Americans and Latinos is growing.

The growth is slow, sometimes imperceptible--but significant when you keep in mind that minorities are almost a majority in California, and already a majority in Los Angeles County.

The current crop of speeches and commercials paints a picture of minorities on the run: Asian Americans tarred with a broad brush in the political contribution controversy; Asians and Latinos targets of anti-immigrant propaganda; leaders of all three groups expressing fear over the Proposition 209 campaign to eliminate state affirmative action programs.

I know a lot of people may not agree with me. Asian Americans correctly note their absence from state and national positions of political power as well as from the top rungs of the corporate ladder. The same is true for African Americans and Latinos.

But you have to look at demographic trends and the inevitable changes they bring. And you’ve got to glean some of your information from the business pages as well as from the political news.

Putting all this together, you get a different picture than the snapshot offered by the conventional wisdom. I see minorities on the move--into the broad middle class that dominates the American political process, with a substantial number into professions and business ownership.

Latinos are the most visible example of what I think is coming in a big way. In 1991, there were just four Latinos in the Assembly. There are now 10 and after next week’s election, there will probably be between 12 and 15. These lawmakers are, for the most part, from middle-class suburbia, with a different outlook and approach than minority lawmakers of a generation ago.

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It was in 1970, a full generation ago, that I was introduced to minority politics in Los Angeles.

The inner city was the arena. Blacks and Latinos, all of them liberal Democrats, dominated the show. Campaigns were hymns of praise to the War on Poverty and the comprehensive--and complex--social welfare system being created in Sacramento and Washington.

The campaigns climaxed in huge rallies in East and South L.A. The Sunday trip to South L.A. churches was on the schedule of every Democratic presidential, Senate and gubernatorial candidate.

Today’s politics have little relation to those times. President Clinton’s new conservatism has pushed the inner city toward the bottom of his agenda and inner-city lawmakers are angry. That was clear one night last week at a candidates forum in Inglewood featuring state Sen. Theresa Hughes, (D-Los Angeles) and her Republican opponent, Cliff McClain.

“Coming over here, I saw a man literally eating barbecue out of a garbage can,” Hughes told me after she spoke. “I’m sure the president doesn’t see that, isolated by his Secret Service.” Or as Genethia Hayes, who heads the Southern Christian Leadership Conference here, put it a few days later: The Democratic Party no longer considers itself “the party of the poor, the downtrodden.”

Of course, a growing number of minority group members no longer count themselves among the poor and downtrodden, either.

The improvement hasn’t been broad or deep enough for some. “It will take more than 30 years to undo the damage of 300 years,” said African American commentator Karen Grigsby Bates. Still, you can see signs of greater buying power each night on the Fox, UPN and WB television networks, which have sitcoms with black casts, targeted to the African American TV audience and the advertisers who want to appeal to them.

Statistics fill out the story. Last year, according to the research firm Target Market News, personal income for blacks rose to $325 billion from $304.5 billion in 1994. Black households spent $10.8 billion last year on new cars and trucks, a 156% increase from the year before. Black and Latino home ownership increased at a slightly higher rate than for whites. Latino-owned businesses generate about $12 billion a year in annual revenue in Southern California and provide about 110,000 jobs.

I say that greater political power eventually goes along with more economic power. That’s evident in the case of Latinos, and their move to the suburbs.

“Latinos are maturing politically and economically,” said state Sen. Richard Polanco, (D-Los Angeles), an architect of the Latino legislative election effort. And they are winning in suburban districts where Latinos are a minority.

This effort holds the greatest hope for increasing minority power. If the Democrats reclaim the Assembly, the party will choose the speaker. And if the Assembly Latino delegation rises to 15, it’s possible for a Latino lawmaker to put together the 21 votes needed to become the Democratic caucus’s choice for the top job.

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These trends will change politics in California. Not immediately, perhaps, but in the next few years.

That will certainly happen if the minorities, often at odds, form coalitions. They did that this year when Latinos, African Americans and Asian Americans worked together against what they consider the danger of Proposition 209. Attorney Angela Oh, a Korean community leader, said she expects cooperation to continue. “This will bring coalitions together that have not worked together in the past,” she said.

Because all these changes are happening at a fairly plodding rate, they don’t find their way into political discussions that deal with racial minorities in simplistic terms.

But as the minorities become the majority, these demographic and economic shifts will shape California’s future. As writer Bates said, “America in general and California specifically is starting to run out of white folks.”