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Orange County, California has always been known nationally for its conservative politics, conjuring up images of wealthy white suburban enclaves that faithfully church out voters for the Republican Party. But it has also always been a city of immigrants who have been largely invisible to the national media. Now, that burgeoning immigrant population has grown enough to turn the County into a minority Republican district. In 2008, 48 percent of OC voters picked Barack Obama for President. Immigrants aren’t automatically Democrats, in particular Vietnamese and many Latinos often vote Republican. But the number of independent voters in OC have also increased to the point that this past June the number of registered Republicans, according to the New York Times, dropped to 43%, which is the lowest number in 70 years. Adam Nagourney’s August 30th piece in the Times, aptly titled “Orange County is No Longer Nixon Country,” cites that 95 of OC’s public school students are Latino. Nagourney quotes Irvine’s first Korean American mayor Sukhee Kang as boasting of having “35 languages spoken in our city.” Commenting regularly on the changing demographics of Orange County is the popular OC Weekly columnist of Ask a Mexican, author, and walking encyclopedia, KPFK’s very own Gustavo Arellano, soon to be Managing Editor at the OC Weekly.

Read Gustavo Arellano’s column at http://www.ocweekly.com/columns/ask-a-mexican-32466/.