A Race to the Future

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But many nonwhite community leaders aren’t satisfied. Paul Espinosa is a noted San Diego filmmaker whose work focuses mainly on the experiences of Latinos in America—and at the U.S.-Mexico border. He dramatized the 1930s local school-segregation case in The Lemon Grove Incident, his award-winning documentary.

That lawsuit, Espinosa says, led to the Brown vs. Board of Education suit, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Topeka, Kansas, board of education, ending segregation as a policy throughout the nation. However, he says, in San Diego and other American cities, “black and brown children are more segregated now than they were then” because they live in segregated communities.

Espinosa doesn’t mince words defining race relations in San Diego. “Institutionalized racism is alive and well here,” he says. “Seemingly, the San Diego community doesn’t have race problems, but I think there are a great deal of them. There’s extreme segregation.” Prime examples, he maintains, are the definitive lines that separate one race from another. “There are predominantly black neighborhoods, Latino neighborhoods, white neighborhoods, Asian neighborhoods. Consequently, people don’t interact with other people. Contact comes at work, but it is very casual. Kids do it at school because they have to.”

Espinosa says de facto segregation occurs because there are “mechanisms” at work against minorities, such as mortgage-lending policies that maintain segregation. Also, a larger cut of educational resources go to the schools in white communities, he says.

(Education officials deny that. “We have formulas that determine for every grade level how much is to be spent on each student—and it doesn’t matter where that student goes to school,” says Norma Trost, communications director for the San Diego Unified School District. Some economically disadvantaged schools actually get more state and federal money per student just because of that status, she says. However, schools can raise their own money, and Trost acknowledges that La Jolla High School, for example, is more likely to be successful at “entrepreneurial fund-raising” than a school where parental involvement is “less enthusiastic.”)

Espinosa adds that minorities are segregated in other ways—“ways people can’t complain about. Everybody’s free to go where they want to, but for every one person who is able to do it, there are 10 who can’t because there are mechanisms set against them,” he says. “Money is the great equalizer, but even those who have it experience discrimination.”

He says segregation not only isolates neighborhoods, it gives a false sense of community-wide well-being. “There are more [racial] tensions than people are willing to admit—or are aware of—especially in the mainstream community,” he says. “Take 50 white people, and 90 percent of them would characterize race relations in San Diego as great or good.”

In fact, the San Diego Magazine telephonic survey, which posed 66 questions to 808 San Diego residents, showed that most are positive and optimistic in their perception of the region’s race relations. But then, most San Diegans are white. Reflecting the overall local population, 61.6 percent of survey respondents were Caucasian, 5.9 percent were African-American, 23.5 percent were Hispanic, 8 percent were Asian or Pacific Islander, and 1 percent were Native American.

Asked about the state of race relations in the U.S. in 2000, compared to 1995, 54.9 percent of respondents said relations were either somewhat better or much better. Another 34.6 percent said they were about the same. Fewer than 10 percent categorized relations as either somewhat worse or much worse. When asked about race relations in San Diego now, compared to five years ago, about the same number (9.2 percent) categorized race relations as somewhat worse or much worse here. Another 48.4 percent thought San Diego’s race relations were either somewhat better or much better.

When broken out by race, however, the picture changes somewhat. African-Americans were the most negative, with 28 percent characterizing race relations here as worse than they were five years ago, and only 43 percent calling them better. Latinos were more in line with Caucasians, however, with fewer than 10 percent calling race relations worse. In fact, Latinos, more than any other group, characterize race relations here as better than five years ago.

Respondents were even more upbeat when asked to evaluate race relations in San Diego compared to other parts of the country. Sixty-four percent ranked San Diego as either much better or somewhat better. A quarter of the respondents said the region’s race relations are about the same as elsewhere, while only 8.6 percent thought relations here were somewhat worse or much worse.

Most respondents said they have little or no difficulty dealing with different ethnic groups. Latinos emerged as the most congenial, with 77.7 percent of respondents describing them as either very easy or easy to get along with. They were followed by whites, with 76.6 percent; Native Americans, 74.8 percent; African-Americans, 71.8 percent; and Asians and Pacific Islanders, 71.6 percent.

Respondents also felt positive about prospects for interracial friendships. Considerably more than half—60.4 percent, in fact—said it is easier to make friends with people from other races now than it was when they were young. But in an apparent contradiction, 57 percent agreed that most San Diegans have few friends from other races or ethnic backgrounds.

“It’s striking how optimistic the community is with respect to race and ethnic relations,” says Dan Greenblat, whose company, Viewpoint America, conducted the survey for San Diego Magazine. “Not only does the consensus suggest San Diego is a more welcoming community than other parts of the nation, but there is also a sense of optimism about the future. Considering the significant demographic changes that have swept this region in the past 20 years, I find this outcome to be very encouraging.”

Meanwhile, a statewide survey on race relations, conducted over the past two years, produced results remarkably similar to San Diego Magazine’s local poll. The Public Policy Institute of California, surveying 20,000 state residents, found that 81 percent expressed satisfaction with race relations in their areas. But the respondents broke down along racial and ethnic lines on policy questions, disagreeing on the correct approach to affirmative action, immigration and bilingual education. For instance, only 27 percent of whites said that affirmative action programs should continue, compared to 78 percent of blacks, 66 percent of Latinos and 49 percent of Asians.

Similarly, the San Diego survey showed a racial divide on affirmative action, with nearly 71 percent of the region’s nonwhite groups agreeing that government should have programs to promote hiring of racial and minority members, compared with 40 percent of white respondents.

Locally, while Greenblat saw no evidence of a social powder keg, he says respondents of all racial groups believe that African-Americans “bear the brunt of discrimination more than any other single group.” The survey also revealed that throughout the community, African-Americans and Latinos believe they do not receive equal justice in the courts. Among African-American respondents, 89 percent perceived court bias, while 60 percent of the Latinos surveyed felt it. In contrast, more than 76 percent of Caucasians said they, personally, felt little or no court injustice.

In the survey, 60 percent of all respondents thought African-Americans endured economic discrimination, and 58 percent said Latinos suffered economic bias. A much higher proportion of the African-American respondents—90 percent—saw themselves as suffering economic discrimination, as did 67 percent of Latinos.

Still, the survey’s measure of discontent is relatively low, considering the past two decades of civil rights setbacks, political backlash and hate crimes. During the administration of Mayor Pete Wilson in the 1970s, the city established an equal opportunity contracting program, setting hiring goals for minorities, specifically firms owned by nonwhites and women.

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