NYTimes.com
Screen shot of a race and ethnicity map of the Compton area from the New York Times' "Mapping America: Every City, Every Block" interactive project. Blue dots represent African Americans, yellow dots represent Latinos, red dots represent Asians and green dots represent whites. Each dot represents 25 people.
When the initial 2010 census results were released last month, the attention quickly turned to the nation’s growing Latino population and, in turn, how it will shape the political landscape.
While the U.S. Census Bureau has yet to release new data on race and ethnicity, it’s already clear that some of the states with the biggest population growth, and which will gain Congressional seats, also happen to be states where Latinos have come to represent a bigger chunk of the population in recent years. But does this necessarily translate into more political clout for Latinos? And as these population shifts take place, what shape do they take at the neighborhood level, culturally and politically?
An interesting case study is playing out in Compton, a working-class Los Angeles County city that was long predominantly African American (some may remember it as the Compton of N.W.A’s 1988 hip hop classic Straight Outta Compton) but where Latinos now make up two-thirds of the population.
