Most large meetings on Sonoma County business or government topics are attended by mostly older people who are predominantly white.
That was not the case at the recent 108th luncheon of Los Cien, the county’s largest Latino leadership organization. This time, the room at the Flamingo Inn looked like a more accurate depiction of Sonoma County’s population. There were several tables of young students, both Latino and Anglo. Of the 230 attendees, almost half were Latino, and they were spread across a wide age range. The topic of the day was about the ways and means of increasing Latino participation in elections and elected office.
By comparison, at the recent Sonoma County annual Economic Breakfast session at Rohnert Park’s DoubleTree, the majority of Latinos were the ones serving the food. A precise sampling of the county’s population would fill a room with just over 25 percent Latinos. Two-thirds of the people would be under age 24 and 12 percent would be older than age 65. If the room you looked at were a local schoolroom, more than half of the faces would be brown (46 percent). If it was a younger classroom, it is likely the non-white students would be two-thirds or more.
Let’s take a look at other “rooms” and gatherings in Sonoma County. If all the county’s public school teachers gathered for an assembly, less than 6 percent would be Latino. The Latino representation at a countywide law enforcement confab would be even lower. Suffice it say, Sonoma County is home to many “rooms” of racial disparity. Forty percent of the poorest households in the county are Latino. Just 10 percent of the county’s households hold 60 percent of the region’s personal wealth.
That is why it was such a glorious sight to see the animated dialogue and effortless mingling of the Los Cien crowd. The nonprofit, founded in 2009, now has over 600 members. Members include educators, industry leaders, labor unions, students, elected officials, media representatives, health care providers and nonprofit executives. Los Cien membership is open to all people. The nonprofit is dedicated to education, community engagement, multi-cultural programs and economic parity.
Last week’s meeting featured a panel of newly elected Latinos including Windsor town councilmember Esther Lemus and Cloverdale councilmember Marta Cruz. Both Latinas were top vote getters in their recent November elections. Windsor (32 percent) and Cloverdale (31 percent), along with Healdsburg (34 percent) have the county’s largest Latino populations by percentage. (Sebastopol has the lowest with just 10 percent.)
The landmark report “A Portrait of Sonoma County,” commissioned by the county’s public health department in 2014, vividly depicted the many economic, health and education disparities between Anglo and non-white segments of the county’s population. Besides a glaring lack of representation in elected offices, wellness, life expectancy and wealth outcomes were starkly divided by race and neighborhoods.
The agenda to bring more Latino voices into power and the goal to open more educational, cultural and career options to young Latinos is a big one for Los Cien and its members and key donors. By birth, immigration patterns and aging, Sonoma County is growing more brown and younger each year. Like California already is, Sonoma County is anticipated to become a minority majority population by as early as 2030.
As all of Sonoma County’s “rooms” and large gatherings slowly become less white and less old, the ultimate questions we face are about inclusion, equity and leadership. Los Cien has been working on these questions for a decade, and while much has been accomplished, there are some places where the work is just beginning. Obviously, we need more rooms filled to look like the one at the Flamingo Inn last week where Los Cien founder Herman Hernandez offered a warm and welcoming message of “building bridges.”
-Rollie Atkinson
Rollie Atkinson is the publisher of The Healdsburg Tribune, Sonoma West Times & News, The Windsor Times and the Cloverdale Reveille.
