Remarks of Elias Lopez, Research Program Specialist, California Research Bureau

When I was born my parents gave me the name Elias, after the prophet Elias in the Old Testament.  Their hope was that someday I would be a prophet.  I am sorry to say, and to my parents' dismay, that I haven't had any divine revelations up until now. However, I will be sure to let you know when I do.

Nevertheless, I am in a position to tell you how California is likely to look demographically in 40 years.  Keep in mind that these are projections based on past demographic trends.  As such, projections usually do not account for future changes in foreign policy, immigration policy, wars, or catastrophic events.

According to the projections done by the Demographic Unit of the Department of Finance, California 40 years from now will be different in at least three ways.

1.  California will have a higher proportion of older people.

For instance, in 1990 ten percent of the population was 65 years and over. By 2040, this segment of the population will comprise 18 percent.

2.  The Central Valley will be the second biggest region, second only to the region of Southern California.

At the moment the Bay Area is the second biggest region with 21 percent of  the population.  By the year 2040, the tables will have turned and the Central Valley will house more people than the Bay Area.

3.  Latinos will be the largest ethnic group; Whites will be the second largest, Asians the third largest, and Blacks the fourth largest.

A side note:  In your packet there are some handouts pertaining to this presentation.  Under the ethnic/race category of your handouts, Asians were lumped into the "other" category.  I apologize for this.  In their next projections, the Department of Finance should have Asians as a separate group.

So what type of clientele can libraries expect in the future?  Libraries can expect to serve a very diverse population, both in age and ethnicity.  In many regards, this is a problem since a different marketing plan will most likely be needed to attract people from the different groups to use the library.

Being a Hispanic or Latino myself, I can offer you my thoughts for working with the Latino community, which can be a hard community to reach.

• First of all, one needs to use a paradigm that looks at the family as a whole, as opposed to the individual.
• When you see a Latino kid coming to your library, what you should be asking yourself is not how can I serve him or her better, but how can the library serve the whole family.
• Working with the whole family, however, implies that you have parental cooperation.  The Latino community is a tough community to work with.  You can nevertheless be successful in reaching out to the adults once you understand their immense preoccupation over their jobs.  A library that can provide easy to access job related information will be more likely to attract the adults.
• Third, you can have more success attracting Latinos to your library by simply using the various mediums of communication that reach their homes - the Spanish radio and television stations.
• And fourth, you have to understand that trust takes time to build. In the former years, therefore, the library will have to be patient.  The library should not expect to get an overwhelming show of people right away.

[View Demographic Profile Charts]

[Back] [Contents] [Next]