How did Mexican Americans lose political power?
One of the pervading themes in the political history of San Diego’s Mexican Americans has been their inability to develop an effective political voice. This tradition continues to haunt our communities up to the present. In Los Angeles, right after the end of the Mexican War, the Californios were more successful in remaining prominent in local politics well into the 1870s. The Angeleños had a viable tradition of involvement in local politics before the Americans arrived and they remained a majority of the population into the 1860s. This was not the case in San Diego where local government had been practically abolished in the 1830s. The Mexican pobladores living in Old Town were immediately outnumbered, both demographically and in terms of a voting population. In 1850 the U.S. Census taker counted a non-Indian population for the San Diego region of 732 but only 311 of these were Californios, 421 were Anglos. Because most of the Californios were women and children there were only 78 Cal
