Mixing black and brown

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Frank Gilbert has watched the nation's demographics shift from his front yard as more and more Hispanics have moved into the neighborhood where the 78-year-old retired postal worker, who is black, raised three daughters.

About five years ago, Hispanics began buying homes that blacks once owned across the street and down the block from Gilbert's one-story house. Now, black and Hispanic neighbors navigate the friendships and tensions that come with living side-by-side.

"We're going to have to learn how to get along because we all live in the same neighborhood," Gilbert said. "Everybody wants the same thing: They want better homes, they want better education for their children, they want work."

Census Bureau estimates released this past week show Hispanics outnumber blacks for the first time, making them the largest minority group in the United States.

The Hispanic population rose almost 5 percent between April 2000 and last July, to 37 million. The non-Hispanic black population grew about 2 percent, to 36.1 million.

Black and Hispanic groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Council of La Raza have seen the changes coming for years, and each has emphasized the importance of working on a common agenda.

Building resentment

Yet some see challenges as Hispanics reach this milestone. They warn of resentment among blacks who -- after building a long and proud history of fighting for civil rights -- may now see issues of interest to Hispanics gaining more attention than black causes.

"African-Americans do feel threatened," said Percy Hintzen, chair of the African American studies department at the University of California, Berkeley. "They do feel their power and their clout eroding."

Over the years, Gilbert and his wife have befriended their new neighbors. A Hispanic mechanic who lives across the street helped Gilbert fix his car, refusing payment but saying he'd take some gumbo the next time Gilbert's wife fixed a pot.

Gilbert greets Leonor Gonzalez and her children as she walks them to and from school. Sometimes the kids translate for their Spanish-speaking mother and they strike up a conversation.

"It's peaceful here," said Gonzalez, 33. Blacks and Hispanics "get along very well."

Felisha West, another black resident, said one recent example of the change is that fliers inviting people to homeowners' meetings are now in English and Spanish.

However, she noted that there can be resentment.

Some blacks feel they struggle to "get a house. It's hard for them to get a car. It's hard for them to just make it to the next level," West said. With Hispanics, "it just seems like they walk over and get everything."

But Sonia Perez, La Raza's deputy vice president of research, said blacks and Hispanics share concerns about educational, economic and health disparities.

"What's important is really to look at how we are doing as a community, not how big one is or the other," she said.

There are many recent examples of the groups working together in California, where Hispanics have outnumbered blacks for decades.

First African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest black congregation in Los Angeles, has started a Hispanic ministry.

The NAACP's San Jose/Silicon Valley branch has two Hispanics and two Asians on its 27-member board and another board member of Middle Eastern descent, said Rick Callender, the group's president.

The Los Angeles Urban League, which has long served the black community, provided social services to 78,000 people last year -- 51 percent black and 31 percent Hispanic.

"We are not going to abandon our historical African-American roots or constituency," said John Mack, its president. "But you can be for your own without being against somebody else."

Resource competition

Still, with the economy in a slump and state budgets tight, some strain will be inevitable, said Roderick Harrison, an analyst with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a nonpartisan group that studies issues of concern to blacks and other minorities.

"You're competing for scarce resources, and it does become an issue of whose problem maybe gets more attention or more funds," he said.

In Oakland, Esther Wadsworth, who is black, recalls how Hispanics lobbied school officials to add more Latinos to administrative ranks.

"When they go to do something, they really sit together in groups, and I have to be honest about that," said Wadsworth, 73.

Cesar Lopez, who sells tacos from a truck not far from Gilbert's place in east Oakland, said he's encountered hostility from some black customers. "They just don't like us," he said.

With these delicate issues in mind, Oakland NAACP president Shannon Reeves is planning a black-Hispanic conference this fall.

"There's a real need for the black community and Latino community to really get to know each other," he said.