In Disneyland's shadow, a rising new demographic

Latinos have not always felt entirely at home in Anaheim, which was founded as a colony of German farmers in 1857 and has a history of racial tension. In the 1920s, four Ku Klux Klan members were elected to the City Council and briefly took control of the government, earning the city an uncomfortable nickname: "Klanaheim." Decades later, in 1978, strife between the Latino community and police erupted in a riot at Little People's Park, where charges of police brutality led to reforms in the Anaheim Police Department.

You'd never know that now looking at the Anaheim Marketplace, a spacious indoor swap meet where droves of mostly Spanish-speaking families browse hundreds of stalls, shopping for jewelry, clothing and pets, and show up in force for beauty pageants, quinceaneras, weddings and carnivals.

For many of them, Anaheim is feeling more like home. A place to move up, open a business and buy a first home.

But even for entrepreneurs like Jose Luis Quintana, 41, who moved here from Guerrero, Mexico, 20 years ago and owns a gift shop in a stall named "Joseph's Place," progress is measured.

Anaheim today, he reflected, is a more comfortable place than decades ago, when he worked painting cars and was one of the few Mexicans in his apartment building. But there are growing pains.

"It's a suburb that's developing into a city," he said, sitting behind the counter, listening to a radio. "We're a bigger population now. We're more crowded and there's less space."

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tony.barboza@latimes.com