A member of the San Leandro Ministerial Association, Rose Padilla Johnson is the administrator of a RotaCare Free Medical Clinic. Recognized for her effort in alleviating disparities and inequalities in low-income and largely immigrant communities, Rose Padilla Johnson has contributed to the provision of affordable health care to low-income families in various parts of California.
In 2017, 27 percent of the California population was foreign-born. This percentage was more than double the percentage in the rest of the United States. At that time, half of all California children had at least one immigrant parent, and foreign-born residents represented about one-third of the population in five major California counties, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, Alameda, and San Mateo.
About half of these individuals are naturalized citizens of the United States, and another 25 percent of the immigrants have some legal status, such as visas and green cards. According to a report from the Center of Migration Studies, about 23 percent of the immigrant population in California was undocumented at that time. From 2010 to 2017, it appeared that there was a 0.5 million decline in the population of undocumented immigrants in California. The majority of the immigrants were born in Latin America or Asia, with lead populations from Vietnam (524,000), India (507,000), Mexico (4.1 million), the Philippines (857,000), and China (969,000). Most of the immigrants were bilingual, with about 69 percent able to speak English proficiently, and 10 percent unable to speak English, as estimated from the report.
