What is really driving the Manteca economy?

You could make a solid case it is immigrants, legal and otherwise.

If you doubt that, take a drive to southwest Manteca.

It is the land of the $10,500 annual property tax bill.

Those $700,000 plus homes have a basic tax rate of 1 percent that balloons to as much as 1.5 percent depending on the number of community facilities districts (CFD) and bond repayment add-ons.

Depending upon a home’s location, the CFDs can include school facilities, parks and street lighting, 200-year flood protection, future neighborhood street maintenance, the hiring of additional police and firefighters, and even for the infrastructure the developer had to put in place to build their neighborhood.

Keep in mind the city, of that basic 1 percent tax rate on value, receives 15 percent of the collected $7,000 a year on $700,000, or $850. The rest goes to the school district, San Joaquin County, Delta College and other local agencies.

The aside is being made to reassure those that jump to wild conclusions the City of Manteca is not awash in an obscene amount of property tax receipts.

Southwest Manteca in City Council District One based on 2020 Census data is where you will find the city’s highest concentration of foreign born residents at 21.8 percent. That is almost 4,100 of Manteca’s foreign born residents that stood at 16,000 in 2020.

Rest assured six years later with Manteca’s growth, both numbers are a lot higher and the city as a whole probably is closer to the current California percentage of state residents that were foreign born at 27.7 percent for 2025.

Yes, some of these are recent immigrants that likely have landed well-paying tech jobs in the Bay Area.

But the deal driving force are the sons and daughters of immigrant parents that arrived in California when they — the kids, not the parents — probably weren’t even in high school and have been in this country for 20 to 40 years.

They are part of that proverbial first generation of American lore who were driven by their parents that risked it all to secure a better life and instilled in them a hyper embracement of hard work and taking advantage of education.

There is no government breakdown in terms of data, but the anecdotal evidence says most in Manteca are now tech workers who immigrated from the Indian subcontinent when they were children.

It is a safe bet that the vast majority of Manteca’s foreign born residents are from India and Mexico.

To be clear, they are a lot of immigrants that are not from India that have strong white collar jobs, and there are a lot of immigrants that are not from Mexico that have solid blue collar jobs.

That said, you will likely find those whose birthplace was Mexico building homes, working for PG&E et al, in business for themselves after saving up for years to do so, that reside north of the 120 Bypass in older and more affordable neighborhoods.

Either which way, foreign born immigrants constitute 25 percent plus of Manteca’s workforce and households.

And given they are younger and enjoying maximum incomes, especially in the tech sector, they are helping keeping Social Security alive.

Many don’t see them as foreign born immigrants.

Could it be because they pursue the same dreams as the vast majority of people whose family status as immigrants are generations in the rearview mirror? Could it be they have little or no accents because they were raised in America by parents that wanted them to succeed?

Two high profile examples are the sons of farm workers that were brought to California when they were barely eligible for kindergarten — Mayor Gary Singh whose house for the first five years of his life was a mud hut in India and former Councilman Jose Nuno who was born in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Both are solid examples of the children of immigrants driven to succeed.

Although he came to America as a young adult, Sonny Dhaliwal, who was elected to represent Manteca and Lathrop on the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors and is now its chairperson, is another high profile example of a foreign born Californian that is helping drive the success of the community.

California, at 27 percent of its population, leads the nation with foreign born citizens.

That is followed by New Jersey at 25 percent, New York at 23.2 percent, Florida at 23.1 percent, Nevada at 19.3 percent, and Texas at 18.9 percent.

Overall, 14.1 percent of all Americans were born in another country.

It is not a new phenomenon given the United States started from scratch 250 years ago and today has 341 million residents.