“A lot of my friends, my colleagues, they grew up here in a time when they weren’t allowed to speak Spanish,” she said. “Well, now we’re more than allowed, but we don’t throw it in your face. We’re a little reluctant to be seen as too Latino, and I don’t get that.”

She has tried without success to persuade her colleagues to funnel more money to a local Mexican cultural and art center and help fund the center’s annual Día de los Muertos celebration.

This year, local activists pressed the Council to end a longstanding contract with federal immigration authorities to house immigrants who entered the country illegally in the city jail. While the Council voted to phase the contract out over years, Ms. Martinez was the only Council member who voted to end the contract immediately.

Mr. Sarmiento argued that one sign of Latinos’ growing power is that elected officials are moving on to broader issues. “We as an all-Latino City Council are probably no different from an all-Anglo Council in that sense that we both want good things for our communities,” he said. “We all want better schools. We all want improved public safety.”

Many date the beginnings of California’s political transformation to a 1994 initiative, pressed by the Republican governor at the time, Pete Wilson, to cut off benefits to immigrants here illegally. The tone of that campaign — which many Democrats and Republicans say has been echoed by the appeal of Mr. Trump in this year’s presidential race — had the effect of energizing Latino voters and placing this state decisively in the Democratic column.

“California has come a long way since then,” Mr. Padilla said. “Political opinion has come a long way since then. Public policy has come a long way from there. I hope the rest of the country will follow that soon.”