Established between the 1910s and 1960s, the neighborhoods are bounded by the cities of Anaheim to the east, north and west, Stanton to the southwest, and Garden Grove to the south.

[8] Cities set their sights on the most economically productive or promising county territory; in turn, many residents of unincorporated areas resisted potential tax increases, sought to preserve community identity, and sought to preserve perceived (and often disputed) advantages of their neighborhoods' unincorporated status.

The mid-1990s witnessed an influx of Middle Eastern immigrants into west Anaheim, with many businesses serving the Arab American population established on a stretch of Brookhurst Street adjacent to the unincorporated areas.

[18][19] Although "Gaza Strip" is also occasionally used to describe the Brookhurst Street corridor,[20][21] the term predates the arrival of significant numbers of Middle Eastern immigrants to the area.

[citation needed] Although the story's veracity is questionable, its existence is generally indicative of the disputes that have often arisen between residents of unincorporated, marginalized neighborhoods in urbanized areas and the cities that surround them.

[6] The community was born after the United States' entry into World War I, when relaxation of immigration restrictions spurred by the citrus industry's demand for cheap labor drew thousands of Mexican men and their families to the United States, where they made their homes in segregated communities near the railroad tracks that ran through the groves.

2 continued to operate until 1954, when community activist Gloria Lopez challenged the district to transfer white children into the barrio school rather than build a new one.

[25] Mac Island contains 116 single-family homes occupying approximately eighteen acres of land near the northwest corner of Katella and Magnolia Avenues.

Police protection services in the Anaheim Island neighborhoods are provided by the North Operations Patrol Bureau of the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

The Act establishes procedures for annexations and consolidations of cities or special districts, and delegates responsibility for the process to Local Agency Formation Commissions (LAFCOs).

Among the purposes of LAFCOs are the encouragement of the orderly formation, development and consolidation of local agencies and the discouragement of urban sprawl.

[61][62] City and county officials and Anaheim Island homeowners who supported the plan contended that annexation would result in increased efficiency in the provision of community services and decreased police response time; that more assiduous building code enforcement would improve residents' quality of life and slow neighborhood blight by reducing the number of illegal garage-to-apartment conversions and substandard repairs, and by motivating property owners - many of them absentee landlords - to adequately maintain deteriorating homes; and that grant-assisted upgrades from septic systems to sewer hookups would increase home values and lessen the potential for groundwater contamination.

[65] Opponents of the plan argued that annexation would result in increased taxes and public utility rates, and new municipal fees and permit requirements; that city zoning regulations would prevent residents from keeping farm animals and running kennels; that residents would be inconvenienced by the designation of new street addresses for their homes; that more stringent building code enforcement and requirements for sewer hookups would result in excessive expense to homeowners with limited incomes; and that property might be confiscated for redevelopment.

However, although the petition included a contact telephone number and address, it lacked a statement regarding the source of financing for the anti-annexation campaign, and did not identify the organization or individuals that sponsored it.

At the time of the campaign, the statute's campaign finance disclosure requirements specified their applicability to petitions for and against reorganization of municipal boundaries that have reached the ballot stage, but not to protests of proposals by a LAFCO functioning in its capacity as a "conducting authority" responsible for implementing boundary changes and considering citizen feedback.

[76] Following his election to the California State Assembly, former Orange County Supervisor Jim Silva introduced an amendment to the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Act mandating disclosure of sponsors, contributions and expenditures for campaigns for and against annexation proposals approved by LAFCOs at any stage of the process.

[78] In January 2009, the Orange County LAFCO began to encourage owners of unincorporated property whose lots abut Anaheim city limits to apply for annexation on an individual basis, offering a waiver of the usual $7,900 fee charged for changing a property's jurisdiction from the county to Anaheim.

[79][80][81] Between January 2009 and May 2010, over 100 Anaheim Island property owners filed annexation applications, 20 pertaining to parcels in the 88-parcel Thistle development.