It is noon on Thanksgiving week and the tables at the pupuseria Mi Salvador are clean and ready. So are the waitress and cashier. While they wait for their Bay Point clientele to arrive, they watch Telemundo's afternoon telenovela on a huge television screen. By the look of the streets, they may be in for a long wait, one they are accustomed to.

Mostly empty during the day –except for the wandering middle schoolers in the afternoons- the unincorporated Contra Costa suburb serves as a bedroom community for 21,000 residents. Out of that total, 56 per cent are Latino and 22 per cent are non citizens, according to the American Community Survey 2014 estimates. Accordingly, Spanish is the lingua franca in Bay Point, but any passerby would be hard pressed to find someone to speak any language to.

Even in the so-called "commercial strip" of Willow Pass Road, where Mi Salvador is located, the only commerce one can find is a gas station, a couple of taquerias, a supermarket and a smoke shop where the stoners gather.

Jorge Sánchez, the Salvadorean owner of the establishment, pointed out his business during weekdays relies mostly on deliveries to neighboring communities. "There are more Asian, more 'chinitos' coming to the area, so more business," he said. Things are changing and more money is flowing, he adds – just not in Bay Point.

Instead the town that is the northeast terminus for BART feels stuck - dependent on the largesse of the county because of its unincorporated status and unable to become a proper city because its tax base is too low and too many of its residents can't vote. At 18.2 percent, it has one of the highest unemployment rates in northern California and one that has felt few advantages from the spill over of the tech economy.

Way before it became the runaway settlement for Hispanics escaping soaring rents, Bay Point was an exploration field for the Spanish Crown's conquerors who first arrived to the California Delta. Father Juan Crespi and Captain Pedro Fages were the first Europeans to set foot in Contra Costa County, in 1772. Their trip ended on a hill overlooking the territory now known as Bay Point, and their visit led the King of Spain to call for further exploration of the Bay Area, including the 1776 trip that led to the settlement of San Francisco.

The town had its moment of glory a century ago, when its proximity to the Carquinez Strait and two rail lines made it an ideal site for industry. By 1947, the U.S. Navy was building warships in Bay Point, and it became the host city for iron works and chemical companies.

Abandoned by the Navy in 1955, Bay Point, then-West Pittsburg, reached 43 per cent unemployment in 1979. A building boom in the mid-to-late 80s resulted in a population rise of 71 per cent, fed in part by the influx of Latino population escaping the economic crisis in Mexico and the civil wars in Central America. The trend only continued after 1993, when the citizens voted to change West Pittsburg's name to Bay Point.

Even though ethnic composition has remained steady, there's been plenty of turnover, mostly from people moving in from elsewhere in Contra Costa county and by Bay Point residents who leave when they can afford better housing elsewhere.

"Those who could afford it sold their houses and went out to Brentwood or Oakley," said Roberto Godínez, a Mexican who moved from Walnut Creek to Bay Point in 2006 to escape that suburb's soaring rents. "Those who arrived came for the lower rents –which have only gone up by a couple hundreds- and those who remained sometimes lost their houses to foreclosures and had to go back to rent, like I did."

Residents who have jobs commute to Richmond, Concord, Pittsburg or even San Francisco to go to work. In the early 2000s, there was plenty of construction work, but after 2008, that disappeared and unemployment reached as high as 18.7 per cent in 2013. Now at 18.2 percent, construction is only now picking up and little of it is nearby.

Godínez, a longtime restaurant dishwasher and now owner of a demolition company, has to go as far as Oakland to manage his troops during the week.

The Great Recession of 2008 is still the overarching story here. Bay Point's median household income dropped by 15 per cent from 2010 to 2014. After the wave of foreclosures, those who remained made a big effort to buy their houses, which resulted in a 10 per cent spike according to American Community Survey 2014 estimates (from 50 to 60 per cent). With more money compromised to mortgage payments, this resulted in less income dedicated to other expenses.

"People need more money to achieve self-sufficiency, but they're not getting it," said Betty Geishirt, director of SparkPoint, a non-profit that oversees finances in the county. Since the recession, SparkPoint has been trying to help renters findcredit to purchase their homes at an affordable rate. Commuting for work is already expensive, and the balance between travel, mortgage and other living expenses is harder to find.

SparkPoint is hosted by the Ambrose Community Center, which serves Bay Point, west Pittsburg and other unincorporated suburbs in the region. It is also where the Municipal Advisory Council, appointed by the county since 2006, gathers once a month to make decisions and suggest priorities to the District V Board of Supervisors, who represent the cities in the north shore of Contra Costa county.

As a meeting point for sporty middle schoolers, dancing housewives and all elders, Ambrose is the only official place where community crosses paths. But often, it too, looks as vacated as the rest of the town.

"Without a high school in Bay Point, teens have to commute to Concord or Pittsburg, and it's hard for them to come," said Ambrose Parks and Recreation Board Member Mae Cendaña Torlakson. "Right now, people here are mostly working outside of Bay Point and they don't see what we offer, they just go work, go home and outside the area on the weekends."

Godínez, the Mexican demolition-firm owner, said that the actual community center is two blocks away from Ambrose at Mi Tierra supermarket. Chock-full of Mexican goodies and with a ceiling covered by hanging piñatas, Mi Tierra is the window to the population's actual motherland and their communal worries: making ends meet.

"Today it's only horchata," said a man in Spanish, emerging out of the counter of the taqueria section of the supermarket with a king size glass for only $2.39. "I've already eaten at home," he added.

Running through the aisles, a kid glances at the multi-colored sweets packages in the shelves, but does not pick up any.

Geographically isolated by the same hills where the Spanish Conquerors stood on 1776, the Bay Point population seems secluded itself from politics. With little leverage in Contra Costa county, it lacks in civic involvement and does not like change, said Ed Diokno, Senior District Representative from the District V Board of Supervisors.

Cendaña Torlakson, who has no say outside of Ambrose Parks of Recreation, can even perceive a pushback to some community improvements, like the county's waterfront development plans. "With improvement comes traffic, a loss of time, and they want to keep the community small," she said, summarizing the concerned emails that circulate about the subject.

For Godínez, the lack of participation of the Latino community makes total sense. In running away from their own countries, they expected to run away from such tribulations too. "We don't believe in politics and do not like to get involved. We don't believe in politicians because it has always been a lot of empty promises." But with that there are costs. The town appears rundown, although progress remains a common aspiration.

"After the recession, Bay Point has continually struggled to improve," said Cendaña Torlakson.

"People on Bay Point would want to see some improvement, but, the way it's working right now, the town is not in the county's priority list," she added.