Thread: Detroit: Mexicans move-in S.W. Detroit

Gee, in Detroit that has been decimated by loss of jobs to plants that have shut down and moved their operations to MEXICO....and where the unemployment rate is higher than pretty much anywhere else in the U.S....Mexicans (and most are probably illegally here as there are more illegal aliens from Mexico than there are legal immigrants from Mexico) are colonizing this part of Detroit. How do these seemingly "destitute" people coming to "give their kids" a better life....pay a coyote thousands of dollars, and open up businesses in the U.S., get import licenses to bring in goods from Mexico and set up shop? Who is allowing this to happen? Who is giving illegal aliens occupational licenses, business licenses, business loans and who is monitoring to see that all regulations are being followed?

Latinos Find Home in Southwest Detroit

By COREY WILLIAMS
The Associated Press

DETROIT - The broad-brimmed western hats, colorful festival dance dresses and Mayan-style pottery that line the shelves at Xochi's Mexican Imports are common sights at stores in the Southwest.

But it's southwest Detroit on a cold, dreary winter day, not sunny El Paso, San Diego, Tucson or other cities just north of the Mexican border.

From its Mexican Town restaurant district to the new shops of the La Plaza Mercado retail development, southwest Detroit is doing something it hasn't done in years , grow and prosper.

"We come starving for a better life," 32-year-old dance instructor Valeria Montes said. "We want to strive and we've found in southwest Detroit a place to do it. The opportunity was here for us and we took it."

Latinos are carving out a niche in neighborhoods far from the southern border more and more , from Bagley Street here to the Mitchell Street area in Milwaukee to Bailey's Crossroads in Fairfax County, Va.

A new wave of Latino immigrants is following others who established communities in northern cities in the 1950s after getting jobs in the auto and other manufacturing industries. The attraction now is employment in restaurants, shops and other service-oriented businesses that cater primarily to residents in those communities but also draw non-Latinos.

"A number of folks who are coming up , documented or undocumented , are finding jobs," said Enrique Figueroa, director of the Roberto Hernandez Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The now-vibrant neighborhood wasn't always so.

Its fate had mirrored most other areas of Detroit that began to lose businesses and people following the city's 1967 riot. Boarded-up buildings and an unappealing mix of fast-food stops, dank bars and seedy strip clubs lined the streets.

Gang violence was rampant and the housing stock crumbled.

"It wasn't a neighborhood where you could walk down the street," Southwest Detroit Business Association deputy director Edith J. Castillo said. "Now, you can actually walk down West Vernor. You can take your family out for ice cream after church."

Castillo's nonprofit is one of several working with city officials and businesses to resurrect the area.

More than $200 million has been invested in southwest Detroit in the past 15 years, which has attracted retail and new homes, including an $11 million condo development.

"It's one of the few places in the city where you are seeing a lot of private investment," said Olga Savic, of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., the city's public/private development arm. "West Vernor Avenue was once primarily vacant. Now, it's 90 percent full."

The neighborhood is doing so well the mayor didn't include it in his plan to pump millions of dollars into distressed areas.

Blight hasn't been totally wiped out, but older Latinos and the new immigrants are helping with the transformation.

"These are people who are risk takers ... and understand if they are going to make it, it's up to them to make it successful," said Ruben Martinez, director of the Julian Samora Research Institute at Michigan State University. "Many others, who have been here for several generations, don't have that."

The Detroit neighborhood is known as "Mexican Town," but it truly is a melting pot.

About half the residents claim a Hispanic heritage, 25 percent are black, 20 percent are white and 5 percent are Arab-American, according to the Southwest Detroit Business Association.

In contrast, more than 80 percent of Detroit's 920,000 residents are black.

And while the city's overall population has plummeted in recent decades because of white flight and more recently the exodus of the black middle class, the southwest side's population has grown considerably, up 6.9 percent to more than 96,000 people from 1990 to 2000.

The city's Latino population grew by nearly 19,000 over that period to more than 47,000.

Without the manufacturing jobs that attracted many to places like Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s, Latinos have found opportunities in their own backyards, Figueroa said.

"Once you had a cousin, uncle or aunt there, that was a logical place to come because there were still jobs," he said. "The Detroit economy and Milwaukee economy have not done so well in the '80s and '90s. But what has occurred in the Latino community is the establishment of new businesses, primarily service-oriented businesses that serve the Latino communities that were established in the '50s and '60s."

Mexican restaurants and bars along Mitchell Street and in other parts of Milwaukee attract non-Latinos, but it's Latinos that keep the bakeries and grocery stores open, Figueroa said.

"There is enough money in the economy that people can sustain retail establishments by primarily relying on Latino clientele," he said.

It's that sense of community that led Montes and her husband to move from a downriver suburb of Detroit to the southwest side.

"I feel like I'm at home," she said. "I go to get a haircut, I speak Spanish. I go to mercado (market), I speak Spanish. My daughter goes to school and there are a lot of Latino kids. It's a great feeling."

(This version CORRECTS typo.)

"I feel like I'm at home," she said. "I go to get a haircut, I speak Spanish. I go to mercado (market), I speak Spanish. My daughter goes to school and there are a lot of Latino kids. It's a great feeling."

Conquering a foreign nation without firing a shot.

Sounds like a thriving community much like Chinatown and Little Italy. More power to them.

"There is enough money in the economy that people can sustain retail establishments by primarily relying on Latino clientele," he said.

Putting all their eggs in that basket will turn out to be their biggest mistake. Why wouldn't any retail establishment want to draw the largest number of clientele, regardless of ethnicity?

Any retail business that operates without any English-speaking employees
will end up out of business.

In keeping with that American dream, as long as they don't employ illegal aliens, they have nothing to worry about.

why are we giving our country away? wake up America!!!

what a full blown piece of msm dribble . The whites move out and then the blacks cause Detroit is dead . But illegals can make it go . Now just where is all the money and jobs coming from ? Auto plants, are hiring cheap illegals while still charging an arm & a leg for a car . Only in America . And the AFL-CIO loves'em , long as they pay their dues

link please?

A country within a country-pushing the blacks out like they are doing to smaller cities here in NC.Government provides free medical,dental,food stamps, baby milk,money for housing and even fuel oil.Glued together by racial and ethnic and percieved enemy of blacks and whites who are the real forgieners of this land.Crooked politicians ,union leaders and business owners who will look at the numbers and sell out thier own children in the long run to pad thier already fat bank accounts or votes in a political future with amnesty.Churchs also leading the way to fill thier sparce churches and fill collection plates ,while they work behind the scenes to sign illegals up for every government program and rent them houses they or a relative may own.What the auther is saying but will never say out loud is that they are replacing a lazy,drug crazyed group with a hard working hispanic ethnic people.The true liberalism of a real racist.Long time black detriot and michigan politicianswill remain silent and sell out thier constiuents.Somehow they believe that these new people will continue to vote them back in office dispite history in other states they will be replaced also.General motors,ford etc will be glad to screw long time workers out of retirement benefits and replace them with 'migrants' who the union bosses take kickbacks from executives of these large companys.Where are you John CONYERS JR?

Originally Posted by cvangel

link please?

i'm sorry but right now i can't come across it . Just the other day on a UAW site which is part of the AFL-CIO , i came across a red banner in the top right corner of the page . It said boldly "Latinos Welcome" then a link on how to sign up .
My bad for not saving the link . But i promise it was there (errr now i sound like a Clinton)

Originally Posted by cvangel

link please?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080228/ap_ ... rn_niche_2

Thanks for the post and the link I've forwarded the story to my contacts back in Michigan