Thread: Las Vegas will inevitably become a predominantly Spanish-spe

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stori ... 71541.html

December 25, 2005

Columnist Hal Rothman: On how the Las Vegas Valley will inevitably become a predominantly Spanish-speaking community
Hal Rothman is a professor of History at UNLV. His column appears Sunday.

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Feliz Navidad. If you don't know what that means, you had better find out.

The most significant demographic change in Las Vegas in the past 15 years is neither the emergence of a retirement community nor the growth of a transplanted upper-middle-class. It is, wholeheartedly and without a doubt, the remarkable growth of the Spanish-surnamed population.

No group of people has become more visible in recent years in Las Vegas than Latinos. They have come from everywhere, from East Los Angeles and now South Central, increasingly Latino instead of African American.

They leave Mexico in droves, fleeing the poverty of the cities and oppression of the highlands. Middle-class people from Nicaragua, Salvador, Guatemala and Panama come, fleeing the anarchic and often lethal dangers of life in societies with private armies and rampant poverty, where riding in limousines surrounded by armed escorts makes you a target. Filipinos arrive in an ever-growing stream. We have even imported the show that Fidel Castro does not want you to see.

The Latino population of Clark County jumped from 85,000 in 1990 to more than 375,000 in 2004, an increase that put the Latino presence well over 20 percent of the county. With the propensity to undercount immigrants and minorities, such numbers are surely below the actual total.

Children with Spanish surnames will soon be the majority in Las Vegas public schools. Only 13 percent of the school population in 1991-92, Latinos increased to 23 percent, almost 45,000 students, in 1997-98, and to 99,368, more than 35 percent of the school district this year.

In the younger grades, the percentage of Latinos is even higher. And remember that the school district has added about 15,000 students each year for more than a decade, meaning that almost half of the incoming students are Spanish-surnamed. Project that growth over time and Latino in-migration has already reshaped Las Vegas.

Hailing from a multitude of places, Latinos are not just one community. The Latino community looks homogeneous to outsiders, but is actually made up of a complicated array of different and sometimes conflicting interests.

Spanish-speakers often share the Spanish language and little else. Even their Spanish varies widely, as diverse as the many locales in which it originates. Mexican-Americans -- many third-, fourth- or fifth-generation American -- new immigrants from anywhere in Mexico and Central America, not to mention South America and the Caribbean, and others combine in an uneasy mix. Few community-wide clubs or groups even venture to represent the whole.

As a result, even though you can live a life in Spanish in Las Vegas without being inconvenienced, an enormous gulf between the English-speaking community and much of the Latino population remains.

Despite important work in the social service sector by the Culinary Union and other organizations, Latino Las Vegas remains largely invisible to the rest of us. Neither television nor the newspapers cover Latino issues in a substantive way, except when they cross with mainstream issues.

Like any other, the Latino community has its own problems and ways to resolve them. Yet for a group that makes up one-quarter of the Las Vegas Valley and 35 percent of the school district, Latinos appear too often in the crime news and not enough in other ways in coverage of the civic life of greater Las Vegas. We hear too little of what sustains this community, of its businesses and churches, of its celebrations and laments.

As the influence of this community grows, the lack of attention from the rest of us will create an even larger divide that will someday come back to haunt us. In the recent chaos in France and Australia, we have seen how societies that fail to integrate minority populations pay for that shortcoming.

The United States remains the best example of a polyglot nation; simply put, we bring all kinds of people under the tent better than anybody on Earth. We're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we still do a better job than anyone else.

The problem is we're not doing it with Latino Las Vegas. Despite the close-cropped snapshot of today, Latinos are the future. Their population has grown so quickly that the town, like the nation, is only beginning to recognize its significance, much less come to grips with it.

That oblivious attitude does not change reality: after Miami and Los Angeles, Las Vegas will become the third American city to overwhelmingly speak Spanish. Feliz Navidad.

Spanish-speakers often share the Spanish language and little else. Even their Spanish varies widely, as diverse as the many locales in which it originates.

Perhaps that's why, back when this was still a sane nation run by sane people, having a single national language like English was considered a good idea.

The more columns like this that I see , the more convinced I become that we've already surrendered to the invaders. Certainly, the author of this column has.

I just hope that they're as kind to us as we've been to them. It's a pretty kind (or stupid) nation that simply gives up without a fight when invaded.

Anti-Immigration Groups on the Rise in Las Vegas
by Timothy Pratt - The Las Vegas Sun

Mark Edwards, founder of Wake Up America, one of the local groups, whose message is broadcast on a radio program and who plans to hold its second annual national convention on the issue next spring, said Las Vegas is home to a grassroots movement that is spreading across the nation...

Mark Edwards introduces Congressman Tom Tancredo at Wake Up America conference last spring.


LAS VEGAS -- Hundreds of local residents sit in cushioned chairs at monthly meetings at convention centers, downtown casinos and Elks' lodges, listening to guest speakers recite scary statistics about millions of people, mostly Mexicans, crossing the border.

At some of the meetings, people in the audience cry out for a civil war if nothing is done to stop illegal immigration soon.

Such scenes increasingly are part of the panorama in the Las Vegas Valley, as several groups have formed locally or arrived from elsewhere to confront what their members see as the most severe threat ever leveled at the United States: illegal immigration. Mark Edwards, founder of Wake Up America, one of the local groups, whose message is broadcast on a radio program and who plans to hold its second annual national convention on the issue next spring, said Las Vegas is home to a grassroots movement that is spreading across the nation.

He sees the movement as responsible for making leaders face the issue _ including President Bush's recent speech about his proposal to allow foreign workers to stay in the country for a few years at a time.

"I feel our grassroots movement _ including us in Las Vegas _ have caused more interest in what's going on and people are saying, 'You better start talking about this,' " Edwards said.

Experts say the phenomenon will grow as the local immigrant population grows, and some fear with it will come increased divides along racial and ethnic lines.

"It seems that Las Vegas is one of the coming hotbeds" for anti-illegal immigration groups, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Nevada Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks discrimination.

The anti-immigration groups "represent what will become a genuine social movement, and Nevadans need to be concerned, because they have an incredible tendency to demonize, with strong streaks of bigotry," he said.

But members of the groups insist they are not racist or otherwise prejudiced. They contend they are simply seeking to strengthen the rule of law against the tide of illegal immigration, both locally and nationally.

Maria Cristina Morales, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who studies immigration, said recent events in the valley are "really just the beginning." The key role immigrants play in the region's population growth is the motor driving people to groups dealing with the issue, she said.

"With the growth of the immigrant community comes the perception of threat," she said.

Clark County's Hispanic population more than doubled from 11.2 percent in 1990 to an estimated 25 percent today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. About 70 percent of immigrants to Southern Nevada come from Mexico.

Nobody knows how many undocumented, or illegal, immigrants are in the valley, but estimates range as high as 150,000.

"It (immigration) is seen as an economic threat, in that they are supposedly taking away jobs; a security threat _ especially since 9/11; and a cultural one, because people fear they will not assimilate or adapt," Morales said.

"The way it has happened elsewhere, when numbers are low, immigrants are not a threat. But in Las Vegas, the way (population) numbers are going . . ."

Perhaps one of the most visible anti-illegal immigration groups at the start of this year was the National Vanguard (formerly called the National Alliance), which paid for the billboard on Sahara Avenue that said: "Stop Immigration: Join the National Alliance." The billboard was removed twice because of controversy over its message and the group behind it. The group also formed a political party called the White People's Party.

Then there's Wake Up America. Edwards' radio show, broadcast on KDWN 720-AM, is devoted to the subject of immigration. The group also has been drawing about 250 to monthly meetings since the beginning of the year, Edwards said.

Another group, Secured Borders, trumpets its message with dozens of signs on bus benches around town.

And the Minuteman Project drew international media coverage to an event last spring that was part protest and part volunteer border patrol. During April, hundreds of volunteers "manned" the Arizona-Mexico border. Nevada sent 33 volunteers, according to the project's Web site.

Edwards said Sunday that his group recently has helped form a local Minuteman group, with "about 150 guys."

"We pick up about 30 more at each gun show," he added, noting that membership includes former law enforcement officers and military veterans.

At one of Wake Up America's monthly meetings earlier this year, invited speaker Frosty Wooldridge's talk _ and the audience's response _ offered a view of the anti-illegal immigration movement.

Wooldridge _ who wrote a book called "Immigration's Unarmed Invasion" _- began by telling the roughly 150 people gathered at the Las Vegas Club casino, "This country is under the greatest threat in its 219-year history."

"If we don't get it handled, we're going to go the way of the Roman Empire," he added.

He proceeded to list a series of problems that illegal immigrants bring to U.S. soil, including a "disease Jihad," a rise in gangs, a loss of jobs and higher costs for services such as education and health care.

If their numbers continue, he warned, "in 60 years, we will have to flush the toilet once a week and take a shower once a month" due to a shortage of resources.

At this, members of the audience shook their heads.

The solution, Wooldridge said, is a five- or 10-year moratorium on all immigration, "locking up all corporate heads" who hire undocumented immigrants, militarizing the border and a "slow, steady repatriation of 20 million aliens back to their countries."

That brought down the house.

As the applause died down, he said: "I don't want to see my country taken over . . . and have them make the Southwest a slime pit Third World country like Mexico."

Edwards, founder of the group, told a story after the meeting about when he was in the Marines as a young man and blacks began fighting side by side with whites.

At 74, he said he remembers seeing black people separated from white people when he was growing up and always was disturbed by it. His group, he said, is not racist, and neither are most others in the movement to curb immigration.

Potok said such statements are politically motivated. The comments of Wooldridge and other activists offer a clearer view of the movement, Potok said.

"They use the language of demonization _ it's one thing to talk about needed changes in immigration policy, and it's another to target groups of people or the immigrants themselves," he said.

Dean Ishman, president of the NAACP's Las Vegas chapter, said he does not trust most anti-immigration groups, even though he may agree with part of their message. He does not support illegal immigration, for example, and thinks the immigration system should be reformed.

But Ishman said he realizes that "Some people within those groups have negative, derogatory reasons for doing what they're doing _ certainly when it comes to people of color.

"As soon as they succeed in demonizing Hispanics, who's next?" he asked.

At the close of another meeting, this one of the Secured Borders group, a sort of gripe session unfolded, offering a look at how immigrants in the valley make some local residents feel. They want to know if anything can be done about day laborers that gather in public looking for work, and they resent the increase of Spanish on public signs and literature.

Secured Borders Director Lawrence Pappas laid out a theory that several members of anti-illegal immigration groups repeated.

It goes something like this: the casinos of Las Vegas and the Culinary Union do not check health cards and other identification well enough, so the Strip must be full of illegal immigrants.

This leads to potential health threats, because illegal immigrants come in the United States without being checked for diseases, he said.

"If they can get fraudulent health cards, then I wouldn't trust any of those hotels _ all they have to do is cough on your food," Pappas said.

But Pilar Weiss, political director of the Culinary Union, said in an interview that the "idea that we would be encouraging illegal immigration and . . . false documents is ludicrous."

"The gaming industry is the most regulated in Nevada and perhaps one of the most regulated in the country _ these charges are absolutely untrue," Weiss said.

Sociologist Morales said community life in the valley inevitably would be affected by the spread of groups against illegal immigration.

"Members of these groups are a part of our neighborhoods and the workforce," she said.

"(The) perceptions (the groups have) will begin to affect how they treat the people they perceive as immigrants. This could then lead to discrimination.

"It's going to create an environment that is difficult for immigrants to live in."

Source: Scripps Howard News Service

quote: have to censor myself to meet the needs of this board. Is there anyplace where folks gather who believe
obbop - yep we have to bite our tongues or at least hold them -
but it's not over till the fat lady sings

"The problem is we're not doing it with Latino Las Vegas"

Yep, it is my duty as an American to kow tow to every group, ethnicity, religious sect, whatever that enters the USA, legally or not.

Makes no difference that the laws I exist within apply to all. That the paramedics, cops, fire fighters etc. assist all equally.

The imigrants to the USA have it made compared to those entering almost every other country in the world.

Heaven forbid that those entering the USA adapt themselves to the existing society. Nope, gotta' change ourselves to meet the needs of the invaders!!!!!

Do y'all really believe that working within "the system" will save our country and society? I have to censor myself to meet the needs of this board. Is there anyplace where folks gather who believe drastic measures will be needed if working within "the system" fails? I truly believe we are doomed. The elite class may posture, pass laws, babble warm fuzzies but.... will anything meaningful truly change?

I predict if this is the future legacy of Las Vegas, it will not remain the mega tourist destination it is today. As the quality of life declines, it will only become an irritant to tourists who will feel their security is at risk and their ability to just communicate will become difficult. Las Vegas will tarnish.