Thread: Northeast Sees Mexican Immigration Rise

By ERIN TEXEIRA, AP National Writer
1 hour, 35 minutes ago



NEWBURGH, N.Y. - Sunday morning in this small, Hudson Valley city: More than 1,000 parishioners, most from Mexico, pack Spanish-language Masses at St. Patrick's Catholic Church. Afterward, many families flock to El Azteca for its authentic tacos. If somebody needs a ride home, there are at least a dozen local taxi companies catering to newcomers born in the Mexican states of Puebla and Jalisco.

New residents from Mexico have, in the last four years, opened dozens of businesses that have begun to reinvigorate the ailing downtown district; they are the region's fastest growing community. It's the same story elsewhere in the Northeast.

Like the other parts of the country before it, the region is finally starting to see the impact of Mexican migration.

New communities of Mexicans have arrived to fill farm, construction and domestic jobs, government data show. Population growth in states such as Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Connecticut would be considerably slower if not for the newcomers, who are steadily bringing about the region's biggest demographic shift in generations. And while the change has brought new vitality to some places, it's also created tension.

Rodolfo O. de la Garza, a sociologist at Columbia University, says it's natural that Mexico is â€â€

Yeah, they've made a mark alright. They've turned the quiet suburbs of Long Island into third world hellholes.

Talk about a fluff piece. Thank God for all the illegal immigrants that saved this city from a slow death!

Yea, check thr name on the reporter and that may explain why it is por lato.

Yeah....and the county can check their MEDICAID costs next year and see how much that ROSE TOO!!

"You go to (the Spanish-language) Mass and the Puerto Ricans will sit on one side and the Mexican families will sit on the other side."

There is a pretty big tension between those two communities. I speak "white Spanish" and can distinguish the accents of the Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. I remember the two communities NEVER associating with each other when I was in the Army.

They keep it quiet and amongst themselves to put up a unified "Hispanic" front for white people to see, but the tension is definitely there. They don't really like each other.

Civil rights leaders like to say that diversity is our greatest strength but when it gets right down to it people like to be with others that are like them. We naturally segregate ourselves.