Thread: Your country is changing , like it or not

http://archive.tri-cityherald.com/newma ... tment.html

For weeks, Marilynn Kilgore anticipated the opening of the Pasco Food Pavilion, a fancy new supermarket with a deli, bank, pharmacy and the promise of bargains.

When grand opening day arrived, Kilgore and her adult daughter went to check out the new store the way curious neighbors check out the newest family on the block.

And they didn't like what they saw.

More precisely, they didn't like what they heard.

Built in the heart of the Tri-Cities' fast-growing Hispanic community, the new store was crowded with Mexican shoppers. The sounds of Spanish filled the aisles, instantly making Kilgore feel out of place in the community where she had grown up.

"It was irritating," Kilgore recalled.

Within a few minutes, they walked out of the spiffy new market without buying a thing.

A thousand miles away in Watsonville, Calif., Frank Osmer has wrestled with the same feelings of displacement and the belief he has been shoved out of his own community.

Osmer, a retired police chief and former Watsonville mayor, used to shop downtown all the time. These days, he prefers to drive 20 minutes to a neighboring community rather than shop in the Mexican clothing stores, record shops and restaurants that predominate the old business district.

"I don't walk down Main Street anymore," Osmer said, lamenting the loss of stores like JC Penney, Montgomery Ward and Woolworth's. "There's nothing to go there for."

Such sentiments reflect a troubling aspect of Mexican immigration - troubling at least for those who have lived in a community for decades and are now watching it change around them.

Fear of gangs, increased crime, higher unemployment and fewer opportunities also are often linked to the new immigrants, creating resentment from the more established residents.

Nora Korba, a Watsonville native who works as a waitress at a landmark cafe and bar, is afraid to go downtown at night because of the crime in her town, and she blames Mexican immigration.

"Things have changed to the point where I want to say to heck with this town," said Korba, who remembers feeling safe at night on Main Street when she was a teen-ager in the early 1970s.

"I remember the good old days," she said, recalling when migrant workers went home to Mexico after harvest and the schools taught only in English.

Although some of the fears expressed by old-timers are almost certainly based on blatant racism, a more generous view is the prospect of losing a way of life is behind much of the fear.

Oscar Rios, a Watsonville city councilman and Hispanic activist, believes it is this loss of the familiar that troubles many white people.

"If you came down here, you wouldn't know that at one time this was an Anglo community," Rios said. "This is what freaks a lot of people out. If you come to Watsonville, all you see is brown faces."

When that happens to a town, whites almost always choose to leave, according to Refugio Rochin, a Michigan State University professor who studied the effects of "Latinization" on 330 rural California towns.

The study, which tried to answer the question of whether communities with a Hispanic majority suffer economically, found that whites began moving out of any town studied that had become 50 percent or more Mexican-American.

Middle-class Hispanics are just as likely to move away in those cases as whites are, the study reported.

The reason, Rochin said, is because these groups no longer feel they have a reason to stay. The families moving in generally are younger and with more children than their own, and they often don't speak English.

"White flight," the study found, isn't "solely attributable to prejudice, but also to perceived changes in the quality of community life."

Changes in the Tri-Cities aren't as extensive as they are in Watsonville, but Pasco - with the most Mexican immigrants of the three communities - is a much different place than it was 30 years ago.

Once the retail hub of the Tri-Cities, Pasco now is home to a collection of small but vibrant businesses, many of them owned by immigrants and catering to the needs of immigrants.

Some big chain stores have moved to west Kennewick, leaving Pasco with phone banks where customers pay to call family in California and Mexico, travel agencies that specialize in booking trips to Mexico and California, and a collection of Mexican bakeries, restaurants and markets.

James and Marilynn Kilgore, who moved to the Tri-Cities in the 1950s, understand why the changes have occurred, and they don't resent the new immigrants. Like most Americans, the Kilgores are descendants of immigrants.

But they admit the changes in the community have altered their lives. They avoid downtown Pasco at night, for example. "You're a little intimidated when you used to not be," James said.

And Marilynn lost interest years ago in reading the arrest records in the newspaper. "I don't recognize the names anymore."

Dan Lathim, a Pasco councilman with deep roots in the community, has seen most of the changes firsthand, but said he is more worried about the economic future of the community and the ability to continue using Columbia River water on crops than he is about any sociological upheaval because of immigration.

One reason Lathim isn't more concerned about the changing population is because of his understanding of history and immigration. Every other immigrant group that has settled in the United States has eventually assimilated, he said.

Lathim thinks the same sort of assimilation is inevitable in the Tri-Cities, and every other place where Mexican immigrants are settling in large numbers.

It doesn't matter if Hispanics hold onto the Spanish language and other elements of their culture for a while, he said.

That doesn't mean Hispanics are trying to turn the Tri-Cities into Mexico, he said.

"When Christ the King (church) does a Sausage Fest, they're not trying to make it Germany," he said.

Luce Gutierrez, a lobbyist for the National Council for La Raza, agrees time will calm many of the fears people might have now about the so-called browning of America.

Mixed marriages will help ease the tension between the communities, she said, and the rise of political and business leaders from within the Hispanic community will help change people's view of Hispanics.

Eventually, the food, music, literature and fashion of Mexico -already influencing American pop culture - will become part of the fabric of America, as integral as Irish, Italian, German and British influences.

The progress of Mexican immigration is different from other groups because of the proximity of the homeland, and the ability of immigrants to go back and forth easily between the two countries.

Even so, the new immigrants will join the melting pot and change its flavor.

"I think in 10 years you will have more of a blending of cultures," Gutierrez said. "Mexican immigrants will adapt to America, and at the same time they will change the image of what America is all about."

-----------------------------------------------------

Weather they think so or not

They are changing this country into Mexico

It is so sad, so heart-breaking. We've become strangers in our own nation.

There are several reasons for past assimilation. First,people had to learn the language. There was no bi-lingual anything. Second, we weren't a welfare state as we are today,third,drugs and crime are worse because of the sheer numbers fourth, we had a "time-out" with ALL immigration. People had to assimilate because we came from ALL countries around the world,NOT just Latin America. Furthermore in the last few decades where Mexicans have predominately moved here in California, the areas have seen little change. Still lots of crime and poverty. In fact it has only become worse, just look at California.

The comparisons to past immigration waves are insane. Never before have we seen immigration so massive, so illegal, and so lopsided in favor of one country. They are not assimilating and they never will.

Originally Posted by usanevada

"I think in 10 years you will have more of a blending of cultures," Gutierrez said. "Mexican immigrants will adapt to America, and at the same time they will change the image of what America is all about."

This is BS, Mexican immigrants that have lived in California for 40 years have learned very little English, their kids marry other Latinos because they don't grow up with other Americans. The only way they will assimilate is if Latin American immigration is totally stopped.

Originally Posted by BearFlagRepublic

The comparisons to past immigration waves are insane. Never before have we seen immigration so massive, so illegal, and so lopsided in favor of one country. They are not assimilating and they never will.

exactly

Originally Posted by Bowman

Originally Posted by usanevada

"I think in 10 years you will have more of a blending of cultures," Gutierrez said. "Mexican immigrants will adapt to America, and at the same time they will change the image of what America is all about."

This is BS, Mexican immigrants that have lived in California for 40 years have learned very little English, their kids marry other Latinos because they don't grow up with other Americans. The only way they will assimilate is if Latin American immigration is totally stopped.

it is part of the reason why I am moving to Indiana in two weeks. If my son learns a second language, it will be Irish.

What will "calm many of the fears" is ASSIMILATION, and an end to illegal immigration. Illegal border crossers and identity thieves are not "immigrants," they're lawbreakers.

We are never, never going to have assimilation because the demographics have irreversibly changed. Critical mass has been reached! This is what Mexico has been waiting for. Instead of assimilation, the trend is for Mexican nationalism in our former country.

Because the US has done NOTHING to enforce the existing laws for the past 20 years, Mexico has been busy exporting it's greatest product...38M illiterate, unskilled, unwanted nationals. They are referred to as "The New Americans" and "The New Pioneers". In reality, they are nothing more than the unwanted half breeds of the Mexican cesspool.

It's a numbers game, and Mexico is winning!

The US has only one manufacturing industry that will never be outsourced...anchor babies. Given another 20 years this industry will surpass everything we have ever accomplished.

If anyone has any doubts about the Mexicanization of the US....please come to CA!!!! We are drowning in illegals.

Assimilation will not and cannot happen due to large numbers and no peer pressure for the incoming to do so. In my opinion American corporations and our own government wish to have a rich/poor country eliminating the middle class or to bring American standards down to world standards, to level the playing Field for the global economy.

I actually see second generation Mexican-Americans who I have known for years belittled if they use English in stores in my area. If people think this is not a problem come live near the southern border for a few months it is an enlightening experience.