2013-12-28

Diversity Destroys

Nothing new here for readers of this blog, but it is interesting to see the costs of diversity clearly laid out in a mainstream media outlet. Not the idea from Putnam and others that diversity reduces levels of trust, rather a story on the facts of what is happening in diverse communities. This story comes from California.

DIVERSITY PROMPTS INCREASED RACIAL ISOLATION
Rising immigration hasn't made Watsonville more diverse; it is a community heading toward racial isolation, a growing phenomenon in a state that offers one possible look at how the nation may change as non-Hispanic whites become a minority in the coming months.

..."For me, downtown Watsonville is like being in a small Mexican town," said Oscar Rios, who was Watsonville's first Latino mayor. "Everyone speaks Spanish. The restaurants are Mexican. It's got a very different feel than a traditional American town."

..."We have more people that probably lack legal status and that means more people that are really kind of living in the shadows," he said. "Certainly there's been white flight from this city as people's economic status improves and they wish to have better opportunities.

He added: "But do people flee because of race or language? I don't know."
The article goes on to say things aren't so bad, comparing the immigration wave with German immigration. But it completely ignores the fact that Germans eventually stopped coming and immigration was all but banned from the 1920s into the 1960s. Also, there were major anti-immigration political movements. Things can work out in the long-run, but there will be major conflict before there is assimilation.

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