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The Growing Pains of Diversity: California as a Case Study
Last night, I happened upon this article, which discussed California's history with immigrants and legislation relating to those immigrants.
In summary, California had a tumultuous history when it comes to immigrants. It was Chinese immigration mostly to California that led the United States to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, and it was the governor of California who was a major proponent of Japanese internment camps. The state then went through a reactionary phase during the 1990s in which governor Pete Wilson, running on anti-immigration rhetoric was elected and Prop 187, which banned illegal immigrants from getting any government benefits or public education, which was later struck down by the courts. But later, especially in the last 5-10 years, the state has undergone a significant shift in terms of politics; after a period in which growing numbers of immigrants led to backlash and more right-wing politics, it has begun to embrace them.
The author argued that this could be true of the country as a whole. According to research cited in the article, while in the short term increasing exposure to immigrants lead to more anti-immigrant sentiments, in the long term, such exposure lessened anti-immigrant sentiments below where they were initially. We could be in the initial phase of that phenomenon - the areas where immigrants have been moving to the fastest are the very Rust Belt and rural areas that switched parties from Democratic to Republican, specifically for Trump. The article predicts that given some time, that this too will pass, and the Democratic "demographics destiny" may come true after all, at least until the Republicans adapt to the new attitudes.
What are your thoughts?




That is interesting, and possibly a serious factor. To add to it, we should consider the income gap. The higher the income gap, the more problems you see in a society. The more problems you have, the more you can blame on immigrants. I assume that California has the highest income gap of any state and most countries, because of Hollywood. And so there is more to scapegoat, making it easier to get popular support for anti-immigrant platforms.
That's an interesting point...there are academic theories out there that posit that economic inequality is a driver of xenophobia and racism.
California does have high income inequality; as of 2010, it ranked as the 8th highest. But that alone doesn't explain it, given that such xenophobia has shown up in areas with lesser income inequality, such as Wisconsin and Iowa.
California's problem in the 1980s and 1990s was crime, and lots of it, especially in the inner cities of Los Angeles and such. In the Rust Belt, the problem was immigrants "taking people's jobs". So I think it's more of a response to social problems than it is to economic inequality.
Yes thanks for that info. And I doubt one thing ever explains much. So I agree there is more to the story. I was trying to add to the article you shared. What you have is a great point and I didn't mean to deflect from it. Only to add to it.
I think that the lack of jobs is a problem when there is an income gap. I think that crime becomes a thing when there is an income gap. But that itself is 'not enough.'
To go back to your original post, people use immigrants (the other / people who aren't part of your in-group) to blame for things that in many cases were happening anyway. And if they weren't, the income gap may have had an affect on.
At least, in the short term. As the article states: when we become more used to something new we are less likely to blame it. For example, there have always been lazy people. But in the 50s and 60s it was TV that made people lazy. In the 80s and 90s it was videogames. Last decade it was the internet. This decade it's cell phones. Always something new to blame. And what is newer than immigrants?
But people who live in a multicultural setting often become strong supporters of some form of multiculturalism. I think that right, and that's what you post was about.
Honestly, I think it's a simple case of tribalism. When you first see someone different than you, and social problems soon happen as a result of or at the same time as people that look like them, your first instinct is to blame them. But the more habituated you become to these new arrivals, work with them, speak to them on a regular basis and meet many of them, you start realizing that most of them aren't actually that bad.