Los Angeles is filled with ghettos, real ones. How do I know this? My work has more recently taken me into the city’s rougher sides and it is quite clear that there are large portions of Los Angeles that are, for all intensive purposes, Mexican ghettos. If you don’t live here, you don’t know that probably one third of L.A. looks and feels like Mexico. This is another reason why I don’t use the term “Little Mexico”--there’s just too much to call it that. Beyond L.A.’s well-traveled roads and freeways, you enter the city’s third world, a place populated by poor, non-English speaking immigrants who have banded together, effectively creating insular communities for people like them. This is not new behavior, it’s why we have Chinatowns and Slavic Villages, but L.A. is different because of how large the immigrant population has become.
I’m coming at this from a unique place. Cleveland, my hometown, is far from being an all white city. In 2006, the U.S. Census declared it 64% White, 29% Black, 2% Asian and 4% Hispanic, with only 11% of the population not speaking English at home. To a native, the reality is that while there is a dominant minority, that minority speaks English and has been in America for quite some time. Also keep in mind that this minority, however dominant, still doesn’t even come close to exceeding the majority in size. Thus, race and immigration hasn’t been such a big deal**. In the absence of a significant immigration problem, there’s not only less racial and cultural tension but far less fighting over “who deserves to be here.” Before I moved to L.A., I honestly hadn’t given immigration or the need for reform hardly any thought.
However, it is a much more pressing issue in L.A. county. First of all, there’s almost 10 million people stuffed in here, not including commuters from Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Everyone’s competing for very limited resources--something that never makes people very friendly. In any case, here are the stats : 29% White, 10% Black, 13% Asian, 47% Hispanic.
So how has this been different for me? I feel uncomfortable saying this, but just the sheer amount of Latino influence is overwhelming. This realization is odd for me, because I specialize in Latin American social dancing like Salsa, Merengue, etc. so I’ve spent tons of time in the Salsa community. Here’s the difference: Salsa is mainly popular in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Columbia, and some other Latin American countries—not Mexico. Mexicans do their own thing, they like cumbia and ranchera music, they prefer tacos and burritos to yucca and plantains, and then there’s this odd thing with Southwest ranching culture, like with these radio show ads from 97.9 La Raza which, somewhat appropriate to this discussion, translates as "the race.".
So the result of this is that I just don’t get Mexican culture. Anything Latin American I pretty much get, but not this. And because Cleveland was 29% black, I get the Mexican community’s sworn rival too. I could probably deal with this situation better if L.A. wasn’t almost half Mexican, but it is—which makes things a little strained. I’m surrounded by a culture I don’t understand and trying to live cooperatively with people who very often don’t speak my language. This sort of things usually happens when you’re in a different country, but Los Angeles isn’t some hybrid Baja-like country--this is America. Very often it’s like I’m standing in the middle of crowd asking “why are you guys all wearing cowboy hats?” There are two cultures here trying to live separately in the same place; Americans live here like its America and lots of Mexicans live here like its Mexico. We’re both turning our backs to each other and trying to do our own thing, but the inevitability of this is that have to coexist and we’re going to clash.
Many of the immigrants residing in L.A.’s Mexican ghettos came to this country for the opportunities it provides. They are avoiding assimilation partially because doing so is more convenient and it is not required. This sounds harsh, so to be clear I’m not saying this because of some beef I have with the entire Mexican community. There are enough large pockets of unassimilated immigrants existing in L.A. that you can rent an apartment, earn a living and build a life here, all without ever having to speak English. There are all the comforts of home plus the benefits and opportunities of being in the United States. I feel awfully Republican feeling this way, but is how that not selfishly using our country?
Eastern European immigrants who came over to the United States in the early 20th century didn’t have some federal program helping them assimilate or learn English. But they did because they wanted to assimilate into American culture and speaking English was the fastest way to upward mobility. The other big difference is that while there was a huge influx of immigrants at that time, you didn’t have cities that were 50% foreign born. That’s our problem today—the sheer volume of immigrants living in Los Angeles has created the possibility for ghettos so developed that you can move to the United States but never become an American. This is not to say that many Hispanic immigrants don’t try to fully integrate themselves into our society or attempt to learn English to get a better job. But unfortunately, you don’t always see those individuals when you look around L.A.
Living here, language is the largest barrier you run into with the working immigrant population. At many restaurants and cafes, you cannot ask for something they don’t expect, like half-caff coffee or no ice in a drink. If you try, it just doesn’t happen. At one restaurant, I was ready to order my dinner but hadn’t yet decided what I wanted to drink. When a server came over, I wanted to place my dinner order and this completely threw him off; he had to leave and get another server. I figured out that they’ve instituted a system where one server, always the less fluent employee, gets drinks and another takes food orders. Now, I understand the practicality of doing this since drinks are usually simpler to understand and dinner orders often come with more specifications. But this takes me back to a point I raised earlier: we’re not in a foreign country, this is America-- why in the spirit of accommodation and political correctness do we have to accept this?
These restaurant incidents happened well before my work started taking me into L.A.’s Latino ghettos. One day, I took the Metro from Long Beach (in the South) through to Downtown. I went through some crappy parts of town near Compton, places that looked more like Puerto Rico than California. The houses were old and rundown, there was an enormous amount of graffiti, the only thing missing were all those chickens running around. I’m serious, there is a substantial on-the-move chicken population in P.R. In any case, I started looking around on the train and realized that I was the only white person on the entire car. Apparently this is how things usually are because the all of the on-board ads were in Spanish. By now, I’m used to hearing Spanish more often than English in public places in L.A., but being the only non-Hispanic person on that Metro really made me feel like I was in a different country. But I wasn’t, I was in the United States.
Around this same time I was working a promotional marketing gig at a bank near the LA/Orange County border. About half of the people coming into the bank were Latino immigrants, something made instantly clear when many of them said outright “I don’t speak English” or smiled uncomfortably when I approached them. You get used to this shy response out here, when a person just doesn’t understand you. These were people who were customers of the bank, who had accounts and jobs that earned them money to deposit in them. I asked myself, how do these people go through life in America without speaking English?
One of the women I met at the bank reminded me of this same question. She didn’t speak enough English to recognize that I said Jamba Juice, which for Southern California is sort of like not knowing the word McDonalds. I ran into another woman at a street corner and asked her which way was west (I think a simple enough question) and she too replied “no English.” I feel Republican for this, but the first thing that came to my mind was “well, why don’t ya learn some?” Second, I tried to remember if oeste meant west or east and asked myself if I could form this sentence in Spanish.
This brings me back to my question again: how do you get through life in this country without learning enough English? When I couldn’t communicate (albeit, due to their not assimilating), I immediately thought to be accommodating and try some Spanish. This might be another large contributing factor into how so many get by not knowing English. Not only are the Mexican ghettos a safe haven, but the public transportation system, banks, etc. are doing everything in English and Spanish, even though the U.S. is not a bilingual country like Canada.
When I was working at that bank, people came up and started talking to me in Spanish. This sends a pretty clear message of how prevalent our accommodation is of the Spanish-speaking Latino community. Even as a white woman, these people just assumed that I spoke Spanish because, well, who doesn’t out here? This seems relatively harmless, but I think it illustrates that the Latino community has grown so used to us accommodating them and making their cultural needs a priority that now it’s something they’ve come to expect. This isn’t right. Maybe being practical and just making everything Latino-friendly isn’t making everything easier in the long run. Maybe it’s just putting off the problem and, in all likelihood, making it worse. Plus, half of Los Angeles is female, so there are countless non-English speaking women raising children, who of course won’t speak English either. And so the cycle continues.
I consider myself to be a very patient and tolerant person, but hitting these linguistic and cultural roadblocks all the time makes it very difficult to not start thinking about illegal immigration in this country. I’m all for welcoming and accepting other cultures, but the number of unassimilated Latino immigrants is Los Angeles is way out of hand for this being an American city. Yes, I feel Republican saying that but L.A. has gotten to that point where you have to begin addressing those questions. No wonder so many people have such an angry, “they’re taking over” mentality. If we just talk numbers, California has huge problems including our deficit, traffic, the water shortage, overburdened hospitals, pollution, quality of schools--the state is effectively sinking. According to Californians for Population Stabilization, much of this can be traced back to overpopulation and the rapid influx of Latino immigrants. I’m not surprised; not everyone can crash the party and still get a beer.
So how do the presidential candidates propose to address this issue? John McCain’s Straight Talk Express certainly didn’t extend to this issue with his website simply stating that we need to secure our border …as if we didn’t know. He also suggests that keeping a political alliance with Mexico will discourage its citizens from fleeing to the U.S. (um..right), that not cramping American businesses with taxes, regulations, etc. will make it so they don’t have to hire cheap labor, and also that we must recognize the importance of assimilation (we have, John, we have). Lastly, he added this self-congratulatory message about remembering that America’s a “shining city upon a hill”— that’s why everyone wants to come here! Aren’t we great!
Obama highlighted surging undocumented population growth, the process of acquiring citizenship and unsuccessful raiding as the prominent contributing factors to our immigration problem. He mentioned securing the border too, but also promoting economic development in Mexico and removing employment incentives for people entering the U.S. illegally. As for citizenship, he talked about creating a system where illegal immigrants in good standing can more easily go through a citizenship process that involves learning English and not receiving priority status in processing.
Obama seemed to have it more together; he was far more specific than McCain, which is funny because people have gotten on him for not talking specifics. I’m impressed. Because if we really look at this issue, you can’t simply tell everyone here that doesn’t speak English or who came here illegally to just get out. Besides how impractical this is and how immigrants are a viable part of America’s economy, telling all these people to hit the road and leave their families behind is neither a graceful nor humane way to deal with this problem. Despite how this “we’re already here” philosophy reminds me of Iraq, it cannot be denied that this problem is urgent and we must make it a priority. I truly hope our new president can do something, because if this post accomplishes anything, I hope it drives home the point that this is a serious roadblock for California and we can’t keep banging our heads up against it forever. Something’s got to give.
*Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there are significant racial tensions in Cleveland. However, the scope and magnitude of the problem in LA dwarfs that of Cleveland, especially when you consider factors such as population and the persistent Latino-Black gang violence.
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