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COULD THIS GET UGLY? Ezra has been worrying about the turn towards nativism that's been going on since last summer. He sees a "retreat to enforcement-only strategies and xenophobic local policies." He also notes that immigrants themselves are saving more in anticipation of an even uglier backlash.I think the new census estimate out today should be cause for even more concern. The fear of a "white minority" is a pervasive and deeply-held emotion among many Americans -- proving once again the uncanny prescience of seminal California hardcore band Black Flag. The Times summarizes the Census Bureau's findings:
In a further sign of the United States' growing diversity, nonwhites now make up a majority in almost one-third of the most-populous counties in the country and in nearly one in 10 of all 3,100 counties, according to an analysis of census results to be released today.The shift reflects the growing dispersal of immigrants and the suburbanization of blacks and Hispanics pursuing jobs generated by whites moving to the fringes of metropolitan areas.That suburbanization may be one major cause for the visceral anger the immigration bill generated. Now that immigrants are moving to the suburbs -- where the white America of the suburbs lives -- Robert Putnam's latest findings on the "downside of diversity" will become ever more relevant. We'll likely see more xenophobic measures that might be funny if only they weren't so mean-spirited and short-sighted, like those of Virginia's Culpeper County:
Culpeper County does not have foreign-language interpreters, and it does not print its documents in Spanish, but let there be no doubt: English is now its official language.That's the message lawmakers wanted to send this week, voting unanimously on resolutions to affirm the county's English-speaking primacy and to join a growing coalition of Virginia jurisdictions asking the General Assembly for help in cracking down on illegal immigrants.This at a time when there are record waiting lists nationwide for ESL classes.--Matt Sledge
