Please don’t eat the microphone!
I headed over to Pinkberry today, at the City Place, to pick up some frozen yogurt. All of a sudden I saw Phil “Count Chocula” stroll by – and a minute later Thomas Gordon followed suit. They went into the Geisha House, full of smirks as I imagine they were celebrating the passage of the Usual Suspect’s graffiti ordinance by the lame Santa Ana City Council.
Hardly anyone showed up for the City Council meeting. I watched a bit of it online. Some old guy from Morrison Park showed up to speak – then it was Thomas’ turn.
Thomas dressed up for the meeting, which had to be a first. He usually rolls around in shorts and a t-shirt, as seen in the picture below.
It has been a good year for the Usual Suspects. They defeated Michele Martinez and reelected their boy Pulido, and Bacerra got his bicycle racks. Now Gordon got his graffiti ordinance. What next? Perhaps Pulido will buy that house on French St. for Debbie McEwen?
In return, no one stood up against Pulido as he and his Council cronies gave $6 million to George Pla and his Cordoba Corp. – to fund the Pulido light rail to Garden Grove.
The oldest Usual Suspect?
No wonder Santa Ana is such a damn mess! But tonight the Usual Suspects were celebrating. They appear to be in full control of our City Council.
It is amazing and sad that a small group of haters could tell the all Latino Santa Ana City Council what to do…
No one showed up to see Thomas Gordon in all his glory.
So has Count Chocula AKA Phil Becerra the unemployed Planner been reduced to only having Thomas A Gordon or TAG to hang out with?
Does this mean we can call them and Thomas’ campaign the TAG Team of Commissioner Gordon and Count Chocula? Do they wear capes when the meet at Phils Moms house in the fort he built out back?
A American success story, where citizens fed up with bureaucratic administrative failures get together and try to solve problems by rewriting a city ordnance.
And it didn’t even take a 2 year contract @4 million plus to an outsider to come up with the study.
Seems to me that Gordon and the usual suspects should receive an award of saving the taxpayers millions of dollars in the cost of another study.
This ordinance doesn’t mean squat. Good luck in receiving restitution from the parents of the taggers; most of them are under paid or unemployed living off of UI/AFDC/TANF and or Cal Optima. Good luck in catching the taggers also; the majority of the SA residents don’t even want to get involved for their fear of retalliation. How do I know? I see it at least twice a week where I live. I’ve called SAPD on certain occasions when the tagging has occurred and they have shown up 2 hours later after the fact. Why bother?
This city is following in the footsteps of San Bernardino and Oakland…
Does this mean I can place a lien against Phil Bacerra’s mother’s house until he pays me back for all those drinks he has mooched?
Good for you guy’s, keep up the good work!
Santa Ana Parents, “Welcome to America”. 🙂
Art,
Sorry, I think LATINO’S (or shall i say, Mexican’s, “dont want to offend”.) have did enough to screw up the city. Americans are just trying to fix it! (this encludes Latino-American’s)
It is amazing and sad that a small group of haters could tell the all Latino Santa Ana City Council what to do…
What you mean’t, was white Americans! Ahhh Art, “The Ugly face of racism”.
Maybe your Latino Santa Ana city council, considers themselves American’s first. And have had enough of watching a beautiful city, go down the tubes, listening to LATINO”S like yourself!
SO Again, I would love to buy you all a beer, for throwing the political correctness shite, out the window!
Big Cheers”)
Michelle,
For someone who does not live in Santa Ana you sure seem to concern yourself with our city.
You spend a lot of time on a “Santa Ana-centric” blog as well.
So tell us where exactly do you live? Is your city so free of problems that you can worry about ours?
NO, your problems are spilling into mine!
I just can’t stand political hacks like yourself, who will say and do anything to get re-elected, even at the expense of the safty and the prosperity of your so called city!
You may think its, “your city”, but, “your city”, is in my country! and if my country continues to let cities like yours, become gang infested, crime holes, this country will be no more!
Yeah so i do have an interest, MR.MILLS!
cheeky shite:)
by the way, politics is my hobby!
Mr. Mills,
By the way, get to work! I am not paying you to blog!
See, Art, even white people, can tell white people what to do:)
Really Michelle?
Give an example of a problem in your city that is a direct result of Santa Ana.
I know you are quick to throw generalities out the without any qualifiers, but please do provide us with some facts to quantify your latest pontification.
Please share with the readers. Again, what city do you live in? Why you ducking the question?
Are you a citizen of the USA? Are you registered to vote?
Please share.
Michelle,
You don’t pay my salary.
It’s not as if I work for the LAUSD and blog at work.
Give an example of a problem in your city that is a direct result of Santa Ana.
Santa Ana, has always been the hub of Illegal Aliens from Mexico into Orange County, with that came drugs,crime, gangs and decaying schools, it was bound to spread out and it has, Anaheim,Orange,ect..all surrounding cities,have been the direct victim’s of Santa Ana’s Sanctuary City Policies. Costa Mesa, has the only city official that has the “right Stuff”, to do anything about it.
Just common sense, no need for a master degree,
or a foot long study!
Please share with the readers. Again, what city do you live in?
Here’s a clue, “i call it the little Alabama of Orange County”.
Are you a citizen of the USA? Are you registered to vote?
And yes, did i not say, “this is my country”, i don’t think i said “my planet”.
and no i will not vote for you!
I only vote for Irish people:)
You don’t pay my salary.
Your right, you can’t really trace the taxpayer money trail, just as you can’t trace the illegal immigrant trail. Too much money going into Santa Ana, and not much good coming out of it!
It would not look good for your city to have solid facts, iike satistics,records on just how many illegal immigrants are in the city and just how many is flowing into other cities.
Governments even local Governments don’t want to look bad, right!
Michelle,
Let me remind you that immigration is a federal issue. Santa Ana is not responsible for immigration issues.
So those problems are the result of the federal government and not Santa Ana.
For the record we are not a sanctuary city.
You would be hard pressed to get an official count as to the number of undocumented immigrants residing in any city, even Costa Mesa.
So why won’t you share with the Juice readers the city in which you reside?
Are you afraid that this persona you’ve tried to create will be found out to be a fraud?
Do tell Michelle.
Let me remind you that immigration is a federal issue. Santa Ana is not responsible for immigration issues.
O please, save the bull, your city has neutered your police force, as far a immigration enforcement is concerned. And your city and surrounding cities are paying a heavy price for it.
It is Mexico, in California, a large gang activity,crime,teen pregnancy rate, off the charts, and schools that are failing. Your city enforces nothing but nonsense!
Do you really think, having a wee gang force will do anything to stop the increase in gang activity?? You have a third world people residing in your city, that still thinks they are in Mexico. I don’t mind people keeping their cultural roots, but Santa Ana is a sub-culture of Mexicans living and being encourged to live like they would, if they were living in Mexico!
Except they get more benifits and rights here than they would in their own country, thanks to the Amercian taxpayer.
For the record we are not a sanctuary city.
“Sure your not”.
You would be hard pressed to get an official count as to the number of undocumented immigrants residing in any city, even Costa Mesa.
Really, I’m surprised!
So why won’t you share with the Juice readers the city in which you reside?
I won’t tell you, because i’m 120, while you look, lets just say “pleasently Blump”. I have a big month, not big muscles:)
Are you afraid that this persona you’ve tried to create will be found out to be a fraud?
No my persona, is just as you see it!
I don’t really get the city connection to my personality??
When the City of Santa Ana starts getting tough on welfare losers, and brats, then you might be able to pull your city out of the shite heep!
I may be hard on the hispanic’s, but again i have not given up hope that maybe common sense will prevail, and the ridiculous “LATINO RIGHT”S CRAP”, will go into the ground where it belongs! Santa Ana city of latino’s, will start calling itself Santa Ana, city of Americans!
Your city and its policies are doomed to fail, in this country. And its people, will continue to be a sub-culture of the poor!
Sorry Sean, it doesn’t matter what city Michelle lives in…US citizens are tired of the pity party for illegals. Stop trying to “spin” away from the subject.
Oh Silly Sean,
Oh Silly Art,
Michelle is the same tacky chick with no class that said she works at Mothers’ and hates the flies at Price Savers–oh and the crying babies—yes the same one that Doc Lomeli lectured in an attempt to educate. This Michelle was being hateful to the ppl that shop at Price Savers and someone told her-“you sound like an English Woman—she then said– ” I am Latina and hold two jobs…etc, Michelle was upset because Art said it seemed that Mothers may have slow business or something to that effect.
On that same day, Michelle Quinn was born!
Sean is right she is not real. We are dealing with a sicko who needs to feel accepted so she now speaks ill of Mexican immigrants-in an attempt to have some support by local haters.
Michelle dislikes all that is positive in life-
she has put down teachers, students, mexicans, etc.
Here is a better club for sick Michelle:
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/a-clockwork-orange/oc-inland-empire-haters-racist/
Michelle is the same tacky chick with no class that said she works at Mothers’ and hates the flies at Price Savers–oh and the crying babies—yes the same one that Doc Lomeli lectured in an attempt to educate. This Michelle was being hateful to the ppl that shop at Price Savers and someone told her-”you sound like an English Woman—she then said– ” I am Latina and hold two jobs…etc, Michelle was upset because Art said it seemed that Mothers may have slow business or
something to that effect.
On that same day, Michelle Quinn was born!
Were did heck is this price saver’s it sounds
brillant:)
you sound like an English Woman.
No i sound Irish, I’m from Belfast, look it up, if you have one of those things, called a “world map”!
Doc Lomeli lectured in an attempt to educate.
Ahh Doc, did ya lie to me, or did ya harrass and belittle a girl, who gave her opinion??
Michelle dislikes all that is positive in life-
she has put down teachers, students, mexicans, etc
O such positives, teacher’s with a national grade of D+ that are paid the highest in the nation, schools that are all failures in one local district, a city that has been allowed to fail because not being called a hater is more important than the prosperity and safety of the people that live in it!
The other Michelle and i Do have something in common, i did work at mother’s, i was fired, because i was not hippy enough:)
And i love crying babies, i have three!
Sean is right she is not real. We are dealing with a sicko who needs to feel accepted so she now speaks ill of Mexican immigrants-in an attempt to have some support by local haters.
I’m real enough, too get your knickers in a twist!
And i don’t speak ill of Mexicans immigrants, i do think illegal Aliens from Mexico, has not been such a steller positive to california. If you import the poor, who the heck is going to pay for them and who is going to end up looking after their kids, “the American Taxpayer”.
Its simple, so let me spell it out: The poor from Mexico is living in large groups in santa ana, they dont have work permitts, so they can’t get a decent job. So now you have a hugh amount of people that need welfare, so what happen’s, the local government becomes the Daddy, ie. Lots of single mother’s in Santa Ana, and unweb mothers. What happen’s as a satistic, single mother’s = kids getting into gangs= crime, TAGGERS, drugs.
This is not about race, i have no problem with the cubans ect.. This is about Mexico, giving its people a map and a bottle of water to cross over into another nation, so they don’t have the resonsibility of educating and producing a positive work environment, this is about a culture of people that has come to this country, and have become a sub-culture riddled with crime welfare use and dropouts. And have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the country.
Unless people are willing to voice the truth and question the problem’s, then all of us will go down the tubes, race will not matter!
Here is a better club for sick Michelle
I have one for you too: http://WWW.loveyoutoo.com
🙂
Michelle was being hateful to the ppl that shop at Price Savers and someone told her-”you sound like an English Woman—she then said– ” I am Latina and hold two jobs…etc, Michelle was upset because Art said it seemed that Mothers may have slow business or something to that effect.
I did not catch the part were see said she was Latina, she must have been cuban. Cubans don’t seam to be too fond of Mexican’s. Though i have never really seen many flys around Mexican’s and their babies don’t seam to cry any more than mine!
Get a grip!
And in an attempt to teach Santa Ana student’s the you can try to be better, when your not that great at something, “Here it goes”,
Brillant=Brilliant
were did heck= Where the heck.
I know i missed a few, but least i made an attempt to correct myself!
Hey Michelle,
Cubans jump to the front of the immigration line with the wet foot/dry foot policy.
Do you support that?
You probably like Cubans because of the ones that come here are “white” and not of color.
I think Art, already explained that Mexicans, come in white too. And being in Mexico a few time’s i pretty much got that one!
“You spin me right round baby right round like a record player”,
ok, Im off to take a nice evening strole, with my poodle in down town Santa Ana:)
Michelle,
I noticed you completely ignored the part about the Cubans jumping to the front of the line with the wet foot/dry foot policy.
Are you good with the inequities in the immigration policy when it comes to Cuban immigrants?
You claim to be about fairness, how can you justify the unequal advantage Cubans are given?
You can’t justify it, nor do you want to.
The immigration policies are as fraudulent as “Michelle Quinn”. The gig is up and people can now see that you are a racist fraud hiding behind a false persona in order to spew venom in anonymity.
I noticed you completely ignored the part about the Cubans jumping to the front of the line with the wet foot/dry foot policy.
If it was Cubans in Santa Ana, i would have a problem with them too. And the Cuban Government does not give it’s people a map and a bottle of water!
lets focus on Santa Ana and California, Shall we!
The immigration policies are as fraudulent as “Michelle Quinn”.
Immigration policies are set in place for a reason, and i think a good example of Immigration policies that are neglected is “Santa Ana”. Lovely city!
The gig is up and people can now see that you are a racist fraud hiding behind a false persona in order to spew venom in anonymity.
The only gig that is up, is Americans being told, they are racist, because they don’t want to hand out their hard earned money to Mexico’s deported poor, or allowing American schools to become Schools that teach English, instead of schools that teach Educational basic’s.
The gig is up for corps, non-profits,local governments to cash in, on the illegal immigrant gravy train. And your gig is up as being Mr. Mill,the Latina’s strong arm!
Growup big boy, and start caring about and listening to the concerns of your own people, they are called “AMERICANS”.
And if you have not noticed, “they come in all colours”!
Step out of Santa Ana, ya might meet some! (just a wee dig):)
Hey FRAUD,
You brought up Cubans so why won’t you discuss the inequities of the wet foot/dry foot immigration policy?
It is OK in you disturbed mind for Cubans to jump to the front of the line, but not Mexicans.
This clearly demonstrates your bigotry.
“Michelle Quinn” is a FRAUD! And you, whatever your real name is, are a bigot.
It is OK in you disturbed mind for Cubans to jump to the front of the line, but not Mexicans.
This clearly demonstrates your bigotry.
I like people that row boats, not walk over mountains, maybe its because i crossed the water??
signing off. Mark Smith:)
The FRAUD’s bigotry against Mexican’s won’t allow him/her or it to admit that the wet foot/dry foot immigration policy for Cubans is unfair and unequal.
Highly educated, high-brow left leaning socialist and right wing fascists, both those types who believe in a single payer, one world order systems to exert dominion over all they see.
Those high-brows are the ones responsible for the messed up laws and regulations that has created the systems/problem of: (insert complaint here)
It is so easy to blame a Mexican or an unwed mother, as Michelle Quinn does or to stand on the backs of the same as trash, as Sean H. Mill does.
Both of your complaints can be solved by each of you funding the groups providing citizenship classes and parenting classes, and others similar groups.
It’s obvious if you speak out here about “illegals” you are a racist.
#28,
“It’s obvious if you speak out here about “illegals” you are a racist.”
Where did you read this here?
Illegal Immigration reform based on objectivity we all agree with.
Blaming, without facts, everything wrong with the country on illegals as a bigot – racist agenda is another thing.
oh puleeez, it doesn’t have to be spelled out. I agree that not all the ailments of society can be blamed on illegals, but the minute you bring something up that may be an a result of illegals, you are chastised here as being a racist.
that the wet foot/dry foot immigration policy for Cubans is unfair and unequal.
Are they having the same problems in florida, as we are having here in California??? if so yes it unequal justice for Americas to be going through the same shite as we are???
Where did you read this here?
HI Doc!
You just need to go back to any post that some even dares mention the word “illegal”. But of course your only sticking up for your relatives right Doc?? just kidding:)
Doc, you must tell me about what happened when you lectured some girl called michelle who sounded English, but stated she was Mexican, did you not say this was untrue. Because i got another posted from one of your friends stating that it did happen and they think i am her???
Blaming, without facts, everything wrong with the country on illegals as a bigot – racist agenda is another thing.
Yeah you see it as an racist,bigot agenda, not Americans concerned about their schools, decaying cities and increased gang,crime. O yeah and the big one WELFARE!
Anyway we are not talking about the rest of the country, just Santa Ana, its a prime spot for what happens when you allow illegal immigrants to take over an American city. One population, race of people that produces dropouts, single mothers,massive welfare use,gangs,crime and becomes a sub-culure, using American resources.
California buget crisis, is a good thing, it allows people in california to take a good look and see where all the money is going to.
Welfare,prisions,schools!
Common denomintor is: Are Latino imports!
Spin it what ever way you want, look at the satistic’s of welfare users, prisoners, and failing money pit schools!
The FRAUD clearly hates all those of Mexican decent. He/she/it has no way of knowing someone’s immigration status but simply labels them “illegal” based soley on the color of their skin or language that they speak.
He/she/it has clearly stated their disdain for “Mexicans” and in their mind a “Mexican” is someone with brown skin who speaks Spanish.
He/she/it is a bigot thru and thru.
Run along FRAUD and email your hate to “junior” and “the great one”. They seem to appreciate your narrowmindedness.
I love that you can not believe that i am just a Irish girl,taking you on. You obviously have practice being a brat. I suppose you have had to defend yourself with all the arsh kissing you h
Run along FRAUD and email your hate to “junior” and “the great one”. They seem to appreciate your narrowmindedness.
You would love me to “get lost”. I will voice my concerns about you Gang infested city all i want.
And i know you being from Mexico, you might not know that in this country its call “Freedom of Speech”,
He/she/it has clearly stated their disdain for “Mexicans” and in their mind a “Mexican” is someone with brown skin who speaks Spanish.
No Again you silly monkey, Mexican’s come in very dark,light brown and white. And My friend is from Spain and she speaks Spanish! But you have clearly demonstarted your distain for me, but that is ok i don’t think we could ever be best friends, You clearly have a problem with the truth!
When are Santa Ana officials going to wake up and smell the coffee? As gang murders skyrocket toward record numbers, our city fathers and mothers are up at City Hall worrying about Santa Ana’s image.
Before they go to work on the image, they should concern themselves with providing a safe living environment for all citizens, from the elderly to the young, from “choirboys” to “homeboys.”
The problem is that our leadership, the city manager and the majority of the City Council, are out of touch with the majority of the people here, and don’t really understand what is behind the gang problem, nor do they really care.
Traffic issues in north Santa Ana are priorities, while the shootings, killings and senseless violence in our barrios are put on the back burner. If Santa Ana wants to clean up its image and put a dent in the gang problem, it must first create an environment of economic opportunity and equality. The leadership must stop the overregulation and taxation of our businesses, and work to bring businesses in, not chase them away to neighboring cities. Finally, they should focus on where the problems are, not just the votes.
SEAN H. MILL
Santa Ana
Maybe its because you will call them a racist and a bigot and ignorant, and smelly, redneck,cracker,American ect….. DO YA THINK!
Some people are just so sensitive:)
Hi Michele,
“Anyway we are not talking about the rest of the country, just Santa Ana, its a prime spot for what happens when you allow illegal immigrants to take over an American city. One population, race of people that produces dropouts, single mothers,massive welfare use,gangs,crime and becomes a sub-culure, using American resources.”
So,you base your argument of illegals on:
-The bad social/economic management of Santa Ana with its’ associated social ills?
You ignore the fact that there are many other cities with the same or similar demographics witout your list of problems. Why do you think that is?
I believe that the third world appearance of some Santa Ana neighborhoods is produced by design for economic and political manipulation.
It gives bigots like you a refernce in the blame on illegals.
The problem is management not the population. Look at Anaheim. It has nowhere the problem Santa Ana does.
As a country the question of illigal immigrants causing economic stress on taxpayers is not true. Your position on illegal immigrants is bigot-racist in nature because your argument attributing problems on them is false. Research shows your position to be false.
I have shown this to you and the readers previuosly. You ignore this and use Santa Ana with the bad management to erroneously present your bigoted opinion.
Illegal Immigration reform based on objectivity we all agree with.
Blaming, without facts, everything wrong with the country on illegals as a bigot – racist agenda is another thing.
You use isolated poor ill managed neighborhoods in Santa Ana to say :
” One population, race of people that produces dropouts, single mothers,massive welfare use,gangs,crime and becomes a sub-culure, using American resources.”
You are a racist pig.
Dropouts, single mothers, massive welfare, gangs and crime are in every community. It is not a genetic trait of Mexican illegals.
Hi Doc,
I’m getting to the point were it is useless to read your reply posts. The only Raicst Pig doctor, looks at you every morning. You are a bullie, rude,aggressive and a disgrace to your profession.
I am hoping your just having a bad night or had a fight with your wife!
A people make’s the country and a people make the city.
You can make all the excuses you want for the residents of Santa Ana. The truth is that Santa Ana reflects the culture of Mexico (third world countries as a whole) gangs, drugs,kids having kids, and a lack of priority in education.
just as the unions, Santa Ana residents need to get rid of fools like yourself and Mr.Mills to make way for people of courage that will tackel the cultural problems that exists in the Largest hispanic city in Orange County instead of breeding the same old shit of Victimization.
No Government can fix the ills of a society without the support of the Society itself. Your Mayor and the city countcil i believe is trying, but look what they are up against “angry, racially charged,racially motivated, thugs”.
So remember Doctor, i never got to go to college in my country because i was catholic, i lost my father because he was catholic, you on the other hand went to college based on your race.
If only my parents had of been Mexican, and came here to this country not only would my dad be alive, with the drive that i have and self reliance, i would have been a Doctor too, except i would not have needed affirmative Action to do it!
As a country the question of illigal immigrants causing economic stress on taxpayers is not true. Your position on illegal immigrants is bigot-racist in nature because your argument attributing problems on them is false. Research shows your position to be false.
And i have said over and over again that in Orange County itself 95% of the welfare,ect.. calworks,wic,Caloptima,Healthy Families, MSI, you name it Billions of Dollars, this does not enclude the millions in QEIA grants to Hispanic only schools. This reflects the 30% welfare use in Calfornia. Americans cannot continue to pay for Mexicos poor, because they are afraid of silly names like bigot, racist. Americans have lost their local schools, neighborhoods and freedom of walking down their neighborhood, because of a culture of people that have basically over ran the system.
The basic facts and just want people are seeing around them don’t lie.
The problem is management not the population. Look at Anaheim. It has nowhere the problem Santa Ana does.
Anaheim is now seeing the trend of Santa Ana, failing schools, teen age pregnancy,crime, gangs, all the cities that surround Santa Ana, including Orange is starting to see an increase in all the above. And if you say this is not true, you are lying.
So until we can get thugs like yourself Doctor out of the way, Santa Ana, and all the other cities around it will only get worst!
Iike your friend Mr.Mills stated, “wakeup and smell the coffee”!
And again Doctor who is Michelle that you Tried to “Lecuture”, about “SAVE-ON FLIES AND CRYING BABIES” Wow with the way you write back to me, i can only Guess, your attitude toward her. But again i am not kid and i have lived around people like yourself most of my young life and it has given me a thickskin when it comes to thugs!
Learn to be more like Art P, passionate toward his cause without the haterd!
This is very important to read and to open your mind and read it objectively!
The Immigrant Gang Plague
Heather Mac Donald EMAIL
RESPOND
PRINT
SHARE
Before immigration optimists issue another rosy prognosis for America’s multicultural future, they might visit Belmont High School in Los Angeles’s overwhelmingly Hispanic, gang-ridden Rampart district. “Upward and onward” is not a phrase that comes to mind when speaking to the first- and second-generation immigrant teens milling around the school this January.
“Most of the people I used to hang out with when I first came to the school have dropped out,” observes Jackie, a vivacious illegal alien from Guatemala. “Others got kicked out or got into drugs. Five graduated, and four home girls got pregnant.”
Certainly, none of the older teens I met outside Belmont was on track to graduate. Jackie herself flunked ninth grade (“I used to ditch a lot,” she explains) and never caught up. She is now pursuing a General Equivalency Diploma—a watered-down certificate for dropouts or expelled students—in the school’s “adult” division. Vanessa, who sports a tiny horseshoe protruding from her nostrils, is applying to the adult division, too, having been kicked out of Belmont at age 18. “I didn’t come to school very often,” says this American-born child of illegal aliens from El Salvador. Her boyfriend, Albert, a dashing 19-year-old with long, slicked-back hair, got expelled for truancy but has talked his way back into the regular high school. “I have good manipulative skills,” he smiles. After a robbery conviction, Albert was put on probation but broke every rule in the book: “Curfews, grades, attendance, missed court days,” he boasts. “But they still let me off the hook.”
These Belmont teens are no aberration. Hispanic youths, whether recent arrivals or birthright American citizens, are developing an underclass culture. (By “Hispanic” here, I mean the population originating in Latin America—above all, in Mexico—as distinct from America’s much smaller Puerto Rican and Dominican communities of Caribbean descent, which have themselves long shown elevated crime and welfare rates.) Hispanic school dropout rates and teen birthrates are now the highest in the nation. Gang crime is exploding nationally—rising 50 percent from 1999 to 2002—driven by the march of Hispanic immigration east and north across the country. Most worrisome, underclass indicators like crime and single parenthood do not improve over successive generations of Hispanics—they worsen.
Debate has recently heated up over whether Mexican immigration—unique in its scale and in other important ways—will defeat the American tradition of assimilation. The rise of underclass behavior among the progeny of Mexicans and other Central Americans must be part of that debate. There may be assimilation going on, but a significant portion of it is assimilation downward to the worst elements of American life. To be sure, most Hispanics are hardworking, law-abiding residents; they have reclaimed squalid neighborhoods in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere. Among the dozens of Hispanic youths I interviewed, several expressed gratitude for the United States, a sentiment that would be hard to find among the ordinary run of teenagers. But given the magnitude of present immigration levels, if only a portion of those from south of the border goes bad, the costs to society will be enormous.
The Soledad Enrichment Action Charter School in South Central Los Angeles is at the vortex of L.A.’s gang culture. Next door to a rose-colored, angel-bedecked church, the boxy school glowers behind barred gates like those that surround prisons. Soledad’s students, about half blacks and half Hispanics, have been kicked out of other schools. They have brought violence with them. In early March, a gunman opened fire on 20 students entering the school at 7:30 am, wounding two. Tensions were high again as school let out one day this April. A boy had been sent home earlier for fighting; the question now was, would he return to retaliate? The school’s probation officer radioed the LAPD’s 77th Division to plead for some officers to keep watch, without success. As the students, dressed in plain white T-shirts, filed out to the sidewalk, two burly security guards and a gang counselor warily eyed the street.
Asked about gangs, the teens proudly reel off their affiliations: SOK (Still Out Killing); HTO (Hispanics Taking Over); JMC (Just Mobbing Crazy). A cocky American-born child of Salvadoran parents says that most of his peers from the eighth grade are “locked up or dead.” “Four are dead—three were shot, one was run over.” Were you just lucky? I ask. “They were gangbanging more than me,” says the 17-year-old, who won’t give his name. “I try to control myself, respect my parents.” That respect only goes so far. Asked if he’s been in jail, he swaggers: “Yup, for GTA”—grand theft auto. And he has no intention of leaving his gang: “They’re the homeys, part of the family.”
Eighteen-year-old Eric, born here to an illegal Mexican and Guatemalan, is one of the few students I talked to who doesn’t gangbang, though he is on probation for second-degree robbery, his second conviction. Half his friends from elementary school are involved in crime, he says. Of course, gang problems in Los Angeles schools are hardly confined to academies for delinquents like Soledad. Gang fights in some of L.A.’s regular high schools draw such crowds that youthful pickpockets have a field day working the spectators and participants. “People would steal your pagers and cell phones,” reports one student who has bounced through several schools.
David O’Connell, pastor of the church next door to Soledad, has been fighting L.A.’s gang culture for over a decade. He rues the “ferocious stuff” that is currently coming out of Central America, sounding weary and pessimistic. But “what’s more frightening,” he says, “is the disengagement from adults.” Hispanic children feel that they have to deal with problems themselves, apart from their parents, according to O’Connell, and they “do so in violent ways.” The adults, for their part, start to fear young people, including their own children.
The pull to a culture of violence among Hispanic children begins earlier and earlier, O’Connell says. Researchers and youth workers across the country confirm his observation. In Chicago, gangs start recruiting kids at age nine, according to criminologists studying policing and social trends in the Windy City. The Chicago Community Policing Evaluation Consortium concluded that gangs have become fully integrated into Hispanic youth culture; even children not in gangs emulate their attitudes, dress, and self-presentation. The result is a community in thrall. Non-affiliated children fear traveling into unknown neighborhoods and sometimes drop out of school for lack of protection. Adults are just as scared. They may know who has been spray-painting their garage, for example, but won’t tell the police for fear that their car will be torched in retaliation. “It’s like we’re in our own little jails that we can’t leave,” said a resident. “There isn’t an uninfested place nearby.”
Washington, D.C., reports the same “ever-younger” phenomenon. “Recruitment is starting early in middle school,” says Lori Kaplan, head of D.C.’s Latin American Youth Center. With early recruitment comes a high school dropout rate of 50 percent. “Gang culture is gaining more recruits than our ability to get kids out,” Kaplan laments. “We can get this kid out, but two or three will take his place.” In May, an 18-year-old member of the Salvadoran Mara Salvatrucha gang used a machete to chop off four left fingers and nearly sever the right hand of a 16-year-old South Side Locos rival in the Washington suburbs.
Ernesto Vega, a 19-year-old Mexican illegal who grew up in New York City, estimates that most 12- to 14-year-old Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in New York are in gangs for protection. “If you’re Mexican, you can’t go to parties by yourself,” he says. “People will ask, ‘Who you down with? Que barrio?’ They be checkin’ you out. But if it’s 20 of you, and 20 of them, then it’s OK.”
For some children, the choice is: get beat up once a week, or get beat up once to enter the gang. Others join for the prestige and sense of belonging. Mario Flores was one of them; he joined Santa Ana, California’s, Westside Compadres. “When I was 13, I was like, ‘Wow.’ I wanted them to jump me,” he says in the soft near-whisper of the cool. “They’re like, ‘You want to get down?’ They got to jumping at you, they go to call you, ‘Trips from Westside Comps’—you feel good.”
Flores (or “Trips”) is a depressing specimen of gang culture: uneducated and barely articulate. He’s sitting on the other side of a Plexiglas window in the Santa Ana Central Jail, talking to me over a phone. In and out of jail with dazzling regularity over the last three years, he most recently left prison on April 14; on April 21, he was arrested again on a rape charge. Born in Portland, Oregon, but raised in Mexico, Flores went to live with cousins in San Bernardino, California, at age 13 and has been traveling the Southern California gang circuit—Riverside County, Santa Ana, East L.A.—ever since. Now 20, he is slender and finely chiseled. Gang hand gestures accompany his speech like hieroglyphics. “When I saw gang members,” he says, pointing first to his eyes, then outward, “they’re like, ‘Are you down with my shit?’ ‘I’m down!’ ” I ask if he speaks English or Spanish with his gang. “You speak Chicano,” he says. “ ‘Hey, homey!’ You mostly talk English, you’ve got some good words. But the way you talk, you don’t talk good. You don’t talk like other people.”
Flores expresses the fierce attachment to territory that is the sine qua non of gang identity. “I was like, ‘I love my neighborhood. If you don’t love my neighborhood, I’m going to fuck you up.’ ” Charles Beck, captain of the LAPD’s Rampart Division, marvels at this emotion. “They all come from identical neighborhoods, identical families, and go to identical schools, and yet they hate each other with a passion.” The territorial instincts can only be compared to the Balkans, says Corporal Kevin Ruiz, a Santa Ana gang investigator. “There’s people who all they do is patrol gang boundaries. They’re like me, in a way: I’m looking for bad guys; they look for rivals.”
“Trips” showed his love for Santa Ana’s Westside Compadres by doing “missions”—robbing bars, stealing wallets and cell phones, selling drugs—to raise money for the gang. “If a big homey told me to fuck someone up, I had to,” he explains. The gang reciprocated by giving him a place to stay—when he was bringing in cash. Otherwise he lived in cars or on the street, sometimes in a hotel.
The chance that Flores will ever become a productive member of society is slight. Routinely kicked out of high school for fighting, he lacks rudimentary skills. Like many prisoners, he claims to be reading the Bible and thanking Jesus, but such prison conversions rarely last. His personal life is troubled: “My lady, she mad at me”—not surprisingly, given his most recent rape charge—and Flores is not certain she will be waiting for him when he gets out of jail. Most likely, Flores will continue contributing to the Hispanicization of prisons in California: in 1970, Hispanics were 12 percent of the state’s population and 16 percent of new prison admits; by 1998, they were 30 percent of the California population, and 42 percent of new admits.
Even as it reaches down to ever-younger recruits, gang culture is growing more lethal. In April, 16-year-old Valentino Arenas drove up to a courthouse in Pomona, California, and shot to death a randomly chosen California Highway Patrol officer, in the hope of gaining entry to Pomona’s 12th Street Gang. The assassination wouldn’t surprise Dennis Farrell, a Nassau County, New York, homicide detective. “We’re amazed at the openness of shootings,” he says. “When we do cases with Hispanic gangs, we often get full statements of admission, almost like they don’t see what’s the big deal.”
The unwritten code that moderated gang violence three or four decades ago has now fallen away. “When I grew up,” says Santa Ana native and gang investigator Kevin Ruiz, “there were rules of engagement: no shooting at churches or at home. Now, no one is immune.” One of Ruiz’s colleagues on the Santa Ana police force, Mona Ruiz (no relation), spent her adolescence in Santa Ana gangs; now she tries to get kids out. “Back then,” she says, “if someone got jumped, you responded with fistfights, not guns. Guns started in the 1980s.” Earlier gangbangers even showed a certain fastidiousness of dress: “Guys used to iron their jeans for two hours,” Mona Ruiz recalls. “Then they wouldn’t sit down” to avoid marring the crease. All that changed when heroin hit, she says.
The constant invasion of illegal aliens is worsening gang violence as well. In Phoenix, Arizona, and surrounding Maricopa County, illegal alien gangs, such as Brown Pride and Wetback Power, are growing more volatile and dangerous, according to Tom Bearup, a former sheriff’s department official and current candidate for sheriff. Even in prison, where they clash with American Hispanics, they are creating a more vicious environment.
Upward mobility to the suburbs doesn’t necessarily break the allure of gang culture. An immigration agent reports that in the middle-class suburbs of southwest Miami, second- and third-generation Hispanic youths are perpetrating home invasions, robberies, battery, drug sales, and rape. Kevin Ruiz knows students at the University of California, Irvine who retain their gang connections. Prosecutors in formerly crime-free Ventura County, California, sought an injunction this May against the Colonia Chiques gang after homicides rocketed up; an affidavit supporting the injunction details how Chiques members terrorize the local hospital whenever one of the gang arrives with a gunshot wound. Federal law enforcement officials in Virginia are tracking with alarm the spread of gang violence from Northern Virginia west into the Shenandoah Valley and south toward Charlottesville, a trend so disturbing that they secured federal funds this May to stanch the mayhem. “This is beyond a regional problem. It is, in fact, a national problem,” said FBI assistant director Michael Mason, head of the bureau’s Washington field office.
Open-borders apologists dismiss the Hispanic crime threat by observing that black crime rates are even higher. True, but irrelevant: the black population is not growing, whereas Hispanic immigration is reaching virtually every part of the country, sometimes radically changing local demographics. With a felony arrest rate up to triple that of whites, Hispanics can dramatically raise community crime levels.
Many cops and youth workers blame the increase in gang appeal on the disintegration of the Hispanic family. The trends are worsening, especially for U.S.-born Hispanics. In California, 67 percent of children of U.S.-born Hispanic parents lived in an intact family in 1990; by 1999, that number had dropped to 56 percent. The percentage of Hispanic children living with a single mother in California rose from 18 percent in 1990 to 29 percent in 1999. Nationally, single-parent households constituted 25 percent of all Hispanic households with minor children in 1980; by 2000, the proportion had jumped to 34 percent.
The trends in teen parenthood—the marker of underclass behavior—will almost certainly affect the crime and gang rate. Hispanics now outrank blacks for teen births; Mexican teens have higher birthrates than Puerto Ricans, previously the most “ghettoized” Hispanic subgroup in terms of welfare use and out-of-wedlock child-rearing. In 2002, there were 83.4 births per 1,000 Hispanic females between ages 15 and 19, compared with 66.6 among blacks, 28.5 among non-Hispanic whites, and 18.3 among Asians. Perhaps these young Hispanic mothers are giving birth as wives? Unlikely. In California, where Latina teens have the highest birthrate of teens in any state, 79 percent of teen births to U.S.-born Latinas in 1999 were to unmarried girls.
According to the many young Hispanics I spoke to, more and more girls are getting pregnant. “This year was the worst for pregnancies,” says Liliana, an American-born senior at Manual Arts High School near downtown Los Angeles. “A lot of girls get abortions; some drop out.” Are girls ashamed when they get pregnant? I wonder. “Not at all,” Liliana responds. Among Hispanic teens, at least, if not among their parents, the stigma of single parenthood has vanished. I asked Jackie, the Guatemalan GED student at L.A.’s Belmont High, if her pregnant friends subsequently got married. She guffawed. George, an 18-year-old of Salvadoran background who was kicked out of Manual Arts six months ago for a vicious fight, estimates that most girls at the school are having sex by age 16.
Mexican and Central American immigration to New York City is of much more recent vintage than in California, but young Mexicans in New York have quickly assimilated to underclass sexual behavior. Nineteen-year-old Ernesto Vega reports that his oldest sister dropped out of school at 17 and got pregnant the next year. “I heard her boyfriend came from Mexico to work, but he wasn’t working. He was on the street.” Ernesto says. Then the boyfriend got arrested, probably on drug charges. “He says he was arrested for doing nothing, but they don’t arrest you for doing nothing.”
Ernesto knows three or four Mexican-American girls with babies, including a 16-year-old with two daughters. “Another just got pregnant this year,” he says. “She’s 15.” None is married. None has a GED or will go to college. As for the fathers of their children? “The boys be leaving the girls alone,” Vega says. “The boy goes away.”
Some Hispanic parents valiantly try to impose old-fashioned consequences on teen pregnancies, but they are losing the battle. Vega’s father, a building superintendent and hardware store clerk, angrily told his pregnant daughter, according to Vega: “You gotta go live with [the boyfriend]. I now want nothing to do with you!” The boyfriend offered to take the girl into the apartment he was sharing with a female acquaintance, but she wanted her own place. Eventually, she persuaded her father to take her back, but only on the condition that she work. She now sells Yankee paraphernalia on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx.
Traditional and contemporary family values continued to clash throughout the pregnancy. Although the boyfriend vanished until the birth, he showed up at Vega’s house with his whole family when the girl returned from the hospital with her newborn. “He took his three sisters and his mother; one sister took the nephews.” Vega recalls. The boyfriend’s demand: you have to decide where to live. The girl told him to take a hike. The family delegation, Vega judges, already adapting to American individualist norms, was inappropriate. “The problem was not with the families,” he says, “but between him and her.”
In one respect, Central American immigrants break the mold of traditional American underclass behavior: they work. Even so, Mexican welfare receipt is twice as high as that of natives, in large part because Mexican-American incomes are so low, and remain low over successive generations. Disturbingly, welfare use actually rises between the second and third generation—to 31 percent of all third-generation Mexican-American households. Illegal Hispanics make liberal use of welfare, too, by putting their American-born children on public assistance: in Orange County, California, nearly twice as many Hispanic welfare cases are for children of illegal aliens as for legal families.
More troublingly, some Hispanics combine work with gangbanging. Gang detectives in Long Island’s Suffolk County know when members of the violent Salvadoran MS-13 gang get off work from their lawn-maintenance or pizzeria jobs, and can follow them to their gang meetings. Mexican gang members in rural Pennsylvania, which saw two gang homicides in late April, also often work in landscaping and construction.
On the final component of underclass behavior—school failure—Hispanics are in a class by themselves. No other group drops out in greater numbers. In Los Angeles, only 48 percent of Hispanic ninth-graders graduate, compared with a 56 percent citywide graduation rate and a 70 percent nationwide rate. In 2000, nearly 30 percent of Hispanics between the ages of 16 and 24 were high school dropouts nationwide, compared with about 13 percent of blacks and about 7 percent of whites.
The constant inflow of barely literate recent Mexican arrivals unquestionably brings down Hispanic education levels. But later American-born generations don’t brighten the picture much. While Mexican-Americans make significant education gains between the first and second generation, adding 3.5 years of schooling, progress stalls in the next generation, economists Jeffrey Grogger and Stephen Trejo have found. Third-generation Mexican-Americans remain three times as likely to drop out of high school than whites and one and a half times as likely to drop out as blacks. They complete college at one-third the rate of whites. Mexican-Americans are assimilating not to the national schooling average, observed the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas this June, but to the dramatically lower “Hispanic average.” In educational outcomes, concluded the bank, “Ethnicity matters.”
No one knows why this is so. Every parent I spoke to said that she wanted her children to do well in school and go to college. Yet the message is often not getting across. “Hispanic parents are the kind of parents that leave it to others,” explains an unwed Salvadoran welfare mother in Santa Ana. “We don’t get that involved.” A news director of a Southern California Spanish radio station expresses frustration at the passivity toward education and upward mobility he sees in his own family. “I tried to knock the ‘Spanglish’ accent out of my niece and get rid of that crap,” he says. “But the mother was completely nihilistic about her child. It’s going to take direct action from Americans to Americanize Hispanics.”
Perhaps the answer to the disconnect between stated parental goals and educational outcomes lies in Hispanic culture’s traditional suspicion of education. Santa Ana police officer Mona Ruiz recounts a joke told by comedian George Lopez: “When a white person graduates, people say, ‘You did good.’ When a Mexican graduates, people say, ‘You think you’re better than us.’ ” The lure of an immediate income often proves more compelling than a four- to eight-year investment in self-improvement. New Yorker Ernesto Vega says he knows “Mexicans with papers” who drop out of high school. “They young. They say, ‘I’m going to start working, I don’t need school.’ ” But Vega has no illusions about the consequences: “Even with papers, you’re only making $300 a week as a delivery boy in restaurants, because you don’t know anything else.”
Proponents of unregulated immigration simply ignore the growing underclass problem among later generations of Hispanics, with its attendant gang involvement and teen pregnancy. When pressed, open-borders advocates dismiss worries about the Hispanic future with their favorite comparison between Mexicans and Italians. Popularized by political analyst Michael Barone in The New Americans, the analogy goes like this: a century ago, Italian immigrants anticipated the Mexican influx, above all in their disregard for education. They dropped out of school in high numbers—yet they eventually prospered and joined the mainstream. Therefore, argue Barone and others, Mexicans will, too.
But the analogy is flawed. To begin with, the magnitude of Mexican immigration renders all historical comparisons irrelevant, as Harvard historian Samuel Huntington argues in his latest book, Who Are We?. In 2000, Mexicans constituted nearly 30 percent of the foreign-born population in the U.S.; the next two largest groups were the Chinese (5 percent) and Filipinos (4 percent). By contrast, at the turn of the twentieth century, the largest immigrant group, Germans, made up only 15 percent of the foreign-born population. In 1910, Great Britain, Germany, Ireland, and Italy, in that order, sent the most migrants to the U.S.; Italians made up only 17 percent of the combined total. English-speakers made up over half the new arrivals; there was no chance that Italian would become the dominant language in any part of the country. By contrast, half of today’s immigrants speak Spanish.
Equally important, the flow of newcomers came to an abrupt halt after World War I and did not resume until 1965. This long pause allowed the country ample opportunity to Americanize the foreign-born and their children. Today, no end is in sight to the migration from Mexico and its neighbors, which continually reinforces Mexican culture in American Hispanic communities and seems likely to do so for decades into the future.
Contemporary Hispanic immigration also differs from the classic Ellis Island model in that the ease of cross-border travel and communication allows Mexican and Central American immigrants to keep at least one foot planted in their native land. Meanwhile, the Mexican government does everything it can to bind Mexican migrants psychologically to the home country, in order to safeguard the annual $12 billion flow of remittances. It encourages dual nationality, and Mexicans in the U.S. can now run for office in Mexico. A Yolo County, California, tomato farmer has already been elected mayor of Jerez. Not surprisingly, Mexicans and other Central Americans have the lowest rates of naturalization of all immigrants—less than 30 percent in 1990, compared with two-thirds of qualified immigrants from major European sending countries, the Philippines, and Hong Kong.
Even Mexico’s former foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda, acknowledges the unprecedented character of Hispanic immigration. “Mexican immigration,” he wrote recently, “does have distinctive traits that do make [assimilation] difficult, if not impossible. This is . . . a matter of history.” That “history” holds that the U.S. robbed Mexico of its natural territory in the nineteenth century, as some Mexican immigrants never seem to forget. “It’s kind of scary,” says Santa Ana gang intervention officer Mona Ruiz. “I hear, ‘I was here first; this used to be Mexico. You stole it from us.’ ” Mexican-American Ruiz is herself called a “traitor” for becoming Americanized.
While proponents of the “reconquista” of “Alta California” (as Mexican nationalists call the lost territory) are a small minority of Hispanic immigrants, a much larger proportion hold on to their Hispanic identities. Few of the American-born students I spoke to in Southern California identified themselves as “American.” Many said they were “Mexican,” “Latino,” or “Mexican-American”—usages encouraged by the multicultural dogma in the schools, a far cry from the Americanization efforts of classrooms a century ago.
Michael Barone’s Italian-Mexican comparison also ignores the differences between the U.S. economies of 1904 and 2004. While Italian dropouts in 1904 could make their way into the middle class by working in the booming manufacturing sector or plying their existing craftsman skills, that is far more difficult today, given the decline of factory jobs and the rise of the knowledge-based economy. As the limited education of Mexican-Americans depresses their wages, their sense of being stuck in an economic backwater breeds resentment. “The second generation becomes angry with America, as they see their fathers faltering,” observes Cesar Barrios, an outreach worker for the Tepeyac Association, a social services agency for Mexicans in New York City. This resentment only increases the lure of underclass culture, with its rebellious rejection of conventional norms, according to Barrios. For this reason, he says, many young Mexicans “prefer to imitate blacks than white people.”
The Spanish-language media, which reaches two-thirds of all Hispanics, reinforces the sense of grievance. Stories about America’s cruelties to immigrants and the country’s shocking failure to legalize illegal aliens dominate news coverage. A billboard for Los Angeles’s Spanish newspaper La Opinión conveys the usual tone: “Justice,” “Abuse,” “Deportation,” and other hot-button topics blare out in massive lettering.
Chicago provides a cautionary tale about high levels of Hispanic immigration combined with an ever more powerful underclass ethic. During the 1990s, the Hispanic population in Chicago grew 38 percent, to 754,000, and became increasingly concentrated in the city’s barrios. Education levels and fluency in English dropped lower and lower, while serious crime, social disorder, and physical decay grew in direct proportion to the number of Spanish-speaking Latinos. After a neighborhood became more than 60 percent Latino, physical decay—including graffiti, trash-filled vacant lots, and abandoned cars—jumped disproportionately. By 2001, social pathology among Spanish-speaking Latinos was higher than for any other racial or ethnic group.
There are many counterexamples that show a salutary effect of Hispanic immigration. Santa Ana, California, at 76 percent Latino the most heavily Spanish-speaking city of its size in the country, has cleaned up the seedy bars from its downtown area and replaced them with palm trees and benches, in large part thanks to a newly created business improvement district. Many homes in Santa Ana’s wealthier Mexican neighborhoods sport exuberant roses and bougainvillea in their front yards, and students I spoke to there wanted to become lawyers, architects, and medical technicians. In predominantly Mexican East Los Angeles, housing prices are soaring along with the rest of the Southern California housing market: a 1928 two-bedroom, one-bath bungalow with a lawn gone to seed was listed at $265,000 this April. And in increasingly Hispanic South Central L.A., tiny bodegas selling milk, diapers, and piñatas are replacing liquor stores.
Yet a seemingly innocuous block in Santa Ana can host five to eight households dedicated to gangbanging or drug sales. A front yard may be relatively trash-free; inside the house, a different matter entirely, says Santa Ana cop Kevin Ruiz. “I’ve been to three houses just this week where they made a mountain of trash in the backyard or changed their baby’s diaper by throwing it over the couch. They don’t use the indoor plumbing, while letting their dogs go to the bathroom on the carpet.” Ruiz drives by the modest tract home where his Mexican father, who worked in Orange County’s farming industry, raised him in the 1950s. A car with a shattered windshield, a trailer, and minivan sit in the backyard, surrounded by piles of junk and a mattress leaning on the garage door. “My mom taught us that even if you’re poor, you should be neat,” he says, shaking his head. Fifty-year-old men are still dressing like chollos (Chicano gangsters), Ruiz says, and fathers are ordering barbers to shave their young sons bald in good gang tradition.
Without prompting, Ruiz brings up the million-dollar question: “I don’t see assimilation,” he says. “They want to hold on [to Hispanic culture].” Ruiz thinks that today’s Mexican immigrant is a “totally different kind of person” from the past. Some come with a chip on their shoulder toward the United States, he says, which they blame for the political and economic failure of their home countries. Rather than aggressively seizing the opportunities available to them, especially in education, they have learned to play the victim card, he thinks. Ruiz advocates a much more aggressive approach. “We need to explain, ‘We’ll help you assimilate up to a certain point, but then you have to take advantage of what’s here.’ ”
Ruiz’s observations will strike anyone who has hired eager Mexican and Central American workers as incredible. I pressed him repeatedly, insisting that Americans see Mexican immigrants as cheerful and hardworking, but he was adamant. “We’re creating an underclass,” he maintained.
Immigration optimists, ever ready to trumpet the benefits of today’s immigration wave, have refused to acknowledge its costs. Foremost among them are skyrocketing gang crime and an expanding underclass. Until the country figures out how to reduce these costs, maintaining the current open-borders regime is folly. We should enforce our immigration laws and select immigrants on skills and likely upward mobility, not success in sneaking across the border.
Hispanic gang violence is spreading across the country, the sign of a new underclass in the making.
SEARCH SITE
Advanced Search>>
Search by Topic: ——————————- Advocacy Groups Affirmative Action Architecture Arts & Literature Barriers to Building Bilingual Education Business and Economy Charter Schools Children & Family Compassionate Conservatism Crime Culture and Society Drugs Economic Development Education Energy Environment Ethnicity Faith Based Programs Feminism Foreign Affairs Government Reform Ground Zero Healthcare Higher Education History Homeland Security Homelessness Housing & Redevelopment Immigration Islam Law Enforcement Legal Issues Love & Sex Media Mental Illness Monuments National Politics New York City New York State NYC Economy NYC Politics NYC Schools NYPD NYS Politics Obituaries Other Cities Parks Philanthropy Policing Political Correctness Politics Poverty Prisons Quality of Life Race Race & Ethnicity Race Relations Regulation Religion School Curriculum & Programs School Discipline School Finance & Management School Vouchers Schools & Ethnicity Special Education Subsidized Housing Taxes and Budget Teachers Unions Tech and Environment Technology Telecommunications Terrorism Transportation Underclass Unions Urban Issues War on Terror Welfare WTC
Search by Issue: ——————————- 2009 Summer v19 n3 2009 Spring v19 n2 2009 Winter v19 n1 2008 Autumn v18 n4 2008 Summer v18 n3 2008 Spring v18 n2 2008 Winter v18 n1 2007 Autumn v17 n4 2007 Summer v17 n3 2007 Spring v17 n2 2007 Winter v17 n1 2006 Autumn v16 n4 2006 Summer v16 n3 2006 Spring v16 n2 2006 Winter v16 n1 2005 Autumn v15 n4 2005 Summer v15 n3 2005 Spring v15 n2 2005 Winter v15 n1 2004 Autumn v14 n4 2004 Summer v14 n3 2004 Spring v14 n2 2004 Winter v14 n1 2003 Autumn v13 n4 2003 Summer v13 n3 2003 Spring v13 n2 2003 Winter v13 n1 2002 Autumn v12 n4 2002 Summer v12 n3 2002 Spring v12 n2 2002 Winter v12 n1 2001 Autumn v11 n4 2001 Summer v11 n3 2001 Spring v11 n2 2001 Winter v11 n1 2000 Autumn v10 n4 2000 Summer v10 n3 2000 Spring v10 n2 2000 Winter v10 n1 1999 Autumn v9 n4 1999 Summer v9 n3 1999 Spring v9 n2 1999 Winter v9 n1 1998 Autumn v8 n4 1998 Summer v8 n3 1998 Spring v8 n2 1998 Winter v8 n1 1997 Autumn v7 n4 1997 Summer v7 n3 1997 Spring v7 n2 1997 Winter v7 n1 1996 Autumn v6 n4 1996 Summer v6 n3 1996 Spring v6 n2 1996 Winter v6 n1 1995 Autumn v5 n4 1995 Summer v5 n3 1995 Spring v5 n2 1995 Winter v5 n1 1994 Autumn v4 n4 1994 Summer v4 n3 1994 Spring v4 n2 1994 Winter v4 n1 1993 Autumn v3 n4 1993 Summer v3 n3 1993 Spring v3 n2 1993 Winter v3 n1 1992 Autumn v2 n4 1992 Summer v2 n3 1992 Spring v2 n2 1992 Winter v2 n1 1991 Autumn v1 n5 1991 Summer v1 n4 1991 Spring v1 n3 1991 Winter v1 n2 1990 Autumn v1 n1
Search by Author: ——————————- Abraham, Spencer Ackerman, Ray Adam, Robert Allen, Brooke Allen, Charlotte Anderson, Brian C. Andrews, William Anemone, Louis Antongiavanni, Nicholas Arkin, Marc Atamian, Christopher Austin, D. Andrew Avlon, John P. Badillo, Herman Barbash, Shepard Barnes, John A. Bawer, Bruce Begun, Martin Bender, Bruce Bendiner, Robert Beran, Michael Knox Berger, Stephen Berlinski, Claire Bertsch, Jason Beston, Paul Betanzos, Amalia Bidinotto, Robert James Biederman, Daniel Biller, Aaron Billet, David Blohm, Marilyn Boot, Max Bork, Charles Bovard, James Boyle, Brendan Boyles, Denis Bratton, William J. Brooke-Hitchins, Harley Brookhiser, Richard Brooks, Arthur C. Brooks, David Brunie, Charles H. Bruno, Joseph L. Butcher, Jonathan Cadou, Bettie Cantwell, Mary Carlson, Tucker Carr, Matthew Carroll, Thomas W. Carroll, Vincent Castro, David Chavez, Linda Chesler, Phyllis Chubb, John Clavel, Matthew Coats, Dan Cohn, Jules Coles, Anthony P. Colt, Suzanne K. Colvin, Geoffrey Congdon, Tim Conner, Roger Connors, Tim Cooper, Bruce Copland, James R. Cornuelle, Richard Costikyan, Edward N. Coulson, Andrew J. Cove, Peter Cowin, Andrew J. Craig, Edward John Craig, Stephen G. Crouch, Stanley Crovitz, L. Gordon Cunningham, Mark Daley, Janet Dalrymple, Theodore Davis, Michael de Botton, Alain deFiebre, Conrad Demaree, Allan T. DeRussy, Candace Dhondy, Farrukh Diamond, Joe Dickens, Charles DiIulio, Jr., John J. Dockery, Matthew J. Domanico, Raymond Donnelly, Kevin Donohue, William A. Dreher, Rod Eddy, R. P. Editors, The Ehrenhalt, Alan Eimicke, William Eisland, June Elwell, John Enlow, Robert Epstein, Marc Ernst, Katherine Etzioni, Amitai Fallon, Beth Feser, Edward Fielden, Edward Filer, Randall K. Fischel, William A. Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fliegel, Seymour Flynn, Daniel J. Foreman, Jonathan Franck, Michael Franck Lohsen McCrery, Freedman, Daniel Frigand, Sid Fuchs, Ester R. Fund, John Gallagher, Maggie Garaufis, Nicholas Garibaldi, Gerry Geisel, Christopher D. Gelernter, David Gelinas, Nicole Genn, Colman George, Robert P. Georgia, Paul Gilder, Richard Giuliani, Rudolph W. Glaeser, Edward L. Glastris, Paul Glazer, Nathan Glick, Adam P. Glucksmann, André Golden, Howard Goldsmith, Stephen Graham, Ruth Gratzer, David Gray, Christopher Greenberg, Keith Elliot Greene, Jay P. Greenwald, Richard Grinker, William Gruen, Michael S. Gryphon, Marie Gunther, Charles Gutmann, Stephanie Hanson, Victor Davis Harnett, Patrick J. Harris, Lee Hawes, Elizabeth Hay, William Anthony Hazlett, Thomas W. Heinemann, H. Erich Hellman, Peter Hendrickson, Kimberly Hessler, Stephanie Hirsch, E. D. Hirschfeld, Thomas P. Hirsh, Dennis Hitchens, Christopher Hollander, Anne Hollander, Paul Holley, Marc Hood, Clifton Horowitz, David Horowitz, Michael Howard, Paul Howard, Philip K. Huber, Peter W. Husock, Howard Hymowitz, Kay S. Iannone, Carol Isikoff, Erin Jacobs, James B. Jacobs, Joanne Jacoby, Jeff Jacoby, Tamar Janko, Edmund Judd, Peter Julian, Liam Kagann, Stephen Kamarck, Elaine Kanfer, Stefan Kaplan, Jonathan Kaplowitz, Joshua Kasinitz, Philip Kass, Jody Kasson, John F. Kaus, Mickey Kean, Patricia Keating, Raymond Keegan, Lisa Graham Kekes, John Kelling, George L. Kerik, Bernard B. Key, Harrison Scott Kimball, Roger King, Marjorie King, Nicholas Kirchick, James Kirsch, Adam Kisida, Brian Klavan, Andrew Klein, Amy Klein, Joe Klein, Maury Kontorovich, E. V. Kotkin, Joel Kramer, Hilton Kramer, Rita Krikorian, Mark Kudlow, Lawrence Kurtz, Stanley Ladner, Matthew LaGrasse, Carol W. Laksin, Jacob Lane, Eric Lawler, Peter Lebl, Leslie S. Leigh, Catesby Lejeune, Anthony Leo, John Lindsey, Lawrence B. Lochhead, Carolyn Lohsen, Arthur Lomborg, Bjørn London, Herbert Lopate, Phillip Lowe, David Garrard Lukacs, John Mac Donald, Heather Macchiarola, Frank J. MacGuire, James Mack, Dana Magnet, Alec Magnet, Julia Magnet, Myron Mahoney, Daniel J. Mahoney, Margaret Mahtani, Sahil Main, Thomas Malanga, Steven Manno, Bruno Manzi, James McCarthy, Jane McCaughey, Elizabeth McCloskey, Patrick J. McCluskey, Neal McConville, Daniel J. McCrery, James McGowan, William McMahon, E. J. McQuillan, Lawrence J. McWhorter, John H. Mead, Lawrence Messinger, Ruth Meyer, Peter Meyers, William Mildner, Gerard Miller, Judith Mills, Mark P. Miniter, Richard Moe, Terry Mone, Lawrence Monroe, Lorraine Moore, Stephen Moore, Steven E. Morgan, Richard E. Morris, Charles Morrison, James Morrone, Francis Moss, Mitchell L. Moynihan, Daniel Patrick Murdoch, Rupert Murdock, Deroy Murphy, Peter Murphy, Philip Murray, Charles Murray, Douglas Murray, Iain Murtagh, John M. Naipaul, Sir V.S. Nathan, Richard Nelson, Diana Netzer, Dick Nicholson, Adam Nordlinger, Pia Norquist, John O. Norton, Rob Nowlin, Jack Wade Noyelle, Thierry O’Connell, Paul E. O’Neill, Dave M. Olsen, Henry Olson, Walter Pagan, Antonio Page, Charles Paletta, Anthony Palubinsky, Beth Z. Panero, James Pawel, Michael Pennoyer, Peter Peterson, Pete Philips, Steven Phillips, Melanie Pipes, Daniel Plotinsky, Benjamin A. Podhoretz, Norman Polan, Steven M. Poller, Nidra Presser, Stephen B. Randolph, Allen Ravitch, Diane Raymond, Ray Rector, Robert Reed, Henry Hope Regan, Ned Reinharz, Peter Reisinger, Anne Lenhard Rendell, Hon. Edward G. Renehan, John Reppetto, Thomas Reynolds, Glenn Ridley, Jane Riebling, Mark Rieder, Jonathan Riley, Naomi Schaefer Rivlin, Alice M. Robb, John Robinson, Matthew Rose, Jonathan Rose, Joseph B. Rosen, Gary Rosenberg, Jan Rosenberg, Matt Ruaño, Gualberto Rubenstein, Edwin Russello, Gerald J. Ryan, Richard Rybczynski, Witold Saffran, Dennis Safir, Howard Sager, Ryan Sahm, Charles Upton Salins, Peter D. Sammons, Richard Sandler, Ross Sapienza, Paola Satel, Sally Savas, E. S. Schaub, Diana Schiff, Arthur Schiffren, Lisa Schiller, Erin Schoenbrod, David Schramm, Carl J. Schulz, Max Schundler, Bret Schwartz, Joel Schwarz, Mary Elizabeth Scruton, Roger Scully, Vincent Segal, Lydia G. Seligman, Daniel Shaffer, Matthew Shalit, Wendy Shaw, Peter Shectman, Paul Shefter, Martin Shermer, Michael Shock, Catherine Short, Edward Siegel, Charles Siegel, Fred Siegel, Harry Silber, Kenneth Silver, Harris Simpson, John Skerry, Peter Sleeper, Jim Smith, Bradley A. Smith, Dennis Smith, Shepard Smith, Thomas Gordon Smith, Van Sniderman, Paul M. Solomon, Barbara Probst Sorman, Guy Sousa, William H. Spigner, Archie Sprung, Laurence Stangler, Dane Starr, Roger Stein, Harry Stern, Bezalel Stern, Sol Stern, William J. Steyn, Mark Stoddart, Alexander Stossel, Thomas P. Straub, Frank Sylvester, Kathleen Tallmer, Matthew Taranto, James Taylor, Flagg Teachout, Terry Thernstrom, Abigail Thierer, Adam D. Thomas, Clarence Thornton, Bruce S. Tinsley, Ed Torres, Justin Torrey, E. Fuller Totten, Michael J. Trachtenberg, Leo Trollope, Frances Trujillo, Manuel Tubbs, David L. Tucker, William Unz, Ron K. Vacco, Dennis C. Vander Weele, Maribeth Vanderkam, Laura Veronesi, Pietro Vigilante, Richard Vigilante, Susan Vincent, Norah Viteritti, Dr. Joseph Vitullo-Martin, Julia Wagner, David Wagner Jr., Robert F. Waldinger, Roger Wapshott, Nicholas Ward, Robert Warraq, Ibn Watkin, David Weeks, Steve Weinberger, Jerry Weiss, Michael Wells, David Wharton, Edith Whelan, David Whitehead, Barbara Dafoe Will, George F. Williams, Terry Wilson, James Q. Winkler, Franz K. Winnick, Louis Winters, Marcus A. Wriston, Walter B. Wylde, Kathryn Yarbrough, Jean M. Zdanowicz, Mary T. Zingales, Luigi Zremski, Jerry Zuckerman, Mortimer
NEW BOOK:
The Immigration Solution:
A Better Plan Than Today’s
by Steven Malanga, Heather Mac Donald, Victor Davis Hanson
Are Cops Racist? How the War Against the Police Harms Black Americans.
by Heather Mac Donald
Home | About City Journal | City Journal Books | Archives | Links
Contact Us | Subscribe Print | Subscribe Online | RSS | Advertise | CJ Mobile
CONTACT INFO:
subscriptions: (800) 562-1973 • editorial: (212) 599-7000 • fax: (212) 599-0371
Copyright The Manhattan Institute
»Bookmark & ShareCity JournalXSelect from these web-based feed readers:
AOLBloglinesGoogle ReaderMy MSNNetvibesNewsGatorNewsisfreePageflakesTechnoratiYahoo
No matching services.
AIMAmazon WishlistAskBackflipBallHypeBeboBloggerBlogmarksBuzzDeliciousDiggDiigoEmailFacebookFarkFavesFavoritesFriendFeedGoogleHatenaKaboodlekIRTSYLink-a-GogoLinkedInLiveMenéameMister WongMixxMultiplymyAOLMySpaceNetvibesNetvouzNewsvineNujijPlaxoPrintPropellerRedditSegnaloSimpySlashdotSpurlStumbleUponStylehiveTechnoratiThisNextTip’dTumblrTwitterTypePadWordPressY! BookmarksYardbarker
Done
Message sent! Share again.
Use Address Book
To: (email address)
From: (email address)
Note: (optional)
255 character limit
What’s this?PrivacyAddThisBookmark & ShareCity JournalTo:From:Note:
EmailFavoritesPrintDeliciousDiggGoogleMySpaceLiveFacebookTwitterAIMMore… (55)What’s this?AddThis
Michele,
It is very clear that you are a moron as you are a bigot. But I believe you have to be one to be the other.
You have no proof to defend your opinions other that some other person’s opinions,isolated horror stories and your self described ownership of having common sense – this being how you form your opinions. You have need or care for researched facts. It is why you are a bigot. It is clear to many that read your BS that you have no common sense.
Your points are lies used only to demonize. We get your agenda. You do not care about solutions within the poor Santa Ana neighborhoods. You relish in the problem because you use issues affecting these communities to incite hate towards illegal immigrants and so move forward the far right republican agenda.
You are not an individual with personal opinions you are a persona moving the far right fringe’s agenda.
I only respond to you posting lies about Illegal immigrants being a burden on taxpayers. Research contradicts you and concludes they economically are a benefit to the USA. I have not stated any victimization arguments. You on the other hand paint yourself as a victim – see your comments below.
“just as the unions, Santa Ana residents need to get rid of fools like yourself and Mr.Mills to make way for people of courage that will tackel the cultural problems that exists in the Largest hispanic city in Orange County instead of breeding the same old shit of Victimization.”
“So remember Doctor, i never got to go to college in my country because i was catholic, i lost my father because he was catholic, you on the other hand went to college based on your race.
If only my parents had of been Mexican, and came here to this country not only would my dad be alive, with the drive that i have and self reliance, i would have been a Doctor too, except i would not have needed affirmative Action to do it!”
Ahh, poor little Michele your are such a victim of Mexicans. I guess this is why you hate.
I am sure you know that in Ireland there are many citizens that are Catholic went to college and did not loose their fathers. Why are you such a victim?
You could never be a doctor Michele, you are too unqualified. You had the opportunity.Your intellect could only get you a adult education nursing certificate. It was a waste of effort on your part and a let down to another student who’s position you took as you choose not to work as a nurse any longer.
“But again i am not kid and i have lived around people like yourself most of my young life and it has given me a thick skin when it comes to thugs!”
If you have such a thick skin then stop bitching about me addressing you as a thug. I don’t complain about you calling me names. Besides is correcting false information being a thug?
YOUR #37 POST IS FAR RIGHT TALIBAN REPUBLICAN PROPAGANDA. THE MESSAGE OF THIS CIRCULATING EMAIL IS VERY TRANSPARENT IN IT’S PREJUDICE VERY CONSISTENT WITH YOURS AND SO NO SURPRISE YOU POSTED IT. LIKE I SAID – WE GET YOUR AGENDA.
You could never be a doctor Michele, you are too unqualified. You had the opportunity.Your intellect could only get you a adult education nursing certificate. It was a waste of effort on your part and a let down to another student who’s position you took as you choose not to work as a nurse any longer.
“But again i am not kid and i have lived around people like yourself most of my young life and it has given me a thick skin when it comes to thugs!”
If you have such a thick skin then stop bitching about me addressing you as a thug. I don’t complain about you calling me names. Besides is correcting false information being a thug?
Your haterd and racism is turning you into a thug not I. And the reason i choose not to work as a nurse anymore is i perfer to raise my own children and i am very good at running my own business.
And again Doc, who. is Michelle the student that you harrassed??? I can understand why she would walk out of a class room, your a grown man, who acted like a thug, because you are a visious defender of your race.
Your a thug doctor, i would say it to your face. The reason why you are attacking me personally is because you can not attack me politically. And I think you have had great pratice at attacking people.
I think what is really going on, is the fact that in this country it is easy to be a victim if your brown, because who would dare question it!
who wants thugs like yourself, calling you visious names.
It does not matter if i got a degree from the cheapest shite school ever, at least i did not use my gender or colour to get it. And i think its so ridiculous for you to ridicule anyones education, since they might be the ones that paid for yours. I would say that makes you the Moron.
So the question is why do you work in Santa Ana, and live in Orange.
I think you live in Orange because it is safer and work in Santa Ana, because you perfer to work around your own race!
I will not call you Doctor anymore, because i dont think you deserve the title that you took based on your race from someone based on their grades!
So i quess this is the real you Mr. lomeli, once a gang member always a gang member “visious to the core”.
Lomeli….check yourself
Michele,
Focus. You make claims that are untrue to support your bigot point of view.
I give research that contradicts you. You don’t like it. I am sorry you can’t handle opposition.
I do not attack you personally. My comments to you and about you are based on your politics.
I am sure you are a pleasant lady out of politics and I am sure I would enjoy your company.
I disagree on politics with my best freinds.
You need to seperate politics from who your neighbors are.
#40,
“Lomeli….check yourself”
In what context do you give the advice?
Do you want me to check and correct someting? Please point out the correction you want me to do.
OR
Is the context in the urban rap slang “check yurself”?
Please let me know in order to better understand your suggestion.