Immigration and the Destruction of Community - in the NY Times!!!

The New York Times actually has an article on the sad loss of community when immigration and economic change intersect - specifically, in Santa Ana, California.

Fourth Street — also known as Calle Cuatro — has long been the center of Latino business in Orange County, the place where Mexican immigrants could find nearly anything they might have looked for in their homelands...But as the economy has soured, many of these stores have struggled to stay afloat. Some stores closed, others asked their landlords for a reduction in rent. At the same time, several property owners began pressing to create a group to improve downtown Santa Ana...The owners, who were mostly white, were determined to make it more welcoming to English-speaking clients and bring in customers from more affluent parts of Orange County. What they really wanted to do, opponents said, was scrub away any suggestion that it is an immigrant hub, in a city that is 85 percent Latino.

Oops - not what you expected? Too funny - a major sob-story on how a community is losing its identity to another invading ethnic group - but it's American Citizens who are the enemy, destroying the humble Chicano town. I'd recommend the whole article for a few laughs - here's a taste:

For those who worry about gentrification, Rudy Cordova is seen as a born-and-bred native. For those eager to revitalize the district, he is seen as a brilliant entrepreneur. Mr. Cordova, a 38-year-old son of immigrants, thinks of himself as somewhere in between. His children are learning Spanish, he said, but his son is attending far fewer quinceañeras than he did at his age. He knows today’s teenagers are unlikely to shop in the discount stores along Fourth Street that his parents once favored.[My God could things really be that bad!]

The alternative story - one that has been played out in one community after another as Mexican immigrants have transformed small towns into barrios across the country - is clearly not fit to print.