Naturalized Citizens Are Reshaping California Politics
In the past year, 300,000 new citizens in California were sworn in - double the number of the previous year. The L.A. Times takes a look at how the new citizens are changing the face of California politics:
Mexicans, who have traditionally registered low rates of naturalization, represented the largest group, with nearly one-fourth of the total. They were followed by Indians, Filipinos, Chinese, Cubans and Vietnamese.
The new citizens are reshaping California's electorate and are likely to reorder the state's policy priorities, some political analysts predict. Several polls show that Latinos and Asians are more supportive than whites of public investments and broad services, even if they require higher taxes.
Most Latinos, for instance, support all five budget propositions on the May ballot while most whites oppose them, according to recent polls by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. Although viewed as largely conservative, most Asian Americans supported a 2004 measure requiring large businesses to provide health insurance to employees, even as it failed at the ballot box, according to an analysis by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles.
Nationally, nonwhite voters overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama's presidential candidacy, while most whites voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a recent study by the Pew Research Center showed. And there were more nonwhite voters last year -- Latino registered voters increased by 3 million compared with 2004, said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the Southwest Voting Registration Education Project in Los Angeles.
[...] "As we have more Asian American and Latino voters, our electorate will begin to look more like the face of the public at large," said Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute. "From the standpoint of representative democracy, few things could be more important than this."
boat as the rest of us.
But I would LOVE for this to be posted on a right-wing Web site. The comment board would light up with so many closeted racist remarks. It would be interesting to tally all of the times the terms "illegals" "anchor babies" and/or "aliens" used in their comments, as wing nuts always gloss over the actual statements in the article which totally points to naturalized, legal immigration.
Several polls show that Latinos and Asians are more supportive than whites of public investments and broad services, even if they require higher taxes.
Latinos and Asians have a larger emphasis on group welfare and a lesser one on individualism than Whites do. Though I wonder what percentage of the people polled are born and raised here as opposed to immigrants. I've noticed a lot of the people (like myself and several friends) born and raised here don't retain many of the cultural values of their parents. I for one see many of my parents cultural values, rooted in Eastern values, as out of place here in a modern Western nation. So those polls maybe a little misleading as children of immigrants literally have two sets of values they're looking at, and the poll results wouldn't mean all that much if the majority discard most of their parent's cultural values and adopt a more American set of values.
I don't know that "Latinos" are necessarily non-white -- or white, or that all Asians necessarily place a lower value on "individualism", but the basic premise... that the children of immigrants (and the third generation) are more like the "mainstream" than immigrants is true for any immigrant cohort, be they Slavs, Italians, or "Latinos" (though how Black Dominicans, Mexican Jehovah's Witnesses and Argentine Catholics are lumped together ... or for that matter Han Chinese, Bengalis and Korean Methodists is beyond my comprehension).
Think, White = European/European decent.
Also, I'm of South East Asian decent, as well a several others I associate with. In these cultures, the welfare of the family as a whole trumps that of the individual. For example, I have no intent to care for my parents when they are old, while most people who grew up here wouldn't see anything unusual in that, people from China, the Philippines or Korea would see that as extremely selfish. Most East Asian cultures are more family and community oriented than individualistic. I'm also aware that family and community is important to Latinos as well.
And as I said earlier, the children of immigrants don't necessarily adopt the values of the old world. So the idea that if there are more Asian and Latino immigrants registering to vote, there would be more social programs is something of a false conclusion. While there would probably be a spike, I'd say it would subside as their children and later grand-children reach voting age.
For example, I have no intent to care for my parents when they are old,
So, they'll just be on their own, eh? Damn, aren't you the loving child?
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Poor people in the US, which includes peoples from all races, learned to fear socialism or anything connected to it, this fear was very advantageous to the bosses and the factory owners.
Of course with a massive influx of new peoples to the US in the last 60 years, these are people who didn't get that 1900s-1930s social education in fear. Times they are a changing, no wonder the conservatives are screaming and hand wringing.
Probably because they're the ones getting screwed out of those services, since the rich white assholes in the mountains expect the rest of us to bail them out during fire season, while refusing to invest in our schools and services.
have a property tax? If so how are the "rich white assholes" refusing to invest in the schools and services?
Also according to the article "Most Latinos, for instance, support all five budget propositions on the May ballot while most whites oppose them, according to recent polls by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California."
Not being racist, aren't most Latinos in the lower earning category? Yes there are Latino Drs, Lawyers, Politicians, business owners etc. but I'm speaking of the majority. Which if so they wouldn't be paying as much as the "rich white assholes" which I would assume does contain some minorities at least. So yes their is a good chance they would be for programs that would benefit them at little to no cost of their own.
programs?
The "rich white assholes" have plenty of money and influence to throw around so that tax policy favors them.
Those of us in the poorer Latino communities just have our meager little vote to ensure that the things that help us to survive when we are in need. Give us a break, ok?
I've never seen change without a fire
I have nothing against helping people when they are in need. I have done it myself. And will continue to do so. What I am against is the sense of entitlement some people have. And those who continue to be in "need" without working to better their lives. And that because someone else has more, that they deserve a share of it. Usually shown by phases such as "rich white assholes"
Exists in all groups. Poorer people will think the Man is keeping them down. The new money will think "I worked hard for all this and deserve it." While the old money will have some sort of neo aristocratic view of themselves, and think they deserve something because they're rich.
that feeling that what you worked for is yours(new money), or what your ancestors earned and passed on to you(old money) is a entitlement mentality. What a entitlement mentality is that they are entitled to it because someone else has it. Or to put it this way, you have a vegetable garden in your backyard, are you entitled to the produce? Or is your neighbor entitled to it because you have it? Even though he didn't put forth any effort towards the garden.
but this proposition has done a lot of damage
California Proposition 13 (1978)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978)
make it where they don't have to pay property taxes? It sets a percent limit on the actual value of the property. And also on the amount it can be raised per year. Which as a soon to be property owner(not in CA) sounds like a pretty good idea to me, and I'm sure my sister and her husband would agree. Two years ago their property tax over doubled in one year. So the rich guy in the mountains is going to be paying a hell of a lot more taxes on his mcmansion with 3 acres and a view, compared to someone with a 2 bed 1 bath on a postage stamp sized lot. And it also helped with a more even amount of taxes going to the various school districts.
Except the rate under Prop 13 is one percent. It is a physical impossibility to support even minimal services with that kind of property tax rate. Do the math.
Now that was the last time we'll ask nicely. Turn up Fox and go back to Free Republic now. The adults have to have a conversation here.
I like it here.
1% isn't enough?
2009 average sale price right about 300k so 3k per home. I'm thinking you can support minimal services for that.
2007 just under 1.5 million homeowner owned homes. So 4,500,000,000(Yes 4.5 billion) in property taxes for LA county not including businesses and rental property. Or sale/use tax etc. Perhaps rather than complain about lack of money, you should be complaining about where its spent.
Except most of the houses are currently worthless due to a certain bubble popping. And most people do not in fact own homes in the state, because they can't afford to do so, which is partly why that bubble popped. And Arnie further exacerbated the problem by taking out massive loans and assuming that the bubble would pay for them in place of license plate and state taxes. But it back-fired when the brush-fires he ignored ended up destroying the same property he was depending on paying for everything.
median sale price for a house or condo is 300k that's worthless? And the figures I quoted was for 2007 owner occupied single family dwellings, owners of rental property have to pay the property tax also. I didn't include that because I don't know the percentage of 2,3,4 or more family dwellings and the value of them. Along with state income tax. I'll tell you what, lets just say the 2007 figures are inflated to 3x current value(actual is about 2 but I'm hedging incase it drops). There are still about 3 million dwellings(owner-occupied and dweller occupied) in LA county, figuring 1k per dwelling that's still 3 billion still not including state income tax for the landlords or local sales tax and etc. You still say you don't have enough money?
Haven't you read the news lately? There's this little thing called Prop. 13. Ever since that passed, the rich in CA have been working to shrink the property taxes to the smallest possible amounts, all while convincing middle-class folks that it's "good for the economy". Since the middle-class people can afford higher taxes much LESS than the rich ones, they got on board, but they (we) got royally FUCKED, because the rich could afford to live well even when the state's services were being plundered to make up for the taxes the fucking wealthy weren't willing to pay.
So yes, we have property taxes here, but they're ridiculously low in comparison to what the state actually needs. Every time the state's "budget" has to be cut, it's essential services that are slashed. Taxes on the rich are NEVER raised here.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
and I replied above about prop 13. And yes essential services are cut, that's what politicians and bureaucrats do. It's their way of drumming up support for higher taxes. People don't want police/fire/school funding cut so they agree to higher taxes. Where if they cut non-essential services people wouldn't be as willing.
I live in the SFV and I have seen it time and time again, when it comes time to rescue their homes from the fires because they wouldn't pay anyone to clear the brush leading up to their house ahead of time, then there is no limit to how much money can be spent.
But you try to get one of these rich assholes to agree to put tax money into a homeless shelter or small business's or low income housing and there is never enough money available.
I hope the latino and asian people have tipped the scales enough to bring some of the fools on the hill down to Earth! The working class keeps Los Angeles alive and they need help getting an equal share of the pie. Something the rich never want to give up.
we need to rise above Labels. White, Latino, Asian, African American etc. We're supposed to be citizens of the United States. Until we master that how can we become Ideal Citizens of the World?
Oh no! Immigrants are increasing!
White people are being unaffected at an alarming rate!
They don't understand that underneath all this diversity we're all human beings.
Ugh, this makes my race (white) look like a bunch of oblivious retards. If empowering other races in California ultimately creates a more responsible government, then I definitely welcome the change.
Lou Dobbs is not going to like this. Not one little bit.
high maintenance for him to constantly be ridiculing her people to keep that fat check coming in.
Anything that makes Lou Dobbs an unhappy camper is cause for celebration in my world! ;)
I've never seen change without a fire
political landscape. As the last election shows.
They move here to escape CA's high cost of living.
This is not the redstate that it was ten years ago.
Keep those CA refugees coming, maybe all those old Zonies will move to the Republic of Texas.
their matriarch passed away in '06. Leaving my immediate family alone here in the Central Valley of CA. The elitist in me would like to move to the Northeast, but if nothing else, it may be time for the rest of us to pack up and leave for AZ ourselves...
I've never seen change without a fire
I'll show you around the place. :)
"From the standpoint of representative democracy, few things could be more important than this."
Except for the fact that politics are still very unequal when it comes to gender. With over 50% of the population being women and the highest percentage of female reps being approximately 25% of the State Legislature, some things are more important.
We could just place anybody with suitable XX chromosomes in safe seats, but that would lead to disaster and loss of seats. Seats have to be earned by people working and being skilled enough to get them.
Parachuting women into safe seats would lead down the Sarah 'Plank' avenue.
precedent in the first place. Some of these women may not be coming forward because of the low numbers of women in the legislature in the first place, not to mention the concern of some people assuming they are tokens in the legislature.
I've never seen change without a fire
They have to be earned? You just shouldn't give them to women/minorities just because of quotas? What about affirmative action? Dang you might become a Repub yet. :)
I'm a lifelong Democrat and I don't believe in quotas either. Don't think we all toe the same line when it comes to things like that.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
that and was joking in a sarcastic manner. Just like all us repubs don't toe the same line either.
There are plenty of qualifed women and women of color who can stand up to the plate!
I've never seen change without a fire
agree with you Anna, yes there are and yes they should.
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