Latinos Lost Two-Thirds of Wealth During Great Recession, Are More Segregated in L.A. Than Any Other Group

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A new report from the Pew Research Center says that during this Great Recession, the wealth gap between whites and Latinos and whites and African Americans got even bigger.

It actually doubled in the last 20 years:

The median white American household is worth 20 times that of a black one and 18 times that of a Latino one.

So the resegregation of schools has worked. (Told ya).

While Dodger owner Frank McCourt's red ink is working hard to bring down the white man's numbers, about a third of black and Latino households had 0 net worth. (You read that right).

Pew:

... The bursting of the housing market bubble in 2006 and the recession that followed from late 2007 to mid-2009 took a far greater toll on the wealth of minorities than whites. From 2005 to 2009, inflation-adjusted median wealth fell by 66% among Hispanic households and 53% among black households, compared with just 16% among white households.

But wait, there's more:

USA Today reported this week that even minorities with some class status usually end up living in segregated neighborhoods in this country.

We looked at the source numbers for that report and found that, in L.A., Latinos score high on the the "isolation index." Meaning they're the most segregated group in town.

And you can barely move down the street in L.A. without hitting a goddamn fruit cart. They wash your cars, hand you your groceries, run City Hall and write some of your news (ahem). They just don't live next to you.

You know what's really ironic? White, Westside kids learning flawless Spanish because their immigrant nannies are teaching them while their own kids barely learn one language -- low-level English -- in public schools. Discuss.

So take out your little violin, and play a sad one for minorities in America. Affirmative action? Desegregation? Hah. Distant relics of the past. The Tea Party wants to rage a war on the brown and down.

The 20th anniversary of the L.A. riots is eight months or so away. And just remember the Tea Party-esque Reagan years that helped to get us into that mess. Or don't.

Yours truly, Angry Brown Man.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]