Why Los Angeles Is NOT Turning Into Mexico

johnnyb101390

FUCK THIS RACIST ARTICLE. It is mother fucking 2013 to be posting childish shit like this. Equating brown to poverty and focusing on the ritzy mostly white part of town as the epitome of all that is right, what the flying fuck. FUCK YOU LA WEEKLY FOR YOUR SIMPLE MINDEDNESS.

Deee

Hey just to let you know... the number 1 reason is actually not really true. In Mexico it's way cheaper to get work done. With money, you can live like a king in Mexico. 2 maids, a chef, a driver, a gardener, everything else, is super cheap and available all over the place. LA might have hard working immigrants but Mexico also has hard working residents. I think it would have been better stated to say in the US you can't get the affordable prices that you can in LA... however that actually points out that LA IS turning into Mexico... cheers

Reza Velayati

2 Like

This is a trick question.... parts ALREADY are Mexico! Street names and the city's Spanish origins don't make it Mexican. That's just a part of history, by the 1840s, the population was already predominantly Anglo anyways...hence the move towards a CA Republic. What has turned parts of LA into outposts of Tijuana slums is the fact that people accustomed to a third world social and material infrastructure can't just be posited into a first world city en masse and be expected to mmmmmmm act civilized. Not only that, the strain they are putting on the state in general is abysmal.... Think of CA as a potluck dinner party. 20 people bring food, but 100 show up to eat. That's exactly the kind of impact they're having on California. As for those who constantly defend them, I'm not seeing anyone lining up for midnight walking tours of Mexican neighborhoods.... I wonder why.....

LauraDiaz

1 Like

The United Statians (Americans) stole the whole states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, as well as parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas. So please do not start with your whining. Read history books please or go back to school.

mike

@LauraDiaz It's true that these areas were taken via a war. However, it's also true that historically this area was lightly settled by Mexico. The Mexican government despite it's efforts could not get it's citizens to move to the northern part of the country. Anglos moved in en masse and took over. That occurred before the war, the war only finalized the change and was in part a reason for the war. As for Texas, Mexico invited in the Anglos to help secure the border against the U.S. and it turned out to be a very bad decision. History is nuanced and more than maps and border changes.

maandrews

@LauraDiaz

The USA paid Mexico 10 Billion dollars for this land but turned down Mexico's offer of Baja California for another 10 billion!

Jipali

@maandrews @LauraDiaz

We should have took baja its only a natural extension of the greatest state!

dfergusonsart

@maandrews @LauraDiaz

MM, urr.. millions not billions and only for the Gadsden Purchase. The rest was taken by war.

tahovig

@dfergusonsart @maandrews @LauraDiaz : No ... nothing was taken (unlesss you want to talk about Spain and France) ... it was acquired via payment or treaty. And ... Mexico acquired Alta California after winning its independence from Spain.

Unlike most of you, I've got a large percentage of Native American blood in me, and, although I may acknowledge the various atrocities foisted on the native peoples, I can't change history, and I don't want to return to their way of life. All I can do is try to be a good person each and every day, contribute to society in some positive way and live my life ... but we're not turning back the clock, so you may as well drop the angst ... you weren't there, nothing you do will change what happened and you are probably far better off than if history had followed many other potential paths.

François Funderson Kennedy

I WISH IT WOULD TURN BACK INTO MEXICO

lmporter5

1 Like

The question is does the good out weigh the bad? Does the huge supply of low wage labor out weigh the decline of public education and other public services? I would guess that if you live in Beverly Hills the answer is yes. If you are a regular middle class person, the answer is no. So the people benefiting from the huge influx of immigrants over the past 30 years are the immigrants themselves and rich people. The rest of us not so much.

Andrea Veronica

Tarita, illegals do pay taxes!!

Jipali

@Andrea Veronica

Nice try but those people don't let facts get in there way - they bounce off their brains

Ferny Aguirre

1 Like

the worst article I ever read !! Fuck you Dennis Romero your a piece of shit !! Im a Angelino you fucken drifter !! L.A is not turning into Mexico because Mexico started Los Angeles check your history piece of shit !! When your driving in L.A just read all the street names you come across dumb ass !! I hope you lose your job idiot !!

Tarita Virtue

1 Like

Maybe I should join their program and enjoy a tax free, illegal without any repercussions lifestyle because when it comes down to it....I seem to be the idiot and on the losing end!

Tarita Virtue

1 Like

And... I would love to know UR explanation for 40+% of people living here GETTING PAID UNDER THE TABLE, while the rest of us law abiding idiots pay taxes up the ass to cover their benefits that our liberal country happily fights for them to have!

Tarita Virtue

3 Like

Sorry to burst UR naive bubble...but maybe "Los Angeles" isn't turning into a mini Mexico, but I welcome u to come over to the valley where Walmart announcements are in Spanish, the crime rate has SIGNIFICANTLY RISEN (thank u illegal aliens who somehow get a pass into our country when the flip side wouldn't grant us the same abundant rights if we occupied Mexico as illegals)!

Jipali

@Tarita Virtue

Really the crime rate has risen significantly? You probably think it was much safer when you were a little girl in the good old days but sorry if that was during the 70s or 80s or 90s its actually way safer today...

Pauline Angela Adamek

1 Like

This boneheaded article manages to contradict its own basic premise (as in, the title: "Why Los Angeles Is NOT Turning Into Mexico.") To wit: No. 3. Mexico is not such a bad thing to be...If only L.A. were turning into that Mexico. Mmmmkay...

Andrew Kay

2 Like

There will always be xenophobe nativists who will scream that the 1. Irish, 2. Italians, 3. Russians, 4. Japanese, etc. will never become true Americans. Every generation saw this tired old argument. My concern is that since my family moved here in the early 80s I've seen a large exodus of the white middle class out of CA and an influx of unskilled labor. That's not good for ANY city, regardless of race.

Andrew Kay

1 Like

As for argument #4, saying that LA is gonna be okay because of the billionaires we have is like saying France was doing well in the late 1700s; just look at how rich Louis XVI was.

Andrew Kay

1 Like

Not being racist here, but the author apparently never drove east of the 110 between Boyle Heights and Baldwin Park.

Ed Kim

Here's a shocker... sooner or later the Mexicans here will... wait for it... turn into Americans!

maandrews

@Ed Kim Historically in the USA assimilation happens by the third generation. We are still waiting for 4th and 5th Generation Latinos/Hispanics/Chicanos to start and it has not happened! Their leaders like La Raza and MEChA talk about "Paying them back"and "Outpopulating the Whites"!

ThePosterFormerlyKnownasPaul topcommenter

1 Like

If Mexico is so great, then why is ~10% of their population aqui' en el norte?

Etienne LaVallée

Whoa, way to shit on your Latino readers, LA Weekly. How did your editors let this one slip through?

Connie Estrada

Worst article I have ever read! What the hell LA Weekly?!

Daliitta.Pimmenttel

2 Like

I read the first two paragraphs and then I decided to stop for my own mental well-being. Horrible that you have such great opportunity to write and educate people about culture and you choose not to do it. In fact, you choose to do the opposite.

William Pasillas

4 Like

It's not like Los Angeles used to beMexico... oh wait!

Anthony Gonzalez

@damian: youre saying that its mexicans fault that reseda or van nuys is that way?

bermudez.mariana

5 Like

Not even going to comment on the article. Too sad LA Weekly publishes this kind of poor content articles. LA is obviously NOT turning into Mexico, but it is embracing a multicultural lifestyle that makes us be able to have crepes for breakfast, traditional ramen noodles for lunch and Indian curry for dinner. You can celebrate Cinco de Mayo, Black History Month, Asian cultural festivals and lots of diverse activities that involve all kinds of public and content.

Mexico its itself a very complex case of study because of its own diversity (we are not all brown people dancing like oompa loompas) to even compare it to a single city.

maandrews

1 Like

@bermudez.mariana

Mexico's "Complexity" breaks down into 5% ultra rich(Carlos Slim,etc.) and 95% dirt poor peons who want to jump the border.

frankreyes

1 Like

@bermudez.mariana We have tons of great places for crepes, yet, we're not littered with French people waving French flags at every corner wearing Napoleon Bonaparte tattoos.

v_rodrigues_lima

1 Like

@frankreyes Oh, Hispanic-on-Hispanic bigotry. Boo on you, Mr. Reyes.

frankreyes

2 Like

@v_rodrigues_lima @frankreyes Both my parents are from Morelia, Michoacan, I didn't speak a lick of English growing up, and I look a lot more like your gardener than I do a college student. That still doesn't mean I have to agree with you, vote like you, or think like you. That fact that I'm Hispanic is purely for statistical purposes, no to align myself with every Hispanic's ideology. I like that we disagree, it means we're not made from the same cookie cutter.

Oscar F. Ibarra

1 Like

¿Qué?

Damian Tong

Check out Reseda or Van Nuys it's something other worldly a 3rd world country in a first world city and it is county wide. Low rent apartments and slum housing projects that go on for miles and miles these cities allow furniture and trash to pile up and street vendors sell freely out in front of public schools...the worst part is the miles of rod iron and block wall fences built to protect what? It's ugly.

Yvette Bucio

1 Like

Cesar Chavez between Soto & the 5 fwy looks like TJ,, : (

Alpi Norbac

1 Like

Los Angeles will always be Mexico haha

el_decimo

4 Like

this is one of the stupidest articles i have ever read

Anthony Gonzalez

Open a history book! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olvera_Street there was nothing positive about this! its almost as if the writer was saying it could be worst... instead of embracing the mexican communitys in los angeles. mexicans have strong communitys with rich culture and style! something beverly hills does not have. You clearly havent lived in Los Angeles very long if u think mexicans are new to it.....right? I AM SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING BANNING LA WEEKLY FROM MY STORE AND UN-LIKING LA WEEKLY FOR THIS.

tonytron1

1 Like

Open a history book! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olvera_Street

there was nothing positive about this! its almost as if the writer was saying it could be worst... instead of embracing the mexican communitys in los angeles. mexicans have strong communitys with rich culture and style! something beverly hills does not have. You clearly havent lived in Los Angeles very long if u think mexicans are new to it.....right?

I AM SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING BANNING LA WEEKLY FROM MY STORE AND UN-LIKING LA WEEKLY FOR THIS.

Maestro Imran Ali Khan

lol its actually more like Tehrangeles =P

Bryan Kim

la is getting a lot more expensive.

Lorachristine Daniel Ramsey

If it is, I'm moving.

v_rodrigues_lima

1 Like

Also, UGHF, racism!

v_rodrigues_lima

2 Like

Does anyone remember when California WAS ACTUALLY MEXICO!?!? Remember when white people moved into the area and claimed it as their own, and acted like they were the reason EVERYTHING suddenly got better? Pick up a history book, people; take a trip south of the border. Just because a culture isn't yours, doesn't make it any less cultured.

maandrews

@v_rodrigues_lima

Mexicans only wanted to be here when Western Civilization made it great!

abramsrl

@maandrews @v_rodrigues_limaMexicans are part of Western Civilization. The Californios were educated and sophisticated, especially in light of living so far away from major cultural centers. They did not excel in self-goernment which was necessary since they were thousands of miles away from central authority in Mexico City. The two institutions which loomed large in the minds of the Californios were The King of Spain and The Church. Both were authoritarian institutions with all power at the top. Unlike Northern Europeans, the Spanish did not have a history of self-government or squabbling religious Protestant sects. The advantage which the Protestants had was the need for self-government, while the Spanish in the New World only knew totalitarian institutions. They did not read much John Locke.

Spain had mistreated California. As early as 1796, the Californios were complaining to Spain but to no avail. One of the main complaints was that Spain should allow capitalism to take hold in Los Angeles (5-14-1796 letter by Fray Jose Senan) As you see, the history of "Mexicans" and Los Angeles is very old and complicated. The problems predate Mexico's independence from Spain.

When the Californios were fearful that the Anglos from the East would move in and take over, they asked the central government in Mexico City to send 100 soldiers as a deterrent. Instead, the Mexican government took a lot of cholos (criminals) out of prison and sent them north. The Californios found the cholos such a disruption to civil society that they actually created the first barrio for the cholos.

In the mid 1800's, had the Mexican government cared more about protecting El Norte, then they would have sent enough troops to handle the Anglo threat. If 100 to 60 years earlier, Spain had allowed capitalism to take place in Los Angeles, El Norte would have been prosperous enough to defend itself. After the discovery of gold, however, the die was cast and El Norte would become part of the USA.

One thing which people who come from the East fail to understand is that the line between Arizona and California is psychologically no different between the border between Mexico and California. Berlin was divided by a wall for decades, but Berliners did not stop being Berliners.

The laws of economics, however, are the prime reason today that many people from Mexico and farther south come to the US. It's essentially a scientific principle like osmosis. The only way to stop Mexicans from coming into the USA is to make the USA as poor and devoid of opportunity as rural Mexico. That will stop the osmosis.

NilesAkbar

@v_rodrigues_lima so what, that was 150 years ago!

frankreyes

@v_rodrigues_lima Then Mexico lost a war to the US and had to give it all up. That is the most tired argument--if you can even call it that--ever. Same thing happened in Mexico: the Spanish lost, so they got the hell outta there.

bermudez.mariana

1 Like

@frankreyes It would probably be a good chance for you to re-visit a Mexican history book. The Spanish didn't "lose" or "got the hell out of there". After the Spanish conquered Mexico (then New Spain) they mixed with the natives which gave birth to the mixed race know known as Mexican. So, different to other Latin American countries (like Argentina, Chile,etc) Mexico had a conquest not a colonization.

frankreyes

@v_rodrigues_lima @frankreyes Sure, diversity is fun. I'm not arguing that. But turning parts of LA into Mexico is not diversity at all. If a diverse melting pot is what you want, then you should be against turning various parts of LA into Mexico. That's the furthest thing from diversity. If not wanting to turn LA into a third-world country makes me a bigot and racist, then that's what I am.

v_rodrigues_lima

4 Like

@frankreyes One, I'm not a guy. Two, I'm Argentinean, and not Mexican, though there's absolutely NOTHING wrong with that; I would be just as proud to be Mexican as I am to be Argentinean. Three, diversity is fun, and one aspect that makes life in Los Angeles interesting and special. What's not fun? Ignorance, racism, bigotry, stereotyping minorities, adhering to an Imperialist mindset, and perpetuating the myth of "The Other."

frankreyes

@bermudez.mariana The point is, the Spanish didn't whine about it for hundreds of years. My response was to this guy, who--like so many Mexicans--uses the same illogical argument to defend the Mexicanization of LA (don't go searching history books for that one, sweetie): that, at one point, this used to be Mexico. That is idiotic. So semantically, I didn't say the most correct statement. But that doesn't mean that guy's ignorant statement is correct. The big issue here is how Mexicans have adapted worse than any other set of immigrants in American history. I'm not saying you have to sell your soul or repress your heritage, but people shouldn't cry 'racist' when they are asked to learn English or not to sell food illegally. Having that doesn't make LA culturally richer or an example to follow, it makes it Van Nuys, East LA, El Monte, Huntington Park, and so on. If THAT is culturally rich or diversity, then put me in a bubble.