As a multi-generation native of California I unfortunately understand feeling chauvinism regarding one's space in the world. It's not something I like to admit, I usually pride myself on my tolerance (I once grounded my son for a week when he was in the 7th grade for overusing the word "faggot," a term 12 year-old boys are wont to use). However, if I look inside myself I have to admit to inherent feelings of superiority when I say, "I am a native Californian" - particularly the caveat "and not first-generation."
As an example, recently when I was looking at a gallery in Hermes of Beverly Hills (no, I don't shop there) of photos of L.A. through the ages, I was told of the classy coffee table book and images projected on the walls, "Ben Stiller selected these." My reaction was, "Really, he's not a native of Los Angeles, is he?" In other words why would you select a native of New York to pick photos of L.A. (even if he is Mr. Mega-Talent in Hollywood), I'm not impressed. Humph.
So I'm as guilty as anyone of certain intolerance yet I also regularly experienced those same feelings of regional pride reflected back to me for being the outsider. This started when my dad finally fled the San Fernando Valley where he was born and raised. I can remember when the orange and walnut groves went on forever and the L.A. river was wild. All of these people moving in are ruining it. We've been here a long time, let's close the door behind us.
Once color TV became common he regularly spent the New Year fretting and cursing the broadcast of the Rose Parade. It'll just bring more of those poor bastards freezing their asses off out here.
I recently had a woman I met socially in Northern California tell me with all seriousness that Nor Cal needs to secede from SoCal. You go, girl. (The ironic thing about the whole Nor Cal/SoCal rivalry/competition is that it's one-sided. SoCal doesn't care.)
The ultimate bashing seems to be for those that come norte. Poor Baldwin Park in SoCal is being besieged these days by an anti-illegal immigrant organization who takes umbrage to a 20 year-old piece of public art that has the inscription, "It was better before they came" - which, according to the artist, was uttered by a white politician in the '40s regarding Mexicans. Evidently the piece was conceived to represent the diversity of Baldwin Park, and also includes inscriptions they never mention, such as "Use your brain before you make up your mind," Huh?, and "The kind of community that people dream of, rich and poor, brown, yellow, red, white, all living together."
This seems to be too much for the Save Our State organization (whose state? are you all multi-generation natives of California, how long have you been here?). The unemployed founder with a penchant for ill-informed talk radio appears to have discovered his calling back in high school when he was a poor picked-on white boy in a mostly brown world and became a fervent supporter of prop 187. Apparently he disregards assorted info from the L.A. Times that when Pete Wilson (the prop 187 gov) was a U.S. Senator he routinely nixed legislation that would have had the INS enforcing immigration laws against California employers.
This may, perhaps, be related to a report released earlier this year by Bear Stearns Assets Management that suggests that halting illegal immigration could crash the United States' economy.
My guess is that those boys out in the Bohemian Grove are very unlikely to want to stop illegal immigration any time soon.
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