Posted on 08/01/2005 12:26:38 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
NEWBURGH, N.Y. - Sunday morning in this small Hudson Valley city, more than 1,000 parishioners, most from Mexico, pack Spanish-language Masses at St. Patrick's Catholic Church. Afterward, many families flock to El Azteca for its authentic tacos. If somebody needs a ride home, there are at least a dozen local taxi companies catering to newcomers born in the Mexican states of Puebla and Jalisco.
New residents from Mexico have, in the past four years, opened dozens of businesses that have begun to reinvigorate the ailing downtown district; they are the region's fastest growing community.
It's the same story elsewhere in the Northeast. The region is seeing the impact of Mexican migration.
New Mexican communities have arrived to fill farm, construction and domestic jobs, government data show. Population growth in states such as Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Connecticut would be much slower if not for the newcomers, who are steadily bringing about the region's biggest demographic shift in generations.
Rodolfo O. de la Garza, a sociologist at Columbia University, says it's natural that Mexico is — and will be — the main source of Hispanic migration to the United States.
"Mexico is right there, and Mexico is so big," he said.
Sixty miles north of New York City, Newburgh has historically had a small Puerto Rican community. These days, Mexicans far outnumber Puerto Ricans, demographers say.
In 2000, the city's 4,500 Mexicans represented half of all its Latinos; today, Mexicans are two-thirds of that group, demographers estimate.
"I've seen (Mexicans) grow from a very small, quiet-type community to a very large population, and it continues to grow," said Richard Rivera, president of Latinos Unidos, a local advocacy group.
Rapidly expanding Mexican communities are in East Boston, Burlington, Vt., Central Falls, R.I., and Providence, said Martha Montero-Seiburth, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
The problem "is way worse than it was three or four years ago," said Michael Tones, the vice president of New Plan Excel Realty Trust, which owns a shopping center in the area. Tones said customers are frightened by the men loitering along Shepherd near 11th Street.
……………Before the center opened, many of the day laborers would drink in public. He is working to cut down on the drinking, but conceded that some workers still drink outside.
"I tell them to drink at home," he said. "I tell them: If you don't respect me, at least respect the place." …….Deras hopes to get most of the workers from the area to come to the center, but some still prefer to wait for work on nearby corners……..***
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Bush has put his fishing line in the water. ************ GOP courts consensus on border policy (There's a lot to chew on)************
What's interesting is that, for the most part, they are not displacing Anglos. Instead, they are moving into neighborhoods occupied until now by migrants/immigrants from the Hispanic Carribean, specifically Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Over the past few years, their have been several assaults on Mexican day laborers by Nuyoricans and DominicanYorks, to say nothing of African Americans. Most New Yorkers, who are used to large waves of illegal and legal immigrants, just shrug it all off. The mentality of the average New Yorker is very different from that of the average Californian on this issue.
Colonization is proceeding apace.
Read my post #2. Those areas where the Mexicans are settling have been Dominican/Puerto Rican enclaves for some time anyway.
...and they are aghast at NYC spanglish!
Being that I speak Spanish (rather poorly) and had some Mexicans in my last building, I can tell you that they HATE the Dominicans/Puerto Ricans more than anyone else in the city. They can't understand the Carribean accent and Spanglish is not comprehensible to them. Of course, their kids are already speaking Spanglish/New Yorkese, at least those who are enrolled in the New York public school system.
I guess they gravitate to where the jobs are.
The problem is, they are moving to a place where even a one bedroom in the ghetto will cost them $1,100 a month, which is why they cram 8 people into such small apartments.
So we have the Dominicans not like the Puerto Ricans, the Mexicans hating both. And the South Americans staying out of it, content to play music in the subway. What we need now are some more Cubans in the mix.
You can do better than $1,100 in Washington Heights...
Cubans came to New Jersey in the 1960s and couldn't stand living among the PRs, so they joined their Paisanos in Florida. As it is, the few Cubans who stayed in New Jersey now live out in suburbia, Cubans being a rather affluent ethnic group.
Cheapest one bedroom I have seen listed in Washington Heights (east of Broadway, of course) was about $950 for a VERY SMALL one bedroom railroad in a sh-thole building.
Well, obviously they must be taking a shortcut via Canada.
BUMP
If Castro falls, then maybe we'll get a new influx into NYC...maybe we'll get some more of those Cuban/Chinese places I used to like so much.
The two guys who worked at my local pizzeria came via Texas, made their way to North Carolina (where they told me they got driver's licenses) and took I-95 up to New York. All of the Mexicans in New York (ok, at least 98%) are from the area around the city of Puebla.
But the tides of history surge and recede...King Canute is laughing.
Cheapest one bedroom I have seen listed in Washington Heights (east of Broadway, of course) was about $950 for a VERY SMALL one bedroom railroad in a sh-thole building.
C'mon! You're a New Yorker. You know better than that. If you go up to Washington Heights with a few hundred dollars cash to lay on the right broker, you can find something decent (for Washington Heights).
It was a joke.
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