Buddy, in California, I saw first hand how working class neighborhoods that were low crime decline into barrios. South LA county is a prime example, aslo the San Fernando valley and many parts of San Jose as well.
Also, look up congresional quarterly at the library, you can see exit poll information, I looked a while back, and except for the 84 election(When Reagan got a little over 40% of the Hispanic vote in CA), Hispanics usually went close to 2-1 Democratic.
As for the 44% figure, much of that 44% came from Cubans in FL and 3rd, 4th and 5th generation Mexican Americans in Texas and New Mexico, states where voters who were mostly immigrants or 2nd generation had the Hispanic vote over 2-1 for Kerry.
What a member of the working class earns is way above what an illegal earns. So the correlation between income and crime rate holds
As for the 44% figure, much of that 44% came from Cubans in FL
Yes, those are the traditionally Republican voters, but most of the increase over 96 and 2000 doesn't come from them.
and 3rd, 4th and 5th generation Mexican Americans in Texas and New Mexico
So they are assimilating.
, states where voters who were mostly immigrants or 2nd generation had the Hispanic vote over 2-1 for Kerry.
Now, that's rather dubious logic. In all four border states most of the hispanics are first and second generation. If Bush04 only got 33% of those votes there's no way he could get 44% nationwide with just the FL Cubans (63% going for W, I beleve).