Here's an immigration story big enough to make the Drudge Report.
Gang Violence Puts Idaho Town on Edge
Oct 28, By Bob Fick, CALDWELL, Idaho (AP) - Gunfire and gang violence are alarming people in this farm town where the usual background noise is the reassuring chug of field machinery. Since July, police have received more than 100 reports of shots fired in Caldwell, a town of 30,000 halfway between Boise and the Oregon line. Two young men have been killed and several more wounded in drive-by shootings. Police believe most of the violence is gang-related….
For more than a century, Caldwell has been a hub for one of the most agriculturally productive counties in the nation. Hops, onions, potatoes, beans, sugar beets and hybrid sweet-corn are grown here.
Thanks to a booming state economy, Caldwell's population has jumped 16 percent in the past four years after growing 41 percent in the 1990s. The area has a long history of Hispanic farm workers migrating here every year to work the summer crops. But since the 1990s, more and more of the families have been settling here.
Police said gang activity, involving both young Hispanics and whites, has grown with the population.
An interesting if circuitous post at Gene Expression discusses the role in Asian anti-American politics of émigrés returning from the US – even some born in America. Detecting this phenomenon in several Asian countries, "ericlien" suggests it has been particularly noticeable in Taiwan where it suits the local left/ethnocentric movement. The writer fears Mainland China will take up this cause as a means of channeling domestic political energies and exerting influence in the US:
The Chinese Communist Party, having lost any reasonable claim to being Communist except for the fact that they're not democratic, are encouraging the growth of racial-nationalism among their people, with a generous helping of victimology to boot. Such a "my race, always right" mentality will easily sympathize with the struggles of identity politicos in Asian-America…
A sinister thought for anyone who has read John Derbyshire's brilliant VDARE.COM 2000 essay. Perhaps we have more to fear from these ideal immigrants than their propensity to beat our children out of academic plums.
