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November 07, 2003
 Despite
Recession, Reconquista Accelerating
By
Joe Guzzardi
I had perverse fun this week by
asking my unsuspecting friends here in our little town of
Lodi, CA, the following question:
According to the US Bureau
of the Census, what percentage of Lodi’s population
increase of 5,125 residents between 1990 and 2000 is
Latino? Chose from the following:
a) 25%;
b) 50%;
c) 75%;
d) 100% or
e) over 125%”
The most popular answer is
“b)—50%.” And those who chose that answer did so
tentatively because the figure’s significance is so
daunting.
Alas, the correct answer is
“e)—over 125%.” If you agreed with me that 50% is a
corker of a number, then I’m sure you’ll readily agree
that 125% is staggering.
Here’s the breakdown: in 2000 Lodi’s
population was 56,999, a net increase of 5,125 from 1990.
Latinos in Lodi increased to 15,464 from 8,766 during the
same period. That increase of 6,698 Latinos equals 130%
of Lodi’s total population growth.
The Census figures additionally show
that between 1990 and 2000, Lodi’s percentage of
Hispanics grew from 16.9% of the total population to
27.1%.
And during the decade, the
non-Hispanic white population
declined.
Historically,
demographic changes move at glacial speed. But in the
21st Century, with our borders wide open,
we’re moving at a break-neck pace.
The Census Bureau data confirms what
I have been saying for the last three years: The shift in
California’s
demographic make-up is happening so fast and is so
pronounced that I can literally see it occurring each
day:
- In the “Births” section of the
Lodi News-Sentinel: to Juan and Maria Gomez, a
daughter, Maribel. These weekly announcements are
invariably more than 50% Latino surnames.
If you take the 2000 Census figures
and extrapolate them,
“Loveable, Livable Lodi,” as the town fathers
love to say, will be predominantly Latino by 2040.
The trend is clear. The numbers of
illegal aliens arriving in California and having their
children here is overwhelming. Whether the aliens arrive
by simply crossing the border or as part of some
sophisticated scheme like the
Wal-Mart scam, they keep coming.
Whatever estimates you hear about
the illegal immigrant population in the United States are
low by 20%. To quote VDARE.COM contributor
John Attarian, “We are drowning in immigrants.”
As an Op-ed columnist for the
Lodi News-Sentinel, I am a magnet for locals who have
an
axe to grind. Needless to say, folks are smoking mad
about Lodi’s
population growth and its accompanying
urban sprawl and demographic transformation.
Most residents remember Lodi as an
agricultural town with a folksy atmosphere. Grapes,
cherries, walnuts and dairy are
Lodi’s core resources. But as prime agricultural
land gets gobbled up to make room for
super stores,
strip malls and
housing developments, the populace has grown
increasingly uneasy.
This year, Lodi suffered through a
blistering
hot, dry summer with temperatures regularly
reaching above 100. When I was stalled in traffic (in
Lodi!) watching the swirling dust from earthmovers engulf
my car, disenchantment built up fast.
And when I noticed that the
construction crews are—even in this period of high
U.S. unemployment—non-English
speaking workers, my disenchantment quickly turned to
anger.
To understand what is going on
around them, I recommended to my frustrated Lodi friends
that they read two new reports that analyze the
intertwined relationships of immigration, population
growth and sprawl:
I asked authors Kolankiewicz and
Martin to comment about Lodi.
Replied Kolankiewicz:
“These
trends in Lodi parallel those of many, many other places
in California, and indeed, the country as a whole. This
is borne out in a recent report by the Center for
Immigration Studies, which found the rising flow of
immigration in the nineties becoming increasingly less
diverse and ever more
dominated by Latin Americans. ”
Kolankiewicz added,
“If
these trends continue, then geographers and cartographers
may have to re-draw their maps of the Western Hemisphere,
for the region called Latin America (basically South
America, Central America including Mexico, and some of
the Caribbean) will have absorbed some of North
America.”
FAIR’s Marin pointed to more recent
Census Data, the Current Population Statistics report
covering 2000- 2002—i.e. a period when
the economy was in recession.
Using figures for
San Joaquin County, Martin observed that
“During
the 1990s, Census Bureau data show that immigration was
responsible for more than twice as many people added to
the population in San Joaquin County as natives moving
into the County.
“But
more recent Census Bureau data show that the surge in
population more than doubled since the 2000 Census, and
that immigration is responsible for nearly two-thirds of
the annual increase. Over this latest 2-yr. period, the
largest contributor to population growth is immigration
[net international migration]. It added an
average of 14,641 residents to the population each year.
Increase due to births was 4,810 per year, and increase
from domestic migration was 3,977 persons.”
The bad news, dear readers, is that
no matter
what state you live in, you are experiencing
immigration-driven growth.
But there is good news: important
voices in television and radio—Lou
Dobbs, Michael Savage,
Bill O’Reilly, Chris Matthews and
Joe Scarborough to name but a few—see the same thing
we do. And they’re yelling about it. By keeping illegal
immigration high on the nation’s radar, they have become
the vocal champions for our cause.
Explosive as the argument about
immigration is, one thing the other side never disputes
is its impact on
population growth.
We have
logic on our side in the
immigration debate. With Bush otherwise distracted by
Iraq, and apparently unwilling to make any
politically risky promises about
amnesty, now is the hour for us to recapture America.
Joe Guzzardi [email
him], an instructor in English at the Lodi
Adult School, has been writing a weekly newspaper column
since 1988. This column is exclusive to VDARE.COM. |
