> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wojtek Sokolowski" <sokol at jhu.edu>
> >That might have been true with European immigrants at the turn of the
> >centuries who had been exposed working class movements in the Old World/
> >My experience with today's immigrants is that they tend to be
> >conservative, especially on social issues, like women's or gay rights,
> >race issues or even economic issues; many of them are rabidly
> >anti-communist.
>
> THen you must be dealing with a select group of Vietnamese and Cuban
> immigrants. In California, the new immigrant voters have shifted politics
> significantly to the left. And gay rights and abortion rights have expanded
> along with new pro-labor policies.
>
> Nathan
Texas here. Politics have shifted way to the right in this neck of the woods, though our immigrant Latino population is probably proportionately similar to California's (lived in the Central Valley for a few years, FYI - poor as hell but yeah it was "left" in a lot of ways). Republicans swept state-wide elections, which have been trending rightward over the past decade; we still have the most shameful record on the death penalty probably in the world; we're among the bottom in per capita spending; teachers get lousy pay; piss-poor social services for low income and uninsured mentally ill or the sick; it goes on. The only leftward trends immigration has brought here are a growth in unions for jobs that one sees Latino majorities in. I have to agree with Wojtek as far as social conservatism, however.
Brian
--
"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"Il etait enfin venu, le jour ou je fus un pourceau!" - Comte de Lautreamont, Les Chants de Maldoror, 4th Hymn, Strophe 6