> The difference is striking when one travels to both NYC and to S.
> Cal -- one feels it even in personal relations. In good part it is
> the proportion of unauthorized immigrants that is smaller (I don't
> have estimates handy and the standard studies like Pew/CPS don't
> give breakdowns - anyone?).
I found the state-based breakdown:
"Almost two-thirds of the undocumented population lives in just six states: California (26 percent), Texas (12 percent), Florida (10 percent) New York (8 percent), Illinois (4 percent), and New Jersey (4 percent) [table 1 <http://www.urban.org/publications/ 1000587.html#table1>]" (Jeffrey S. Passel, Randolph Capps, Michael E. Fix, "Undocumented Immigrants: Facts and Figures," <http:// www.urban.org/publications/1000587.html>).
The proportion of undocumented immigrants is smaller in New York than in California, but, still, the size of the pro-immigrant demo in New York City was even smaller than what it should be based on that proportion (as well as the proportion of leftists). Not only that, the NYC demo was far smaller than the 100,000-strong immigrant rights rally in Chicago (which was the first to get big-time national attention in a series of immigrant rights demos nationwide), though Illinois has a lower share of the undocumented in its population than that in New York.
The February 15, 2003 demo, the Freedom Ride demo in 2003, and the anti-RNC demo in 2004 were all well populated by out-of-towners (I've been to one of them, and I know for sure many Ohioans attended them). So, I stick to my thesis: New Yorkers haven't been able to organize big protests on their own for quite some time.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>