Time, Inc. buys house in Detroit

[waltlantz]

Identifying problems with immigration law is one thing, but people have to get over denigrating hispanic immigrants for being who they are. All poor immigrants who didnt speak English took generations to assimilate, it ain't easy.

Anyways, was there nearly this level of media coverage of the motor city in the more prosperous early part of the decade?

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by waltlantz

Identifying problems with immigration law is one thing, but people have to get over denigrating Hispanic immigrants for being who they are. All poor immigrants who didnt speak English took generations to assimilate, it ain't easy.

Anyways, was there nearly this level of media coverage of the motor city in the more prosperous early part of the decade?

We lived for 9 years in an area that is populated mostly with Hispanic immigrants (80+%), a large number of whom came to the US illegally. It is difficult to watch people escape from terrible conditions in their country, come here, cluster together in concentrated areas and then appear determined to turn those areas into the same terrible conditions that they were trying to escape from. A lot of the problem comes form the effects of poverty. Many of the immigrants who come here, are hard working good people. However once they start to get established, their cousins, nieces, brothers, sisters etc, all come to live with them and those are not all nice people. The hard working people who are the majority are not that visible. They are usually away at work, or resting. They tend to stick to themselves or to each other and are somewhat suspicious of us foreign seeming Americanos. However when you get to know them, the vast majority are very nice, good people (even though they have some odd seeming habits and customs).

It is the minority who make no effort to work, who hang out on the streets, urinate or defecate on their lawns (or yours), play loud music all the time, throw their beer cans and bottles int he streets, and act entirely trashy and with no respect for others, that you see and hear more of, so that it appears that they are a majority when they are not, not even close. For every dirtbag that you see peeing on your lawn, there are fifty hard working quiet people that you will never see unless you make the effort to go and meet them. However what people see when they enter into the areas are not the hard working nice people who are either working or resting, or making dinner, they see the cholos sitting on the porch guzzling beer, smoking and complaining about being poor and mistreated while they pee on the lawn or steal some hubcaps. (you may be getting the picture that people using lawns as bathrooms was really annoying to me - especially when they used my lawn (hooray for sprinkler systems - my lawn can pee back on you ).

I think that the problem that many people have is not the failure to assimilate into the culture immediately, but the groups who are demanding and getting special rights because they are immigrants. It is one thing to say that they can take a while to assimilate, it is another to go into Home Depot and have difficulty finding signs or instructions in English, going to vote and finding no voter information brochures available in English, waiting through Spanish greetings when you call customer service. However the bigger problem is the special treatment. At one point, California offered in state tuition to all illegal immigrants since they have no legal residence (legal immigrants had to follow the normal residency laws), but the same year, a bill was shot down that suggested offering in-State tuition to all returning war veterans regardless of residency. That type of entitlement and special treatment is what seems to be getting many people up in arms.

I really came to like a lot of the immigrants who were our neighbors and some of them are my closest friends (legal and illegal), but I still get annoyed when I have to hunt for signs or brochures in English when I am in the United States. What really set me off was when we went to register our kids in the public school and they took half an hour to find someone at the school who could speak English well enough to talk to us; and then they tod us that our children would be taught in Spanish (which they did not speak at all).

Why don't they assimilate? In part because our school systems have taken the lazy way out and instead of teaching in English and teaching American culture, thereby causing assimilation, they are teaching in Spanish and teaching Mexican history and culture, thereby preventing assimilation. No wonder they can only get jobs at car washes and construction labor. The system, in supposedly helping them, is preventing them from obtaining the opportunity to advance in our society. How far is someone going to get in college or business if they speak only broken English? By supposedly being kind to them, and making things easier for them, our system is really keeping them down and forcing them into low income positions. It is really frustrating to watch the politicians go on and on about how we need to be more sensitive to their needs when the politicians are not listening to what the immigrant population really wants and are keeping them down. Some of the HIspanic politicians are obviously doing it intentionally. They want to keep their own people down, so that the people cannot get anything without the help of their local political boss. Other politicians go along with it because to do otherwise is to be branded insensitive, prejudiced or bigoted. It is a terrible situation. If we want them to assimilate, we need to help them to assimilate. We may even need to push them a little bit, especially when they are school aged. Why bother to learn the local language when the political bosses can force the locals to cater to you in your language? Sure it means that you will never get anywhere, but it is easier. If we stop making it easy for them to not assmilate, theny they will assimlate more quickly and evnetually be able to get ahead in our society. They have enough obstacles to overcome with the probems that ocme with poverty. They do not need to be prevented fro learning what they need to know to get out of their condition.


Enough of this rant. What was this thread about? I cannot remember.

[zthatzmanz28]

Thread was about out-of-state folks buying cheap property that has outrageous taxes...aka City of Detroit...

[Timm]

Yesterday, my father-in-law handed me the October 5 issue of Time. The cover story is "The Tragedy of Detroit - How a great city fell, and how it can rise again.". Good story. The letter from the editor describes the house they bought in Detroit and their plan for it. What I found most interesting is the "Assignment Detroit" feature on their website. Basically, daily stories about Detroit. Lots of good stuff there. They also promise future articles in the magazine throughout the year.

Their stated purpose:
"The hope is that through all these efforts, a narrative arc about Detroit will emerge over the next year that can somehow make a difference. While we do not intend to be cheerleaders or apologists, we do have a point of view: we want Detroit to recover and find its way into the future."

So, for the first time, I subscribed to their magazine. My way of showing support and saying thanks. Good job, Time.

[Unstable]

Just learned about this today. Very interesting project. I'm going to make a point of reading about it at: The Detroit Blog - One year. One city. Endless opportunities. - TIME.com

I'm particularly interested in what my city, Philadelphia, might learn from Detroit. I think that in many ways Philly is in better shape - more diverse economy, manufacturing and shipping still solid, successful anchor projects such as the Pennsylvania Convention Center, transit, access to the rest of BosWash, etc. But I think that there's a lot we can learn from Detroit. So I'm very interested in this.