[BretLudwig]

Mexican-Americans vs. Mexican tackiness

"Here's an amusing article by Hector Becerra in the LA Times about how
American-born Mexican-American politicians are allowed to say in public
what everybody feels in private: that Mexican immigrant neighborhoods
aren't "vibrant," they're tacky:

It was as if the developers were talking about tacos, and the Latino
politicians were talking about apple pie.

Baldwin Park Mayor Manuel Lozano and other city officials listened as
the developers said they had studied the demographics of the city and
could bring in a retailer known for offering credit to undocumented
immigrants and a shopping center with a "Latino feel."

To Lozano, it was another case of developers typecasting his suburb,
which is about 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. He didn't want to
see more of what he calls "amigo stores."

The meeting ended like a bad date, with handshakes and excessive
courtesy. But afterward, Lozano made it clear he was not happy.

"We want what Middle America has as well," said the second-generation
Mexican American, recounting the meeting. "We like to go to nice places
like Claim Jumpers, Chili's and Applebee's. . . . We don't want the
fly-by-night business, the 'amigo store,' which they use to attract
Latinos like myself."

Call it "immigrant" store fatigue. It's happening in cities that are
overwhelmingly Latino, with Latino political leaders and with large
immigrant communities.

For decades, these cities attracted working-class and
immigrant-centric retailers: check-cashing businesses, Latino
supermarkets, discount gift stores, bridal shops and Mexican western wear
stores. Some are independent, and some are chains such as La Curacao, an
appliance and electronics retailer that offers credit accounts to
immigrants who lack the documentation for conventional credit cards.

Until relatively recently, cities like Baldwin Park, South Gate and
Santa Ana had few options beyond "Latino" retailers. But this year,
Baldwin Park -- a city of 70,000 in the San Gabriel Valley -- enacted a
moratorium on new payday loan and check cashing stores. The city is now
partners with Bisno Development Co. on an "urban village" of mixed-income
housing, theaters and mainstream restaurants such as Claim Jumper,
Applebee's and Chili's.

To make it happen, the city is considering a plan that could require
the use of eminent domain power to clear a 125-acre area.

That would result in the loss of more than 80 homes and more than 100
small businesses.

The huge project has prompted charges that the City Council, composed
of Mexican Americans, is ashamed of its culture.

"I'm proud of my roots," said Rosalva Alvarez, as she stood in her
beauty store on Maine Avenue, which is in the redevelopment area. "I was
born in Mexico and raised in this country. I agree we need some change.
But what they want to bring here is totally unrealistic. Applebee is good,
but a Kabuki? And also a Trader Joe's? Come on, I don't even go to Trader
Joe's."

Some opponents say that one councilwoman had told critics to "go back
to [Tijuana]."

"I don't know where they got that," said Councilwoman Marlen Garcia.
"What I said was 'We're striving to insure Baldwin Park doesn't look like
Tijuana.' " €¦

But Mayor Lozano is undaunted.

As he rode through the streets of his city, past the rows of low-slung
mini malls with signs in a mix of English and Spanish, Lozano complained
that downtown Baldwin Park had too many discount gift stores, too many
beauty salons, too many Mexican restaurants and way too many pawnshops.

Lozano and his allies believe that mainstream retailers now fit better
with Baldwin Park, where many of the residents are second-, third- and even
fourth-generation Latinos with little interest in stores aimed at
immigrants.

A more subtle point, one lost in the overblown hype about "immigrant
entrepreneurialism," is that as American-born Mexican-Americans
assimilate, they become less entrepreneurial than Mexican-immigrants. Over
the generations, Mexican immigrants don't make the transition from owning
tacky shops to owning distinctive boutiques. Their neighborhoods start out
quirky, but not the kind of Stuff White People Like quirk; over the
generations, if all goes well, the prosperous Mexican-American
neighborhoods turn into National Chain Power Mall neighborhoods, identical
to the rest of the Stuff White People Hate. (And that's the upside.)

Whereas, say, Armenian immigrants might move up the ladder as business
owners from generation to generation, Mexicans instead tend to quit being
self-employed and go to work for large institutions. Mexican immigrants
start out at the bottom of the entrepreneurial totem pole, running
businesses that appeal mostly to other Mexican immigrants. But they
generally don't get more skilled as entrepreneurs with each generation --
instead, the next generation gives up and goes to work for somebody else.

National chain restaurants and chain stores are appealing employers to
bilingual American-born Mexicans because they can get managerial jobs
bossing around Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants while reporting to
English-speaking corporate bosses in Atlanta (or wherever).
As I mentioned last year, when I came back from a trip around the country,
the libertarian advice to African-Americans to start their own businesses
is ill-conceived. African-Americans tend to prefer working for big
institutions where all the rules are already written down in three-ring
binders (e.g., the U.S. Army) because they are more likely to be
successful in that kind of environment. Something similar is true for
Mexican-Americans (with perhaps the more macho Marines substituting for
the Army).

There's nothing wrong with preferring to work for a big institution rather
than being an entrepreneur -- indeed, succeeding in a job is better for all
concerned that failing at owning a business -- but that much of the
punditry about minority entrepreneurialism is romantic hooey."

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/05/m...tackiness.html


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