I used to live in the amazing state of California; I was there for an amount of years, enough (8 combined) that I felt like I knew the place. I felt that I had become a resident, that I understood it somewhat. I thought that I knew many things about the locals and the overall lay of the land.
It is an amazing place; it is connected to its neighboring states and has similarities to them but also is its own unique place. And it is large, of course, so not easy to summarize.
After living on the East Coast for a while, I realized something about the dynamics there that I call the "Calamity Cycle".
Northern Californians have always been known for complaining about the overpopulation and drag on resources of the more numerous Southern Californians. I married into a large southern California family and I was able to live down there a total of six years. I spent another almost two years along the central coast of Monterrey Bay. Close enough to the north to think that I understood more of the "northern" Cal attitude. And all of this perhaps neglects the attitudes people of isolated parts of the San Joaquin Central Valley, the forgotten Imperial Valley, or even the extreme north.
But here is what I call the Calamity Cycle:
1. Northern Californians complain and criticize the southern part of the state (primarily Los Angeles and its environs) for using up all the resources like water, having too many people that plunge into financial funds and thereby horde up the state coffers and budgetary expenses, leaving the Golden State in perpetual crisis of money and endless political strife.
Simply put, the people of the north say the people of the south, whom there are too many of, are draining and ruining the whole state!
But then I thought about it more, and I concluded:
2. Southern Californians have the same complaint about foreign immigrants, and "out-of-staters" like I used to be. A Midwestern transplant like dozens of others that I knew from Chicago or other parts of the east, we came to the state on the Pacific, the Left Coast, and claimed much of the necessary resources from the native Californians. Of course, a huge percentage of these people not native to California were Hispanic. Many of those Latinos, primarily but not exclusively from Mexico, struggled to learn the requisite amount of English to be considered truly productive and integrated Californians and US residents.
So the people of the South blame the immigrants! Too many, resource-draining, drag on the better economy due to their needs and problems.
But speaking Spanish as I do, and attending a Spanish speaking church for a couple of years in San Bernardino as well as teaching many second language learners to try to speak English, mixing with many foreigners, some of whom were undocumented, I came to understand their point of view better:
3. The foreign immigrants of southern California complain about the narco-traffickers, the coyotes (human smugglers), the real thugs and hoodlums who prey upon them and others. They are the ones to be blamed for the draining of needed and limited resources of the political and state funded options in Southern California! The illegal and other gang-banging criminals are counted as too many in the streets and the jails and prisons of the Golden State, thus being the real reason why Southern California is at a loss and the downward cycle continues....
Alas, these are the bad guys! The true culprits of all that is wrong!
4. So we ask the drug-runners and sellers, the producers and others that run illicit drugs to the tune of billions per year, with all the subsequent problems that follow this dangerous trade: so?
They point to their main market, which comes from---wait for it: Northern Californians. They have more money and resources financially to buy the illicit product of heroin, cocaine, LDS, marijuana, etc. They are the reason that drug production and illegal selling exists, because of this great demand, there will always be this supply.
Ahh, the blame game has come full circle.
So it is with California.
Blog it. EMC
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