Call Me Mary Not Maricruz

WHAT IS happening out there, with respect to the mortgage meltdown and immigration? Maybe a total meltdown according to a commenter at HousingBubbleBlog:

Maybe OT, but let me know what you think. I’m a high school English teacher in OC [Orange County, CA]. Some very interesting things are afoot in Anaheim public schools.

The AP in charge of scheduling says our freshmen enrollment is down 100 kids, about 5% off normal. We’ve been reading about decreasing enrollment coming through the elementary schools, but didn’t expect it to hit us so quickly.

In five classes, I SHOULD have 100-110 kids.

I have 71. Any of you familiar with OC public schools knows how low that number is.

Also, I’ve got many, many more white and asian students than ever before. I *think* what’s happening is that many of those families have downsized into our lower-middle class neighborhood.

On top of that, the recently immigrated Mexican kids seem to have *poof* vanished. (Note: I have no knowledge of their status, illegal or legal.) ALL my students, for the first time in my career, have insisted that I eschew their given names and use an anglicized version (e.g. Mary for Maricruz, Judy for Yuridia, Tommy for Tomas, etc.) instead. No one is speaking Spanish inside or outside the classroom.

This leads me to believe either (a) all the enforcement ICE has been doing is scaring the crap out of the (legal and illegal) immigrant community and/or b) people are ditching Cali for greener pastures.

Or maybe the housing meltdown has melted away all the construction jobs and the construction workers have gone back to Mexico.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

Comments:

Posted by: Bookworm on 09/18/07 4:42pm

You may be right that, with an industry collapse, Hispanic workers have vanished. But that doesn't explain the desire to have assimilated, American names. I'm big on assimilation in the public sphere, with people having the complete freedom to celebrate their cultures in the homes and communities. If that's what's happening, that's a good thing.