Social Mood and Immigration

One theme I continually return to is how social mood changes the public's opinion on issues such as immigration. Most governments respond to the shift by tightening immigration restrictions, but in the United States, the elites carry on as if there has been no shift in social mood.

In the U.S., those opposed to immigration are dubbed xenophobic or racist. However, the news is filled with the same story across the globe. In Socionomics Watch—Hong Kong residents call Mainland Chinese "locusts"; Chinese call HKers "running dogs", it was Chinese vs Chinese. Same in Singapore. There is the extreme case in the Dominican Republic where the Supreme Court stripped long-time citizens of their citizenship and deported them back to Haiti.

More recently in the U.S. was Spike Lee's rant against gentrification.

Now there is this article: West Hollywood's increasing diversity inspires mixed emotions

Councilman John Duran and his gay colleagues on the West Hollywood City Council never expected a backlash when they voted recently to remove the rainbow flag from above City Hall.

For Duran, who is gay, taking down the flag wasn't about slighting gays but sending a message about the city's diversity.

"It's not just a city of gay men. It belongs to heterosexual people as well," he said.

But the flag's removal in a place synonymous with gay life outraged many, and the city this week changed course, raising above City Hall a flag with a rainbow-colored city logo.

The dust-up underscores a larger identity crisis facing the city once known as a "Gay Camelot." When it was founded in 1984, West Hollywood was an oasis for gays, a place where they could be better protected from gay-bashing, find support during the AIDS crisis and fight discrimination.

But both West Hollywood and the rest of society have changed since those days. Gays now feel greater acceptance outside the boundaries of gay neighborhoods.

At the same time, West Hollywood has seen a development boom that has made the city a more hip, but not necessarily more gay, address. While the city's gay population has remained at about 40% for some time, the commercial scene is changing. The city's last lesbian bar, The Palms, was razed last year because the property owners wanted to develop the site, where an upscale supermarket has been proposed.

"The shedding of the LGBT identity is happening slowly with development [and] straight business owners," said resident Larry Block. "There's just a changing environment in West Hollywood."

The same story is repeated over and over. It is the same sentiment expressed as anger at population migration that changes the community. It can be at the neighborhood level in the case of Spike Lee's rant, it can be at the city level for the gays in West Hollywood, it can be at the state level in the U.S. and it can happen at the country level. Sometimes there are additional racial, religious or ethnic tensions, but it is not hard to find people expressing the same exact sentiments towards people of their own race, religion and ethnic group, who happen to have a different culture, ideas about politics, or simply an argument against sheer numbers.

These issues always exist to some degree. It's hard to see how neighborhoods or cities such as West Hollywood could remain unchanged. Still, because something is inevitable in the long-run, does not mean politicians should pursue policies that will exacerbate these tensions in the short-run, at exactly the moment when the potential for violence are at their highest. Furthermore, it risks a greater political backlash than would otherwise be possible.