 So Gregory a lot of people in recent weeks have been celebrating what is seen as the kind of end or at least the ebbing of Mexican migration and you wrote a great column and what I mean by that of course There's all the data that showing that the flow across the river and across the border I should say peaked in 2007 and the numbers of you know illegal crossings is down the number of the Undocumented population in the US is starting to to come down and that would be expected giving the recession. It would be expected given You know tightened enforcement and also the demographic shift in Mexico But I want to ask you it was very interesting to see to read a column that you wrote this week where you were kind of celebrating this in a way for very personal different reasons where you were talking about how you know the Migration story has affected you in the last couple decades and talk a little bit about what you wrote in the LA Times I What I'm what I've always been concerned with and my interest in migration and my interest in Mexican migration in particular Was how it would affect the US culture how to affect California culture and I never really wrote about it And I wrote about it this week as you're referring to is the extent to which it actually affects me personally because I my family Is of Mexican origin, but we've been here You know different grandparents came at different times, but the great-grandfather my father's side came in 1890 So we my father then was born in Los Angeles. My mother was born in San Diego. I was born in Los Angeles So I'm a long timer. I'm a sort of a suburban California Southern California And so what I what I look back on was the extent to which Mexican migration then Because of the way Well, I'll start simple that how it is that framed my identity Both internally and externally how how people assumed who I was and what the what the what the meaning of Hispanic or Latino or Mexican meant Over time since I was a kid Right. I mean, you know We collaborated together at the LA Times and I lived out there for three years And it's true that of all the people I met in LA Your family roots there probably traced back further than probably anybody else I I met and any other friend I had in LA and yet I mean what you point out in your in your column this week is people always look to you to speak for The Mexicans who showed up yesterday, right? So there was this presumption so that despite my rooted because of my ethnicity There was this presumption of newness. There was a presumption of foreignness Um, and it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's something that I've had to battle with you out I've had editors. I've worked with for years was suddenly I have to have written about LA politics or American demographics Will turn to me and ask me to write about Hugo Chavez, but I'm nothing About I've never been to Venezuela But but there was there was this presumption of I mean one of the things I always say quite bluntly In American intellectual life and beyond if you're white you can be an individual if you're not you are You're immediately presumed to be a representative of a group a standard bear a spokesman and I am I'm a I'm a grouchy Sort of often rude Irrassable sort of guy. I don't I don't I don't really get along with most people and suddenly I found myself on a position of speaking for people and and since I always had to I always it became sort of a burden at the same time I'm trying to be honest about it. It became a job opportunity. It was the marketplace open I mean, I was going I had gotten into Harvard Divinity School I wanted to be a theologian believe it or not and this demographic moment was happening and I came back to LA to work with a medical sociologist who was working on Mexico literally health data and Mexican immigration what it was doing He found that he essentially found that in the early 90s that the poorest group of women in California We're having the healthiest birth outcome or at the poorest group of men in California living longer And so I came to California to study what this would do to California culture So I got I think I got lost where I was going but but in essence I suddenly I Suddenly found myself in a position where these paper editors were looking to like why can't you make sense of this for me? It's an annoying level. It's fair because I as a Mexican-American. I have had a long time But I'm not Mexican and so I was actually interpreting something that was sort of affected me somehow I identified with I didn't I didn't entirely not identify identify with it, but I wasn't of it When you were saying you're grouchy, I kept looking at the coyote over your shoulder You know, I grew up in in Mexico as you know and the relationship between Mexicans and the diaspora here Mexican-Americans and Chicanos Is both a complicated one it, but I feel like it's also one that's changed a lot over time I mean, what's what's your sense of that and how do you when you go to Mexico has your sense of Identification with this country from which your ancestors came has that relationship changed as the border became more porous as more Mexicans moved in to LA. How's that dynamic changed over time? Absolutely. It's changed tremendous when when when For 30 40 years ago Mexican-Americans could often find themselves about being being none of the above Anglo didn't see you was fully American and Mexicans didn't see you back, right? So met an American is on some fundamental and that's really part of me is this net Being part of need a group and that's why I identify with the coyote behind me Ultimate can go anywhere and survive you see the piece in the New York Times about ten coyotes in Golden Gate Park last month I loved it. Anyway, go So first coyotes also are the people are the ones who bring people across the border. Well, that's that complicates my definition anyways So over time though Mexican began that sort of there was this sense that that Through the the derogatory to import show this which is, you know, it translates as a sort of watered-down Mexican In essence, there was this notion that I mean we the those who left were an embarrassment I'm in the early 20th century something like 10% of Mexico had left North so we were the living embodiment of Mexico's failure on some level and Mexicans both of both of both nationally on a national official level and On a personal family level this happened what this happens with all sorts of migration We'll have misgivings about those who left home and may have done better And so there was a little bit of jealousy. There was tension and there was a sense Well, well, you may have gone to the United States you gain certain things But you have you you just clearly lost culture or soldier culture, but the last 20 years That's that's the choice of teams have changed and there's been a warmth in fact and I can go to Mexico now And in essence, um, there is not this great distance There's not this presumed distance between Mexicans and Mexican Americans that there had been there's there's because Polls seem to show that there's so many Mexicans have family and friends in the United States That it's almost normalized the image of the Mexican American in Mexican I think that's right. I mean, I think the political changes in Mexico the opening and the sort of greater democracy meant that Mexican the Mexican government could no longer had to be in denial about its citizenry in the United States They saw it as an economic opportunity Vicente Fox when he became president really capitalized on this and in fact the opposition to the PRI which ruled Mexico for 70 years always saw the Mexican Americans on this side of the border as potential allies and the pre was naturally nervous about them So it's kind of natural that that would shift things. I also think it's interesting how these personal connections have Served to soften. I think how Mexicans see the US and there's there's been a a significant lessening of anti-americanism in Mexican society generally And I think it's because as you said every every family or every person has a friend or a relative who's gone Who goes back and forth and so the you know, the behemoth the Embedio to the north starts looking very differently as its experience if not firsthand through the experiences of your of your primo or your you know Your your parent that's sending you remittances and so forth. So it's it's pretty interesting that shift What about? So here you are I mean on one hand you kind of resent the quickness with which newspaper editors over time or others You know put this label on you and expect you to be sort of the expert on all things immigration and all things happening you know between you know, Tijuana and Argentina because you're the Latin guy But to what extent do you really do you feel that? You should be a voice for Mexico in the US and that part of You know the community even as it has assimilated in the US whether it's over You know three or four generations as in your case or whether it's people who are just going through the process of naturalizing as you US citizens to what extent should they be a voice for You know a stronger engagement with Mexico from the US perspective or better relations or I mean We see this dynamic play itself out for obviously for very different in different ways and for different reasons with like Cuban Americans Who remain very much engaged with what's happening back in Cuba? you see it with the Armenian community in Los Angeles and because that border was was pretty Tight in some ways in the previous generations with Mexico that hasn't quite occurred I mean do you feel it like you need to sort of be a voice for a different approach to Mexico and for more Greater priority being placed on this relationship or is that is that again sort of insulting to you for me to even suggest that? No, it's not insulting at all. I just said I the only it's not insulting It's just that I don't believe anybody should be obliged to be anything I think that that's just against just my better my judgment about humans I you know, I don't think every woman who walks should speak to me on behalf of all women I mean that that's it. There's a product for that's not about ethnicity. This is about I I'm I just I believe in everybody just being having the right and the joy to speak for themselves or but My my attitudes toward Mexican the role of Mexico officially is Informed by my knowledge of Mexican's interaction with Mexican American official Mexico It's been a complicated one Mexico healthy United States a deport the millions of men rather repatriate rather fortunately And during the depression Mexico is not necessarily been a friend of it's diaspora of its expatriates for for most of it Most of our history and I'm saying when you know when the US was kicking out Mexican The the Mexico saw it as a great change in their economy to have these people who are trained in the exterior and then to be Incorporated into the economy back home. But so I just What I've resented over time was the extent to which news media has gone to Mexico to speak for the millions and tens of million People who've left right. I mean, you know, I've resented, you know, the Los Angeles Times asking the former foreign minister of Mexico To speak for And then this is like this is also a class racial to speak for the you know The people the people who are made in Los Angeles There's a disconnect and so what's interesting about the relationship is the extent to what these people become state Is this netherworld that Mexican migrants and the expatriate is seen to inhabit? And I think the way Washington look at it It looks like a very that's official like these people they left here, right the rubbers at the homeland Yeah, I think it's more important in the end I don't know if I've answered your question that the people be integrated as successfully as possible into their new plan Good well that that segues into my one thing. I just kind of want to get your take on if if there's a sense that You know, there's a period now of consolidation This previous bulge of migration if indeed the numbers have peaked and we are seeing a decrease in the crossings Do you see this as a as a period of time when society can sort of assimilate that that Fervid, you know pace of immigration in the 90s and early in the last decade I mean you you I mean some of the studies that came out in the last week or so from the census data And I think some of this was in your column to Contrast the number of native born Latinos in LA in 1970 with You know more recent years where it's just really The proportions really got out of whack in terms of the the percentages of Latinos who were born in the States versus not Do you think that this will be having a pause? To these levels if not an end to these levels of migration Are are going to have a positive kind of effect in terms of social cohesion You are the director after all of the social center for social cohesion. So I should ask you this and an assimilation or Well, I assimilation had always occurred. It does the assimilation doesn't require Immigration to stop it. I mean that that's another subject But it will it my wins did adapt and always adapt to the new land as they saw fit in a very simple sense to make this would be able to negotiate their lives better for themselves But adaptations and language acquisition all sorts of behavioral changes happened naturally over time and Whether the height of migration may have allowed people to to maintain Old-world networks or Homeland tastes more than they did but it didn't really impede fundamentally assimilation over time But but it will do it's not about the assimilation factor. It's about society Reweaving its network. It's or not reweaving recreating them Right, it's a Mexican migrant or the child of Mexican migrant and the child of Korean migrants the child of Thai migrants creating a new community and it's about it's about rootedness right now in the the midterm Electrical Los Angeles had a pretty like 11% turn out This is striking. We live in a very fluid city I want to construct me living in Koreatown in Los Angeles that once I was trying to write something about what with the neighborhood was like in 1970 I could not find a person who would hear So I mean and this is a beauty and wonder and dynamism of Los Angeles I want to make sure that I point out the fact that we're gonna lose some the immigration creeps economic and cultural Vitality and we're gonna lose some of that. We are gonna become more of a state society. There's no doubt about it We're gonna have shittier, right? Excuse me. I think tanks But but the point is and so there is there's something lost there's this this collision and convergence of Negation the taste of culture that attitudes of religion is a wonderful thing And I you know port cities are great and we were a port city But that's not just a one great event I'm saying we're transitioning a new time which we should all should make great Which is the time of rudeness and a place where we share a heritage, which is in my case, Los Angeles, right, right? So to answer your question, it's a very important to social cohesion. Yeah, I mean we got to get we The caveat is we really did get along better than anyone gave us credit for but I think but we weren't rooted in a sense of And taking care of our own community, right? so just to connect this story which was sort of the big demographic story of a couple weeks ago that the data that showed that Immigration from Mexico is decreasing to connect that to the big news the big demographic news of this week, which is Census data showing that last year You know non-Hispanic White births accounted for less than 50% For the first time in the US and that's getting a lot of buzz Today and this week So if we're gonna have fewer Mexican immigrants and We're having fewer non-Hispanic white babies. Are we just gonna run out of people someday or what's the the trend the Threadline between these two stories Well, I I do think at some point we will be looking elsewhere for migration. That's another story Which I'm not I'm not in a place to really talk about it at this point But I do think the I think the story We've seen this we've heard this drum beat for 20 years and it may be national but in California We saw this drum beat every other week the Los Angeles time Latino babies or Latino whatever it was Latino students Latino, whatever and To some extent it's overblown because it's kind of irrelevant on some level. I mean the whites whites becoming a minority is irrelevant Yeah, I mean we saw this and what happens if California is any You have this frenzy of concern the significance is over It's over But ultimately what you have in front of you have a population that like no matter if it's you know zebra You have a population you have to educate that you hope is healthy that you hope it's trained If you hope can sustain the tax base that you hope again, you know can Can fight war as you can right that creates wealth and that it's a really a distraction But so why I mean we can stipulate all that but then why is why the anxiety or why the titillation in the media over this Is it at essence there is there is a racial aspect and it's not probably not a pretty one It's this presumption that people are over time. We used it. I would say We had a more sophisticated view of ethnicity at some point It's max alley a jingle and people Change over time and a cult rate and from different places at a certain point in the late 20th century We started looking we started seeing ethnicity in terms of race and race has always been seen as biologically unmovable And this tied into multicultural this notion that that people don't change over time Oh, they don't change over time or that they shouldn't change over time But the fact of the matter is they do You know when I went to Berkeley in the 80s and a lot of stupid things were sad and I was a joke Like you're against the stimulation has been against it's like being against hurricane like great, right? You know, I mean again, so so this notion is we have this static view of culture that somehow the Latinos I mean the way I look at it is like in 1910 Could a Hungarian Jewish rabbi have ever like imagined we get You know could an Italian migrant in the tournament in 1898 have imagined Dean Martin the point is this is still This is still in there. It's time to stay right still one of the vital culture Not the most in the world and then people are churned and and ideally if they're going to take advantage of the wonders of the country They will make of their ethnicity What in ways that we can't even imagine so I think I think it's this notion that people's Hispanicity of this fixed element that goes over time and that you know, they're going to be drinking, you know eating out of margaritas out of baby bottles some in 2016 but I think it I think it's a much more dynamic picture than that, right? I thought you'd get I thought I'd get a laugh from that one But I guess you got it you got a little chuckle here, but I'm trying to be you know restrained because I'm in Washington You're the one in LA