Anticipatory surrender to Mexicanization

(Note: Some readers inform me that the banner at the Santa Barbara website keeps changing, and that the total impression is not as Hispanic as I had thought. Other readers say that the overall impression is still very Hispanic.)

I happened to look at the website of Santa Barbara, California to check on the status of the two month-long brush fire out there. My eye was caught by a montage photo spread across the top of the main page. It’s entirely made of Latin American-looking, or at least non-North American looking, people and motifs. There is nothing in it suggesting that Santa Barbara is an American city. Is it true, as suggested by the graphic, that Santa Barbara is a Hispanic city?

According to Wikipedia, in the 2000 census,

[t]he racial makeup of the city was 74.04% White, 1.77% African American, 1.07% Native American, 2.77% Asian, 0.14% Pacific Islander, 16.37% from other races, and 3.85% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 35.02% of the population.

So the city is 35 percent Hispanic, and about 60 percent non-Hispanic white. White Americans are the majority of the town, But the way they symbolize the town at its government’s website is as a part of Mexico.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 21, 2007 08:29 AM | Send