The Multiculturalism of the Streets

When Americans eat at Baja Fresh or Panda Express, they’re digesting more than they think.
Huntington worries about the future of Anglo-Saxon democracy and fears that our newcomers—whom he calls ominously a “migrant tide”—will become part of “a continuous Mexican society from the Yucatan to Colorado.” Hanson focuses largely on the Hispanic population in places like his rural homeland near Fresno, California.

Immigrants and the Marketplace
The best way to see this ongoing process is by checking out the streets of Houston, Los Angeles or New York—the great immigrant portals of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Among the people working there, concepts such as “ethnic solidarity”, “people of color” or “cultural community” generally count for less than basic principles such as “Does this sell?”, “What’s my market?”, and ultimately, “How do I fit in?”In the 20th-century American city, this pattern was manifest in ethnic enclaves—Jewish, Chinese, Polish, Greek, Italian—that were in many ways self-sufficient. Immigrant businessmen thrived by providing groceries, insurance, banking and mortuary services to their compatriots. Before long, each group carved out its own economic niche—Jews in the garment industry, Chinese laundries, Greeks diners, Italians greengrocers and so on—which could be marketed to the rest of the society. To some extent, these specializations persisted over generations, and some still exist today. Some “ethnic” businesses, too, expanded well beyond their ethnic niches—A. P. Giannini’s Bank of America and Jewish-owned department stores such as Bloomingdale’s in New York or Gottschalks in California’s Central Valley are classic examples.Today a similar pattern is emerging among newer immigrant communities—but with some notable differences and innovations. According to a recent report by Harvard’s Michael Porter, they are one of the few sources of positive job growth for cities, and have been most notable in such immigrant-rich places as Jersey City, New Jersey and Long Beach, California.Given the rapid growth of minority populations, particularly Asian and Latino, minority buying power is expected to top $2.5 trillion by the end of this decade. This will represent almost one out of every four dollars in total U.S. consumer spending.The rise of this market represents arguably the greatest force for ethnic integration in the first decades of this century.Immigrants not only enlarge but also reshape the economy. With increased access to capital and education, immigrant businesses are growing rapidly.In the old ethnic paradigm, ethnics—think of Italians and pizza—cooked their local foods first for their own compatriots, and only gradually marketed them to the general population over a generation or two. At the same time, ethnics, and particularly their children, acclimated to “American fare”—in other words, they dragged their folks to White Castles and, later, McDonald’s.