California Streamin'-Most Immigrants in U.S.

Voter redistricting is underway in California and it's easy to see why, when you consider the numbers of immigrants (and their children) living in California.

California is home to ten million people who were born in other countries. That's the highest number of all the states in America. (About 1/4 of all the U.S. immigrants live in the Golden State.)

From 1970-2009, California's foreign-born population has grown by 20 percent, representing almost two million people. That's the word from the Public Policy Institute of California, which analyzed the most recent Census data.

According to an article in the Sacramento Bee, "Most California immigrants come from Latin America (35 percent) and Asia (32 percent). Mexico leads the originating countries with 4.5 million, follwed by the Phillipines (783,000) and China (681,000)."

Louisian-born Child of Immigrants Wins Soros Award

Philanthropists and immigrants, Paul and Daisy Soros, offer scholarships from a chartiable trust they created known as the Soros Fellowship Program. "Our selection criteria," Paul Soros says, "are designed to identify people who will make a success of their lives and who will contribute something to this country, in whatever area of endeavor they choose." Brian Goh is one of the program's recipeients and is a second-year student in the MD/PhD program at the prestigious Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. Goh was born in Baton Rouge, Louisian and his parents are Chinese and moved to the United States from Malaysia. According to an article in the Johns Hopkins Gazette, "his father, one of 16 children, had been a manual laborer on a rubber plantation." Goh has an impressive background including biomedical research and co-authoring 11 publications in important journals as well as committing himself to community service. The article also mentions his research that focuses on "manipulating adult stems cells for cardiac and bone tissue regenration." In accounting their choices for the 2011 fellowship recipients, the foundation board noted that the awards, "highlight the extradordinary promise, diversity, drive and determination of recent immigrants - and the children of immigrants - to this country."

Multi-Clutural Festival Draws Crowd & Comments

This past weekend, a multi-cultural festival was held in Sacramento (a city named as the most diverse in the U.S. by Time Magazine.) Latinos celebrated the 20th Festival de la Familia and Sacramento Bee reporter Steve Maganini interviewed some of the attendees. Elsy Gonzalez, a UC Davis student, expressed her pride and joy about her Mexican roots. She's identified as a mestizo in the story - a person who has a mixture of Indian, Spanish, French, African and/or Chinese blood. The article included information about discrimination and exclusion in Mexico and in the United States as well as the importance of festivals, like this one, to bring people together. As one attendee said, "We're here to celebrate each other." The following comments were posted on the web by readers after they saw the article. It's a very telling online debate and shows the challenges that children of immigrants and their families face. Here's a sampling - first from "Sherk" and the second from "ssmokeydoodles": Sherk: Are they celebrating illegal immigration or maybe the Hispanic drug cartels and their death network? Or maybe they should celebrate the immigrant drop houses and the illegal immigrant drug mules. What about the out of control Hispanic teen birthrate or maybe the violent gang activity in their community? Are they celebrating the high incarceration rate of Hispanics or the ghettos that they create where ever they choose to live? And surly (sic) they can celebrate how they have gamed the social system in California to the brink of insolvency. Maybe they should name their celebration, The Festival of the Losers and Leeches! smokeydoodles: Well when my family of Americans of Mexican descent get together, we celebrate with the food and music of our family members who came here from Mexico (in my case it was my great-grandparents.) We are not losers or leeches, in fact we have teachers, medical professionals, law enforcement officers (local, state and federal), attorneys, OMG we even have a federal judge! We don't live in ghettos, don't collect welfare, or have people in prison. Well, we do have people working in prisons. No teen moms, in fact my poor grandma only has one great granchild...