You put a lot of work into this article and wrote quite a few great tips when looking for a place to live in SF.
Unfortunately you undermined the entire post with your "immigrants" comment. In fact you made yourself look like a huge bigot. That sucks because it was otherwise well written and useful.
It's sad that this is going largely unnoticed by the rest of the comments on this post.
Haha. I hadn't realized that PC has come so far that you are no longer allowed to recognize or comment on immigrant neighborhoods.
There's lots of poor people and Spanish speaking people in the mission. This is good if you like Taquerias, bad if you dislike grime. If you don't fit in with homeless, hipster, or Latin culture, you will feel like an outsider. Some people may like it, some people may not. But if you don't like it, you are no longer allowed to say so!
I'm guessing that his offense is not embracing Latin culture. It is okay to dislike homeless culture, because
everyone does, or hipster culture, since it is predominantly White. But you aren't allowed to dislike Latin culture, since it is non-European and therefore protected. Interesting.
Oh, I get it. He's saying he doesn't want to live in a neighborhood where the only culture on offer is hipster, homeless, or Latin. And he's not allowed to think that, at least out loud, because Latin culture is non-White and therefore holy and infinitely lovable. He is guilty of crimethink.
As opposed to neighborhoods where the only culture on offer is American?
Also, "homeless" is not a culture.
Author is very obviously complaining about the presence of hipsters, homeless folk... and, well, immigrants, and seems to think that his aversion to such people is shared by many others. Judging by rent prices in the Mission and public opinion, this does not hold any water whatsoever.
Author is entitled to think whatever he damn well wants, but we are also entitled to judge his commentary on their own merits. And please, don't come to this table with 1984-bullshit whenever people are inclined to call a duck a duck. We really ought to make a term for it like we have for Godwin.
I don't like to live in Spanish speaking neighborhoods because I don't speak Spanish. I enjoy the food and the low prices, I don't enjoy the culture. If you don't speak English in America, you tend to be poor and less educated, which means you and I will have less in common. I fully realize I am not allowed to say this in Liberal America because this makes me a DISGUSTING BIGOT, so I don't post this under my real name account. But I admire the energy that you Right Thinking people put into your witchhunts.
> "If you don't speak English in America, you tend to be poor and less educated"
Such as the Asian immigrant population.
Which, last I checked, is experiencing quotas at Ivy League schools because they're getting in at rates much, much higher than any other race, and tend to come from backgrounds of higher education, even if their parents' English is poor.
You're trying to generalize your argument to minimize the appearance of being racist - but your argument doesn't actually generalize beyond the Latino community, which by and large does fit your description. So really, your objection isn't against "people who speak poor English", it's against Latinos.
> " I fully realize I am not allowed to say this in Liberal America because this makes me a DISGUSTING BIGOT"
Nah. From your own self-description I'd characterize you as an ivory-tower elitist (ironically, something conservatives tend to accuse of Liberal America) - you know, inability to find common ground with people with low-SES and low-education and such... Race does seem to play as a factor for you, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when you say it does not. But of course, I don't know you in real life, so such judgments are rarely wise.
This argument isn't going anywhere productive, so I'm going to step out of it with this: your exact same rationalizations have been used against Blacks, and smells very close to the same arguments we hear coming out of the "I'm not anti-gay, I'm pro-marriage" camp. If it quacks...
I wonder how many of the second generation Asian students flooding Ivy League schools come from poor, non-English speaking ethnic ghettos? I'd guess not many. All the people I knew who fit that description in college went to good high schools. How good are the high schools in Chinatown?
For what it's worth, I wouldn't want to live in Chinatown either. Or any of the White non-English ethnic ghettos that used to exist a few decades ago.
I think calling people "bigot" happens too quickly. We should show some restraint.
> If you don't speak English in America, you tend to be
poor and less educated
Such as the Asian immigrant population.
Read closely. He says "tend to be". You've offered a supposed counterexample, but tendencies can't be disproved by counterexamples. "I know some really tall women" doesn't disprove the statement "Women tend to be shorter than men."
Let's say I'm a Finnish person, which is true, and I move from Finland to SF.
Upon moving to SF, I'm aware that I'm an immigrant there, just like any others who moved in to the US from another country.
Now, if someone tells me that a specific area is full of "hipsters, homeless and immigrants", this will be my reaction:
"Oh? Apparently a lot of immigrants have ended up in an area with a considerable number of hipsters and homeless people. I guess it's a cheaper area then, but I wonder why the hipsters are comfortable with so many homeless people around."
I have no reason to doubt that's an accurate description of the way things are, and I have no reason to get offended by an accurate description of the way things are. Besides, I am an immigrant, and I know that there's nothing wrong with being one.
"Immigrant" here means non-English speaking immigrant, particularly Spanish in this case. China town would also be described as an "immigrant" neighborhood. But English speaking wealthy immigrants tend to blend in and not form into cohesive neighborhoods.
This is a bad thing to say because in educated, liberal America racism is the worst possible crime you can commit, and non-English communities tend to be non-White (this was not so true 40 or 50 years ago). So if you voice that you don't want to live in an immigrant neighborhood, you will be accused of being a "disgusting racist bigot".
I think it is perfectly reasonable to dislike living near lots of poor people who speak a different language than you. But I missed a few brainwashing sessions in college. You shouldn't say things like that out loud if you ever visit America.
Oh I know, and I saw your other comments on the subject too. I'm just as disgusted by Political Correctness as you are, perhaps even more so.
In Europe, it's strictly forbidden to say anything negative about Africans or Muslims (or a combination thereof). That makes you a disgusting racist.
Our "Latinos" (Spain, Portugal, etc) are not sacrosanct, because they're just Europeans. Not that anyone talks about them anyway.
In our fervor for political correctness, the West seems to have forgotten that an immigrant is just someone who's moved into another country - nothing more, nothing less. In Finland, though, "an immigrant" has become an euphemism for "a Somali". Over there, maybe it's code for "Latino".
I don't think the author of the original post used the word in a negative sense. As I see it, he was just describing an area.
> "There’s also huge differences from neighborhood to neighborhood as you are unlikely to find someone interested in the Mission (hipsters, homeless and immigrants)"
This does seem to be used in a derogatory way, and I did miss it the first time around. I don't think this is an innocent use of "immigrant" at all.
And hell, for a neighborhood that nobody's interested in, the Mission is one of the most expensive of them all. Go figure!
Context matters. The point was that it's hard to find someone interested in the Mission and the Marina and the Sunset. There are many immigrants in the Mission. Should he not have mentioned it at all? Should he have phrased it differently?
Why is no one taking offense to the "hipsters" or "homeless" parts? Those are also terms that are usually viewed negatively, but there are many people who are looking for exactly that in a neighborhood. Immigrants are a plus for many people too.
I'm not getting it. I lived abroad a lot before moving to SF, and so I picked the Mission because it had a lot of immigrants. I think it makes a place more interesting.
Unfortunately you undermined the entire post with your "immigrants" comment. In fact you made yourself look like a huge bigot. That sucks because it was otherwise well written and useful.
It's sad that this is going largely unnoticed by the rest of the comments on this post.