This Week in the 21st Century America Project

Inspired by “Ya es hora” campaign, Asian-Americans in California begin a major citizenship push

Joseph Berger at The New York Times has a great article about ethnic job niches.  In his piece, Berger suggests that as Koreans and Italians move out, Latinos are moving up:

The Koreans who streamed to the United States in the 1970s were often middle-class professionals who might have needed years to learn English and obtain their American credentials in engineering or chemistry. But a small nest egg might buy a store in a ragged neighborhood, and there were plenty of fruit markets and delis being forsaken by aging Italians and Jews. These older immigrants sold out to Koreans partly because the children they had sent to college did not want to inherit a business where they would have to lift fruit cartons. “The niche is not disappearing, but the previous occupants are,” Professor Kasinitz said.

A perfect illustration is what’s happening now: Since fewer South Koreans are leaving their now-prosperous homeland, and college-educated Korean offspring here want less grueling work, Latinos who once worked for the Koreans are taking over their stores. Similarly, Italian landscapers in the suburbs are slowly giving way to companies started by the Latino laborers the Italians once hired to cut grass.

So here’s my question:  once Latinos take over Korean delis, do we start calling them bodegas?  And in gentrifying neighborhoods, who is going to run those bodegas when the Latinos move out?  The hipsters?

And, Latino Decisions has a new tracking poll out showing that while Latino support for the Affordable Care Act remains high, it has decreased over time.  From today’s release:

Latino support for maintaining the law remains higher than the general public, as 49% of the sample report that the Affordable Care Act “should be left as law” compared to 31% who believe that the “bill should be repealed”.  Thus, compared to the general public at large, Latinos demonstrate a much lower preference for repeal (31% compared to 46% in Gallup).  However Latino support for Obama’s health care plan has dipped over time.

Matt Barreto, LD’s lead pollster suggests that perhaps the dip can be attributed to a lack of White House outreach.  What do you think? Was this a missed opportunity?