The Huddled Masses of Beverly Hills
27th May 2015
As somebody who lives in the the flatlands over the mountains from Beverly Hills, I’m struck by how many people, such as this Guardian reporter, assume unthinkingly that Beverly Hills residents and immigrants are antonyms.
But the Census Bureau reports that 37.4% of the residents of Beverly Hills are foreign born.
I guess we’re all supposed to have been programmed to believe that immigrants are necessarily “huddled masses,” which doesn’t fit well in our heads with living large in Beverly Hills.
But if you grew up anywhere within 20 miles of Beverly Hills, you’d have started noticing the place filling up with immigrants right after OPEC raised oil prices in 1973. Persians and Arabs who had gotten rich back home — let’s not ask how — were appearing in large numbers by 40 years ago. Rodeo Drive leapt up into the stratosphere of luxury with some of the impetus coming from crazy shopkeepers like new immigrant Bijan of Beverly Hills.
It’s really hard to be aware of patterns that your ideology doesn’t encourage you to regard.