Why California Will Save America From Donald Trump’s ‘Dog Whistle’ Immigration Policies

by Manuel Pastor

The images of screaming children were searing, the cries unforgettable.

In June, as the public reeled from around-the-clock coverage of the Trump administration’s systemic separation of immigrant families, the president dug in. “They could be murderers and thieves and so much else,” Trump said of those crossing the border. “We want a safe country, and it starts with the borders, and that’s the way it is.”

As the criticism mounted, he accused Democrats of wanting migrants to “infest our Country.” And even after signing an executive order to end the controversial separations, he remained defiant. At a White House press conference, the president stood with family members of people killed by undocumented immigrants—or, as Trump called them, “the American citizens permanently separated from their loved ones.” 

Read More on Newsweek.com

Manuel Pastor on California’s Golden Resistance

Published on May 11, 2018 by Bobbi Murray 

When reading Manuel Pastor’s State of Resistance, it’s hard not to wonder if the present White House dumpster fire is being fed by the same ideological tinder that fueled California’s political right wing from the 1970s throughout the 1990s. Pastor, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California, offers an unsentimental view of that period: “By the 1990s racism had really gotten the better of us. Race made us take our eye off the ball of development.” His book, subtitled, What California’s Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Mean for America’s Future, recalls that two-decade span as a disaster for California’s development as a forward-looking state, but also, perhaps, as a necessary prelude to its current status as the progressive movement’s shield against the Trump administration.

Read the full interview on CapitalandMain.com

Manuel Pastor on the Lessons California Can Teach a Changing Nation

Sociologist Manuel Pastor says that for many Californians, Donald Trump's election triggered not surprise but "a sense of déjà vu." In his new book, "State of Resistance," Pastor argues that California experienced decades ago the political and social shifts that now grip the nation -- including a decline in manufacturing, an upswell of anti-immigrant sentiment and rapid demographic changes. He says the state has now, through a set of progressive reforms, evolved to address the needs of a younger and more diverse generation. Pastor joins Forum to discuss his book and why he thinks California can be a model for the rest of the country.

Listen to the interview on KQED.com

How California became the blue state alternative to Trump

Analysis by Ronald Brownstein, CNN

For the California economy, surf's up. And that could hasten the end of a long drought for the state in presidential politics. 

In early May, California marked a striking milestone in its recovery from its economic tailspin earlier in the 2000s when new data showed the state has surged past the United Kingdom as the world's fifth largest economy-even though the UK has about 25 million more people. Last Friday, Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown added an exclamation point when he reported that, because of the growing economy, the state government, which faced massive budget deficits less than a decade ago, would amass a budget surplus $8 billion larger than it projected as recently as January. 

Read the full article on CNN.com

When the next generation looks racially different from the last, political tensions rise

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

By: Manuel Pastor, Professor of Sociology, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

The election of Donald Trump may have surprised some observers, but many Californians felt a sense of déjà vu. 

Just over 20 years ago, the state passed Proposition 187. The campaign around this ballot initiative, later deemed unconstitutional, portrayed undocumented immigrants as criminal invaders and sought to ban them from using nonemergency public services, including even primary and secondary education. 

The anti-immigrant sentiment occurred against a backdrop of wrenching economic change. Nearly half of the country’s net job losses in the early 1990s occurred in California, with a decline in manufacturing as steep as what would later occur between 2007 and 2010 in auto-heavy (and Trump-sympathetic) Michigan.

In another eerie parallel to today, profiting from political polarization was the order of the day: Rush Limbaugh arrived on the national stage in the late 1980s after perfecting his style hosting a talk radio show in Sacramento.

This toxic trio of immigration concerns, economic shocks and political blood-letting may be more than enough to demonstrate the parallels between California in the 1990s and the U.S. today. But there’s another important indicator: the “racial generation gap.” This is a straightforward measure of the relationship between the share of seniors who are white and the share of youth who are of color. But its interplay with public will and public policy is complex and consequential.

Understanding the gap

The racial generation gap is technically measured as the difference between the percent of those 65 or older who are white, minus the percent of those aged 17 and younger who are white. The bigger the gap, the more demographically distinct the generations.

Such gaps can emerge for several reasons, including new immigrants having children and an overwhelming white boomer generation living longer lives. But the problem is that when seniors have trouble seeing themselves in children and young adults, social cohesion is at risk, as are investments in the future.

Take Arizona, for example. It’s the state with the largest racial generation gap in the U.S., where snowbirds arrive from elsewhere to retire even as young people of color are remaking the state. It’s also known for its fractious politics (and pot-stirring politicians) around immigration and state legislation banning the teaching of ethnic studies in schools. And in a clear sign of retreating from the future, Arizona also made the largest cuts in K-12 state spending per student between 2008 and 2015.

In research published in September, several colleagues and I looked at factors that predict state expenditures on students, such as median household income, home ownership levels, and the underlying age and race makeup of the population. Even when you take all those other factors into account, the larger the racial generation gap, the less the state spends per student. 

In California, the racial generation gap was just about the same in California in 1970 as it was in the U.S. in 1990. In effect, the nation lags the Golden State by 20 years (something proud Californians often insist is true in a number of ways!).

The peak of the racial generation gap occurred in California around 1994 to 1998. During this era, Proposition 187 passed, followed by a series of “racial propositions” that ended affirmative action, banned bilingual education and stepped up the incarceration of young men of color. 

In the U.S., according to projections, the gap peaks around 2016. And much like in California in the 1990s, we have seen a racialized “whitelash” which in this case brought the election of Donald Trump, the racist violence in Charlottesville, and the revocation of DACA, the program designed to protect undocumented youth brought to this country at an early age.

This too shall pass?

When the racial generation gap peaked, the damage to the California Dream was deep – and the state is still trying to work its way back from the wreckage.

California fell from among the top spending states on education to become one of the stingiest. Our state prison population increased by more than sixfold between 1980 and 2006, twice as fast as in the rest of the country. And we went from being roughly in the middle of the pack in terms of income inequality back in the glory days of the late 1960s to the sixth most unequal state in 2012.

Protesters gather during a Los Angeles City Council meeting to discuss the city’s response to threats by the Trump administration to cut funding from sanctuary cities. Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

As the demographics continued to shift in California, the politics eventually moved in the direction of the needs and politics of a younger and more diverse generation. California once wanted to strip immigrants of services. Now, it’s declared itself a “sanctuary state.” 

California once launched a nationwide grassroots revolt with a tax-slashing Proposition 13 – a measure tinged with a sense of an older and whiter generation drawing up the fiscal drawbridges just as a younger and more diverse generation arrived. Now, a very different grassroots revolt has helped to rebalance the books with progressive tax hikes in 2012 and 2016. And, although public schools are still languishing, a local control funding formula passed in 2013 is steering dollars to those students and schools that are most in need. 

Would California have gone through the same turmoil had the generational gap been narrower? It’s hard to know for sure, but it’s also not prudent to wait around for elders to come to their political senses or for the younger generation to age into power. We need a national game plan that can accelerate what the slower pace of demographic change might push along. 

Making our future

California still has far to go, of course. Housing is too expensive, income divides are too wide and good-paying jobs are too scarce. But the state no longer seems to be tearing at the seams over issues of race and representation.

In my new book, “State of Resistance: What California’s Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Mean for America’s Future,” I suggest that the U.S. can draw lessons from California’s political and social shifts. 

Term limits, for example, opened up opportunities for new politicians of color. Easier voter registration helped lower the barriers for new and young voters. The power to “redistrict” – to draw the lines for state and congressional seats – was taken from a state legislature eager to protect incumbents and given to a citizen commission less invested in the past. 

However, such structural reforms are only effective if there is a citizenry ready to take advantage of them. To make that happen, a new generation of community-based organizers became more adept at linking together communities, mobilizing voters and promoting winnable policy change.

This same strategy of combining structural shifts with grassroots organizing and pragmatic policy may help restore the American Dream as well. But to get there, the nation will need to overcome the tension between what journalist Ron Brownstein has called the “coalition of restoration” – older Trump voters seeking a way back to what they see as American greatness – and a “coalition of transformation” that consists of younger and more diverse constituents.

Closing that social distance will be crucial. The California Dream was never just about one person (or one generation) and their route to individual success. It was about the promise of a state that welcomed newcomers, confidently invested in its children and looked forward to its future. That’s a recipe for progress in the Golden State and America alike.

Fighting for Climate Justice in California at the Local Level

Fighting for Climate Justice in California at the Local Level
By Manuel Pastor, November 7, 2017
Published in the Social Science Research Council "Just Environments" series

"Manuel Pastor’s contribution to the “Just Environments” series interrogates how social movement organizations, often led by communities of color, pushed for progressive reforms in California. Through a set of sophisticated tactics—including mobilizing new constituents, marshalling research, proposing new policies, and working with political figures—these organizations played critical roles in shaping more equitable and sustainable agendas. Pastor suggests the success and lessons associated with California’s story offer one path out of our current national state of racial, environmental, and economic anxiety. "

Read the full article on the Just Environments site >>

After tax cuts derailed the ‘California dream,’ is the state getting back on track?

After tax cuts derailed the ‘California dream,’ is the state getting back on track?

By Manuel Pastor
November 1, 2017

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

While Prop 13 may have saved the California dream for some, it destroyed it for many others.
(Photo credit: AP Photo/Lennox McLendon)

_______________________________________________________________________________

In 1978, the year I graduated from college with a degree in economics, most voters in my state chose to turn their backs on the “California dream.”

Not unlike the American dream, California’s iteration focused on the limitless possibilities awaiting anyone who moved to the state. It was the state’s basic philosophic footing, a social compact that connected generations, geographies and economic classes in a common destiny.

Proposition 13, which Californians approved in a referendum in June 1978, marked a turning point away from the kind of public investment in education, infrastructure and social services – as well as a shift in an attitude that welcomed all comers – that made the California dream a reality for so many.

The highly controversial measure slashed property taxes, impoverished local governments and made it very hard for the state to raise new revenues. Besides ushering in an era of underinvestment, it spread the fantasy – since gone national – that governments can cut taxes without reducing services.

Almost 40 years later, California is at a crossroads and may finally be ready to begin to reverse Prop 13’s damage. As I explore in a forthcoming book, the state is pushing against the national grain by protecting immigrants, tackling climate change and raising the minimum wage. And most significantly for the legacy of Proposition 13, more residents are coming to see how replenishing the state’s coffers is key to restoring prosperity.

Pulling up the drawbridge

Just days after Proposition 13 passed, I stood in front of my fellow graduates at the University of California, Santa Cruz, to give the student address. I chose to talk about the result of the vote – not because it had anything to do with my chosen field of study but because of the sharp rift with the past it represented.

California had invested in me, like millions of others, by funding quality public schools, a world-class university system and economic growth. Now, a majority of voters were seeking to selfishly pull up the drawbridge on future generations. So I spent my 15 minutes of fame in front of classmates, professors and parents explaining why I thought Prop 13 would shipwreck the state.

I wish I had been wrong – and that I’d spent more of my allotted time thanking my parents, neither of whom had finished high school and were beaming with pride because the California dream had come true for their son. Sadly, Prop 13 meant that dream would be much less likely to come true for others.

At its core, Proposition 13 was written as an amendment to the state’s constitution with three key elements and affected all types of property, from residential to commercial:

• It rolled back assessed property values to their estimated market value in 1975 and limited annual increases to no more than 2 percent as long as the property wasn’t sold. With any new sale, the assessed value could climb to the actual sale price, essentially locking in the property tax for long-time homeowners and shifting the burden to newcomers.

• It capped the property tax rate at 1 percent of the assessed value for city, county, school and other local governments, down from an average of 2.6 percent before the measure, draining local coffers.

• It mandated that any change in state taxes that would increase the tax take would require a two-thirds vote in the legislature (while tax cuts required only a majority vote) and that any increase in designated or special purpose taxes by local governments would require two-thirds voter approval. This effectively staightjacketed the ability of a changing electorate to raise new revenues.

Howard Jarvis, right, joins Gov. Jerry Brown at a news conference after Proposition 13 passed. AP Photo/Robbins

Prop 13 and its racial undertones

One reason for Prop 13’s popularity was that the median value of a house in California rose by over 250 percent from 1970 to 1980, more than twice as fast as median household income in the state. With reassessments triggering property tax hikes that outpaced family finances, the die was cast for a taxpayer rebellion.

But the roots of this suburban-based revolt were far deeper than a fight over taxes. The forces behind it were the same ones that fought against fair housing in the 1960s and busing to promote school integration throughout the 1970s. And they were goaded by a series of court decisions that mandated the equalization of school spending across districts, stirring white resentment that local property tax dollars were not being spent on “our kids.”

Indeed, at the same time that property rates were soaring, the share of youths who were minorities rose from 30 percent in 1970 to 44 percent by 1980 – the largest decadal change in California’s history. And while these racial undertones were, well, undertones, the resentment of the changing demography was clear when Prop 13’s main architect, Orange County businessman Howard Jarvis, wrote after it passed that immigrants “just come over here to get on the taxpayers’ gravy train.”

Protesters demonstrate against California’s Proposition 187 outside the Heritage Foundation in Washington in 1994 as then-Gov. Pete Wilson speaks inside. AP Photo/Joe Marquette

In essence, Proposition 13 became the first shot across the bow in a series of referendums some dubbed “racial propositions” that reached their apogee with Proposition 187, the famous 1994 measure that sought to cut off nearly all public services, including education, to undocumented immigrants.

That was followed by voter-approved measures to ban affirmative action, eliminate bilingual education and expand a prison system marred by racial disproportionality in its sentencing and rates of incarceration.

That Prop 13 itself was a sort of generational warfare with overtones of race was clear in its structure. Since the assessment didn’t increase more than 2 percent unless property changed hands, incumbent homeowners (who were older and whiter) wouldn’t see their tax burden change much as long as they didn’t sell. Meanwhile, new homeowners (more likely to be younger, minority and eventually immigrant) would have to pay higher tax rates and thus bear a disproportionate share of the costs of local services.

And that wasn’t the only bias against the future. The requirement for a supermajority to pass legislation to raise taxes effectively constrained the ability of future state governments to pour in the sort of money that had built the state’s famed transportation, water and university systems.

The consequences

The immediate damage from Prop 13, however, was masked. When local property tax revenues quickly fell by about 60 percent, the state government stepped in to fill the gaps.

But over time, the damaging effects of Proposition 13 in terms of education spending and income inequality became increasingly apparent. In the 1960s, California ranked among the top 10 states in terms of per-pupil spending. By 2014, its ranking had plunged to as low as 46. And while California’s level of income inequality was in the middle of the pack nationally in 1969, it is now the fourth most unequal state in the country.

While Proposition 13 was not the only culprit behind these trends, it didn’t help. About half of the total residential property tax relief provided by Prop 13 went to homeowners with incomes in excess of US$120,000 a year – or about 15 percent of all households.

And because the property tax was no longer a growing source of revenue for local governments, cities and counties had more reason to chase sales taxes with retail development and less incentive to promote housing, helping to set in motion the severe housing shortage that wracks the state today.

The final irony is that Prop 13 – a measure promoted by those in favor of smaller government – pushed authority and decision-making to the state capitol, which became the main source to bail out local municipalities.

Efforts to change it

So why has Proposition 13 not been overturned?

Its political appeal remains, particularly to older residents who vote and to businesses worried about any increase in taxes. Efforts to keep the protections for residential homeowners but allow commercial and industrial property to be assessed at market rates – a so-called “split roll” – have failed or stalled and currently command the thinnest possible majority in public polling.

So while the split role remains a goal for some reformers, many concerned about the effects of Prop 13 have simply tried to raise taxes elsewhere to offset the lost revenue. California voters approved a temporary “millionaire’s tax” in 2012 and its long-term extension in 2016. And more than two-thirds of voting taxpayers in Los Angeles County approved sales tax hikes in 2008 and 2016 that will generate $160 billion over the next 40 years for transportation investments ranging from rail expansion to highway improvement to new bike paths.

But such tinkering does not solve the fundamental problems with Prop 13 that I’ve noted above. Addressing those will require a new set of conversations about optimal tax policy and how to address legitimate concerns such as how to protect older homeowners with a fixed income from the potential end of Prop 13.

President Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ plans follow a playbook similar to what resulted from Prop 13. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

California – and the country – at a crossroads

Unfortunately, the same demographic shifts, economic anxieties and political polarization that spurred Prop 13 have since gone national. The president’s plan to “Make America Great Again” similarly involves slashing taxes while underinvesting in education and social services – the kinds of investments that actually made America great in the 20th century.

California has the opportunity to show the nation how to get this right and invest in our future and our collective dreams rather than shortchange them. And a growing number of voices, including local governments, unions and political groups, are calling for reform.

So while the discussion about Prop 13 might seem to be about a few obscure tax rules, it is highly symbolic: At stake is the future of the state and, indeed, the nation. A day of reckoning for a measure that seems increasingly out of date may soon be upon us.

Read more about the past and future of the California Dream. This series is published in collaboration with KQED.

Undocumented Californians and the Future of the Golden State

Undocumented Californians and the Future of the Golden State

By Manuel Pastor
 

Originally published on October 23, 2017 in BOOM: A Journal of California

It’s probably no exaggeration to say that the U.S. has just been through its Prop 187 moment.

Like today, the turmoil California experienced in 1994 was triggered by broad demographic change, with a special target placed on the backs of “illegal immigrants.” It was accompanied by a broad sense of economic anxiety—nearly half of the nation’s net job losses in the early 1990s were experienced in the Golden State as cutbacks in defense spending shredded our manufacturing sector. The simmering social and economic unease was exacerbated by a politician running behind in the polls and looking for a way to make his mark.[1]

While it may all sound familiar, the point is not to rerun the tape and point to historical precedents. More useful is asking where California is nearly twenty-five years later, and how it got there. After all, the state that once sought to deny unauthorized immigrants access to a broad range of services—including non-emergency health care and even education for children—has figured out how to extend drivers’ licenses to those without legal status and provide state-financed health care to all undocumented youth.

The story of the state’s changing attitudes and policies has a lot to do with the vibrant immigrant rights’ advocacy that changed the state’s political calculus—reflected in part in the accession of Kevin De León (an organizer who cut his teeth organizing against Prop 187) to the leadership of the state Senate. Having written about that advocacy elsewhere, my focus here is on some structural factors: the passage of time, the changing nature of the undocumented community, and the increasing “normality” of unauthorized immigrants in multiple aspects of California life.[2]

Indeed, part of what has happened in California is the sheer ubiquity of a population once considered a bit exotic and different. While numbers are hard to come by—people don’t generally offer up their status, particularly with a presidential administration hell-bent on deportation—most estimates put the number of those without legal status in California at somewhere under 3 million. That’s about a fourth of all the undocumented individuals in the nation and about seven percent of the total state population.

It may be easy to think of that sizeable population in a way more in tune to the past—that is, when the immigration flows from Mexico and Central American were surging in the 1980s and 1990s. In that era, the vast majority of the undocumented were border-crossers fleeing economic crises and civil wars. The largest share were single males who soon showed up as workers in the fields, operatives working in factories, and day laborers posted in front of the local hardware store.

But a lot has happened since a massive uptick in unauthorized migration prompted the furor that resulted in Proposition 187.

Most important is that the era of mass migration from Mexico is probably over. The reason is partly demographic: fertility rates have fallen dramatically in what has traditionally been the largest sending country to the U.S., and this is now echoing generationally in a way that has reduced a key factor pushing people northward. Meanwhile, the disruptions caused by Mexico’s embrace of free trade in the 1990s have mostly worked their way through the system and the nation’s economic growth. While not stellar by, say, Chinese standards, this has been sufficient to cause would-be migrants to rethink the opportunity structure they face.

While advocates are less likely to acknowledge this, increased border enforcement and more effective workplace verification in recent years has also played a role: it’s simply more difficult and expensive to cross and increasingly harder to secure employment once here. And while Central American migration remains a key factor—now driven partly by the gang violence that immigrants brought back from their stays in urban California—net migration from Mexico is negative and has been for several years.[3]

As a result, several characteristics of the population have shifted. First, the undocumented population in the U.S. has declined since its peak in 2007 and has been stable since about 2009. Second, it is now likely that the bulk of the new undocumented are people who overstayed visas rather than scrambled across the Rio Grande. Third, and perhaps most significant: while about sixty percent of undocumented immigrants had been in the country for less than ten years in the mid-2000s, almost two-thirds now have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade.[4]

As usual, these national trends are reflected strongly in the Golden State. After all, California has the nation’s most settled immigrant population in general—and it also has the highest share of state residents without legal status. Given high rates of labor force participation (and the fact that the undocumented are overwhelmingly adults), that share swells to about nine percent of the labor force. These workers are deeply embedded in key parts of the labor market, comprising a vital workforce for agriculture, retail, and low-skill service industries.

Another matter of great significance is the fact of mixed-status families: fully eight percent of all Californians live with a family member that is not documented, the highest figure for the nation.  Even more dramatic: roughly seventeen to eighteen percent of children in the state have at least one undocumented parent. In Los Angeles County, adding up the undocumented and their immediate family members amounts to about a fifth of the total county population.

Put it all together—length of time in the country, key roles in the economy, the share of the state’s children, and the percent of the population touched directly and indirectly by the precarious nature of immigration status—and a simple conclusion is inescapable: these are not illegal immigrants but undocumented Californians.

Undocumented Californians are our neighbors, relatives, friends, classmates, and co-workers. They help to grow our food and take care of our elders and our kids—and they are also our class valedictorians and future professionals. And because they are increasingly unlikely to go anywhere, the state’s future depends on their progress and the progress of their children.

As a result, the state’s central task is now immigrant integration and that includes those who lack legal status. There are many reasons why this is true, including the size and stability of the population, but one of them is political: while comprehensive immigration reform seems a long way off in the era of Trump, reform with a path to legalization is all but inevitable.

After all, demography continues to march forward, something that will be recorded by the 2020 Census and reflected in the elections of that year as well. It is those 2020 elections—which will be a presidential contest in which minorities, immigrants, and the young are more likely to participate—that will, along with the Census, determine the shape of electoral boundaries for the decade to come.

So just like the Tea Party uprising of 2010 helped to shift the nation to the right (partly because of the gerrymandering it made possible), 2020 could set the nation in a different direction. And a Congress elected in those circumstances is much more likely to finally accept the basic principles of the 2013 Senate bill: tighter enforcement, higher future flows, and a path to citizenship.

Given that, the choice for California is clear: preparing our population for that future or squandering the opportunity to be ready. The state has been taking the right steps in terms of key policies, like extending in-state tuition to undocumented students, granting the right to drivers’ licenses, and generally refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Political scientists Karthik Ramakrishnan and Allan Colbern have described this as a sort of “California package” that provided de facto state citizenship.[5]

The state has been taking the right steps in terms of key policies, like extending in-state tuition to undocumented students, granting the right to drivers’ licenses, and generally refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

It’s a start, but investing in the future—particularly with an eye toward future legalization—will require stepping up California’s game. Determining new ways to cultivate the habits of citizenship—perhaps by allowing non-citizen to vote in local school elections—could be important. Expanding job opportunities to stabilize parental income—perhaps by dramatically increasing English classes and providing community-based skill building that would be open to all—could be productive. Creating new avenues to earn a living without being formal employees—such as worker individual entrepreneurs and even worker collectives organized as limited liability corporations—is another part of a more innovative approach.[6]

A defensive reaction is also in order. Because of the ways in which undocumented Californians are deeply rooted in the state’s social and economic fabric, any deportation or threatened revocation of DACA status is far more likely than in years past to disrupt a family, damage a business, or scar a community. The good news: California’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, seems eager to go after federal overreach, suing to prevent the administration from denying funds to so-called “sanctuary cities.”[7] The better news: the State Assembly and Senate passed a bill called the “California Values Act” that has further codified the state’s decision to limit cooperation with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.[8]

It is incumbent on California to get this right. Just as we presaged the nation with our collective melt-down” about immigrants, we can hopefully show the good that happens when we combine head and heart, joining fact-based reason about the new realities of immigration with a compassionate attitude to our fellow Californians. If the demographers are right—in this case, about immigrants fanning out from the traditional gateways—what the state offers up in the way of reaction, resistance, and reform will set the tone for a country that will soon need a new and more welcoming approach.

Notes

[1] Manuel Pastor, State of Resistance: What California’s Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Mean for America’s Future (New York: The New Press, 2018).

[2] Manuel Pastor, “How Immigrant Activists Changed L.A.,” Dissent, 2015, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/how-immigrant-activists-changed-los-angeles.

[3] Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, “More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to the U.S.,” Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends Project, 19 November 2015, http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/.

[4] Jens Manuel Krogstad, Jeffrey S. Passel, and D’Vera Cohn, “5 Facts about Illegal Immigration in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, 27 April 2017, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/27/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/.

[5] S. Karthick Ramakrishnan and Allan Colbern, “The California Package: Immigrant Integration and the Evolving Nature of State Citizenship,” Policy Matters 6 (2015): 1–19.

[6] Cindy Carcamo, “Immigrants Lacking Papers Work Legally—as Their Own Bosses,” Los Angeles Times, 14 September 2013, http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/14/nation/la-na-ff-immigration-business-20130915; Kaelyn Forde, “Undocumented NYC Domestic Workers Clean up with Collective,” 12 May 2014, http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/12/undocumented-workerscollectivenyc.html.

[7] Josh Gerstein, “California Files Suit over Trump Sanctuary City Policy,” POLITICO, 15 August 2017, http://politi.co/2wJsmnD.

[8] Jazmine Ulloa, “California Lawmakers Approve Landmark ‘Sanctuary State’ Bill to Expand Protections for Immigrants,” Los Angeles Times, 16 September 2017, http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-sanctuary-state-bill-20170916-story.html.

Manuel Pastor is Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California (USC) where he directs the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) and the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII). He is the Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change, and holds an economics Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He writes and speaks widely on issues including demographic change, economic inequality, and community empowerment. Pastor’s current research culminates in the release of his forthcoming book, State of Resistance: What California’s Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Means for America’s Future, April 2018.

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Copyright: © 2017 Manuel Pastor. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

State of Resistance: California in the Age of Trump by Manuel Pastor & Danny Feingold

State of Resistance: California in the Age of Trump

Illustration by Lalo Alcaraz for Capital & Main

By Manuel Pastor & Danny Feingold
Published on January 19, 2017 in Capital & Main

Excerpt:

"Why California Must Lead

No state rivals California either in the dimensions of its population or economy. At just under 40 million people, California has more residents than the nation’s 20 least densely populated states put together. Its economy is the sixth-largest in the world, trailing only the U.S., China, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom.

"California is also home to several of the nation’s most powerful and influential industries, including high tech and entertainment. Both Silicon Valley and Hollywood wield enormous economic clout, and are key shapers of consumer habits and cultural norms.

Why is this significant? Because California has the ability to exert enormous pressure on everything from markets and mores to politics and policy, a position it has ably demonstrated in its leadership role in addressing climate change, despite federal inaction.

Size and economic strength by themselves are not enough. But over the past 20 years, California has acquired another key comparative advantage: It has developed some of the most innovative social movements in the country – and exported them to cities across the U.S. These movements have secured rights for immigrants, boosted worker pay, protected LGBTQ Californians and pushed the state forward on addressing climate change. They will be called upon to use their organizing prowess to hold the line against Trump even as they continue to push the envelope of social and economic justice in California and beyond."

Read the full article >>