Where Are The Mexicans?

Mickey Kaus blogs:

…Here’s a report from, yes, the front lines of the illegal immigration crackdown (scroll down to comment from "hllnwlz"):

I’m a high school English teacher in OC. Some very interesting things are afoot in Anaheim public schools.

The AP in charge of scheduling says our freshmen enrollment is down 100 kids, about 5% off normal. We’ve been reading about decreasing enrollment coming through the elementary schools, but didn’t expect it to hit us so quickly.

In five classes, I SHOULD have 100-110 kids.

I have 71. Any of you familiar with OC public schools knows how low that number is.

Also, I’ve got many, many more white and asian students than ever before. I *think* what’s happening is that many of those families have downsized into our lower-middle class neighborhood.

On top of that, the recently immigrated Mexican kids seem to have *poof* vanished. (Note: I have no knowledge of their status, illegal or legal.) ALL my students, for the first time in my career, have insisted that I eschew their given names and use an anglicized version (e.g. Mary for Maricruz, Judy for Yuridia, Tommy for Tomas, etc.) instead. No one is speaking Spanish inside or outside the classroom.

This leads me to believe either (a) all the enforcement ICE has been doing is scaring the crap out of the (legal and illegal) immigrant community and/or b) people are ditching Cali for greener pastures.

My money’s on b. [Emphasis added.]

But they’re ditching East Tulsa too. Maybe they’re ditching the U.S. entirely. Even if they are only moving around internally, this could be a large and portentous demographic shift. In a decade someone will get tenure for discovering it. … P.S.: Note that "hllnwlz"’s comment is from a blog tracking the puncturing of the housing bubble. Sugggestive!