Issues
Immigration-
Immigration issues are the most prevalent issues currently in San Jose. Of course, Immigration is a hot topic around the country, but in the southwest United States, immigration issues hit very close to home. San Jose is no exception to this.
Huge demonstrations like the one below are fairly common in the San Jose Area.
Like many touchy issues, it often doesn’t take much in the way of provocation for an issue to absolutely explode. For example, in 2003, there was a high profile kidnapping that occurred in San Jose. The perpetrator of the kidnapping was an Illegal Alien with a long criminal record. A news story like this of course made many people very upset, but for different reasons. Some people thought it didn’t matter the person was an illegal. Other people thought that it did matter, and they thought that this one person represented everything that was wrong with the current immigration system. Other people were upset that some news outlets didn’t report the fact that this person was an Illegal Alien. These people were mad because they thought the fact that the perpetrator was illegal to be central to the story. Still other people condemned the news outlets that did report that the kidnapper was an illegal as racist and as capitalizing on a tragedy to make some sort of a political statement.
Shifting Ethnic Mix-
The ethnic mix in San Jose is currently shifting. There has been a change toward more Hispanic and Asians populating San Jose. Obviously the Hispanic population is the largest minority group in the city. However, surprisingly, the Asian population is the fastest growing. There was a 140% growth in the Asian population in the last 20 years, compared to a 41% growth in the Hispanic population in the same time frame.
The Shifting Ethnic Mix has obvious implications politically. The balance of ethnic power is shifting. However, it has caused some tension that the government has yet to catch up. For example, there are 10 seats on the City Council. Only 2 of these seats are held by non white members.
Gay Rights Issues-
Like many other places in the country, Gay issues are a very big topic in the San Diego area. A recent editorial said this:
"The council majority of Kurt Colehower, David Casas and Mayor Ron Packard embarrassed the community in February with its rejection of the students. The three didn't just refuse the kids' request to proclaim a Gay Pride Day. They went further and passed a rule banning any future consideration of proclamations having to do with sexual orientation -- a topic Packard described as divisive and inappropriate."
The issue was centered on some kids at the Los Altos High School wanted to proclaim a gay pride day. Weather or not this is a good idea is pretty much anyone's guess, but the important issue here is that these sorts of issues cause friction in the community. Even in California, witch has a reputation as being fairly Liberal on such issues, there is still quite a bit of disagreement.
