I am of such an advanced age (let’s just say that my current age was a favorite number of the Babylonians!) that for me to announce that I was a native Californian was to claim something rather special and unusual. According to Dowell Myers of USC, however there are now enough of us native Californians so that we will soon be in leadership of the state.  It seems to me that there is as much immigration as ever, but most of it seems to come from outside the United States – mainly Mexico, Asia, and Latin America – and concentrate in the old industrial neighborhoods first and the suburbs later; and more people now move from California to the other 49 states than the other way around.  Perhaps as Iowa gave us our Anglo culture, we shall transmit our culture to Idaho and Colorado.  But I feel good about being more the norm in many ways than ever before – particularly as I’m an Anglo, which is not the norm!  (And where else does someone of Scandinavian and Northern Irish descent get to be called an Anglo)?

Related: “The Oh Decade: Native Californians are fast becoming the state’s engine” by Dowell Myers