According to the U.S. Census Bureau, I live in the most diverse zip code in the nation.
Not the city, not the state, but the nation. And it’s right here in Seattle of all places. Who knew?
Actually, the folks down here in the Rainier Valley knew, and despite the sudden spate of news articles on it, it’s something we’ve proudly proclaimed for years. This distinction is based on old census data, not the new census that’s currently being conducted, and dollars to donuts our zip code has only grown more diverse over the intervening years… as has our nation.
So hop on the light rail and come visit our neck of the woods once in awhile, and have a glimpse at America’s future.
Yup, that’s my old zip code. Living out in Mason County, I don’t get down there as often as I’d like. The McClendon thread had me thinking of Keefe’s Hardware in Hillman City, on the east side of Rainier – an old brick building. The name should still be on the building facade. If you needed old stuff, like for knob and tube electrical wiring, that was the place to go. Walking in there was like going back decades. I still golf with my own generation’s Keefe brothers.
Too bad the Elbow Room that was in Columbia City is closed. They long had the stiffest drinks in town.
It’s something you’ve proudly proclaimed for years? What’s to be proud of? From the linked article, “Scego says 59 different languages are spoken in the 98118 zip code district.” All that tells me is you have a bunch of immigrants that aren’t assimilating. Why does that fact make you proud?
BTW, since you love diversity so much, tell everyone about the diverse bar you choose to hold Drinking Liberally in.
Troll apparantly hasn’t traveled much, and doesn’t see the advantages to learning from lots of different cultures. That’s why he’s comfortable believing that America still has the best health-care system in the world, etc. – because he hasn’t experienced it elsewhere, and he segregates himself from those who have.
@2
People tend to speak their native tongue at home. My dad grew up with a bunch of guys who’s parents immigrated from Italy, his friends were all bi-lingual.
Goldy, that is really cool.
Good grief, Troll, Rainier Valley has always had immigrants who were slow to assimilate. They were always considered “the other”, consigned to live in the armpit of Seattle. You think the Irish weren’t a little slow to assimilate? Heck, did you know that some people today actually consider the Irish to be white?
“I’m diverse. I like country AND western.”
Heck, did you know that some people today actually consider the Irish to be white?
Well, except for the black Irish.
Goldy basically said he’s proud immigrants aren’t assimilating. I’m just asking him why that makes him proud.
@9
Actually, that’s not what he said.
@6
Way back in the day, I spent a year working in Yellowstone NP. There were a bunch of folks from europe working there and one day one one of the American’s saw the europeans eating lunch together and decided to it would be funny to make a remark about all the euro-trash hanging out together. The folks from mainland europe were all quite offended at being called trash. The Irish girl was quite offended at being called european.
It’s funny watching how the Catholic Church dealt with immigrants over the years.
In the early days (colonial and post-colonial times), the catholic church was a small minority in the U.S. and endured it’s share of discrimination and persecution. It was largly made up of refugees from the Scottish Highlands, including those imprisoned and sent to America after the failure of the Jacobite rebellion, as well as those pushed into poverty and immigration by the “removals” in the Scottish Highlands, occuring after the American Revolution.
Then came the Irish, who were looked down upon by everyone, including the Scottish catholics and the Protestants alike. This wave of immigration begain in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, but reached it’s height due to the potato famine in Ireland and the economic expansion in the North during the Civil War. By now the Catholic Church was dominated by the Irish, both in clergy and congregation.
Then came the immigration from Southern Europe, and the Irish Catholics distanced themselves from the Italian/Sicilian immigrants. Having only recently taken political power in major northern cities (Boston, Chicago, New York, etc.), with all the patronage that implied (lots of jobs with the police force and fire departments), they were loath to share it with the new immigrants. For quite a time you had divisions between Italian and Irish parishes, with lots of competition between them.
Fast-forward to today, when Korean catholics are immigrating, and they are finding a need for their own “catholic” parishes because they don’t fit in well with their italian/irish/other bretheren.
In short, assimulation takes generations, and it’s not always for the better. The greatist impetus for assimulation isn’t English-only laws or policies, but competition from newer immigrant groups.
Somebody help me. Goldy is proud of something. I’m trying to figure out what he’s proud of.
One way to look at diversity is to celebrate our differences as strengths. A gay Korean PHP programmer with kids doesn’t have to think and act the same way as a straight white divorced real estate agent who doesn’t have to think and act like a straight kid less half Black half Latino artist. To revel in the fact we don’t ALL think alike.
The alternative would be like forcing everyone to think and act the same way, for example, like everyone being forced to think and act say….like a conservative baptist republican.
Homogeneous societies, they may be stable but they don’t innovate as much. they don’t have the tension and churn of new ideas and new viewpoints.
C’mon, Troll. He’s obviously proud to live in a diverse neighborhood. That’s my old neigborhood. I know where he’s coming from. Got issues with diversity? Immigrants? I hope not, Troll.
Interesting article, but the author fails to note that 98118 gets visably richer and whiter the closer you get to the water. Big differences between Rainier VALLEY and the Gold Coast.
No melting pot is perfect, I guess.
@2 “All that tells me is you have a bunch of immigrants that aren’t assimilating.”
Why should they assimilate? What’s wrong with their culture? You think our culture is better than other people’s? I’ll bet they didn’t have teabaggers where they came from.
@9 I’m asking you what it shouldn’t.
@13 Certainly not you.
not sure that an above average crime rate and roving gangs is something to be proud of…but oh well…..
maybe some people are proud of the Hilltop in Tacoma too…..
Cool, but questionable.
In KING/NWCN original reportage, the Rainier Valley (not 98119 specifically) is “believed [believed by whom? local Census employees] to be one of the most diverse areas in the country” .
In KOMO’s later reprise, the specific ZIP code is described as “most diverse” – but without specific attribution.
This “most diverse” tag is longstanding local folklore, but without known foundation. (Other ZIPs claim similar distinctions.) It was reflated last month in a local writer’s AOL opinion piece.
There’s nothing in official Census Bureau releases or data stores to support this claim – which even if clearly defined (what metric of diversity?) would be unfounded until the 2010 count is completed and processed.
maybe goldy should send his kids to Rainier Beach High School and then tell us how proud he is….
but somehow I doubt goldy the wannabe elitist will allow that to happen – after all, his political correctness only goes so far…
@2 Like most anti-immigrants Republicans nutbags, you have no sense of history not having ever read a book. ALL immigrants come here speaking their primary language. The children grow up speaking both (native language at home, English here and there). And THEIR children will speak English. Yes you can find an anecdotal example here or there of something different, but that’s how it’s always worked.
You can go back to 1912 and read YOUR EXACT RACIST wingnut editorial opinions from the papers of the time. In 1912 most people still looked down on immigrants, were mad or scared at Irish, Italians, Polish, etc. All the immigrants “clumped” together in immigrants neighborhoods. Had strange customs, religions. No one could understand their language. Oh the HORROR….of 1912!
Republicans, just always stuck in a mythical past that never ACTUALLY existed and afraid of the future, like they have been for 200 years, predicting EVERY generation will be the last because (insert racial group here) will destroy our way of life and values. You’ve been wrong for 200 years, you’ll CONTINUE to be wrong for the next 200 years. Don’t you get tired of ALWAYS being wrong? Immigrants aren’t going to destroy America. Gay marriage isn’t going to make everyone gay. Women working and voting didn’t destroy our republic. Freeing black people didn’t ruin America. Just get over it.
@23
A Republican President freed the slaves. And a Democrat then assassinated Lincoln. A Democrat President rounded up all the Japs in America and put them in concentration camps. A Democrat President also dropped nukes on ’em in Japan. The KKK was formed by a Democrat.
Should I go on?
Troll @ 24: As we keep reminding you, the Democratic Party cleaned up it’s rolls in the mid-1960’s. Either convert or get out, racists were told.
It probably cost us the election in 1968, when Nixon took advantage of the situation with his “Southern Strategy” which included more than a little “wink and nod” toward the racists as he emphasised his “law and order” platform, which racist whites correctly interpreted to mean “put the n….rs(black folks) back in their place”. We are a better party now, even though it may have cost us a few elections.
So, what have the Republicans done to eliminate racism in U.S. society in the past 125 years?
there is no link on the internet to any data set from the census bureau showing this particular zip code is the most diverse in the nation.
anyone with data, please speak up, and unless you do, it’s an urban legend.
yes, it’s diverse. no, not the most in my view. the most diverse in my view is likely one of the zip codes in Queens NY. At a county level speaking 138 langauges in a county that’s about 10x the population of Rainier Valley and which is it wer a stand alone city would be the fourth largest in the USA after La Chicago and Brooklyn Queens is more diverse than the Rainier Valley. IMHO. Please, you got data prove me wrong.
There’s more diversity with more than twice as many languages spoken as in R. Valley….
and it’s about 10x bigger too…..
“oh wait when we said the most diverse in the nation, we meant on the west coast…just like when we say we’re the most green city, we mean we’re more green than bend, boise and bupkis, WA.”
goldy owned.
huh @26,
The news article I linked to quotes a Census Bureau official, but I guess the supposition of an anonymous troll is more authoritative.
Goldy – The video clip quotes nobody, and names no source. It attributes the claim to an anonymous CB official – who would seem to be a crunch-time local hire casually parroting the same local urban legend.
IOW, BS.
I used to live in Hillman City but I moved last year. Too much gang-related crime for my tastes. I couldn’t walk down the street at night without worrying about being mugged. I used to watch high school kids checking every car on the street, to see which ones they should break into. I used to watch crack dealers one block away deal to dozens of drive-by vehicles every Saturday morning till 11 am. Every weekend I would need to pick up used condoms and little crack baggies off my curb. Once in awhile I would find a used syringe on the curb. Hillman City is a CRACK and PROSTITUTE haven, and Rainier Beach is even worse.
The international gangs that reside in Hillman City do whatever they want, and sell vast amounts of crack on Rainier Ave. S.
The immigrant community there is just happy to be out of whatever war-torn country they came from, and living in the US. These people think the crime rate there is just fine. Which means no real changes are coming, not from the community itself.
The minority whites there can whine about it all they want, but not much will change unless the immigrants believe there is a problem they need to be concerned about.
Reaching out to the community is a joke. You have to print everything in 20 languages and even when you do, the immigrant turnout is close to zero. They see any meetings to make the neighborhood better as the work of “white” people who don’t know any better.
It will take many years of hard work to change that community around. I chose to let someone else do that kind of work. Too many better neighborhoods in Seattle to live in.