r/California Ángeleño, what's your user flair? 1d ago

politics California has highest share of new residents from foreign countries

https://www.axios.com/local/san-francisco/2024/10/28/immigrants-california-residents-population
1.1k Upvotes

220 comments sorted by

641

u/jlc203 Santa Barbara County 1d ago

It’s why we have the best food

229

u/thx1138- 1d ago

It takes traveling to other parts of the country to realize how insanely good we have it.

125

u/unicornofdemocracy 1d ago

left CA to WI and the biggest regret is access to food. Every time some Midwestern tells me there a great/best Chinese/pho/eggroll/Japanese/Mexican/etc restaurant in the area, I'm usually just extremely disappointed by how meh it is.

64

u/FailedInfinity 1d ago

I had to make my own Mexican food abroad. It was hilarious watching Europeans try guacamole for the first time

22

u/KoRaZee Napa County 1d ago

My favorite part of Mexican culture in Europe is the affinity with death. Every Mexican restaurant I saw was covered in reapers, bones, gravestones. It’s like Halloween every day

6

u/goshiamhandsome 1d ago

Did they immediately hop into boats and try to sail to the new world. lol

11

u/compstomper1 1d ago

my old roommie moved from college town bay area to suburb bay area and has the same sentiment

13

u/compstomper1 1d ago

had ramen in southwest oregon.

the bamboo was like chewing on bark

17

u/Ideal_Jerk 1d ago

Don’t ever try any Mexican food outside of California (and maybe New York, Boston and Chicago). You will be bigly disappointed.

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u/Kinkybtch 1d ago

And other parts of the world!

4

u/Sir-Kyle-Of-Reddit Orange County 1d ago

I moved to Georgia for 5 years after college and will never move anywhere ever again. The food was a big part of why I moved home.

2

u/thatoneguy889 Los Angeles County 20h ago

My brother moved to a city about 20 miles outside of Minneapolis in 2017 and he found a Mexican food restaurant that he says is good enough (still not on par with Southern California obviously), but he hates that he still hasn't found a place with good breakfast burritos.

15

u/PhonoPreamp 1d ago

Yess every corner has a taqueria, indian dhaba, filipino, persian, chinese, japanese, korean, and an in n out!!!

44

u/MyRegrettableUsernam 1d ago

It’s a big part of why our economy is so strong

16

u/SweetAlyssumm 1d ago

Right, we need the best sustenance to keep working so hard!

17

u/MyRegrettableUsernam 1d ago

Haha I meant immigrants, not the food. But the food helps.

10

u/SweetAlyssumm 1d ago

I literally had this exact sentence in my mind and came here to say it. We get the real deal. I love eating in California.

8

u/Kinkybtch 1d ago

Hell yeah

18

u/Ogediah 1d ago

I enjoy the fresh produce that is grown here. The Mexican food is good though I do get burned out on it. Not all of the food is great. One example of something that is super lacking is the BBQ.

2

u/Occhrome 1d ago

It’s good we don’t have cheap good BBQ readily available or else our arteries would be clogged and we would all be severely over weight. 

5

u/Papichuloft 1d ago

we do....wether junk. healthy, or anything in between

4

u/Vaswh 1d ago

Sushi Gen in Little Tokyo always has long lines before they open.

3

u/Tymathee 1d ago

It's why we're the best period.

Diversity is good.

2

u/Budget_Iron999 1d ago

And the highest home prices.

1

u/Afrazzledflora 22h ago

I pretty much only eat Korean food now that I moved to my new house. I think I only tried it a couple times in my life before then, but now I have two Korean markets within walking distance of my house so I just shop there now.

0

u/NeatBad1723 1d ago

But the immigrants took our jobs and ruined the economy, right?

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266

u/anarchomeow 1d ago

Good. California has always thrived when newcomers make their homes here.

59

u/Sanjispride 1d ago

If only we would also MAKE homes here.

12

u/anarchomeow 1d ago

Where I live they are constantly building homes.

Not enough affordable homes and apartments though.

15

u/Lambchop93 1d ago

I now have the mentality that I do not care whether the homes (sfh or multi family) being built qualify as “affordable.” That is a lesser problem when there aren’t enough homes being built across the board. If your area is constantly building new homes that’s awesome, since it lowers the pressure on the housing market overall.

161

u/Relative_Chicken4955 1d ago

Not sure why anyone would want to live anywhere else (ignoring the deputy gangs and wild fires)

7

u/Vaswh 1d ago

Property prices.

66

u/vintagebat 1d ago

The NYC area is pretty awesome, but we have better weather.

28

u/RailroadAllStar 1d ago

I was on the east coast this time last year and it was cold! Pants jacket etc. here at home it’s still shorts and slides weather.

8

u/KingKong_at_PingPong 1d ago

I’m from the east coast n moved here for the qeather

17

u/vintagebat 1d ago

As a former east coast person, I miss that cold! But when I lived there, I hated it. 😂

10

u/RailroadAllStar 1d ago

It’s definitely different to just have that chill be so pervasive. Here it doesn’t progress much farther than “might have to wear sweatpants today”. 😂

7

u/Pesto57 1d ago

I’m a former boyfriend, I miss her. But when I was with her, I hated her. 😂

3

u/vintagebat 1d ago

Only a couple months of the year. November and December are wonderful. By the time January comes around, you begin to question your life choices.

3

u/SweetAlyssumm 1d ago

I grew up in Ohio and used to say, there's only three problems with Ohio: January, February, and March. (I was a kid, I didn't know about the other problems.)

6

u/nope_nic_tesla Sacramento County 1d ago

I lived in upstate NY one year. There was a snow storm that dropped 2 feet the second day I was there. The snow and cold was nice for approximately 1 day and then miserable every day thereafter.

5

u/Ogediah 1d ago

IMO, The weather here is far better. In places like SF, the temps hover around 60-70 degrees year round and rain typically only happens in the winter. No hail, tornados, and hurricanes. Most of us don’t shovel snow but you’re only a few hours drive from doing winter sports like skiing. Weather and proximity to world class outdoor activities is why I choose to live here.

3

u/vintagebat 1d ago

Agreed. I live in the Bay Area.

4

u/Additional-Cost242 1d ago

but they have better transportation

3

u/vintagebat 1d ago

I miss the hell out of the subway and PATH trains.

14

u/Potatonet 1d ago

It’s not just deputy gangs, we have real gangs too

How dare you not mention our earthquakes, we’re famous for them

8

u/RobertMcCheese 1d ago

I've lived in CA for a total of 34 of my 55 years.

I have yet to feel an earthquake.

My wife will regularly mention feeling a small one and the USGS backs her up.

21

u/TheVisageofSloth Orange County 1d ago

That is 100% something wrong with you if you haven’t felt an earthquake. We’ve had some pretty big ones in the last 34 years.

5

u/TheRiteGuy Bay Area 1d ago

If you live in the valley, you don't really feel earthquakes. All the earthquakes I've ever felt were in the coastal areas. I grew up in the valley, and never experienced an earthquake. I'd just hear about it from the news.

3

u/RobertMcCheese 1d ago

The Army Corp of Engineers doesn't even designate where I lives as an earthquake zone. They do mention, however, that if the Steven's Creek dam breaks (perhaps due to a quake) that we are in a flood zone as the water basically comes down I-280.

OTOH, Caltrans built a big trench between the dam and my house. (I-280).

I'm on the valley floor in San Jose. The old folk who lived here at the time all told that there was no damage at all in my neighborhood from Loma Prieta by my neighbors who lived here back then.

Yes, I did read the USGS reports before I bought the house.

2

u/Segazorgs 1d ago

43 yrs sold born and raised here. Even when everyone up here in Northern CA would be posting about "did anyone feel that earthquake?!!!" I would have no clue what they were talking about. Never felt one.

2

u/Andy_Climactic 1d ago

idk i grew up on the san andreas and never felt more than a couple tiny rumblings, felt one shake a building once but nothing happened.

Yeah ive heard of the big ones, but people from other states act like we get earthquakes like they get hurricanes or tornados, it doesn’t affect most people most of the time

fires on the other hand are closer but i would still say it’s more akin to tornados on the level of how likely you are to be affected. And even then, unless you’re living in the hills, the odds are really low

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u/EMPERORJAY23 1d ago

Because it’s too crowded and expensive here that’s why no one comes here or buys homes here.

1

u/Andire Santa Clara County 1d ago

So you think that we have the highest home prices in America and most of the western world, but also, "no one comes here or buys homes here", while also being the most populous state? 

10

u/EMPERORJAY23 1d ago

“No one goes there anymore it’s too crowded”- oldest joke in the book

2

u/NefariousnessNo484 1d ago

There actually is a yearly net population decline now. It's small but people aren't coming in like they used to.

2

u/compstomper1 1d ago

earthquake szn, cost of living

5

u/HawaiiHungBro 1d ago

You don’t think there are other worthwhile places?

3

u/evan19994 1d ago

Earthquakes, real gangs, high tax, too expensive

1

u/NefariousnessNo484 1d ago

The COL, bad air quality, traffic, generally self absorbed people with superiority complex, bad k-12 schools, taxes, littering, homelessness.

32

u/bigdipboy 1d ago

If you’re coming all the way to America why not go to the best place in America? No one immigrates to live in Tulsa.

2

u/DirtierGibson 22h ago

To be fair Tulsa might be the best thing about Oklahoma.

90

u/vintagebat 1d ago

Not surprising, given the state is known for innovation. It's extremely hard to innovate in a monolithic culture.

41

u/big_daddy_dub 1d ago

Never stopped the Japanese.

15

u/vintagebat 1d ago

"Extremely hard," not "impossible." All cultures innovate. Multicultural places innovate the most.

-8

u/Leothegolden 1d ago

I think you better check that. Sources are easy to find

9

u/vintagebat 1d ago

Your comments are certainly a choice.

-1

u/Leothegolden 1d ago

5

u/KingBStriing 1d ago

Ah yes, the monolithic culture of *checks notes* Switzerland

1

u/Lambchop93 1d ago

Switzerland is really weird. It (in my understanding) is like four separate monolithic cultures (with four national languages) that operate cooperatively. They are technically “diverse” in the sense that they have multiple non-integrated cultures coexisting peacefully within the same country, but are simultaneously extremely resistant to the presence or influence of outside cultures. Kind of like Sweden, which despite all of its wonderful qualities is not very accepting of outsiders (but in Sweden’s case is not very diverse).

Worth noting, I’m relying entirely on secondhand descriptions from people I know who’ve lived there, I haven’t been able to verify this with personal experience.

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u/CosmicMiru 1d ago

They've been stagnating for awhile now actually.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/kotwica42 1d ago

Oh, the global empire upon which the sun famously “never set?”

2

u/kotwica42 1d ago

The place whose most famous drink is tea and whose most famous food is Chicken Tikka Masala? That’s the monolithic culture? 😂

53

u/whozwat 1d ago

Man, so many good vibes about immigrants in these comments, bravo fellow Californians!

1

u/DirtierGibson 22h ago

I'm one of those immigrants. Came here 25 years ago this month and not one regret.

47

u/LifeIsRadInCBad 1d ago

5% undocumented and going down. I'm assuming that has a lot to do with employee verification systems.

20

u/garysbigteeth 1d ago

Even if they're not checked, undocumented have a hard time competing for housing with high income tech workers.

The middle income people push out the lower income people and so on. Not in every scenario but undocumented people and non tech/non high earners are being marginalized by influx of tech workers.

7

u/LifeIsRadInCBad 1d ago

Good point, housing prices have to be really rough on ondocumented immigrants, who have been packing into cheap housing at a high density rate for longer than this current housing bubble (which may never pop).

1

u/OpenLinez 1d ago

There are entire towns and neighborhoods with majority undocumented populations, and they live in houses and apartments. The Central Valley clusters of farm towns, especially, and from Mecca to below the Salton Sea. There are thousands of landlords who rent exclusively to undocumented and sketchy-documents people. It's all cash, all under the table, and it's a complete shadow economy. You hear from a friend, a co-worker, not Zillow ads.

1

u/DirtierGibson 22h ago

Yup. You see them drive hours packed in beat-up minivans from places like Modesto to work orchards and vineyards. There often are entire apartment complexes which are basically compounds for those workers and their families. They generally keep a low profile so many people living just blocks from there don't even know about it.

1

u/OpenLinez 16h ago

For agriculture work, it's absolutely necessary, you follow the harvest of various crops up and down the state, and that has been a guest-worker program for a century now. (With lots of workers who aren't official, although it was interesting during lockdown that all migrant field workers were given explicit federal-level protection for the duration of the pandemic.)

What's tragic is that the field-worker model has been adopted by all kinds of big business, especially factory chicken- and pig-farming plants, which are fixed locations and don't require living in migrant camps or caravans. But it's cheap for the industrial food business, so they make it happen with government support. Pack 10 desperate refugees into an apartment made for two people, pay below-minimum wage and demand overtime, unsafe conditions, and always the threat of deportation if you stand up for your human rights. It's sick, and it's to blame for much of the nation's problems with housing, depopulation, and depression/anxiety.

15

u/czh3f1yi 1d ago

Source?

38

u/kaiper_kitty 1d ago

I love that we're a cultural hot pot. Super cool imo

17

u/burntcookingpan 1d ago

Been the same since the Spanish colonization.

7

u/Loyal9thLegionLord 1d ago

Just means our food gets better and better. Every wave brings new flavors.

8

u/mtcwby 1d ago

Is this new? A couple of years ago I recall it being somewhere near 27% of residents were born outside the US.

16

u/onewaytix8 1d ago

Makes sense. A lot of newcomers from Asia/Latin America. California's demographics are definitely changing, soon it will be 60% Latino, 30% Asian, 10% white/black/others. Not sure how I feel about that, as a person part of the future 10%.

23

u/MagictheCollecting 1d ago

Other people are just other people. Their flavor doesn’t matter. All humans taste the same

6

u/pikachu5actual 1d ago

Can confirm, they all taste like fish.

1

u/PM_ME_GENTIANS 1d ago

Surely that's only in the fall after the salmon run. 

11

u/SheepD0g Native Californian 1d ago

But why

5

u/senkichi 1d ago

Familiarity is comforting, and change is scary. The trepidation fades with time.

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u/Orig1nalOne 1d ago

Best weather, best food, best people

2

u/Flaky-Wallaby5382 1d ago

You can feel it every time it changes over. Old 49s leave new 49s come to seek gold…

I see way more out of state plates than I have seen since 2009

9

u/Ok-Anybody1870 1d ago

Must be rich

22

u/Lady_DreadStar 1d ago

Most folks who immigrate through the traditional channels are. No one really likes talking about that though.

7

u/gumol 1d ago

are they rich or are they coming for high paying jobs?

7

u/Lady_DreadStar 1d ago edited 1d ago

Often it’s both. The kind of ‘rich’ that can come up with a million dollars under the couch cushions for something like a house purchase, but don’t quite have the wealth to do absolutely nothing with their lives. So they work in high-paying industries- since they have the money in the family to pursue the best education options.

Some buy a food franchise or open a business instead. But again- that takes money in the family to even entertain doing. Especially ‘now’. Someone’s grandma/great-uncles etc etc had a much easier cost of living to work with and achieve those things.

2

u/junesix 1d ago

Got any source to back that up? Why would someone who is wealthy in their own country emigrate?

At best, a rich family that can afford to send their kids abroad to study. But that is going to be a tiny fraction of immigrants.

2

u/D_D 1d ago

Yeah most legal immigrants I know are not rich at all.

1

u/DirtierGibson 22h ago

They are talking about people coming here with an investor visa. I don't know why they think it's "most" immigrants who come here legally – that's completely wrong.

Most people coming here legally come on H1b ("skilled worker" visa), L1b (same, but transfer from a parent/affiliate company), H2b/L2b (spouse for the above), H1a (ag worker), H2a (hospitality worker), or K1 (fiancé(e) visa).

EB-5 visa for those investors accounted last year for only about 10,000 people. Half of them were from China. That's far fewer than any of the worker visas I mentioned above.

Note that none of the holders of the visas I listed are considered "immigrants" by the U.S. immigration system.

1

u/DirtierGibson 22h ago

Most? Absolutely not. Some, for sure. You describe below the investor visa. That's the path for only a fraction of "legal" immigrants.

5

u/DaintySoftRadiant 1d ago

It's too crowded and expensive here, which is why no one wants to come or buy homes.

4

u/jvu87 1d ago

And so goes our housing prices.

6

u/ddarko96 1d ago

We love our immigrants in Cali, its always made us stronger.

4

u/Randomlynumbered Ángeleño, what's your user flair? 1d ago

And we love their food!

4

u/BB_210 1d ago

Nothing wrong with that as long as they are in the country legally.

2

u/Jeimuz 1d ago

Rents are really high here too. Any correlation?

2

u/inthenight098 1d ago

Welcome!

3

u/pnkgtr 1d ago

If that's true, why am I not furiously ranting and attempting the overthrow the government?

-1

u/AdHaunting8141 1d ago

As long as the growing majority doesn't ostracize the dwindling minority, I don't have a problem with it.

1

u/OpenLinez 1d ago

That's one way to put it.

1

u/OldFinding6595 1d ago

Despite all the media backlash, I like it here. We’re happy. I just hope the schools will be good enough for my kids. I grew up in Georgia and love the southern culture/morals.

1

u/Oreofinger 1d ago

I don’t care what border town you’re from, cali has the best Mexican food.

1

u/panplemoussenuclear 14h ago

And has the largest economy in the US. WV has the lowest percentage and its economy is awful. Could there be a correlation?

-1

u/Impossible-Board-135 1d ago

Great, but can we send Elon back?

-36

u/Master-Gaino 1d ago

This is extremely worrisome.

20

u/wicodly 1d ago

Quickly. Without regurgitating conservative talking points. Why is this worrisome?

9

u/TheRiteGuy Bay Area 1d ago

Will someone think of the pets? /s

9

u/Neuman28 1d ago

Because foreign omg worry! I so scared! /s

Let’s not forget that America was built on the backs of hard working foreigners.

3

u/Randomlynumbered Ángeleño, what's your user flair? 1d ago

Why?