Sailer's Law of Immigrant Animosity
The more two immigrant groups hate each other back in the Old Country, the more they will crowd together in America.
You might think that when immigrants come to America, they would choose to spread out as far as possible from their fellow immigrants who are their arch-enemies back in the Old Country. For example, Eritreans and Ethiopians tend to hate each other (as do Ethiopia’s various constituent ethnicities such as the Tigrayans, Ahmaras, and Omoros), so you might think they’d fan out in vast America so that they wouldn’t get on each other’s nerves too much.
But instead, they tend to crowd into the exact same neighborhoods, such Uptown in Chicago, where I used to live.
For example, back in 1980, when I was getting an MBA at UCLA, my daily commute took me past the federal building on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood. Traffic was frequently slowed because a common sight were LAPD mounted police desperately holding back crowds of up to 10,000 angry Iranians on each of three corners. On one corner, would be the pro-Aytatollah / anti-Shah fundamentalists shaking their fists at the more fashionably dressed but equally enraged pro-Shah / anti-Ayatollah mob on the second corner. On the third corner, gesticulating fiercely but even-handedly at the two larger throngs, was a smaller contingent of Iranians who had the good taste to be mad at both the Ayatollah and the Shah (although God only knows whom they liked: Brezhnev?).
Why do people who loathe each other settle next to each other in America?
Paywall here.
Mostly for the ethnic grocery stores, I imagine.
But it also makes the Hated Other close at hand for demonstrations and riots.
Iranians and Israelis in Los Angeles, of course, choose to live right next to each other according to Sailer’s Law of Immigrant Animosity.
I have an appointment at the Westwood Federal Building next week, and I’m now worrying that when I arrive, I’ll find three corners filled with angry Iranians, angry Israelis (who also congregate in the neighborhood), and Iranian Jews, whose attitude I can’t begin to predict.
Iranian Jews make up perhaps a quarter or a third of Iranians in Los Angeles. They tend to hold most of the elective offices in Beverly Hills. They tend to refer to themselves when speaking to outsiders as “Persians” rather than as “Iranians” or as “Jews.”
Interestingly, there are still about 9,000 Jews in Iran. Contrary to propaganda about how anti-Semitic Iran is, it’s not uncommon for Beverly Hills’ Persian Jews to take long vacations in Iran for family reunions.
My Persian (not Jewish boss) told me proudly that the only two countries in which Jews introduce themselves as people of the country before they refer to their Judaism are America and Iran. Later my Persian Jew boss told me proudly that while he acknowledged that Ashkenazi might be little smarter, Persian Jews had us licked for being conniving. I tried to explain to him, based on my experience in the Sailer comments section, that it;s not a thing to brag about.
Then thinking back, my Persian boss (a lady) boasted to me about how manipulative she was. Isn't the first law of manipulative club, don't talk about manipulative club?
The only other thing I have to contribute is that my martial arts coach is Bulgarian and when I told him my neighbor across the street was North Macedonian, he said he'd like to meet him since they are essentially the same people. I told my neighbor that and he laughed and said essentially "no we are fucking not".
Interesting, definitely something I largely have not thought about other than the Eritreans and Ethiopians in DC. My spouse had a business near 9th and U, which had a very strong Ethiopian presence but Eritreans were around as well. Whatever their beef was, it seemed limited to verbally trashing the other to third parties given the chance, which was pretty minor compared to how native Washingtonians handle dislikes or slights.
My neighborhood had an Ethiopian coffee shop, and the owner was a good guy. He always had a stale pastry for my dog and clearly wanted to be considered an enterprising gentrifier as opposed to somehow related to the dominant neighborhood demographic, who he openly held in contempt.