The Houston Astros: Diversity is the Strength of our Country

With the election coming up here are some of my thoughts about the issues we face along with the recent victory of the Astros.

Two days ago the Houston Astros won their second World Series in the quintessential American game. The final out was made by a white man off a pitch made by a white man. Before that though the starting pitcher on the mound for the Astros was a black man from the Dominican Republic, the go ahead home run was hit by a black man from Cuba and both were managed by a black man who had been born in the US when much of the country was legally segregated. That black man, Dusty Baker, when he came up to the pros in 1967 had not wanted to play for a team in the Deep South but now he was being celebrated by a city in the Deep South. A city in a state that fought for the Confederacy, had Jim Crow laws and was segregated. That to this day has political leaders warning against an invasion of immigrants. Cheering in the stands were people from not only from Mexico but also people from India, Nigeria, China, Vietnam and many other countries.

I was born in this city not too long after Dusty Baker entered the pros. This city was famous for the Space program but was still a divided city dealing with Civil Rights. For my family we were the first Asians to move into my neighborhood and at school I was the first Asian that many of my classmates had seen. Since then Houston has become a truly diverse city with many more Asian immigrants and also immigrants from Africa and South America. Harris County is now the most diverse county in the US. It’s not unusual to see a street with a Taqueria next a Salvadoran Pupuseria, next to an Indian restaurant, next to a Vietnamese restaurant.

Houston sports has also embraced that diversity. In the 1980’s the Houston Rockets featured the first NBA star from Nigeria. A few years later they brought in the first Chinese NBA star. During the last 20 years the Houston Rockets lineup has featured a Taiwanese American player, a player from Turkey, a player from Greece and a player from Brazil.

Houston is the face of a changing and diverse America. An America that is built up by people who have come from all over the world to make a new life. Nothing says that more than seeing the city come out and cheer on the American pastime of a team made up by people from many countries and managed by a man who dealt with racism in this country. This is the potential and promise of this country that we welcome the rest of the world and that makes us better. This is also why we need to reject messages that call for closing off the country from immigrants. That immigrants are a threat and are here to replace “real Americans”. That America is only about one culture, one group of people and that diversity is what is destroying this country.

The strength of this country is from diversity and the renewal of both immigrants and opportunities for people who had been previously oppressed in this country. Dusty Baker at 73 who experienced racism when he came up as a young player embracing Jeremy Pena a 25 year old immigrant and now World Series MVP in Houston, Texas shows that.

 

LOL...

That said I've had personal experience with this. Growing up most of my friends were white and I remember them cracking racist jokes around me. I've had people literally say that they consider me white so I'm OK. In recent discussions when I've talked about the situation of immigration and cited my own family's experience I've had people say "you're one of the good ones."

 

According to the LA Times Houston is the most diverse city.
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-houston-diversity-2017-htmlstory.html
How Houston has become the most diverse place in America
The high school is in southwest Houston, a city whose stunning growth and high-volume immigration have turned it into the most racially and ethnically diverse major metropolis in the country, surpassing New York in 2010.
...
The story of how his city turned from a town of oil industry roughnecks and white blue-collar workers into a major political centrifuge for immigration reform, demographic analysts say, is nothing less than the story of the American city of the future.
Houston boomed through the mid-20th century, thanks to the oil bonanza, and most of those who came to get rich were white. Large numbers of Vietnamese refugees began arriving in the 1970s, and after an oil collapse in 1982, they were followed by an influx of Latinos driven by cheap housing and employment opportunities. Whites, meanwhile, started drifting out.

The multi-ethnic boom has occurred deep in the heart of a state that has often seemed to regard conservatism, and Texas identity, as an element of religion.

The state’s Republican leadership has helped lead the fight this year not only on sanctuary cities, but to defend President Trump’s order on border security and immigration enforcement. Texas went to court in 2015 to successfully block expanded deportation protections for young “Dreamers” and their parents who brought them here illegally.

Yet demographic experts say the Houston metro area, home to the third-largest population of undocumented immigrants in the country — behind New York and Los Angeles — is a roadmap to what U.S. cities will look like in the coming decades as whites learn to live as minorities in the American heartland.

Census projections have opened a window into the America of 2050, “and it’s Houston today,” said Stephen Klineberg, a sociology professor at Rice University.
More at link.

 

There are links in the article. Here is a more recent study showing that Houston is the nations most diverse city.
https://www.governing.com/community/houston-is-the-nations-most-diverse-city-report.html

 

Mancini did have a pretty awful postseason.