Racial and Ethnic Partition of the United States? [Making a Yugoslavia]

Unlikely for numerous reasons:

-the US have a long history and a strong sense patriotism. Whoever is in power (left or right) will fight heavily to preserve the national unity and not be willing to give up any territory

-even if racial tensions go up, as along as it doesn#t comes to massiveprogroms, blacks will still be better off by retreating into a paralel society (guarded by militias, like in Lebanon, if it gets that far) than by creating an Pakistan style black retorte-state (as this would either create an unviable number of enclaves or force most/many blacks to migrate and give up homes & jobs)

-there are two areas that are somewhat better suited for separatism than the rest of the US (save Hawai & Puerto Rico)

  1. The South, with the memory of the CSA still alive and an unique culture. Problem here is that a few to many groups have staked out claims down there: Black separatists, Neo-confederates, Texas nationalists and Latinos would spend more time fighting each other than the goverment
  2. The other is California, with its strong economy and geographic separation from the main settlement areas. But roughly the same problem there: Lationos, Blacks and Asian would bash each others heads in, if racial tensions go high instead forming a comon separatist front
 

Warsie

Banned
[*]The other is California, with its strong economy and geographic separation from the main settlement areas. But roughly the same problem there: Lationos, Blacks and Asian would bash each others heads in, if racial tensions go high instead forming a comon separatist front
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California has a longer history of a common shared 'Californian' identity shared by Latinos, Whites, Asians -and- blacks. NorCal vs SouCal and whatnot. It's like the shared identity shared by inhabitants of New York City boroughs and sides of Chicago, which is to a similar level as their racial identification (kind've.....) - which is why I say that a 'Eastern Seaboard' or 'Bos-Wash' pan identity movement is more likely to happen, with the possible exceptions of Baltimore and Washington D.C. metropolitan areas.
 
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Isn't there a dark side to the California Dream, though - rampant RACISM toward non-white since START? A DELIBERATE wish to excluse blacks and latinos?

I have read somewhere once a quote from a settler admin. or something, saying like 'the sun of California shall regenerate the Aryan (or white) race'... And one 'weeped, when he heard the first black settled in California...
 

Warsie

Banned
Isn't there a dark side to the California Dream, though - rampant RACISM toward non-white since START? A DELIBERATE wish to excluse blacks and latinos?

I have read somewhere once a quote from a settler admin. or something, saying like 'the sun of California shall regenerate the Aryan (or white) race'... And one 'weeped, when he heard the first black settled in California...

That wouldn't be surprising, but in the case of California the original languages of the state when it was annexed by the US were English and Spanish. When the English speakers took over (demographically decades after the war ended to a massive level) they made it then English-only, and now there has been attempts to make the spanish an official language again.

Just because CA has english as the official language does not mean they dont also use spanish and filipino etc on their government documents - they stilll print things in multiple languages

Yeah there is that aspect too. In related note, when Texas fought for its' independence the spanish speaking Tejanos joined the English speaking Texans in their war of independence - it was more of a secessionist war against Santa Anna than something ethnic - there were rebellions in other Mexican states at that time.

EDIT: thanks for reminding me of that aspect, the suppression of Chicano culture et all...
 
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Without a POD back in colonial times to radically alter demographic history, you're not going to get a partition on racial or ethnic lines in response to minority unrest.

What you'd get would be members of the offending minority being exterminated with the few survivors being repressed and marginalized to a degree that makes the post-reconstruction nadir look like the world of light in comparision. Remember, after King Philip's War, the mindset went to "the only good indian is a dead indian" for 2-3 centuries. Now translate that to your scenario of a mid/late 20th century black uprising in the southeastern US and the implications for what follows are quite ugly...
 
Warsie, I think that I remember my source for this.. its odd I know, but a book a french journalist made on a subject he love, rap, gangsta style. It was actualy well done, nice researches on all that led to the gangsta subculture, history of california, american black musics, etc notes... The book was called 'Gangsta Rap' I think, simply.

Los Angeles was at first a lost hellhole with nothing much but sun to give.. and started a propaganda-advertising for a new 'healthy, place to settle... for whites.
 

Warsie

Banned
^AFAIK the first 2-3 settlements the Spanish sent died because they were essentially settling a desert. The tech improvements, as well as really oil made the motivation for settlement stronger and more feasible. Making building a city in the desert Las Vegas or Dubai style more easy.
 
Isn't there a dark side to the California Dream, though - rampant RACISM toward non-white since START? A DELIBERATE wish to excluse blacks and latinos?

I have read somewhere once a quote from a settler admin. or something, saying like 'the sun of California shall regenerate the Aryan (or white) race'... And one 'weeped, when he heard the first black settled in California...

Yes and no. There were always strong cracks in the veneer. Irish immigrants returned favors to the Californios, as fellow members of the Catholic church to whom favorable treatment were given. This was nearly accross the board, although to Chinese a horrible opposite was nearly the rule.

Los Angeles was a backwater from the years 1848-1865, but was a center of Californio activity (Northern California was increasingly so the center, but also much more infiltrated by Yankees). The Mexican American war was nearly a stalemate in the south, and fundemental in the continuation of the land grant agreements.

Southern California still is fairly strong insofar as people of Mexicans having kept land. A large part of the old land grants still have heirs on the boundaries, though generally in a much reduced state. The last one intact was eaten by the San Luis Reservoir in the 1960's. Most married into white society, although it was originally heavily Black (a story in itself, as California was no place in Mexico's eyes, so criminals and the lowest orders of society were encouraged to settle there). Only about 800 were real white Hispanics at 1846, albeit usually the richest ones.

Incredibly, in 1946 not a single small district had a majority Hispanic population in Los Angeles. Source on that was The Atlas of California, which each 10 year snapshot map had how the population demographics shifted. Also, my father grew up entirely in East Los Angeles, now probably 99% Hispanic or married to the same -- wikipedia says 97% Hispanic. It was only about 20% back then, yet still gangs were everywhere (many not Hispanic, Armenian or other, but most were). My grandfather died there in the 1980's, one of the last non Hispanics in the area, apparently under orders not to be harmed in any way. (Everything copper was stolen a few days after he died, though.)

There have been differences. Hispanics are not notably race oriented, as Hispanics have every race, the native american component predominating but the white considerated better (it is odd to see some one getting their drivers license and claiming to be white when looking like Montezuma, as I have witnessed personally at times). In California, the black part is nearly always muted nowadays, but culturally there is small amount of negative consideration internally. There are also regional issues, as a Puerto Rican would not be much accepted in more predominate districts of LA, or a Chicano in NYC. Cubans are the same. Even those who are from Central or South America are not always totally accepted, though this is not clear to me. Chaco (from 1600s in New Mexico) are quite against new waves arriving from Mexico.

Then there is Compton. Mexicans have gained presence while Blacks have lost it, and the recently all Black police force are doing the same thing done to them by the once all white force: holding on to the ropes of power as long as possible and not making it any easier for the Chicanos to rise up to the leadership positions, or so newspaper reports have it. Watts is also mostly Latino now, as it is alongside Compton.

The issue is complicated. It is easy to get the impression some readers here listen to the gansta music and think they know the scene. I really wonder.

Enough said.
 
It's all triv, I think. BUT, there's a change you gotta make here. You see, you're posting this in the after 1900 section, when 1900's the very time it ended IOTL.

I'm talking, of course, about the centuries-long ethnic cleansing of the US. Before it finished, especially the earlier you go, the more partitions there were, both racial and territorial.

For extra fun, the Plains tribes held a similar advantage over US and Latino armies as the Mongols did in the Asian steppes up to Colt's revolver.
 
Chaco (from 1600s in New Mexico) are quite against new waves arriving from Mexico.
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Don't seem to be able to edit it.

Lets change that from Chaco not getting along with Chicano (from California). Mexicans from Mexico directly can be absorbed, though in smaller towns there are real clanish ways. Those towns most dislike Texans, though, National Geographic stating it is often for Texan license places to be defaced to this day due to tormenting post civil war immigration.
 
Practically ASB. America didn't fall into a race war during the Great Depression, and that was at a time when racial tensions were much higher than they are today --

I agree, if America is going to fragment, it is going to be a political / cultural divide rather than racial issues.

Now, let's put in economic depressions and nationalist politicians going and talking about past injustices and atrocities, and creating founding 'national myths' and let the fireworks begin! What do you see happening?
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As other posters have mentioned large scale fragmentation into ethnic states is very unlikely. That is not to say that an autonomous California would be a land of racial harmony between Hispanics, whites, Asians and blacks.

Given the right socio economic conditions, I think Los Angeles and Orange Country would be far more likely to experience ethnic violence than San Diego. This is due to the fact that some cities / areas have a single ethnic group as a large majority (Hispanic Santa Ana verse Asian Westminister). Thus contact between groups is less common and there are easily recognizable and enforcable ethnic enclave borders.
 
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