'Go back to California': Wave of newcomers fuels backlash in Boise [View all]

[Demovictory9]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-10/go-back-to-california-wave-of-newcomers-fuels-backlash-in-boise

The Twitter squall started in late September, when former Boise State University football player Tyler Rausa went out to his car one day. There he found a professionally printed card, white with an elegant charcoal gray and gold border. It had a nicely centered, two-line message in all capital letters.

GO BACK TO CALIFORNIA

WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE

Rausa was a talented kicker for the Broncos in the 2015 and 2016 seasons. He scored 219 points for the team then. He is now an NFL free agent. He still lives in Boise. But he kept his California license plates.


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“If you come here and love it, everything’s fine,” Roscoe said. “If you come here and fly that California flag in your driveway and have stickers on your car that say, ‘Santa Cruz,’ there’s going to be some hard feelings.”


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Patricia Flanigan also swapped her California plates for the red-white-and-blue “Famous Potatoes” version when she moved from Dana Point in 2015 to the Boise suburb of Eagle. She had retired as dean of online education and learning resources at Saddleback College.

“I took the position that I would come to Idaho and adapt to the community,” she said. She has a doctorate in education. Earlier in her career, she’d taught English as a Second Language at three Southern California community colleges. She’d also run an ESL program at Lake Tahoe Community College. When she moved, she decided to volunteer with non-English speakers.

She got an appointment with the director of a nearby community college. But the school wasn’t interested in her offer of free help. She was told to try the region’s refugee center. She sent a resume. And never heard back.

At the college interview, “I was dressed professionally, looked like a Californian,” Flanigan said. “I probably irritated [the director] by my confidence. There was no way she was going to have me volunteer.... She wanted to get rid of me.”


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which brings us to the heart of the problem: income inequality.

Anyone moving to Boise from another part of Idaho is still saddled with the same bottom-of-the-barrel minimum wage, an anemic $7.25 an hour. So it’s most likely not the Idahoans who are driving up home prices and filling up rental properties, because they can’t afford to.