Wednesday, January 29, 1997
Immigrants who stay here tend to do well
A majority of immigrants from western Mexico who come to California legally or illegally return home within a few years, and those who stay tend to be educated and have good paying jobs, a study showed Tuesday.
While it is common for immigrants to return home, the study's author, Belinda Reyes, said she was surprised by the extent of the movement back to western Mexico.
Fifty-one percent of illegal immigrants who come to California from western Mexico return home within two years, Reyes said. Twenty percent of that group stay longer than 10 years.
"The assumption is that people move to settle. This shows that they are not settling," she said. "The ones who stay look like the ones we want to stay.
"They're more educated, more skilled, and they're the ones more likely to succeed.''
Among immigrants legally in the United States, about 50 percent return to Mexico after 10 years, the study found. And among all immigrants, regardless of legal status, fewer than a third stay longer than 10 years.
The results debunk notions that Mexican immigrants drain social services and educational resources in California and that immigrants flock north in hopes of receiving public assistance, Reyes said. Reyes didn't determine the actual economic impact of immigrants on California or Mexico.
Reyes, a fellow at the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California, based her study on an analysis of data from the Mexican Migration Project, which surveyed 42,000 people from 1982 to 1993 in six western Mexican states. The region accounts for about 60 percent of the Mexican immigrants to California.
Vilma Ortiz, a University of California, Los Angeles associate professor of sociology, had not seen the study, but when she read its conclusions, said she wasn't surprised by the findings.
Ortiz noted that immigration is affected by several factors, including family and economic conditions in both countries.
"It's not so much that it's so bad in Mexico," Ortiz said. "There's a push by conditions in Mexico ... but there's a pull back home (for family)."
Bomb threat suspect pleads innocent
A man whose phony truck bomb claim forced the evacuation of a Hollywood neighborhood pleaded innocent to making a terrorist threat.
Abram Nacham, 64, of Long Beach, entered pleas on Tuesday in Superior Court to that count and to charges of possessing a false bomb and making a false bomb threat. His bail was reduced from $1 million to $500,000 but he remained jailed pending a scheduled Feb. 4 bail review hearing. Nacham's lawyer, Stuart Carroll, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
Nacham, who owns an auto body shop, was arrested on Saturday after an hours-long standoff outside of Paramount Studios. He had parked a truck in front of the Melrose Avenue gate of KCAL-TV, which has offices on the studio lot. A banner draped on the truck read: "AAA damaged my Reputation ... I want restitution for millions ... Don't shoot ... 5,000 lbs of dynamite."
Police sealed off nearly 400 square blocks in Hollywood during the standoff. Nacham left the truck and surrendered at midday, but police were not satisfied that the truck did not contain explosives for another five hours.
Nacham, a Ukrainian immigrant, unsuccessfully sued the Automobile Club of Southern California in 1990, claiming that it had launched a personal vendetta intended to ruin his Signal Hills business, his son, Gary Nacham, said.
Automobile Club spokeswoman Layna Browdy said the agency cautioned members about the business after receiving several complaints that the work was substandard.
The Automobile Club of Southern California is an affiliate of the American Automobile Association.
Compiled from Daily Bruin wire reports
A Monday Arts & Entertainment story titled "Making the Grade" stated that A.P. Gonzalez was the chair of the Undergraduate Film and Television department in the School of Theater, Film and Television. In fact, Robert Rosen holds this position. Gonzalez is the chair of the Undergraduate Committee of Film and Television.