I don't spend much time in Boston, but over the decades I've picked up a sense that young white people in that famous city are a little different in attitude, more territorial than the ones in the other cities I've known well (Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and, more marginally, New York and Washington). Last Saturday, I was in Boston's financial district next to Faneuil Hall late at night for the first time in 26 years. I noticed the same edge as in 1986, one I seldom pick up from crowds of young white people drinking in other expensive city centers. The Bostonians give off a proprietary vibe that says, "We own these streets."
Political scientist James Q. Wilson, another nice Catholic boy from SoCal, was struck by that Boston vibe when he arrived at Harvard in the late 1940s. George Will recently wrote about Wilson:
Political scientist James Q. Wilson grew up there; in 1967, the year after the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” he wrote a seminal essay on the political vibrations that produced California’s new governor: “A Guide to Reagan Country.” His conclusion was that Ronald Reagan represented the political culture of a region where social structure nurtured individualism.
Southern Californians had, Wilson wrote, “no identities except their personal identities, no obvious group affiliations to make possible any reference to them by collective nouns. I never heard the phrase ‘ethnic group’ until I was in graduate school.”
Eastern teenagers had turf. Their Southern California counterparts had cars, the subject of so many Beach Boys songs (“Little Deuce Coupe,” ‘‘409,” ‘‘Shut Down,” etc.). They hung out in places reached by car and with lots of parking, particularly drive-in restaurants.
“The Eastern lifestyle,” Wilson wrote, “produced a feeling of territory, the Western lifestyle a feeling of property.”
The East was defined less by cold weather than social congestion — apartments in ethnic neighborhoods. Southern Californians lived in single-dwelling homes and had almost no public transportation, so their movements within the city were unconfined to set corridors.
Houses and cars — the “Sunday afternoon drive” was often just to look at others’ homes — strengthened, Wilson wrote, “a very conventional and bourgeois sense of property and responsibility.”
I dunno. When I go for a drive it's to get away from houses and out of the neighborhoods. I think maybe when the likes of Wilson & Murray get to musing you could just as easily substitute an astute fortune teller's impressions and predictions.
ReplyDeleteWasn't California founded by midwesterners? Don't they have a more clean-cut universalist ethos than people from out east?
ReplyDeleteFor example, Jersey Shores has been quite a popular show out east. I think out west, it is seen as trivial, inane garbage.
Southern Californians had, Wilson wrote, “no identities except their personal identities, no obvious group affiliations to make possible any reference to them by collective nouns.
ReplyDeleteWe're all So-Cal's now. All of us white people at any rate.
Heh, you should try Belfast! >:)
ReplyDeleteActually, any British city centre has that vibe, except the tourist-dominated West End of London. The absence of it in most US cities is noticeable, yes - an absence the US shares with north-western Europe (rem your discussion of Anders Breivik's need to 'own the streets'), but not with Britain or Ireland. The working-class British youth culture is territorial, more like the Mediterranean in that respect.
Boston has lots of tough blue collar Irish-Americans, so I'd say that you're correct.
ReplyDeleteWhites in Staten Island (many of whom are Italian or Irish) tend to give off the same territorial vibe. Other white ethnic areas in NYC (Bensonhurst, Morris Park, etc.) can be the same way.
One thing to keep in mind is the white ethnics on the east coat are just more tribal and meaner in general - territorial, race realist, willing to use intimidation to keep outsiders out of their neighborhood. It's no coencidence that the only busing-related riot happened in South BOSTON high school, as opposed to, let's say, South Seattle high school.
South Boston used to have several projects (Mary Ellen McCormack, Old Harbor, West Broadway) which were all-white until the government sued them and integrated minorities during the late 1980s.... Southie was actually one of the most crime-ridden Boston neighborhoods (pre-gentrification) and a no-go zone for NAMs.
People forget that there used to be an era in this country when angry, hyper-masculine men white men (frontiersmen in the West, rednecks in the south/southwest, white ethnics in the northeast) raised hell.
As someone who grew up in Cincinnati and currently lives in Columbus, my impression of Boston is that it is more uptight and regulated than an Ohio city. I could see how you would get a territorial vibe though coming from super informal, let's not offend anyone, Los Angeles. Also the whites in Los Angeles are generally a bunch of runaways or children of runaways. Self-selection at work.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to point out that Chicago, D.C., and NYC are very different from other cities in their regions in that they are full of people from somewhere else. Other cities such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, etc. have more rooted populations like Boston.
This just underscores how tremendous the loss of old California has been to our nation.
ReplyDeleteWell, Hispanics and Asians are more collective than whites so as California lost whites it became more collective.
ReplyDeleteWhat about surfing? Isn't there a lot of territorialism when it comes to favorite surf spots? Or did that only come later, as Southern California became more crowded?
ReplyDeleteGrew up in Boston.absolutely tribal mentality in Boston neighborhoods.not really white gangs per se but a gang like mentality for neighborhood buddies out drinking.underrated movie which rings pretty true is monument Ave with Dennis Leary.mark wahlbergs also good example of Boston tough Guy culture.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting about the projects in Boston and probably explains Ma still thinking the government needs to take care of the white man more than California.
ReplyDeleteI was talking to a couple of co-workers once a few years ago. One was white, about my age, the other Hispanic and quite a bit younger than us. Both had grown up in working-class sections of big ciites. I'm from the suburbs.
ReplyDeleteDespite their different ages and races and growing up on different coasts, they both agreed that the question "Where are you from?" was a very dangerous thing to hear where they came from.
Only about 15 percent of whites surf on a regular basis. Kids actually do the skateboard thing more since in surfing you could drown if you don't know how to swim.
ReplyDeleteWell, the Irish in the 19th century acted more like Mexicans today than whites. Their religon is Roman Catholic and they are into gangs and do low skilled jobs.
ReplyDeleteIn NYC and Boston, big government and big labor has done a lot to lift the standard of living among white ethnics. When NYC gives out construction contracts, quite a bit of the time it ends up in the pockets of an Italian-American contractor..... and when some unionmen in Boston go on strike, you an bet a disproportionate share will be Irish. Ethnics have a lot to gain from Democratic economic policies.
ReplyDeleteWhere they tend to part ways is that they're generally anti-AA, anti-immigration, anti-busing, anti-public housing (at least when NAMs get the housing). Think Big Government, but with the benefits accruing mainly to white people. Not NAMs.
In the South, whites cut government spending to keep blacks from piggin out at the trough, but justify it with non-racial high minded sentiments (ie "personal responsibility", "small government"). In the northeast, white ethnics use unions, politics, organized crime, and personal contacts to let themselves pig out at the trough.... and they don't need any high minded sentiments to justify anything they do. They're willing to go roll in the mud with Al Sharpton over things like government contracts or fire fighter AA. They're practical people, and being crass or unseemly doesn't bother them.
It's no coencidence that Jeremiah Wright, who grew up around lots of Italian-Americans in Philly, insulted Italians as being "garlic nosed." Or that Spike Lee keeps making movies where Italians are portrayed badly. Or how blacks in Chicago complain about an Irish political "mafia." Or how the most anti-black mayors in recent times have been Italians in the northeast (Rizzo in Philly and Giuliani in NYC). Ethnics and blacks have always been at odds, with both groups fighting over the pie.
Despite the history, modern day Southern whites are much more reasonable with blacks than the hard-nosed ethnics. Maybe southern genility at work?
Back in the early 1990s, there was a race riot in South Boston High between black and white students. Interesting, because the idea of whites rioting against blacks went out of fashion decades ago....... Actually, not so interesting, because South Boston high is full of low-income ethnics (mainly Irish) with a mean streak.
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-05-07/news/1993127150_1_south-boston-high-black-students-william-bratton
You'd never see something like this happen in Seattle or Salt Lake City or Portland.
What is interesting is Reagan didn't come to California until he was an adult while Nixon was born there. Nixon was probably more typical of California than Reagan not an easy person to figure out.
ReplyDeleteDoes this explain why Matt Damon is such a dickhead?
ReplyDeleteAlbertosaurus
California also had a utopia vision of things this is the liberal politics that has also been popular in California which is different from the new deal of the South and Texas prior to the new right rising in the 1970's. Anahem still has the govenment own the utlities. Back in the 19th century German socialists farmers left San Fran because of their lack of morality and settled down in Anaheim and had the city government own the untilies. many people think of the KKK in Anaheim in the 1920's but its early history was somewhat utopian farmers.
ReplyDelete"The East was defined less by cold weather than social congestion."
ReplyDeleteIf you're talking about proles, sure. But it's not right to discount the positive impact that cold weather can have on the childhood development of highly intelligent nerds. More often than not, these guys are better when they have a backbone that doesn't come naturally to them. Cold weather, mild bullying, etc., is good for these types.
I grew up in Los Altos in the 60's and 70s -- silicon valley, today -- among kids who were uniformly from CT, MA and NY. Summer vacations were always with relatives from "back east." So, in a sense, I'm not so sure that territorialism wasn't brought from the east to the west by transplants. This may explain, in part, the uber-lefties in Santa Clara county today.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, it is true that we had our own identities and not much else. we were almost uniformly secular which obviously excluded religious identification. Our nuclear families were separated from extended families, so we didn't feel that sense of extended family history or the passing down of family traits. I never knew my grandparents, for example, and barely knew my eastern relatives.
We used to call the east coast, "Old America." Prescient, huh?
it's worth noting that until pretty recently, Boston was *sincerely* full of honest-to-god killers. The Whitey Bulger gang *really did* impact the "feel" on the ground, and co-related was a basically "look the other way" attitude towards illegal immigration from Northern and Southern Ireland. There were MANY people 100% known to be IRA members laying low for a while.
ReplyDeletePeople's attitudes towards these enclaves were based around those ideas. There was a pretty good chance you would find a *dangerous* person if you scratched deep under the surface.
I'm actually kind of sad to see this era go. While it's clear murder and passive support of Irish Nationalist terrorism are to be condoned, it left an area where "the little guy" could actually raise a family, send his kids to local public schools, and walk home at night. I don't know if "spic-and-span, clean as a whistle!" Boston is a good thing
That's weird. Fanueil Hall/Financial district is mostly a drinking spot for college kids and professionals.
ReplyDeletewhat you also see is INTENSE gentrification in Boston (as everywhere else, I'm sure)of old, "functional" white ghettos (as opposed to "dysfunctional" ones, like Murray's "Fishtown").
ReplyDeleteI won't go into super specifics so as to not bore the modal iSteve reader, but the areas of, "Good Will Hunting" and "The Depa(h)ted" are condo-ized now.
What is interesting to MA/NH/ME folks is there isn't a "new" one forming. Some move up the merrimack valley into places like Lowell and Manchester, NH, some move to the 128 ring...it's been a general diffusion.
In Situ, Boston ethnic whites tend(ed) to be very insular, tribal and proud, but this hasn't translated into a broad community-wide response. Ie, there is no "community organizer" type saying, "Let's all move, en mass, to Fall River or Portland, Maine".
Which is somewhat sad, as you will likely see this culture pass away. No density=no support
There are many rumors on the internet that the Irish Mafia of Boston was responsible for the art heist of Vermeer's "The Concert" in 1990.
ReplyDeleteDespite the history, modern day Southern whites are much more reasonable with blacks than the hard-nosed ethnics. Maybe southern genility at work?
ReplyDeleteIndeed. About 30 years ago, I watched a basketball game at a university built on John C. Calhoun's plantation. The visiting team's coach, an Italian-American named Jim Valvano, laid a hand on one of his Black players The shocked crowd let out an audible collective gasp.
"That's weird. Fanueil Hall/Financial district is mostly a drinking spot for college kids and professionals."
ReplyDeleteRight. At 1:30 am the hotel bar in the Financial District, where drinks start at around $8, was jammed with 21 to 26 year olds, as were the other four or five bars on Broad Street. But the vibe wasn't like a similar yup-scale neighborhood in Chicago. It seemed harder edged.
"Anonymous Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting is Reagan didn't come to California until he was an adult while Nixon was born there. Nixon was probably more typical of California than Reagan not an easy person to figure out."
I don't know about that. In the post-war but pre mexican invasion era, a lot of people in California came from somewhere else. Coming from somewhere else is pretty quintessntially californian.
I'm actually kind of sad to see this era go. While it's clear murder and passive support of Irish Nationalist terrorism are to be condoned, it left an area where "the little guy" could actually raise a family, send his kids to local public schools, and walk home at night. I don't know if "spic-and-span, clean as a whistle!" Boston is a good thing
ReplyDeleteI read a couple of decades ago about how there was no illegal drug trade in Northern Ireland - because the sectarian gangs (IRA, UDA, etc) would simply shoot drug dealers.
"I read a couple of decades ago about how there was no illegal drug trade in Northern Ireland - because the sectarian gangs (IRA, UDA, etc) would simply shoot drug dealers."
ReplyDeleteThey ran the drugs trade to make cash to buy weapons. They shot rival freelance drug dealers.
(They did provide a policing function as well e.g. they knee-capped car-thieves etc).
The displacement strategy since "West Side Story" days has been to replace white people from the bottom up so it's not surprising the only places with that vibe left are the most tribal and violent of the old white bluecollar areas.
ReplyDeleteSteve needs to do one on Boston Latin public school.oldest public in the countryand sends a ton of kids to Harvard. Requires test to get in and a white girl sued a while back claiming discrimination.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of tough white cops, firefighters, and unionmen in places like Boston and NYC. They seem to pack the bars a lot.
ReplyDeleteActually Santa Clara voting record wasn't that left until the early 1990's I did some reserach onpast elections. San Fran-Oakland had more of a history of this. Immirgaiton whether Asian in the Bay area or hispanic in ths south changed voting patterns, a lot of whites that didn't like the new minorties left and a different group of whites moved in that were more liberal.
ReplyDeleteActually, Reagan was more midwestern and Nixon was the true Califorian. Many people came before age 20 and grew up in California as kids which is different than people like Raagan which were were in their late 20's or older. It was about 40 percent of the population from other states up until 1990 and 60 from the state of California.
ReplyDeleteIf you think Boston is edgy you should check out Revere, Chelsea, Lowell, or Lynn. It might be because I grew up around these parts but I don't sense any particular danger or tough-mindedness in or around Beacon Hill, which is where - more often than not - I do my drinking. The metro-area is crowded with thick-necked, non-rhotic Irish/Italian dudes, though.
ReplyDeleteWhen NYC gives out construction contracts, quite a bit of the time it ends up in the pockets of an Italian-American contractor
ReplyDeleteThat happens about 100% of the time next door here in Bergen County, NJ, and it's always the same main contractor (who, to his credit, tends to finish on time and on budget). It's a cozy arrangement, but not necessarily a corrupt one. In some businesses that sell primarily to government there isn't space for a lot of competitors.
Boston has retained the chip-on-my-shoulder douchiness that the Irish here are famous for. First-time visitors are usually surprised at how rude the average Bostonian is, much more so than New Yorkers.
ReplyDeletePeople don't get how small Boston is, for all it's reputation and importance. When Steve is on Broad Street he's about 1/4 mile from Beacon Hill, the toniest section of the city, 2 blocks from the waterfront and 1/4 mile from the South End, the section of town that gays gentrified, 1/2 mile from ghetto Roxbury and 4 blocks from the Moakley Bridge to Southie. Driving south from the northern border with Medford to the southern border with Milton is about 8 miles.
This smallness has always driven the territoriality; people are cheek-to-jowl with lots of folks not of their tribe. Defending your turf from interlopers is a way of life here. When Judge Garrity took over the schools and started busing blacks to majority white schools, of course there was going to be a problem in 90% Irish Southie. Now the Boston public schools (except Boston Latin, the exam school and Harvard feeder), are 15% white, and Obama's Aunt Zeituni lives in the Southie projects. Seems that Garrity lived in vain.
Pat, Damon is a dick because he's from Cambridge, which is a different flavor of ass from that of Southie. Southie behavior is a learned, oral history sort of thing; Cantabridgians have douchiness in their DNA.
"That's weird. Fanueil Hall/Financial district is mostly a drinking spot for college kids and professionals."
ReplyDeleteI don't think that's true over the weekend. The drinking district in Boston is clearly around Faneuil Hall, and is the place to go for those interested in a serious drinking experience. It's also the location of the only real singles scene in Boston.
Boston is a compact city, and getting into the Downtown/Faneuil Hall area (itself quite compact -- whence Boston's reputation as "The Walkable City"), is pretty easy, so it draws from all neighborhoods on a weekend.
As for the proprietary sense that Steve is picking up, I'd guess there's something to that. Among other things, Bostonians of all ages seem to be united by their disgust over their sports teams -- a disgust temporarily relieved only by winning a championship, when we can at least look forward to being disgusted next year. I'm not sure that's exactly civic pride, but it's civic solidarity.
To any of the Bostonites, how would you describe the Back Bay area in terms of toughness, territoriality, and diversity? I lived there for a few years but don't have the eloquence to describe it. The best I can do: there is an active young professional bar scene, a big Trivia Night scene, and $6+ beers are the standard. Lacking the proles of Fanueil Hall, it isn't as rough or exciting. Fanueil Hall gets an interesting mix of the two cultures, but wherever you go in Boston it's going to be pretty white.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised no one has mentioned the impact of sports fandom in Boston.
How many whites in Boston are ethnic, working class natives? I've been of the impression that it's turned into an east coast San Francisco. There's still the reputation of it being a hotbed of tough white ethnics, but much like Brooklyn, SWPL hipsters from the non-Rust Belt Midwest and west coast flocked there and changed everything.
ReplyDeleteUntil the late 1980s, Boston had established white ethnic neighborhoods throughout the city, especially South and East Boston. Since then, there's been quite of gentrification and also an influx of NAMs into public housing. People don't realize this, but Boston used to discriminate (yes, discriminate) against NAMs in public housing, keeping much of it preserved for whites.
ReplyDeleteThere are pockets of tough working class ethnics left in the city (a lot of them are in the public sector or the unions), but the underclass has been dispersed all over the place. The type of white Irish/ethnic thug which Boston is known for..... is generally gone.
That's a general theme of white underclass neighborhoods. Either they get taken over by NAMs or gentrified. In Southie, both seem to have happened.
My impression is that the proprietary-acting white 20-somethings weren't particularly downscale. Are they downscale types, or are they upscale Affleck-Damon types who have taken on a turf vibe because they think it's cool?
ReplyDelete"My impression is that the proprietary-acting white 20-somethings weren't particularly downscale."
ReplyDeleteThere is one mark of the working class in Boston of almost all ages, which is almost completely reliable (or at least far more reliable than in any other city I'm familiar with, most importantly New York): a heavy Boston accent. Even in some of the tonier towns around Boston, some working class kids still can be found, typically because their families moved there when they were more affordable. Even these kids don't seem to manage to shake that ugly accent (it's not authentic unless it's repulsive), despite being surrounded on all sides by kids who speak the standard American accent.
I grew up in the south Dorchester section of Boston. It was the most Irish part of the city at that time (60s to 80s). There were brawls almost every weekend when we headed into the clubs and bars in Kenmore Square and downtown. It was all about which neighborhood you came from, and was further narrowed down to which public park you hung at. It was basically harmless grandstanding but some feuding got out of hand. By far the most territorial section of Boston was Charlestown. The "Townies" were obsessed with their neighborhood. The girls were as hair trigger as the guys. Very interesting time to grow up. It has largely disappeared and what's left is a pale reflection of what was.
ReplyDeleteGrew up in Brighton. Little known fact supposedly more Italians in Brighton than the north end.
ReplyDeletePhilly is probably the city most like Boston in terms of sports obsession, white ethnic toughs, and territoriality.
ReplyDeleteLot of kids from weymouth and Quincy who act and dress like they from d street.
ReplyDeleteBreathnach, do you describe yourself as being from Neponset? I worked door at a club on Nantasket Beach in the late 70s-early 80s, and the kids from Neponset were the biggest pains in the ass, much quicker to throw down than the kids from Southie.
ReplyDeleteAnon 10:45, the old saying was every Irish girl from Southie and Dot was looking for the guy who was going to marry her and take her to Quincy (one of the ways to tell a native from an interloper was how they pronounced this city's name: Kwinn-zee to the natives) or, if she were really lucky, Braintree. You see cars on the South Shore with those sill airport letter designation stickers saying OFD, Originally From Dorchester. Fun fact about Quincy: John Adams, his son John Quincy Adams and their wives are all buried in a church crypt located on a busy traffic island in the center of the city.
Anon 10:36, the Back Bay has morphed from the solidly middle-class neighborhood it was when I grew up there in the 60s to a student enclave where BU and Northeastern rub up against each other. Just important as the professional sports thing in setting the city's tone, every fall about 250,000 people between 18 and 25 arrive in the city to go to one of the 80+ colleges within a 30-mile radius, and a certain number of them, finding the reliably Democratic kumbaya vibe hospitable, decide to stay.
Steve writes a lot about college football, but in all of New England we have three Division 1A programs, only one more than 10 years old (BC). That's because we already have a religion, the Red Sox. The local Catholic and private high schools, as well as the universities, are prolific feeders to the NHL. And the Patriots, like Bostonians, are a group that the rest of the country loves to hate!
"But the vibe wasn't like a similar yup-scale neighborhood in Chicago. It seemed harder edged... Are they downscale types, or are they upscale Affleck-Damon types who have taken on a turf vibe because they think it's cool?"
ReplyDeletePart of it, I suspect, is that many of the upscale young people you see are the children and grandchildren of Bostonians who fled to the suburbs during the urban upheavals of 1965-1995, or people who came to college in Boston from similar Northeastern ethnic backgrounds. Though fairly affluent, they tend to naturally assimilate to the prevailing territorial/tribal ethos because many of them saw it in their older relatives.
I'm actually a pretty good example myself- raised in a middle-class suburban/rural whitopia out-of-state, but my mother grew up in Dorchester during the '60s and '70s, finally fleeing in the '80s when crime became unbearable. I came back for college and relocated permanently when I found work here. With my mother's upbringing and my father's Hibernian surname, the blue-collar Bostonians I meet tend to be pretty tolerant of me, despite the fact that I'm exactly the kind of college-educated, white-collar, unwed young person who is driving up real estate costs and pushing the locals out of their old neighborhoods. In turn, their "local patriotism" rubs off on me a lot, particularly since I have a lot of family history with my current neighborhood.
The other explanation that comes to mind from personal experience is that Bostonians act mean and territorial because they live in a geographically compact city with decent public transportation, impossible parking, strict gun control laws, and neighborhoods of highly diverse socioeconomic status situated sometimes only a few minutes' walk apart. When I'm on the Orange line at 11:30 PM, I do my best to look as mean and imposing as possible, just in case somebody gets any ideas.
If there had been no 1924 Immigration Act to limit the number of ethnic whites (which led to more blacks pouring into northern and western cities), much more of America would resemble Boston (at least how it was until recently). That would have been a Very Good Thing.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Boston was not the only city that had a busing related riot, it just had the biggest busing related riot. There was a small anti-busing riot in Cleveland's Little Italy back in the '60s.
Perhaps if whites in Southern California were more like whites in Boston, Southern California would be whiter today.
ReplyDeleteAnon,1/28/13, 5:32 AM:
ReplyDeleteYou sussed me out. I grew up in Neponset. Back in the 70s and 80s. Neponset was broken down into several hangouts, the Garvey Park, the Toohig park, Adams Corner, the Hemenway Park. I hung in both Neponset and at Victory Road and Mill Street, with guys I worked with. Mill Street was a 15 minute walk from my house in Neponset but took on many of the socio-economic aspects of Fields Corner, meaning it was poorer and somewhat rougher. As you drifted towards Fields Corner you noticed more drug use, especially Angel Dust and greater use of pot.
Yes, many of the Dorchester guys had chips on their shoulders: "angry young men with their backs against the wall". As soon as I started attending Boston College I noticed attitudes towards me changing.I was traveling a different road.
Boston is a real POS city. I've lived there off and on for a while, and it's awful. Ugly, fat girls, terrible weather, crappy bars and nightlife. The people are awful, cold, no one talks to anyone else. Is this territoriality or is it just social awkwardness? I'd say the latter; the men will look away if a woman looks them in the eye and smiles, etc.
ReplyDeleteIt's also not especially white. I don't know what you noticed but since 2000 it's been getting more and more full of nasty, annoying minorities with bad attitude. It's also been getting cheaper and trashier. There used to be an old Tower Records on Newbury St. full of white people buying CD's, now it turned into a Best Buy staffed by hoodrats with attitudes. Pretty much all the big stores I walk in are full of hoodrats and goldchain types from Pakistan or wherever.
Supposedly "tough guy" South Boston just voted for Elizabeth Warren. I tried talking to "tough guy" Irish types about Mexicans, and they spout back all the inanities about immigrants, "they're just here to work hard."
Not sure if serious post. Nastiness and social awkwardness =/= territoriality.