Proponents of Diversity

A few people in town are surprised when we say AFLA is a proponent of diversity. And they are even more surprised when we show them the U46 data on Elgin schools revealing that our current demographic situation is NOT diversity.

Perhaps they have a different definition of diversity. Here’s ours: Diversity is variety, multiformity, difference, unlikeness, variegation, heterogeneity.

People accuse us of being xenophobes, nativists, even racists.

But where is the diversity in a school like Sheridan Elementary? Here’s what it looks like from the 2007 School Report Card:
460 Hispanic Students
37 Black Students
13 White Students
10 Mixed or Other
8 Asian Students

If you look at ALL Elgin schools in U46 combined, you get percentages like this:
Hispanic 59%
White 27%
Black 10%
Asian 4%

What did Elgin schools look like ten years ago? In 1998 it was like this:
Hispanic 33%
White 50%
Black 12%
Asian 5%

That leads me to conclude that we are not only experiencing “white flight” from Elgin, but also an exodus of Black and Asian students as well. I call that the opposite of diversity.

We once had quite a Laotian population. I’ve attended ten graduation ceremonies at Elgin High, my first in 1993, my last in 2007. I can tell you that there were very few Laotian names read at the Sears Centre ceremony last May. Khamsing doesn’t live here anymore.

And yet the Mayor, ELIPAC, and even a local immigration attorney continue to call our current dilemma “diversity”. I wonder how they define the word.

The irony of it all is that this whole mess started back in 1965, when our elected officials in Washingtion decided that we needed a more diverse population.
-Doug Heaton