Talk:Mexicans in Omaha, Nebraska

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 30 December 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

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[edit] Notability

IS this article necessary? We could have a "Mexicans in ____________" article for every city. It seems excessive to focus on omaha —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.78.99.216 (talk) 06:29, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not about necessity - for further proof of that, see Category:Food utensils. Wikipedia is about notability, which is the only criterion for the inclusion of articles. Fortunately, there has been a great deal written on ethnic and racial identity of Omahans, and that allows the inclusion of this article. For further information, see African Americans in Omaha or Greeks in Omaha. Thanks for asking! – Freechild (¡!¡!¡!¡) 11:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Freechild, I have been reading this article, but I fail to see the notability of it. There are over 18,000 cities, towns, villages, etc. in the United States. I suspect that the majority of them have Mexican Americans living in them or had them as residents in their past. The issue of notability fails here because there is no claim of notability in the article. Could you explain why you think this is notable by using Wikipedia's definition of notable? The racial or cultural profile of residents of a given city is hardly notable in and of itself.
What is did find notable is the issue of nonassimilation that was used as a reference for Omaha, but the article was about assimilation, or its lack, within the Mexican American population. This information would worthwhile to merge into Cultural assimilation. This would be a significant improvement to that article and would facilitate readers looking for this information. Would you consider merging this article into Omaha, Nebraska and improve the Cultural assimilation article? --Storm Rider (talk) 09:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
The article is sourced reliably, which in and of itself is proof of notability. Are you confusing notability and fame perhaps? Not famous but notable as evidenced by the significant coverage in numerous university-based research studies and an article in the Washington Post. The guideline on notability is "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject."
I would not support breaking it up, primarily because Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are distinctly significant to the history of Omaha, as the article illustrates. However, I would not mind continuing this conversation, simply because I have written two others like it (African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska and Greeks in Omaha, Nebraska), and plan to continue with a series that includes American Indians in Omaha, Czechs, Germans, Irish, Italians, Jews, Latinos, Poles, Scandavians, Sudanese, and Slovaks, all of which in Omaha. The ethnic history and identity of Omaha is absolutely essential to the history of the city, and has been duly noted and examined in a variety of literature. I want to make sure I'm not spending energy needlessly, so please, let's continue this dialog. – Freechild (¡!¡!¡!¡) 12:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Storm Rider, being sourced doesn't indicate notabilty. All those articles fit well to a Ethicity in Omaha article, but not it's own, no reason why Omaha is special than any other city. Jaranda wat's sup 18:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I reiterate, WP's guideline on notability is "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." That presumption proves the viability of this article. – Freechild (¡!¡!¡!¡) 23:21, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge into single article "Ethnic history of Omaha, Nebraska

Freechild, would you be open to having one article that addresses all the ethnic history of Omaha? Personally, the Balkanization of courtries is not something that I favor or think should be encouraged. More importantly, however, I think that that notability is not present in any of the current articles or any of the other proposed articles for Omaha. I am not picking on Omaha, I was a resident for several years in my youth, but there are 18,000 cities in the United States and all of them have an ethnic background. Very few of them would be worthy of individual articles, but all of them would be worth having an article regarding their ethnic history. I hope you recognize that we are seeking to improve Wikipedia. What are your thoughts? --Storm Rider (talk) 20:35, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your interest in improving WP, and I assume you are acting in good faith. However, I do not agree with your perspective. I would encourage you to broaden the conversation by bringing the article to AfD. – Freechild (¡!¡!¡!¡) 23:11, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
I would use that as a last step, but feel comfortable doing so. Is it your contention that every city in the United States needs a separate article to explain their ethnic orgins and the participation of ethnic peoples in the social structure of each respective city? My thought was that toegether we could come to a well thought out structure without the need for broad input, but maybe 30 heads are better than just a few. --Storm Rider (talk) 21:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Not wanting to walk into a red herring, I should avoid this question. However, research does show that specific ethnic groups and the identities of individuals within those groups as members of those groups has been instrumental to the growth and development of many American cities. The contributions of specific ethnic identity groups within many cities has been duly noted throughout academic and popular literature, and is worthy of encyclopedic coverage. So, in direct response to your question, I do contend that cities where there has been noted contributions by specific ethnic groups warrant encyclopedic contributions that denote those groups. These ethnic identities are just as worthy - if not more so - as any individual within any city. – Freechild (¡!¡!¡!¡) 22:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't think every city has the variety of sources on their ethnic histories that this article demonstrates. If they do, then I don't see any reason why we shouldn't have articles or sections covering those histories. We have articles on towns whose entire populations are smaller than the ethnic population of this city. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Freechild, you have exactly hit upon the problem with this proposed breakdown of ethnicity in American cities and primarily Omaha, Nebraska. The article states they came, they worked, they practiced their religion, etc. In essence, they lived in the city; there is nothing of note, nothing unique, no significant impact that is any different from other immigrants to this country. The contribution of immigrants to American is the life-blood of the history of the United States; nothing that I have said should be interpreted as to minimize that impact. My contention is that wikipedia is better served by a single subarticle to the main article on Omaha, Nebraska that focuses on Ethinicity. In doing so readers will be better served and we will produce a more powerful article. --Storm Rider (talk) 03:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Will, I find your logic faulty. What you are proposing is that a single entity is of little value if it does not maintain a large population base; so an article on Podunk, Indiana (pick a township) is worthless to the reader though it might have served as the home of a past president and the first farm that fed the grain to the stockyards. Conversely, because we have a significant city that is made up of 37 different ethnic groups; each of the groups is worthy of mention but none of them has done anything but lived in Omaha, Nebraska. What is the notability. Given the Federal Census data in the United States we can have a plethora of articles about the ethnic breakdown of every city in the US through 1930. We then can combine that with other data that will state what the ethnic breakdown is for each city since 1930. What is the result??? We will have over 700,000 articles that address the fact that each city in the United States had specific ethinic minorities that lived in each. This amounts to trivia about each city, but absolutely no information helpful to readers. Now, if we had articles on each city (which we do) and we mentioned their ethnic makeup we have at least provided information in a concise manner that aids readers without burying the information in minutiae. --Storm Rider (talk) 03:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I never said that small towns are unworthy of articles. The Wikipedia community has decided that virtually every town, no matter its size, is worthy of an article. Likewise, every high school. Regarding your second point, I douibt we'll see 700,000 articles like this. I doubt we'll see even 700. But space isn't a problem. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 15:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Omaha Mexican Americans vs. US Mexican Americans

The references you have presented, at least the one we can review, contend that Mexican Americans today do not wish to assimilate. Because the article cited an Omaha family the reference was used to represent just Omaha's population; that would be a misrepresentatoin of fact of the analysis itself. More importantly, this reference supports the contention that this information is better suited to the subject as a whole and not just for Omaha, Nebraska. The topic is more important than a single city and should be presented as such. --Storm Rider (talk) 07:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I altered the reference to address the concern you presented, and to more accurately represent the article that you can review online with no cost. However, I do take umbrage at your insinuation that I deliberately misrepresented the facts of the article; we simply read it differently. I do not see the value of continuing this dialog in this forum; if you have further concerns with the article I would suggest you put the article up for AfD where a larger body of editors can respond. – Freechild (¡!¡!¡!¡) 23:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Freechild, I apologize if you took my comment personally; it was not intended as such. I did intend to state clearly that the reference did not support the claim being made. I feel strongly that references should clearly and without ambiguity support claims made, but I was not insinuating that you were consciously attempting to mislead readers. I do not view any of you edits or actions as an attempt to deceive; far from it. I think our only conflict revolves around the advisability of having individual articles to describe ethnic groups of cities. As an aside, I am a genealogist and quite familiar with diverse resources available to researches who are seeking to identify cultural history and migrations. However, as editors I believe one of our responsibilities is to present articles in a way that will be easiest to find and use by readers. This type of article, IMHO, clouds that ability. Cheers. --Storm Rider (talk) 04:38, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Storm Rider, thank you for your thoughtful contributions to my thinking about this articles and the ones that are related to it. I will work to make each one notable enough and meaningful enough for its inclusion in WP. I concur with your notion about the ambiguity, and I also feel strongly about the integrity of WP articles; however, I don't believe that this article or others similar to it are out-of-line. Further still, I think they strengthen the backbone of an encyclopedia with far too many articles that seem to exist only to prove a point. • Freechild'sup? 23:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I have a different but related concern about the "Assimilation" issue. The statement about "reluctance to assimilate" seems to rely on a 10-year-old article. Unlike writing about historic events, I don't think you can use a 10-year-old article to comment on contemporary conditions. There have been other studies since then that suggest no matter what the parents think, the children are learning to speak English and often assimilate more than the families want. (Not that I have these at my fingertips.) There needs to be more current sourcing about this issue, or the contention should be deleted.

[edit] Data on Demographics

In one of your references, I read that in 1900 Hispanics/Latinos were about 22% of the population and in 1990 (or today?) were about 26% (as I recall), but you have data above that says 2.9%, which sounds really low. Is this accurate or a typo? I'll try to find the other reference, too.--Parkwells (talk) 03:35, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Population

The article needs to have population numbers in total and for each of the groups. It is too difficult to try to understand what's going on. In the population section you don't have numbers, but percentages, with nothing to apply the percentages to. In one place the article says there were 20,000 families, but not total number of people.--Parkwells (talk) 03:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mexican Consulate

In one place the article says that Southside Omaha gets four visits a year from the Mobile Consulate out of Denver; in another place it says that Mexico has an Consular Office in Omaha, and gives the address. Are these both true? How do they relate to each other?--Parkwells (talk) 20:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)