Posts tagged southcarolina

BBC News - Latino immigrant exodus hurts South Carolina economy

In South Carolina the Hispanic population had skyrocketed over this past decade, growing by 148% compared to 43% nationwide.

But the economic downturn in the United States hit Hispanics more than any other demographic, and a new and strict immigration law left many undocumented workers leaving the state and country altogether.

Enacted in June 2011, Act No. 69 made it legal for South Carolina police to stop anybody they suspect of being in the country illegally and made it a crime to give shelter or transport to an undocumented immigrant.

These provisions and others were blocked by a federal judge in December 2011, who saw them as unconstitutional. But fear of expensive fines and deportation had already spread among many Hispanics.

The region’s economy has since been paying the price in empty apartments and less demand for low-wage jobs. But none have struggled more than the 6,000 Hispanic-owned businesses that heavily depend on customers from its community.

The BBC’s Franz Strasser went to Greenville to speak to business owners who work and live there legally and are now left picking up the scraps.

BBC News - Civil War battles re-enacted in Southern US states

The commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the US Civil War is triggering many re-enactments across America’s Southern states. We spoke to organisers and reenactors in Charleston about their motivation, if they mind playing Union forces every now and then, and if they think the war was portrayed accurately by the history books.

BBC News - Why I fly the Confederate flag

In Summerville, South Carolina, Annie Chambers Caddell sparked outrage and protests when she decided to hang a Confederate flag from her porch in the historically African-American neighbourhood of Brownsville.

She talks to the BBC about the reasons for putting up the flag, and what she thinks about the wooden walls that a local organisation has erected around her house, limiting the view of the flag to both sides.

BBC News - 'US not come to terms with racial history'

Historian Bernard Powers talks about the history of slavery and why it triggered the secession of southern states. Powers says the US has still not come to terms with its racial history and suffers because of it.